Xi Chen explores the dramatic rise in social protests in China since the early 1990s. Drawing on case studies, interviews, and government records of collective petitions, this book examines how the political structure in Reform China has encouraged Chinese farmers, workers, pensioners, disabled people, and demobilized soldiers to claim their rights by staging collective protests. Challenging the conventional wisdom that authoritarian regimes always repress popular collective protest, Chen suggests that routine contentious bargaining between the government and ordinary people has actually contributed to the regime's resilience. "Xi Chen's impressive study represents the best of recent scholarship on China: conceptually innovative, empirically rich, and historically grounded. His state-centered model of 'contentious authoritarianism' sheds new light on the surge of social protest in China in recent years and, equally importantly, on why social protest does not necessarily threaten the stability of the current regime." - Bruce Dickson, George Washington University "This book highlights why China defies labeling. National leaders shun meaningful democratic reform but seem to believe that 'facilitating' and even 'routinizing' social protest help maintain stability. Infuriated folks increasingly turn to 'trouble-making' against foot-dragging local authorities but generally avoid outright confrontation. Caught in cross-cutting pressures from above and below, local government officials grudgingly accommodate popular claims to 'lawful rights and interests' even though they dispute the 'lawfulness' of such claims. Complexities like these call for innovative conceptualizations like 'contentious authoritarianism.'" - Lianjiang Li, Chinese University of Hong Kong "Xi Chen offers an illuminating analysis of one of the most intriguing features of contemporary Chinese politics: regime stability in the face of rising social protest. Through an original study of collective petitioning, Chen underscores the central role of the Chinese state in channeling and containing rampant popular unrest. The resulting 'contentious authoritarianism,' as he characterizes this unusual system, presents a challenge both to social science theories of contentious politics and to conventional assumptions about authoritarian regimes." - Elizabeth J. Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University "Drawing on unusual access to provincial data on collective petitions and deep engagement with the specialized literature on Chinese politics and disciplinary theories about contentious politics, Xi Chen shows how localized collective protests have been woven into the structure of government authority in China. Chen's effort to unravel this paradox and spell out its implications for both China and political sociology will become a benchmark in our understanding of China's rapidly evolving society and polity." - Andrew Walder, Stanford University

Kay Ann Johnson provides much-needed information about women and gender equality under Communist leadership. She contends that, although the Chinese Communist Party has always ostensibly favored women's rights and family reform, it has rarely pushed for such reforms. In reality, its policies often have reinforced the traditional role of women to further the Party's predominant economic and military aims. Johnson's primary focus is on reforms of marriage and family because traditional marriage, family, and kinship practices have had the greatest influence in defining and shaping women's place in Chinese society. Conversant with current theory in political science, anthropology, and Marxist and feminist analysis, Johnson writes with clarity and discernment free of dogma. Her discussions of family reform ultimately provide insights into the Chinese government's concern with decreasing the national birth rate, which has become a top priority. Johnson's predictions of a coming crisis in population control are borne out by the recent increase in female infanticide and the government abortion campaign.

Do our ideas about social movements travel successfully beyond the democratic West? Unrest in China, from the dramatic events of 1989 to more recent stirrings, offers a rare opportunity to explore this question and to consider how popular contention unfolds in places where speech and assembly are tightly controlled. The contributors to this volume, all prominent scholars of Chinese politics and society, argue that ideas inspired by social movements elsewhere can help explain popular protest in China. Drawing on fieldwork in China, the authors consider topics as varied as student movements, protests by angry workers and taxi drivers, recruitment to Protestant house churches, cyberprotests, and anti-dam campaigns. Their work relies on familiar concepts—such as political opportunity, framing, and mobilizing structures—while interrogating the usefulness of these concepts in a country with a vastly different history of class and state formation than the capitalist West. The volume also speaks to “silences” in the study of contentious politics (for example, protest leadership, the role of grievances, and unconventional forms of organization), and shows that well-known concepts must at times be modified to square with the reality of an authoritarian, non-western state.

改革的成败，不止取决于改革的决心，更在于改革如何跨越障碍，如何落实具体决议和措施。 既得利益群体对新一轮改革的阻碍如何克服，什么样的利益逻辑才会生效？改革的新一轮动力应从何处寻找？制度创新能够带来什么样的红利，为什么又困难重重？面对美国和亚洲其他国家的威胁，中国在政治、经济和外交上，又该如何决策？…… 著名中国问题专家郑永年教授，以其一贯客观立场、犀利观点、尖锐表述，针对中国改革中存在的每一个具体问题，都给出了细致详尽的客观分析和各种可行的解决之道。 他认为，过去30多年的改革是更深层次、更全面的改革的铺垫，我们现在真正进入了改革的攻坚期，应该注意改革因动力不足而陷入僵局的潜在问题。在改革困难重重的情况下，作者主张通过开放新的空间来改革旧的体制，通过培植新的利益来克服既得利益，通过释放社会和地方的潜力来化解官僚体制的惰性，通过保护社会来促进社会转型。他一面热情洋溢地用英文向世界介绍中国，让世界了解中国；一面用中文尖锐地指出问题，坦陈建议。