Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T14:40:20.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shifting Boundaries between the State and Society: Village Cadres as New Activists in Collective Petition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2012

Juan Wang
Juan Wang*
Affiliation:
McGill University. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite the central government's efforts in reducing fiscal burdens on peasants through fiscal reforms in the early 2000s, collective petitions in rural China remain. Complementary to the arbitrary and weak government explanations of state–society conflict, this article reveals the role of village cadres as activists in collective petition. Drawn from extensive fieldwork, I argue that by reducing local government revenues and recentralizing fiscal autonomy to the county level, central fiscal reforms have unintentionally induced a new force of resistance: village cadres. Being disenfranchised from previous privileges, village cadres are now allies rather than adversaries of peasant petitions. This article advances existing literature on China's contentious politics in two ways. First, it recognizes a new group of activists whose savoir-faire improves peasant knowledge of the state capacity in containing state–society conflict. Second, it proposes a dynamic understanding of contentious politics by highlighting the shifting boundaries between the state and society.

Keywords

fiscal reformscollective petitionvillage cadresrural China
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 211 , September 2012 , pp. 697 - 717
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. I am particularly grateful to Liu Mingxing and Tao Ran for joint fieldwork and sharing of manuscripts. Griffith Asia Institute receives my gratitude for its financial support in the process of writing this article.

References

Benford, Robert D. and Snow, David A.. 2000. “Framing processes and social movements: an overview and assessment.” Annual Review of Sociology 26, 611–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Thomas and Lü, Xiaobo. 2003. Taxation without Representation in Contemporary Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Thomas. 2004. “Unrest in rural China: a 2003 assessment.” Center for the Study of Democracy Paper 13 (2004), 1–12.Google Scholar
Bianco, Lucien. 2001. Peasants Without the Party: Grass-roots Movements in Twentieth-century China. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Cai, Yongshun. 2002. “The resistance of Chinese laid-off workers in the reform period.” The China Quarterly 170, 327–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castells, Manuel. 1996. The Rise of the Network Society. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Chen, An. 2007. “The failure of organizational control: changing party power in the Chinese countryside.” Politics and Society 35 (1), 145–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Feng. 2000. “Subsistence crises, managerial corruption and labor protests in China.” The China Journal 44 (41), 41–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Xi. 2004. “Art of Troublemaking: Chinese Petitioners' Tactics and Their Efficacy.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Avery. 1991. From Bandwagon to Balance-of-power Politics: Structural Constraints and Politics in China, 1949–1978. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Guo, Zhenglin. 2001. “Dangdai Zhongguo nongmin de jiti weiquan yundong,” (“The collective action of contemporary Chinese peasants in protecting their rights”). Xianggang shehui kexue xuebao 19, 115–33.Google Scholar
He, Xuefeng. 2008. “Shilun ershi shiji Zhongguo xiangcun zhili de luoji” (“The Logic of Rural Governance in the 20th Century”). Zhongguo xiangcun yanjiu 5, 157–73Google Scholar
He, Xufeng and Wang, Ximing. 2002. “Cunji zhaiwu de chongyin yu weihai” (“Causes and consequences of village debts”). Guanli shijie 3, 80–89.Google Scholar
Hochstetler, Kathryn and Keck, Margaret E.. 2007. Greening Brazil: Environmental Activism in State and Society. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Hurst, William and O'Brien, Kevin J.. 2002. “China's contentious pensioners,” The China Quarterly 170, 345–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelliher, Daniel. 1992. Peasant Power in China: The Era of Rural Reform, 1979–1989. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kelliher, Daniel. 1997. “The Chinese debate over village self-government.” The China Journal 37, 63–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, John James. 2007. “From the tax-for-fee reform to the abolition of agricultural taxes: the impact on township governments in North-West China.” The China Quarterly 189, 43–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koopmans, Ruud. 1996. “Explaining the rise of racist and extreme right violence in Western Europe: grievances or opportunities?” European Journal of Political Research 30, 185–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Lianjiang. 2001. “Elections and popular resistance in rural China.” China Information 15 (2), 1–19.Google Scholar
Li, Lianjiang and O'Brien, Kevin J.. 2008. “Protest leadership in rural China.” The China Quarterly 193, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Weiwei, “Gong'anbu: dangqian nongcun zhi'an wenti chengxian si da tedian’” (“Ministry of Public Security: The Current Security Problems in Rural Areas Present ‘Four Characteristics’”). Xinhua news, 6 November 2006, http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2006-11/06/content_5297659.htm Google Scholar
Marks, Robert. 1984. Rural Revolution in South China: Peasants and the Making of History in Haifeng County, 1570–1930. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Mertha, Andrew. 2008. China's Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Michelson, Ethan. 2007. “Climbing the dispute pagoda: grievances and appeals to the official justice system in rural China.” American Sociological Review 72, 459–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michelson, Ethan. 2008. “Justice from above or below? Popular strategies for resolving grievances in rural China.” The China Quarterly 193, 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Migdal, Joel S., Kohli, Atul, and Shue, Vivienne. 1994. State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minzner, Carl. 2006. “Xinfang: an alternative to formal Chinese legal institutions.” Stanford Journal of International Law 42 (1), 103–79.Google Scholar
Moore, Barrington. 1966. The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Nathan, Andrew. 1973. “A factionalism model for CCP politics.” The China Quarterly 53, 33–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin. 2002. “Collective action in the Chinese countryside.” The China Journal 48, 139–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin. 2003. “Neither transgressive nor contained: boundary-spanning contention in China.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 8 (1), 51–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin and Li, Lianjiang. 1995. “The politics of lodging complaints in rural China.” The China Quarterly 143, 756–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Kevin and Li, Lianjiang. 2006. Rightful Resistance in Rural China. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oi, Jean. 1989. State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ong, Lynette. 2006. “The political economy of township government debt, township enterprises, and rural financial institutions in China.” The China Quarterly 186, 377–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth. 1980. Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China 1845–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth. 1985. “Rural violence in socialist China.” The China Quarterly 103, 414–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth, 2002. Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State power in China. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth. 2003. “‘To rebel is justified’: Cultural Revolution influences on contemporary Chinese protest.” In Law, Kam-yee (ed.), The Chinese Cultural Revolution Reconsidered: Beyond Purge and Holocaust. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 262–81.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1979. The Rational Peasant: the Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pye, Lucian. 1995. “Factions and the politics of guanxi: paradoxes in Chinese administrative and political behaviour.” The China Journal 34, 35–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saich, Tony. 2000. “Negotiating the state: the development of social organizations in China.” The China Quarterly 161, 124–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Shi, Fayong and Cai, Yongshun. 2006. “Disaggregating the state: networks and collective action in Shanghai.” The China Quarterly 186, 314–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shih, Victor. 2004. “Factions matter: personal networks and the distribution of bank loans in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 13 (38), 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shue, Vivienne. 1988. The Reach of the State: Sketches of the Chinese Body Politic. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1979. State and Social Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Song, Zhenyuan. 2002. “Mo rang ‘cunzhang xiangguan’ biancheng ‘cuncai xiangzhan’” (“Don't turn township-management of village account to township-use of village finance”). Xinhua News Report. 6 August. http://news.xinhuanet.com/zonghe/2002-08/06/content_511740.htm.Google Scholar
Taylor, Verta. 1989. “Social movement continuity: the women's movement in abeyance.” American Sociological Review 54 (5), 761–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, Patricia M. 2002. “Framing dissent in contemporary China: irony, ambiguity and metonymy.” The China Quarterly 171, 661–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tong, James W. 1991. Disorder under Heaven: Collective Violence in the Ming Dynasty. Stanford, Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsai, Lily. 2007. Accountability without Democracy: How Solidarity Groups Provide Public Goods in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unger, Jonathan. 1989. “State and peasant in post-revolution China.” Journal of Peasant Studies 17 (1), 114–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walby, Sylvia. 1997. Gender Transformations. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wang, Shaoguang, Hu, Angang, and Ding, Yuanzhu. 2002. “Jingji fanrong beihou de shehui bu wending” (“Social instability behind economic prosperity”). Zhanlüe yu guanli 3, 26–33.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric. 1969. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Xiao, Tangbiao. 2002. “Zongzu zai cunzhi quanli fenpei yu yunxing zhong de yingxiang fenxi” (“The impact of clan groups on distribution of power in villages”). Beijing xingzheng xueyuan xuebao 3, 1–6.Google Scholar
Yang, Guobin. 2005. “Emotional events and the transformation of collective action.” In Flam, Helena and King, Debra (eds.), Emotions and Social Movements. London: Routledge, 79–95.Google Scholar
Ying, Xing. 2007. “‘Qi’ yu Zhongguo xiangcun jiti yundong de zaishengchan” (“‘Qi’ and the reproduction of rural collective movement”). Kaifang shidai 6, 106–20.Google Scholar
Yu, Jianrong. 2003. “Woguo xian jieduan nongcun quntixing shijian de zhuyao yuanyin” (“Main causes of rural mass incidents in present China”). Zhongguo nongcun jingji 6, 75–8.Google Scholar
Zhang, Xiaoshan. 2005. “Jianxi Zhongguo xiangcun zhili jiegou de gaige” (“Analysis of China's reform on rural governance”). Guanli shijie 5, 70–76.Google Scholar
Zhang, Linxiu, Yan, Yuanyuan, Brandt, Loren, and Rozelle, Scott. 2005. China–Rural Public Finance: The Village Perspective. Report to the World Bank (2005), Annex 7.Google Scholar
Zhao, Dingxin. 1998. “Ecologies of social movements: student mobilization during the 1989 prodemocracy movement in Beijing.” American Journal of Sociology 103 (6), 1493–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhao, Shukai. 2005. “Xiangcun guanxi: zai kongzhizhong tuojie –10 sheng (qu) 20 xiangzhen diaocha,” (“Village-town relation: losing control in the process of control”). Huazhong shifan daxue xuebao 44 (5), 2–9.Google Scholar
Zhao, Shukai. 2007. “Shangfang shijian he xinfang tixi: guanyu nongmin jinjing shangfang wenti de diaocha” (“Petition and petition system: research report on issues of collective petition”). Sannong Zhongguo. http://www.snzg.net/article/show.php?itemid-3752/page-1.html.Google Scholar
Zhou, Feizhou. 2006. “Cong jiqu xingzheng quandao‘xuancixing’ zhengquan – shui fei gaige dui guojia yu nongmin guanxi de yingxiang” (“From extractive to floating power: impact of fiscal reforms on state–society relation”). Shehuixue yanjiu 3, 1–38.Google Scholar
Zhou, Kate Xiao. 1996. How the Farmers Changed China: Power of the People. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Zhou, Meiyan. 2005. “Jiedu 2005 xinfang regulations” (“Interpreting the 2005 petition regulations”). Banyue tan, 27 January. http://news.xinhuanet.com/banyt/2005-01/27/content_2514724.htm.Google Scholar
Zweig, David. 2000. “The externalities of development: can new political institutions manage rural conflict?” In Perry, Elizabeth and Selden, Mark (eds.), Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance. London: Routledge, 120–42.Google Scholar