Neighborhood Social Control and Police Legitimacy: An Empirical and Theoretical Exploration in Contemporary Urban China

• In Event: 50260 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 6: Nationalism, Governance, and Global Power in an Era of Surveillance and Control

Abstract

Using data collected from a survey of 2,245 residents in a Chinese city, this study examined the influences of all three forms of social control processes (collective efficacy, semiformal/public control, and formal/public control) on police legitimacy. The results revealed a salient relationship between people’s assessment of these forms of neighborhood social control and their police legitimacy judgements. This study also demonstrated a moderating role of perceived semipublic control, the most distinctive feature of social control in the Chinese social context, on the relationship between perceived public control and police legitimacy, further highlighting the importance of considering all potential forms of perceived neighborhood social control to develop a theoretical understanding of perceptions of neighborhood context and police legitimacy.

Authors

• Guangzhen Wu, University of Utah

• Jianhong Liu, University of Macau