Feng Chen - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Feng Chen
Concurring with the approach stressing the role of contentious politics in (re)shaping state inst... more Concurring with the approach stressing the role of contentious politics in (re)shaping state institutions, this study explores how disorganized popular contentions configure local institutional building in China. As Chinese citizens are not legally allowed to take organized collective action to express their grievances and demands, popular contentions, despite their common origins, similar claims and identical targets, break out here and there in large numbers without clear organizational shape. This compels the government to build institutions able to map scattered conflicts, detect potential problems and defuse them on a case-by-case basis in a timely fashion. Such a dissipative approach is distinguished, by its purpose, format and mechanism, from two common types of state responses to popular contentions—incorporation and repression—which are typically linked to democracies and authoritarian developing states where popular contentions are often organized in various ways.
The past few years have witnessed the revival of mediation as a chief method of labour dispute se... more The past few years have witnessed the revival of mediation as a chief method
of labour dispute settlement in China. While the central government’s campaign
has reinvigorated the use of mediation in order to control social conflicts
and maintain stability, its expansion and extensive deployment have
also been driven by local authorities, as mediation can better serve their policy
priorities and bureaucratic interests. Not only does the extension of mediation
provide local bureaucratic agencies with flexibility and discretionary
power to resolve conflicts without having to comply with legal minimums,
it also legitimizes the courts’ “non-legalistic approach” to settling dispute
cases. The extensive employment of mediation by local authorities has
chipped away at the role of legal procedures in settling labour disputes.
The revival of mediation embodies a tension between the rule of law the government has promoted since the reform and the extrajudicial methods it needs for controlling conflicts.
The stage of state-building in the labor sector at which a working-class movement arose is crucia... more The stage of state-building in the labor sector at which a working-class movement arose is crucial for the subsequent development of state–labor relations. In contrast with the experience of western countries and authoritarian developing nations, the People's Republic of China's (PRC's) strong pre-existing labor institutions preempted organized labor mobilization at the beginning of capitalist development. The state has since then carried out a bifurcated strategy that confers individual rights on workers but restricts their collective rights. The practice leads to a labor institution built on a hybrid of the old Leninist political structure of labor control and a one-dimensional labor rights regime, which has contributed to the lack of organized labor movements in contemporary China.
Deriving evidence from Neican (Internal Reference), this article demonstrates that labor unrest i... more Deriving evidence from Neican (Internal Reference), this article demonstrates that labor unrest in the 1950s was rooted in inherent tensions in the state’s efforts to reconstruct state-labor relations. With the state’s increasing control over industry and the emerging paternalistic institutions, workers came to see the state, as it presented itself, as the patron of their interests, and they expected its economic protection. Consequently, the discrepancy between the state’s socialist promises and some of the policies and the practices of its agencies often disappointed and disillusioned workers and became a major source of grievances, triggering protests. Labor protests in the 1950s signified the rise of a new pattern of worker reaction to adverse economic conditions, one in which workers held the government responsible for their grievances. This was a pattern that would be seen more clearly more than forty years later when market reform led to massive protests by laid-off workers.
Labor conflicts in China can be classified into three types: those over legal rights, over intere... more Labor conflicts in China can be classified into three types: those over legal rights, over interests, and over the pre-reform entitlements. They have relatively distinguishable bases, claims, framing, and patterns of interaction with the government. The typological classification is useful for understanding the developmental trajectory of labor conflict in China.
Books by Feng Chen
Handbook on Urban Development in China, Ray Yep, June Wang and Thomas Johnson, eds. Edward Elgar, pp. 313－328. , 2019
Concurring with the approach stressing the role of contentious politics in (re)shaping state inst... more Concurring with the approach stressing the role of contentious politics in (re)shaping state institutions, this study explores how disorganized popular contentions configure local institutional building in China. As Chinese citizens are not legally allowed to take organized collective action to express their grievances and demands, popular contentions, despite their common origins, similar claims and identical targets, break out here and there in large numbers without clear organizational shape. This compels the government to build institutions able to map scattered conflicts, detect potential problems and defuse them on a case-by-case basis in a timely fashion. Such a dissipative approach is distinguished, by its purpose, format and mechanism, from two common types of state responses to popular contentions—incorporation and repression—which are typically linked to democracies and authoritarian developing states where popular contentions are often organized in various ways.
The past few years have witnessed the revival of mediation as a chief method of labour dispute se... more The past few years have witnessed the revival of mediation as a chief method
of labour dispute settlement in China. While the central government’s campaign
has reinvigorated the use of mediation in order to control social conflicts
and maintain stability, its expansion and extensive deployment have
also been driven by local authorities, as mediation can better serve their policy
priorities and bureaucratic interests. Not only does the extension of mediation
provide local bureaucratic agencies with flexibility and discretionary
power to resolve conflicts without having to comply with legal minimums,
it also legitimizes the courts’ “non-legalistic approach” to settling dispute
cases. The extensive employment of mediation by local authorities has
chipped away at the role of legal procedures in settling labour disputes.
The revival of mediation embodies a tension between the rule of law the government has promoted since the reform and the extrajudicial methods it needs for controlling conflicts.
The stage of state-building in the labor sector at which a working-class movement arose is crucia... more The stage of state-building in the labor sector at which a working-class movement arose is crucial for the subsequent development of state–labor relations. In contrast with the experience of western countries and authoritarian developing nations, the People's Republic of China's (PRC's) strong pre-existing labor institutions preempted organized labor mobilization at the beginning of capitalist development. The state has since then carried out a bifurcated strategy that confers individual rights on workers but restricts their collective rights. The practice leads to a labor institution built on a hybrid of the old Leninist political structure of labor control and a one-dimensional labor rights regime, which has contributed to the lack of organized labor movements in contemporary China.
Deriving evidence from Neican (Internal Reference), this article demonstrates that labor unrest i... more Deriving evidence from Neican (Internal Reference), this article demonstrates that labor unrest in the 1950s was rooted in inherent tensions in the state’s efforts to reconstruct state-labor relations. With the state’s increasing control over industry and the emerging paternalistic institutions, workers came to see the state, as it presented itself, as the patron of their interests, and they expected its economic protection. Consequently, the discrepancy between the state’s socialist promises and some of the policies and the practices of its agencies often disappointed and disillusioned workers and became a major source of grievances, triggering protests. Labor protests in the 1950s signified the rise of a new pattern of worker reaction to adverse economic conditions, one in which workers held the government responsible for their grievances. This was a pattern that would be seen more clearly more than forty years later when market reform led to massive protests by laid-off workers.
Labor conflicts in China can be classified into three types: those over legal rights, over intere... more Labor conflicts in China can be classified into three types: those over legal rights, over interests, and over the pre-reform entitlements. They have relatively distinguishable bases, claims, framing, and patterns of interaction with the government. The typological classification is useful for understanding the developmental trajectory of labor conflict in China.
Handbook on Urban Development in China, Ray Yep, June Wang and Thomas Johnson, eds. Edward Elgar, pp. 313－328. , 2019