Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China

Awards:   Winner of Winner, 2023 Human Rights Section Best Book Award.
Author:   Lynette H. Ong (Professor of Political Science, Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
ISBN:  

9780197628768


Pages:   296
Publication Date:   13 May 2022
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
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Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China


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Awards

  • Winner of Winner, 2023 Human Rights Section Best Book Award.

Overview

A compelling examination of China's engagement of nonstate actors as a counterintuitive solution to coerce citizens while minimizing backlash against the state. How do states coerce citizens into compliance while simultaneously minimizing backlash? In Outsourcing Repression, Lynette H. Ong examines how the Chinese state engages nonstate actors, from violent street gangsters to nonviolent grassroots brokers, to coerce and mobilize the masses for state pursuits, while reducing costs and minimizing resistance. She draws on ethnographic research conducted annually from 2011 to 2019--the years from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, a unique and original event dataset, and a collection of government regulations in a study of everyday land grabs and housing demolition in China. Theorizing a counterintuitive form of repression that reduces resistance and backlash, Ong invites the reader to reimagine the new ground state power credibly occupies. Everyday state power is quotidian power acquired through society by penetrating nonstate territories and mobilizing the masses within. Ong uses China's urbanization scheme as a window of observation to explain how the arguments can be generalized to other country contexts.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lynette H. Ong (Professor of Political Science, Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.80cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 24.00cm
Weight:   0.544kg
ISBN:  

9780197628768


ISBN 10:   0197628761
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   13 May 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

List of Figures List of Tables Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Bulldozers, Violent Thugs, and Nonviolent Brokers Chapter 2: The Theory: State Power, Repression, and Implications for Development Chapter 3: Outsourcing Violence: Everyday Repression via Thugs-for-Hire Chapter 4: Case Studies: Thugs-for-Hire, Repression, and Mobilization Chapter 5: Networks of State Infrastructural Power: Brokerage, State Penetration, and Mobilization Chapter 6: Brokers in Harmonious Demolition: Mass Mobilizers, Mediators, and Huangniu Chapter 7: Comparative Context: South Korea and India Chapter 8: Conclusion Appendices Appendix A: Content Analysis of Government Regulations Appendix B: List of Interviewees Appendix C: Media-Sourced Event Dataset Appendix D: Additional Tables & Graphs for Chapter 3 Notes Bibliography

Reviews

A granular, documented, and persuasive analysis of how authoritarian control is maintained on a quotidian basis in Xi's China. Lest we ever doubt that all authoritarian regimes operate 'outside' even their own hand-tailored, legal order, this fine study closes the case. A discerning examination of the atomization, perversion, and cooptation of what might otherwise be a mobilized, autonomous civil society. * James C. Scott, Yale University * Outsourcing Repression is a fascinating study of an important but underexplored issue about state control in China-outsourcing state repression to non-state actors. Analytically rigorous, this book uncovers how the state exercises its everyday coercion by securing the collaboration of social actors, mainly thugs-for-hire and brokers. This is an important book that sheds new light on the coercive power of authoritarian states. * Yongshun Cai, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology * Ong provides what's likely to be the definitive account of socialized repression in contemporary China. That the state uses third parties to extend its power down to the grassroots (and to avoid backlash) is one of the key features of China's hardening authoritarianism, and a development of great importance to China scholars and comparativists alike. * Kevin J. O'Brien, University of California, Berkeley *


A granular, documented, and persuasive analysis of how authoritarian control is maintained on a quotidian basis in Xi's China. Lest we ever doubt that all authoritarian regimes operate 'outside' even their own hand-tailored, legal order, this fine study closes the case. A discerning examination of the atomization, perversion, and cooptation of what might otherwise be a mobilized, autonomous civil society. -James C. Scott, Yale University Outsourcing Repression is a fascinating study of an important but underexplored issue about state control in China-outsourcing state repression to non-state actors. Analytically rigorous, this book uncovers how the state exercises its everyday coercion by securing the collaboration of social actors, mainly thugs-for-hire and brokers. This is an important book that sheds new light on the coercive power of authoritarian states. -Yongshun Cai, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Ong provides what's likely to be the definitive account of socialized repression in contemporary China. That the state uses third parties to extend its power down to the grassroots (and to avoid backlash) is one of the key features of China's hardening authoritarianism, and a development of great importance to China scholars and comparativists alike. -Kevin J. O'Brien, University of California, Berkeley


Author Information

Lynette H. Ong is an associate professor of political science at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Prosper or Perish: Credit and Fiscal Systems in Rural China (2012). Her work has been published in Comparative Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Foreign Affairs, and other outlets.

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