Flexible Repression: Governing Underground Civil Society in Authoritarian China

The Institute of East Asian Studies will hold a talk about the Flexible Repression: Governing Underground Civil Society in Authoritarian China

Speaker: Diana Fu, Postdoctoral Associate, Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Panelist/Discussant: Rachel Stern, School of Law, UC Berkeley

What technologies does the Chinese authoritarian state use to control groups deemed to be “enemies of the state”? Under the conditions of imperfect surveillance and ambiguous central policies, how does a fragmented authoritarian state police ‘underground’ civil society? I attempt to open the “black box” of the state’s coercive apparatus by presenting empirical data gathered from 18 months of close fieldwork inside independent labor organizations in five cities that have been blacklisted by the provincial government. These findings suggest that the state deploys an institution of flexible repression in which the “rules of the game” are in constant flux and the enforcers are local state officials as well as thugs and landlords. Contrary to axiomatic assumptions that ‘underground’ civil society must necessarily challenge state power, I show that it can also collaborate with the local state under certain conditions. How to govern groups that are said to be nibbling away at state power is a formidable challenge for any regime that restricts the freedom to associate.