| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Monday, March 19, 2012 | 3:00PM - 5:00PM | External Event, NOTE THE LOCATION: Room 3130, 3rd Floor, Sidney Smith Hall, Department of Political Science, 100 St. George Street, University of Toronto |
East Asia Seminar Series
Chinese local officials frequently employ relational repression to demobilize protesters. When popular action occurs, they investigate activists’ social ties, locate individuals who might be willing to help stop the protest, assemble a work team, and dispatch it to conduct thought work. Work team members are then expected to use their personal influence to persuade relatives, friends and fellow townspeople to stand down. Those who fail are subject to punishment, including suspension of salary, removal from office, and prosecution. Relational repression sometimes works. When local authorities have considerable say over work team members and bonds with protesters are strong, relational repression can help demobilize protesters and halt popular action. Even if relational repression does not end a protest entirely, it can limit its length and scope by reducing tension at times of high strain and providing a channel for negotiation. Often, however, as in a 2005 environmental protest in Zhejiang, insufficiently tight ties and limited concern about consequences creates a commitment deficit, partly because thought workers recognize their ineffectiveness with many protesters and partly because they anticipate little or no punishment for failing to demobilize anyone other than a close relative. The practice and effectiveness of relational, “soft” repression in China casts light on how social ties can demobilize as well as mobilize contention and ways in which state and social power can be combined to serve state ends.
Kevin O’Brien is the Alann P. Bedford Professor of Asian Studies and Professor of Political Science. A student of Chinese politics in the reform era, he has written articles on topics such as legislative politics, local elections, fieldwork strategies, popular protest, policy implementation, and village-level political reform. He is the author of Reform Without Liberalization: China’s National People’s Congress and the Politics of Institutional Change (Cambridge, 1990, paperback, 2008) and the co-author of Rightful Resistance in Rural China (Cambridge, 2006). He is the co-editor of Engaging the Law in China: State, Society and Possibilities for Justice (Stanford, 2005, paperback 2010) and Grassroots Elections in China (Routledge, 2011), and the editor of Popular Protest in China (Harvard, 2008). His most recent work centers on the Chinese state and theories of popular contention, particularly the origins, dynamics and outcomes of “rightful resistance” in rural China. He has won numerous grants and awards for his research and serves on the editorial or advisory board of eight journals.
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