The General Duty to Obey the Law Amongst Chinese Farmers, Lawyers, Waitresses and Construction Workers

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Abstract

A key variable that may shape compliance with legal rules is the so-called General Duty to Obey the Law. This indicates that people obey the law simply because it is the law, and thus because of the systematic legitimacy of the legal system. Most empirical literature on General Duty to Obey the Law has studied it in Western settings and so far we know little to nothing about how people in a very different historical, cultural and political system perceive such duty. This study provides unique data from a different types of Chinese workers, ranging from highly legally trained lawyers, to urban waitresses and construction workers to rural peasants. The data show that Chinese views on general duty to obey the law vary for different sub-sets of the population, and also within these sub-sets. We clearly see different discourses about why one should always or sometimes not obey the law, in which moral reasoning is more important than economic cost-benefit reasoning. The paper concludes by implications both for compliance management as well as legal development in China and comparative perspective.

Authors

• Benjamin Van Rooij, University of California, Irvine

• Wu Yunmei, University of Amsterdam

• Huiqi Yan, University of Amsterdam

• Li Na, University of Amsterdam