Legal Origins of Spectacular Violence: China's 1983-1986 Strike-Hard Campaign

• In Event: 444 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Politics in China and Hong Kong

Abstract

Simultaneous with the celebrated post-Mao legal and economic reforms, the Chinese leadership in 1983 declared a massive official movement to "strike hard blows against criminal elements" which executed over 30,000 persons and sentenced millions to other penalties. Why did the party-state embark on a three-year campaign of spectacular violence in the midst of an attempt to pull the country out of the Cultural Revolution? Scholars express puzzlement at this question. In this paper, I explain the origins of and forms taken by this "strike-hard campaign." In contrast with existing scholarship, I argue that the campaign was closely connected to the project of legal rationalization and economic reform. Evidence from local gazetteers and elite memoirs supports this contention.

Author

• William James Welsh, UC Berkeley