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Protest Leadership and State Boundaries: Protest Diffusion in Contemporary China*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2015

Wu Zhang
Wu Zhang*
Affiliation:
Department of political science, University of Massachusetts Boston. E-mail: wu.zhang@umb.edu.
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Abstract

How does protest spread in contemporary China? This paper analyses one case of cross-firm protest and two cases of cross-village protest in order to demonstrate a mechanism for protest diffusion, a topic rarely studied in the existing literature. It argues that central policies, protest leadership and a connective structure that links protest leaders and followers enable people with shared economic interests to protest together. Protests emerged when protest leaders, who were trained politically by the state and enjoyed moral standing in a small community, started popularizing policy documents among followers. Protest diffusion occurred when representatives from each participating unit coordinated with one another and coalesced around the core leaders, who decided tactics for the entire protest. The protestors, however, did not form coalitions across different administrative boundaries. Thus, protest leaders did play a decisive role in the spreading of a protest. However, the state also moulded and restricted the scale of the diffusion.

摘要

在当今中国, 抗争是如何传播的? 现存文献对这一课题很少研究。本文通过对一例跨厂的工人抗争和两例跨村的农民抗争的考察, 阐释了当今中国抗争传播的一种机制: 中央政策, 抗争领袖以及将领导者和追随者联结在一起的结构能促使有共同经济利益的人们一起抗争。抗争起源于领袖们在追随者中宣传党和国家的政策和文件。这些领袖都曾接受过国家提供的政治训练, 居住在小社区中并且享有良好的道德声誉。当各单位或村的抗争代表相互合作并团结在为整个抗争制定策略的主要领袖的周围时, 抗争就开始扩散, 从而拉开传播的序幕。可是, 抗争中的工人或农民并不跨越国家的行政区域进行串联。可见领袖在抗争的传播中起到了至关重要的作用。但是, 国家也限制了该传播的规模。

Keywords

protest diffusionprotest leadershippolicy documentsthe Chinese statemobilizing structureclose-knit communities抗争的传播抗争领袖文件动员结构结合紧密的社区国家
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 222 , June 2015 , pp. 360 - 379
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Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2015 

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Footnotes

*

The author acknowledges financial support from the Mellow Fellowship, the Lam Family Award for South China Research, the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lee Teng-hui Fellowship in World Affairs from Cornell University.

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