In the Name of the State, Interactions between local administrators and citizens

China Perspectives, 2013/1, 108 p.

The studies collected in this special issue offer the reader a wide variety of subjects. The working practices observed in a Residents’ Committee in Beijing (Wang Di), the interactions between chengguan (the quasiofficial units of the urban police) and street vendors, also in Beijing (Emmanuel Caron), the different actors involved in renovation projects in the Old Shanghai and their interactions (Zhang Kai), the expropriation and expulsion of the inhabitants of a village in Guangdong Province (Boris Svartzman), the legal recognition of adopted children in Kunming and its environs (Karine-Hinano Guérin), development brokerage in the Tibetan areas of Qinghai province (Xenia de Heering): the diversity of places and topics may be surprising.

Nevertheless, not only does each article complement or renew the literature in its own field, but bringing them together also fulfils a specific purpose: to shed light on the relations between ordinary Chinese citizens and those who, invested with official administrative functions, no matter how disparate, are in a position to represent the authority of the state and of the Party at the most local level. It is thus not a matter of opposing two clearly delineated and homogenous blocs, but rather of starting out from specific situations characterised by an asymmetry between those who perform official duties of control or management and those they are responsible for controlling or managing.

This issue is therefore not a continuation of the important literature that exists on state-society relations, devoted either to discussing the relevance of different paradigms to the current transformations observed in China (democratisation and civil society; clientelism and neo-traditionalism, corporatism of different types) or to using this perspective to study specific empirical realities. Nor does it stem from an approach questioning the difficult constitution of collectives in China and their relations with the administration. It rather strives to analyse the interactions in situ that occur between low-ranking administrators and the administrated, the wide range of injunctions, expectations, and constraints they stem from, and the shared norms of interaction or the specific solutions, more or less justified or arbitrary, they can lead to.

The interactions observed here are very diverse. They sometimes take place at the initiative of the citizens, such as when villagers from the rural zones of Qinghai request access to running water or when families from Kunming and its environs seek to regularise the presence of an adopted child in their midst; in other cases, they result from a sometimes brutal intrusion into the public space – in order to expel street vendors – or even into private spaces such as rural or urban homes. Other contributors, by contrast, analyse the routine administrative practices stabilised within a Residents’ Committee or an “expulsion company.” Most of the interactions studied concern essential aspects of citizens’ lives such as access to water, the possibility for street vendors to make a living in cities, the recognition
of parental ties in the case of adoption, or, in the case of villagers resisting the destruction of their village, the preservation of not only their habitat and their living environment, but also their modes of sociability and economic know-how. At times, however, they simply disclose the relations between low-ranking administrators and citizens that reflect the operating norms of the administration.

It should be emphasised from the outset that the issue of the official status of those referred to here as administrators would have deserved more extensive development. Persons involved in negotiations surrounding real estate expropriation, chengguan, members of Residents’ Committees, employees of the Civil Affairs Office, police station, or “work team,” township heads: the actors considered here are many and hold very different positions within the administration; their relations with the political and administrative authorities are similarly diverse. They are nonetheless considered together in this issue because they can all claim, in diverse situations and for various reasons, to interact with the citizens in the name of the state, despite the vagueness and inconsistency of this formulation.

Understanding these interactions in situ has required the six contributors to pay attention to the administrative, political, or legal framework in which they take place, but without viewing them as mechanical results of this framework (for a simplified overview of administrative levels in the PRC, see the inserted table at the end of this editorial). They study practices in order to understand how rules, expectations, anticipations, or constraints are formed and perceived and how they constrain actions on both sides. They further strive, when possible, to follow the possible interpretations inherent in each situation, rather than attempting to piece together motivations or intentions retrospectively. Whether studying moments of confrontation, as with Emmanuel Caron; listing the various social actors the administrated are confronted with in specific circumstances, as with Zhang Kai; or showing how the administrators anticipate the reactions of those they govern and adjust their behaviour accordingly, as with Wang Di, all the
contributors seek to grasp these moments in their context. They try to understand how the individuals themselves – referred to here as the administrators and their administrated – contextualise their situation – that is, identify the elements that matter to interpret it and orientate what is possible, necessary, or desirable in the process of their interactions with the other party. They do not adopt a constructivist approach but simply em-phasise that researchers cannot ignore how individuals themselves see the situations they are engaged in, how they break them down into various constituents and give priority to some of them, how they classify and rank the particular objects and individuals they encounter by endowing them with typical expectations, knowledge, and power.

Editorial by Isabelle Thireau, translated by Laetitia Mottet.

Isabelle Thireau is a Senior Researcher at the CNRS and Professor at the EHESS-CECMC (School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences - Research Center on Modern and Contemporary China), Paris, currently posted to the CEFC. EHESS-CECMC, 190-198 avenue de France 75013 Paris, France (isabelle.thireau@ehess.fr).

Special Feature

Editorial 2013/1
Isabelle Thireau
Operating Norms and Practices of Residents’ Committees: The consequences and limits of management by numbers
Wang Di
Interactions Between Chengguan and Street Vendors in Beijing: How the unpopularity of an administration affects relations with the public
Emmanuel Caron
Who is Relocating Whom in the Renovation of Shanghai’s Old City?
Zhang Kai
The Leap to the City: Resistance and transition in a Chinese village facing urbanisation
Boris Svartzman
Recognising Adoption: Family relationships tested by birth control
Karine-Hinano Guérin
Providing Access to Water: The pump, the spring and the klu Brokerage and local development on the Tibetan Plateau
Xénia de Heering

China - Education

Educating a New Generation of Students Transferring knowledge and norms from Hong Kong to the mainland
David Zweig • Amy Liu Mei Heung

CEFC News Analyis

Whither Weiwen? Stability maintenance in the 18th Party Congress era
Karita Kan

China Analysis

Reforming China’s State-owned Enterprises
Agatha Kratz
Local financing difficulties and wide gaps in credit access: Growing pessimism on the ground
Jean-François Di Meglio

Review Essays

Redefinition of the Modern, Native Epistemology and Global Identity The Confucian revival and the “China model” in the work of Arif Dirlik
David Bartel

Book Reviews

Book reviews 2013/1
Luca Gabbiani, Pékin à l’ombre du Mandat Céleste. Vie quotidienne et gouvernement urbain sous la dynastie Qing (1644-1911) (Peking in the Shade of the Mandate of Heaven. Daily life and urban government under the Qing Dynasty [1644-1911])
Séverine Arsène, Internet et politique en Chine (Internet and Politics in China)
Eric Sautedé
Gerard Lemos, The End of the Chinese Dream: Why Chinese people fear the future
Pierre-Henry de Bruyn
Peter C.Y. Chow (ed.), National Identity and Economic Interest: Taiwan’s competing options and their implications for regional stability
André Beckershoff

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Date de publication:

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Visiter le site web

Contents

Special Feature

China - Education

CEFC News Analyis

China Analysis

Review Essays

Book Reviews

Dernières publications de l'IFRE

Derniers contenus par mots-clefs

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