Everyday Violence: Resisting State Power in China

• In Event: Authoritarian Resilience and Legitimacy in China and Beyond

Abstract

Suzanne E. Scoggins

Although protests and riots are the best-known expressions of state-society conflict, smaller acts of violence in which state actors and civilians clash also define the contentious dimensions of state and society. Such incidents of “everyday violence” might include a physical confrontation over a security inspection or acts of resisting police power such as refusing arrest. In democratic and non-democratic regimes alike, evidence of everyday violence exposes a pushback against state power on the ground and may be indicative of more widespread discontent among certain communities or types of individuals.
In China, the world’s largest authoritarian state, evidence of state violence such as cases of police brutality is often censored, but civilian attacks against the police are openly available on video sharing sites, social media, online forums, and even local news sites. This project draws from an original dataset of 800 incidents of everyday violence occurring in China between 2014 and 2022. The data records the location, actors, causes, and resolutions of clashes between the public and state agents such as the police, chengguan (Urban Administrative Law Enforcement Officers), and COVID inspectors. Regression analysis shows that severe injuries for civilians and state actors tend to occur in smaller cities when compared to larger cities. The study also shows that injuries on both sides tend to be less severe when female state agents are involved. Because the data capture everyday violence over time, we also see an increase in violent attacks during late 2022, when the country was roiled by protests and the removal of China’s Zero COVID policy. The results provide new insight into the nature of state-society conflict in China and the challenges for legitimacy and order faced by local state law enforcement. It also calls attention to the political significance of smaller acts of violence against the state during times of crisis.

Author

• Suzanne E. Scoggins, Clark University