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Maintaining Social Stability without Solving Problems: Emotional Repression in the Chinese Petition System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2019

Rui Hou Open the ORCID record for Rui Hou [Opens in a new window]
Rui Hou*
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Queen's University. Email: rui.hou@queensu.ca.
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Abstract

What role do emotions play in state repression? Building upon ethnographic observation in one Beijing petition bureau, this paper explores the emotional labour performed by grassroots officials to demobilize social dissent. The petition system serves as an official channel through which the Chinese government receives complaints and grievances from citizens. Notwithstanding its institutional inefficiency in addressing petitioners’ requirements, this system plays a critical role in maintaining social stability. I investigate the process by which frontline petition officials manage petitions. I argue that channelling petitioners’ emotions has become one of these officials’ core functions. Petition officials have developed three types of emotional strategies – emotional defusing, emotional constraint and emotional reshaping – to absorb petitioners’ complaints. This study of emotional repression offers a fresh perspective on the affective dimension of contentious politics and also contributes to the theoretical discussion on how authoritarian regimes deal with dissent.

摘要

摘要

情感在国家镇压中发挥了什么作用？本文基于对北京某信访办的民族志观察，研究了基层官员通过情感劳动来化解社会矛盾的过程。信访是中国政府为了听取民间异议而设置沟通制度。虽然信访制度在解决访民问题上被诟病效率有限，但是其在维系社会稳定的过程中发挥着重要作用。通过对基层信访官员应对上访者的过程进行详细考察，本文认为吸纳访民负面情感已经成为信访制度的重要功能之一。信访官员在基层工作中发展出情绪疏解，情感约束和情感重塑三种情感策略来吸纳上访者的抗议。本文对情感镇压的考察为我们研究抗争政治的情感维度提供了一个崭新的视角，同时也丰富了我们对权威政体异议处置手段的理论见解。

Keywords

emotional labouremotional repressionauthoritarian regimeChinastate repression情感劳动情感镇压权威政体中国国家镇压
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 243 , September 2020 , pp. 635 - 654
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Copyright
Copyright © SOAS University of London 2019

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