Hostname: page-component-669899f699-tzmfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T15:25:12.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Manufacturing Society: How Party Building Reinforces Stability Maintenance in Grassroots China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2023

Yanling He  and
Zheng Wang Open the ORCID record for Zheng Wang [Opens in a new window]
Yanling He
Affiliation:
Peking University, and Renmin University of China, Beijing, China Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Zheng Wang*
Affiliation:
Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
*
Corresponding author: Zheng Wang; Email: wzyt94@163.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While China's efforts to maintain social stability by recruiting social elites and establishing Party branches in pre-existing social and market organizations have been thoroughly explored, much less attention has been devoted to how grassroots Party organizations (GRPOs) have proactively incubated society and constructed coherent, interrelated and systematic stability maintenance strategies to identify and eliminate social instability in its early stages and prevent its escalation. Using qualitative data gathered from local areas in China, we uncovered three major strategies used by GRPOs to manufacture society: incubating quasi-bureaucratic organizations, co-opting community elites and embedding Party organizations in market and social organizations. In general, GRPOs manufacture society for three reasons: to revitalize the mobilization capacity of the party-state; to increase the available social resources for grassroots authorities; and to establish an input mechanism for citizens. This study not only provides empirical data on how China's stability maintenance regime works in practice but also calls for a rethinking of the capacity of authoritarian resilience.

摘要

摘要

已有研究考察了中国政府通过在业已成立的社会和市场组织中吸纳社会精英、嵌入党组织以维持社会稳定的努力，但鲜有研究关注基层党组织如何前置性的孵化社会和构建一个连贯的、相关联结的和系统的稳定策略，从而在社会不稳定的早期阶段便将其识别和消解，以避免其进一步升级。基于中国多地的定性数据，本研究揭示了基层党组织“制造”社会的三个策略：孵化准行政的社会组织、吸纳社区精英和将党组织嵌入到社会和市场组织中。整体而言，基层党组织有三个动机 “制造” 社会：重新激活体制的动员能力；补充基层治理资源；建立民情民意的输入机制。本研究不仅为中国维稳体系如何运行提供了实证证据，同时呼吁重新认识中国体制的权威韧性。

Keywords

social stabilityParty buildingChinese Communist Party (CCP)grassroots Party organizationsgrassroots governance社会稳定党建中国共产党基层党组织基层治理
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 259 , September 2024 , pp. 711 - 726
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Cai, Changkun, Liu, Ying and Jiang, Weiqi. 2023. “Bringing the Party back into the community: restructuring grassroots governance in Shenzhen.” The China Quarterly 254, 412–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creemers, Rogier. 2017. “Cyber China: upgrading propaganda, public opinion work and social management for the twenty-first century.” Journal of Contemporary China 26(103), 85–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickson, Bruce J. 2000. “Cooptation and corporatism in China: the logic of Party adaptation.” Political Science Quarterly 115(4), 517–540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickson, Bruce J. 2007. “Integrating wealth and power in China: the Communist Party's embrace of the private sector.” The China Quarterly 192, 827–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guicheng Street Community Management Office. 2014. “Chuangjian shuren shequ jingyan zongjie he fenxiang de zijin fuchi banfa” (Funding support methods for sharing and summarizing experiences of forming community groups). Archival references.Google Scholar
He, Baogang, and Warren, Mark E.. 2011. “Authoritarian deliberation: the deliberative turn in Chinese political development.” Perspectives on Politics 9(2), 269–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilmann, Sebastian, and Perry, Elizabeth J.. 2011. “Embracing uncertainty: guerrilla policy style and adaptive governance in China.” In Heilmann, Sebastian and Perry, Elizabeth J. (eds.), Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, Lesley. 2004. “Manufactured civil society: counting the cost.” Critical Social Policy 24(2), 139–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hu, Jieren, Zeng, Peng and Wu, Tong. 2022. “How are ‘red social workers’ trained? Party-building absorption of society in China.” China Review 22(3), 297–323.Google Scholar
Jiang, Jue. 2021. “A question of human rights or human left? The ‘people's war against COVID-19’ under the ‘gridded management’ system in China.” Journal of Contemporary China 31(136), 491–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kan, Karita, and Ku, Hok Bun. 2021. “Serving the people, building the Party: social organizations and Party work in China's urban villages.” The China Journal 85(1), 75–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kang, Xiaoguang, and Han, Heng. 2008. “Graduated controls：the state–society relationship in contemporary China.” Modern China 34(1), 36–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, John James, and Chen, Dan. 2017. “State capacity and cadre mobilization in China: the elasticity of policy implementation.” Journal of Contemporary China 27(111), 1–13.Google Scholar
Mattingly, Daniel. 2019. The Art of Political Control in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mittelstaedt, Jean Christopher. 2022. “The grid management system in contemporary China: grass-roots governance in social surveillance and service provision.” China Information 36(1), 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, Andrew J. 2003. “China's changing of the guard: authoritarian resilience.” Journal of Democracy 1(14), 6–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nie, Lin, and Jie, Wu. 2022. “Strategic responses of NGOs to the new Party-building campaign in China.” China Information 36(1), 46–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Organization Department of Nanhai District Party Committee. 2020. “2020 nian Nanhaiqu jiben qingkuang” (Basic situation in Nanhai district, 2020). Archival references.Google Scholar
Pei, Minxin. 2002. “China's governance crisis.” Foreign Affairs 81(5), 96–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J. 2011. “From mass campaigns to managed campaigns: ‘constructing a new socialist countryside’.” In Heilmann, Sebastian and Perry, Elizabeth J. (eds.), Mao's Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 30–61.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. 2007. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (trans.). Hangzhou: Zhejiang People's Publishing House.Google Scholar
Su, Zheng, Ma, Shiqi and Zhang, Changdong. 2022. “Participation without contestation: NGOs’ autonomy and advocacy in China.” The China Quarterly 251, 888–912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, Beibei. 2020. “Grid governance in China's urban middle-class neighbourhoods.” The China Quarterly 241, 43–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, Patricia M. 2012. “The new life of the Party: Party-building and social engineering in Greater Shanghai.” The China Journal 68, 58–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thornton, Patricia M. 2013. “The advance of the Party: transformation or takeover of urban grassroots society?” The China Quarterly 213, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Huan, and Wang, Ying. 2023. “Party-building and government funding: the effect of the Chinese Communist Party on non-governmental organizations.” Journal of Chinese Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-023-09850-6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wei, Yujun, Ye, Zhonghua, Cui, Meng and Wei, Xiaokun. 2021. “COVID-19 prevention and control in China: grid governance.” Journal of Public Health 43(1), 76–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Tyrene. 1990. “Postrevolutionary mobilization in China: the one-child policy reconsidered.” World Politics 43(1), 53–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xiao, Qiang. 2019. “The road to digital unfreedom: President Xi's surveillance.” Journal of Democracy 30(1), 53–67.Google Scholar
Xu, Jianhua, and He, Siying. 2022. “Can grid governance fix the party-state's broken windows? A study of stability maintenance in grassroots China.” The China Quarterly 251, 843–865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xu, Xianglin. 2020. “Transformation crises and adaptive governance in China: a historical comparative perspective.” In Xu, Xianglin (eds.), Social Transformation and State Governance in China. Singapore: Springer Singapore, 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yan, Xiaojun, and Huang, Jie. 2017. “Navigating unknown waters: the Chinese Communist Party's new presence in the private sector.” China Review 17(2), 37–63.Google Scholar
Yang, Fan, Wang, Shizong and Zhang, Zhihan. 2022. “State-enlisted voluntarism in China: the role of public security volunteers in social stability maintenance.” The China Quarterly 249, 47–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Yongjiao, Xu, Yan and Wilkinson, Mick. 2019. “Towards effective mobilization of social participation: from an instrumental approach to a value-oriented approach in China.” Policy Studies 43(3), 538–557.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Mingjun, and Chen, Peng. 2012. “2011 nian Zhongguo dianxing quntixing shijian fenxi baogao” (2011 China social public security research report). Advances in China Public Security 01, 3–31.Google Scholar
Zhang, Xiaoming, and Cao, Zhenghan. 2016. “From manipulation to integration: the strategic transformation of grassroots control in China.” Journal of Chinese Governance 1(2), 284–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhou, Xueguang. 2010. “The institutional logic of collusion among local governments in China.” Modern China 36(1), 47–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar