The Meaning of Pragmatism

• In Event: 594 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 15. Narrative and Political Identity

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger project on cultural formation of civil society in post-1989 China. Based on my interviews with 91 activists, I discover that young generation activists are significantly different from their predecessors in terms of political epistemic. I demonstrate that, first, what makes the young generation activists different from the elder generation is less about whether ideology, or abstract concepts such as democracy and justice, still occupy significant positions in the political epistemic, than how the linkages between ideological orientations and concrete social issues are built. For previous generations, to participate in social activisms is to strengthen one’s ideological commitment, while for the young generation, participation in civil society has become a way to testify the linkages between ideology and concrete social issues. This leads to my second concern that, compared with the elder generation activists, the young generation activists are more sensitive to the subtle ideological differences among themselves. This paper contributes to the studies on political understandings in post-socialist regimes.

Author

• Mujun Zhou, Brown University