Description

In many grievances in rural China, law, legal consciousness, and legal institutions appear absent, distant, or inaccessible. At the same time, the Chinese state has undertaken a major initiative to promote constitutionalism and “rule-of-law,” and a growing body of research portrays Chinese citizens as increasingly conscious of and knowledgeable about law. Where does legal consciousness come from, how do citizens in authoritarian regimes develop legal consciousness, and how does legal consciousness affect legal mobilization? This paper presents findings from a field experiment conducted in conjunction with a pre-test/post-test representative panel survey and in-depth interviews in rural China to establish the role of media messages and social interactions in the shaping of legal consciousness and to document the impact of legal consciousness on legal mobilization. The research has implications for the way in which publics in authoritarian regimes like China come to understand—and experience—the “rule of law”: increased legal consciousness and legal mobilization may further legitimate party-state institutions, which dominate dispute-resolution mechanisms and legal-aid provision at the rural grassroots.

Susan Whiting (Ph.D, Michigan; B.A. Yale) is Associate Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Associate Professor of Law and International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is the author of Power and Wealth in Rural China (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and, most recently, “Fiscal Pressures, Land Disputes, and Justice Claims in Rural and Peri-Urban China” (Urban Studies, 2011).