From Consultations to Coercion: Shifting Modes of China's Authoritarian Resilience

• In Event: Rethinking Authoritarian Resilience in the Chinese State

Abstract

The regime's approach towards the media and critical voices has always been studied carefully as a window into the party's adaptability. Throughout the reform period, in addition to censorship, the leadership has consistently supported a limited role of media supervision and some spaces for bottom-up oversight in the media sphere. Under Xi, however, these spaces have shrunk and the party-state has embraced a mix of coercion with a top-down management of society as a way of ensuring its durability. Drawing on observations and interviews with China's investigative journalists and editors, as well as discourse analysis of official policy statements on media policy, this paper empirically demonstrates the shifts in the party's approach towards media as an accountability mechanism. It shows that Xi's era thus far represents yet another move away from consultative governance when it comes to the media sphere. It further argues that the growing reliance on coercion is a sign of fracture in the party's resilience, as central authorities are at risk of losing touch with society and driving its moderate critics from acting within the system to becoming overt resisters to the political status quo.

Author

• Maria Repnikova, University of Pennsylvania