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Politics of Stability Maintenance in China

August 21 - 22, 2014 | UC San Diego

This workshop brought leading sociologists and political scientists from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S. for a workshop on the politics of stability maintenance in China. Each participant presented their latest original research at the workshop, the outcome of which will be edited into a volume to be published by an academic press.

Cosponsored with Fudan-UC Center on Contemporary China.

Papers (password protected; for conference participants only)

Download the agenda (PDF)

Panel I: People’s Politics, Grassroots State and Stability Maintenance

人民政治逻辑与社会冲突治理:两类矛盾学说的历史实践 (PDF)
Shizheng Feng, Renmin University of China

“Seeing like the Grassroots State: Using Market and Mass Line for Stability Maintenance in China's Bargained Authoritarianism” (PDF)
Ching Kwan Lee, Sociology, UCLA

中国“维稳”体制的基层成效 (PDF)
Mingxing Liu, China Institute of Education Finance Research, Peking University

Panel II: Modes of Protest and State Responses

“Policing Protest in China: Findings from Newspaper Data” (PDF)
Chih-jou Jay Chen, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

“Collective Petitions and Local State Responses in China” (PDF)
Lei Guang, Political Science, SDSU and GPS, UC San Diego

“Maintaining Stability by Law: Housing Demolition Litigation and Protest, and Social Change in China” (PDF)
Xin He, School of Law, City University of Hong Kong

“Village-level Mediation of Disputes: Evidence from Two Surveys” (PDF)
Benjamin L. Read, Political Science, UC Santa Cruz

Panel III: Collective Action and Stability Maintenance

“Hierarchical Trust and Stability Maintenance in China” (PDF)
Lianjiang Li, Chinese University of Hong Kong

“Adaptation and Conflict: Religion and Rural-Urban Migration” (PDF)
Lizhu Fan, Fudan University and Na Chen, UC San Diego

“Repression Backfires: Tactical Radicalization and Protest Spectacle in Rural China” (PDF)
Kevin O’Brien, Political Science, UC Berkeley

“Fragmented Control: Harnessing Social Stability in China’s Underground Civil Society” (PDF)
Diana Fu, Political Science, University of Toronto

Panel IV: Technologies of Control - Part One

“State Ambivalence and Informal Coercion in China” (PDF)
Xi Chen, Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

“Demobilizing the Law for Control: The Life Cycle of Labor Disputes in China”
Yang Su, Sociology, UC Irvine and Xin He, School of Law, City University of Hong Kong

“Ethnicity of Children in Mixed Marriages: Theory and Evidence from China” (PDF)
Ruixue Jia, GPS, UC San Diego

“The Rise of the Security State” (PDF)
Yuhua Wang, Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Panel V: Technologies of Control - Part Two

“Activist Acquiescence: Power, Pollution and Access to Justice in a Chinese Village” (PDF)
Benjamin van Rooij, School of Law, UC Irvine

“Information as Common Knowledge: Information Technologies and Social Protests in China” (PDF)
Yongshun Cai, Political Science, HK University of Science & Technology

“Fear or Friction? How Censorship Slows the Spread of Information in the Digital Age” (PDF)
Molly Roberts, Political Science, UC San Diego