Current Publications

Discursive Accommodation: Popular Protest and Strategic Elite Communication in China.

Author(s)
Heinz Christoph Steinhardt
Abstract

How do authoritarian states respond to, and seek to defuse, popular protest? This study answers this question by developing the concept of discursive accommodation and tracing the co-evolution of contention and strategic elite communication in China. It reveals that the Chinese Communist Party leadership has responded to waves of intense unrest with increasing, yet not unconditional, sympathy for protesters. It argues that the rationale behind this response pattern has been first, to deflect discontent from the regime and, second, to temper local official and protester behavior. And yet, the unintended consequence of discursive accommodation may well have been the acceleration of mobilization. Investigating elite discourse provides an alternative angle to understand why contention in China has become endemic, but remains conspicuously moderate. It helps to unpack the one-party state’s ability of coexisting with considerable popular pressure and not be washed away by it, and managing protest without institutionalizing it.

Organisation(s)
Department of East Asian Studies
Journal
European Political Science Review
Volume
9
Pages
539-560
No. of pages
22
ISSN
1755-7739
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773916000102
Publication date
11-2017
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
506014 Comparative politics, 602045 Sinology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/discursive-accommodation-popular-protest-and-strategic-elite-communication-in-china(c518fe1b-021f-4fed-84ea-41aa9a0ab9b2).html