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Liberal or Conservative? The Differentiated Political Values of the Middle Class in Contemporary China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2020

Guangqiang Qin
Guangqiang Qin*
Affiliation:
Minzu University of China. Email: qin@ruc.edu.cn.
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Abstract

This article analyses data from the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) to investigate the differentiated political values of the middle class in China. Combining the two factors of market situation and institutional division, the article first categorizes several basic types of middle class and then identifies two kinds of political values (liberal and conservative) from the indicators of support for freedom, government satisfaction, and political voting. The results show that the middle class, as a whole, tends to be more liberal than the working class. However, the internal divisions among the sub-groups in the middle class are more obvious – the political tendency of the middle class within the redistribution system is conservative but the middle class sub-groups outside the system, especially the new middle class, have the most liberal tendencies and constitute a potential source for change in China. Thus, the middle class is not necessarily a stabilizer or a subverter of the status quo and has a heterogeneous nature shaped by the dual forces of markets and institutions.

摘要

摘要

本文结合 2015 年中国综合社会调查数据（CGSS），分析了当代中国中产阶级分化的政治价值观问题。文章使用市场状况和体制分割两大维度，划分出若干中产阶级基本类型，进而从政治自由意识、政府满意度、政治选举投票等维度，识别出自由型和保守型两种政治价值取向。进一步分析显示，作为整体的中产阶级展示出比工人、农民等体力阶层更突出的自由型倾向，但中产阶级内部分化也较为明显，处于再分配体制内部的中产群体政治倾向较为保守，体制外的几类中产阶级尤其是新中产群体，自由倾向最为突出，构成了推动变革的潜在动力源泉。因此，中国中产阶级并不必然扮演“稳定器”或“变革器”的角色，而是一个受到市场分化和制度分割双重力量形塑的多元化群体。

Keywords

middle classpolitical valuesinstitutional divisionmarket situationheterogeneityChina中产阶级政治价值观体制分割市场状况多元构成中国
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 245 , March 2021 , pp. 1 - 22
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Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London, 2020

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