Governing Civic Engagement in China

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

What is the level of citizen participation in public affairs in China? What changes does the increasing civic engagement bring to state-society relations? More importantly, what is the state’s attitude toward civic engagement and what are its strategies to accommodate increasing public demands for participation while maintaining social and political stability? Using survey research and case studies, the four papers in the proposed panel try to address these questions from different angles.

Different from many studies on rural China, three papers in this panel focus on civic participation in urban communities. Regardless of the means of participation, as Ergenc’s paper argues, a political network is emerging among urban citizens through participation, which is argued to promote a sense of political efficacy, conducive to further participation.

Wang’s paper distinguishes between political participation and social participation. While the state has tightly controlled the former, it has promoted citizen participation in voluntary activities, which may have generated social capital to induce participation in political affairs.

Using two cases of anti-incinerator contention in different cities, Hsu tries to find how different strategies of mobilization and contention result changing state-society relationship, which could provide an elaboration for theoretical analysis.

Sharing a similar interest in the dynamics of state-society relationship in citizen participation, Yin’s paper focuses on the online participation and its relationship with governance, and finds two factors, political sensitivity of the issue and the autonomy of Internet, decide the response of governments and the mode of relationship between state and online civil society.

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Xinsong Wang, Beijing Normal University

Chair

• Szu-chien Hsu, Academia Sinica

Individual Presentations

• Citizen Participation and Political Efficacy in Urban China - Ceren Ergenc, Middle East Technical University

• State-led Citizenship: Social Capital and Community Participation in Urban China - Xinsong Wang, Beijing Normal University

• Community-based Resistance: The Cases of Anti-incinerator Contention in Guangzhou and Beijing - Szu-chien Hsu, Academia Sinica

• Online Civic Participation and Governance in China - Jun Yin, National Sun Yat-Sen University

Discussants

• Ceren Ergenc, Middle East Technical University

• Xinsong Wang, Beijing Normal University