Studying Chinese Politics: Farewell to Revolution?

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Cultural Governance in Contemporary China: "Re-Orienting" Party Propaganda

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Challenging The Mandate Of Heaven: Popular Protest in Modern China

Arguing that popular protest has played an unusual role in bestowing political legitimacy in China, this article traces continuities in state responses to protest move- ments from imperial days to the present. The author compares the government’sre- cent handling of three different types of protest: economically motivated actions by hard-pressed workers and farmers, nationalistically inspired demonstrations by patriotic students, and (at greater length) religiously rooted resistance by zealous believers. The central authorities’ tolerance toward localized strikes and tax riots, and their overt encouragement of protests against the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, contrasts sharply with the harsh and unrelenting campaign of repression that has been directed against Falun Gong adherents. Explanations for these variant state responses are sought in historically grounded assessments of the political implications of different types of popular protest.Governmen

Chinese Conceptions of “Rights”: From Mencius to Mao—and Now

The recent explosion of popular protest in China, often framed as a demand for the fulfillment of “rights,” has captured widespread attention. Some observers interpret the protests as signs of a “moral vacuum.” Others see the unrest as signaling a powerful new “rights consciousness.” In either case, the protests are often regarded as a major challenge to the stability of the political system. In this article, an examination of Chinese conceptions of “rights,” as reflected in the ethical discourses of philosophers, political leaders and protesters (and as contrasted with American understandings of rights), provides the basis for questioning prevailing assumptions about the fragility of the Chinese political order. For over two millennia, Chinese political thought, policy, and protest have assigned central priority to the attainment of socioeconomic security. As a result, the meaning of “rights” in Chinese political discourse differs significantly from the Anglo-American tradition. Viewed in historical context, China’s contemporary “rights” protests seem far less politically threatening. The Chinese polity appears neither as vacuous nor as vulnerable as it is sometimes assumed to be.Governmen

Reclaiming the Chinese Revolution

Focusing on the Chinese Communists’ mobilizational efforts at the Anyuan coal mine in the early 1920s, the author argues for reconsidering a sometimes forgotten part of Chinese revolutionary history. At Anyuan, idealistic young Communist cadres led a highly successful non-violent strike and launched a major educational program for workers, peasants and their families. The result was a remarkable outpouring of popular support for the Communist revolutionary effort. Although the meaning of the “Anyuan revolutionary tradition” has been obscured and distorted over the years to serve a variety of personal, political and pecuniary agendas, the author seeks to recover from its early history the possibility of alternative revolutionary paths, driven less by class struggle and cults of personality than by the quest for human dignity through grassroots organization.Governmen

Growing Pains: Challenges for a Rising China

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Citizen Contention and Campus Calm: The Paradox of Chinese Civil Society

Contrary to conventional predictions, the growth of protest and civil society in contemporary China seems more conducive to the resilience of authoritarianism than to imminent democratization.Governmen

Moving The Masses: Emotion Work In The Chinese Revolution

Previous explanations of the Chinese Communist revolution have highlighted (variously) the role of ideology, organization, and/or social structure. While acknowledging the importance of all these factors, this article draws attention to a largely neglected feature of the revolutionary process: the mass mobilization of emotions. Building upon pre-existing traditions of popular protest and political culture, the Communists systematized "emotion work" as part of a conscious strategy of psychological engineering. Attention to the emotional dimensions of mass mobilization was a key ingredient in the Communists' revolutionary victory, distinguishing their approach from that of their Guomindang rivals. Moreover, patterns of emotion work developed during the wartime years lived on in the People's Republic of China, shaping a succession of state-sponsored mass campaigns under Mao. Even in post-Mao China, this legacy continues to exert a powerful influence over the attitudes and actions of state authorities and ordinary citizens alike.Governmen

Teaching across borders: A collaborative inter-racial border pedagogy in adult multicultural education classes.

This qualitative action research study examined how power dynamics were manifested between and among instructors and students in two graduate level classes team-taught by a black and a white female co-instructors where diversity and equity issues in education was the primary course content. The study also attempts to identify adult education practices that lead to growth and social change among participants in such classes that are at times both uncomfortable and controversial