Recent success and failure of “Arab Spring” movements has reminded the world of the promise and peril of social protest. While increased interest in the study of protest has been facilitated in part by large, regime-changing movements in the Middle East, social protest is by no means limited to such big movements with big changes. Focusing on these protests alone misses the far greater number of smaller-scale and routinized protest movements worldwide, including in China.

For China watchers, the study of protest is particularly important because their number and scope has grown in recent years. But as both books under review show, social protest is not new to China. Beyond revealing its deep historical roots, the books engage a number of questions: Why do protests occur in China? What tactics do protesters employ? And why have protests not (yet) resulted in grand political change? With the publication of these two books we are closer to a better understanding of social protest in the world’s most populous country.

Research topic aside, it might be easy to dwell upon the difference between these two books: Xi Chen’s more traditional mixed-method analysis of recent protests contrasts with Ho-Fung Hung’s richly detailed historiography of Qing-era protests; Hung relies on centuries-old archives and personal writings of imperial court officials, while Chen draws upon contemporary government documents and interviews with protesters. Differences aside, the two books should be seen as truly complementary works; scholars will be rewarded for reading these fantastic studies side by side.

Both books start from the important premise that most studies of social protest and mass mobilization are Western dominated and contain a “political change” bias. Much of the interest in, and academic work on, social protest focuses on exceptional events where protests have led to the downfall of authoritarian regimes. Decoupling protest from democratization allows both Chen and Hung to understand societal mobilization, state responses, and the effect on both parties. Their refreshingly dispassionate analyses give appropriate attention to both the state structure and societal agency necessary for protests. Although they reach the conclusion in different ways, both authors demonstrate that social protest is decidedly routine in China, deeply inculcated in the political culture, and often facilitated (rather than prevented) by the state.

In Social Protest and Contentious Authoritarianism in China, Chen examines the rise of social protest in 1990s China. Using his original data set based upon petitions filed with the government, supplemented with detailed case studies of individual protest events, he demonstrates that protests are not exceptional events in China but, rather, regular and routinized. The political-change bias of protest studies might lead us to assume that more protests challenge the regime, leading it to use a heavy hand to stop them. But in what Chen terms “contentious authoritarianism,” the Chinese state does not always thwart social protest. Instead, it often accommodates it. To explain the paradox, he first offers a structural, state-centred explanation of protest.

Engaging directly with the political-process school of social movement literatures, Chen suggests that political opportunities exist by both design and accident. By way of political and economic reforms, the government has downsized, fundamentally changing the relationship between state and society. And with the state playing a far less intrusive role in the daily lives of its citizenry, the functionality of governance has changed. Institutions have been modified, or created anew, and yet the roles they play are often unclear. Chen calls these institutions “amphibious” in that they can be used for purposes other than intended; there is an informality to even the most formal institutions.

In Social Protest, this change in functionality is revealed in the Xinfang system, which allows citizens to petition and file grievances with the state. But this institution, like others, is amphibious: Citizens protest because there is low efficacy without it; the government allows protests because it informs them of pressing problems at the periphery, and helps them hold local officials accountable. In essence, the Xinfang system, alongside protests, provides important feedback mechanisms otherwise lacking in post reform China. But conceding to citizen grievances is just one state response. Chen posits a conceptual framework to describe other dominant responses: The state can also persuade, procrastinate, and, of course, repress.

Chen goes beyond showing how the state responds to and survives protests. He argues that routinized protests can actually contribute to regime stability: Petition and protest as a feedback mechanism allows the state to address problems that might otherwise undercut its legitimacy; in accommodating some claim making, citizens gain a sense (or illusion?) of voice; and the ability to procrastinate means that problems might diminish or the outrage decrease to levels no longer threatening to the regime.

The author’s attention to structural conditions for protest allows him to effectively respond to a common critique of political-process literature, that it lacks careful explanation of the source of political opportunities. His attention to agency answers another critique of the literature, that it is overly structural and ignores individuals. Policy ambiguities and legal gray areas have created (albeit limited) space for protests to emerge. In discussing “protest opportunism,” Chen shows how citizens employ any tactic that seems most useful in achieving their goals, including “disruption,” “persuasion,” and “third party leverage.” Importantly, Social Protest de-romanticizes protesters, revealing them to be rational actors, not single-minded idealists. They strategically choose targets, tactics, and goals that will ensure success. Perhaps the best guarantee for longer-term effectiveness is for protesters not to challenge state legitimacy, but rather to work within the state structure presented to them. And in doing so, he again shows how protests can support regime stability, even while meeting the needs of the citizenry that engages in them.

Political opportunities for protest in China are marked by continuity and change. While Chen is attentive to history, a historiography of social protest in China is Hung’s singular focus. Like Chen’s contemporary analysis, in Protest with Chinese Characteristics Hung demonstrates that protests, while not usually “disruptive,” have been historically routine and persistent. In doing so, he effectively counters the conventional wisdom that Chinese protests, such as the Taiping Rebellion of the mid-nineteenth century, are simply derivative of Western protest.

In this wonderfully written book, Hung draws upon extensive archival research conducted in Taiwan and mainland China to provide detailed description of specific protest events and the demands of protests, as well as the response of officials. Instead of protest as a linear phenomenon, he shows China embarked on its own “cycle” of protests as early as the Qing era, with trajectories determined by both structure and agency. Hung demonstrates how citizens in China used protest strategically. As Chen shows, protesters historically were not of the “madding crowd” but rational, innovative individuals. And as in contemporary China, while the number and scope of protests changed, they did not necessarily undermine the regime.

Hung examines the structure by showing that while there was significant market expansion during the Qing era (seventeenth century until 1911), peasants at the lower end of society were squeezed out, suffering downward mobility. At the same time, the government brought in fewer taxes and was unable to provide many services, thus creating general conditions for discontent. But during this period, general structural conditions changed and so too did protesters’ strategies. In making this point, Hung draws an even tighter link between state structure and protester agency.

Like Chen, Hung shows how citizens engaged in social protest deftly. They accepted state legitimacy in regulating local affairs and often engaged rather than opposed government. As in modern China, protesters used tactics proven successful: demonstrations, rallies, petitions, and even blackmail. It is interesting to note that successful tactics were replicated across the country, proving that there was protest “learning” across great geographic distances. Although state legitimacy was rarely challenged, not all protest during the Qing era could be characterized as “state-engaging.” The cyclical nature of protest in China became clear later in the eighteenth century when state capacity diminished.

Hung’s original data set of historical protest events shows that the character of protest fluctuated between state engaging and state resisting, depending upon the changing political economy. In the middle of the eighteenth century, state capacity was relatively high, the economy was strong, and local governments usually were able to deal with problems. When protests arose, they were state engaging in nature. During the latter part of the eighteenth century, amid economic downturn and diminished capacity, local governments were weak, often competing against one another for resources. As a result, protest tactics were more state resisting.

The historical perspective of Protest with Chinese Characteristics underscores that the targets of protests were local officials. The politics of protests in China was then, as now, distinctly local. Indeed, similarities with contemporary China are often striking. Hung notes that petitioning was common practice in Qing-era China. When citizens had grievances, they would lobby the emperor to punish local officials; as he shows in his book, citizens will praise the central government in Beijing while blaming local officials for their problems. These historical and contemporary insights go far in helping us understand why protest has not had the wider-reaching, regime-changing quality. Provided the focus remains on a few “corrupt” or “inept” local officials, the central government might escape criticism and challenges to its legitimacy.

Examining these two books side by side can easily lead the reader to speculate on the ways in which social protest might be the harbinger of political change in China. To be sure, both Hung and Chen are careful not to be prognosticators on the country’s political future (which in China studies is a wise decision). Their accommodation for agency, alongside structure, ensures that a deterministic picture is not presented. Still, Hung’s cyclical explanation of protest might suggest that diminished state capacity in modern China would increase state-resisting protest, while Chen’s examination of state response could lead us to believe that if the government only represses and ceases to use protests as a feedback mechanism, its legitimacy might be undermined. But we need not be presented with clear predictions to gain great value from these two books. Together they offer readers a much better understanding of where Chinese protest comes from, historically, and how it has evolved today. And in so doing, these books make an important contribution for scholars of China, as well as those interested in contentious politics more generally.