China Studies: Social Appropriation and Demobilisation Chinese Lawyers as State Actors

Yue Xie

Abstract

The theory of contentious politics is dedicated to seeking crucial mechanisms to account for the emergence, evolving trajectory and consequences of collective actions. Social appropriation is one of the recurrent and influential mechanisms. Existing studies have explored the conditions under which social appropriation operates. However, such conditions relate to the fact that social actors are seen as the centre and that explanation orientation is pertinent to contentious upward mobilisation. The situation in which state actors mobilise independent existing organisations to defuse contentious actions has been a gap that needs to be filled. Judicial politics in China offers a powerful case to account how state actors successfully mobilise lawyers to demobilise contentious actions. This study found the running conditions of the mechanism of social appropriation through analysing the interactive relations among the state, lawyers and the grieved. First, the state must establish dominance over existing organisations in an institutional or un-institutional way such that these organisations rely on the state. Second, the state must set up a cultural frame for the willingness and cooperation of these organisations to demobilise collective contention. Finally, collective identity recognised that social actors are confirmed and supported by these existing organisations.

 

Keywords:   “Lettering and Visiting” System, Mediation, Process-Mechanism Theory, Social Appropriation, Theory of Contentious Politics.

 

 


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