The discipline of political science has long grappled with the central question addressed by Diana Fu in this book: how do organizations mobilize popular contention under authoritarianism? Fu reveals that labour activists facilitate workers’ individual and small-scale actions as a façade for organizational processes that foster collective identity and, presumably and potentially, collective action: mobilizing without the masses. The greatest value of the book is in its empirical detail of difficult-to-reach undercover organizational processes.
Fu establishes her focus on individual actions as a counterpoint to the preoccupation with collective aims and mobilization in the contentious politics literature. However, in authoritarian settings individual and non-institutionalized contention have been proven to be the norm rather than the deviation. This is why Fu's claims that the mobilization observed here was “unorthodox,” a “seemingly counterintuitive dynamic of organizing contention” (p. 3), or a “wholly unexpected political process” (pp. 1–2), are surprising. It is rather predictable that under repressive political circumstances, organizations remain undercover and perform legitimate (and individual) actions to conceal more subversive forms of contention. Empirically, however, the book is of value because it shows exactly how these covert (and sensitive) actions take place, confirming that in China under authoritarianism, individual forms of contention similar to those seen in other authoritarian settings also take place, albeit with concealed organizational support and even coordination.
The book is based on a political ethnography that focuses on Beijing and the Pearl River Delta. It is divided into two parts: the first presents the political conditions under which organizations mobilize; the second part presents the tactics of mobilizing without the masses. Fu categorizes the state's “technologies of control” under the Hu–Wen administration into two types. To address above-ground labour organizations, the state performs competitive control, or incorporation of organizations through service contracting. Underground labour organizations are subject to fragmented control, that is, a variety of strategies such as soft repression, co-optation and neglect performed by different local state agencies such the security bureau, the trade union and the labour bureau. The combination of the two, or “flexible repression,” fostered “the growth of aboveground civil society organizations while containing the development of underground organizations” (p. 141). The discovery of these two types of control is not necessarily revelatory; rather, it would have been interesting to see evidence of the disciplinary power of the service contracts, and how exactly they obtain the organizations’ acquiescence “to assist the local state in maintaining social stability” (p. 83). Moreover, the analysis is focused on the state's (repressive or coercive) behaviour, leaving aside social or economic factors that can contribute to explaining mobilization strategies. Notwithstanding the effect of the repressive power of the state on civil society, labour organizations are mainly portrayed as “reactive” vis-à-vis the state, glossing over the co-constitutive nature of state–society relations.
Mobilizing without the masses includes three types of tactics aimed at coaching workers: to stage small-scale action and to frame individual grievances as collective (pedagogy of micro-collective action); to time and use verbal and performance threats alongside the formal labour dispute resolution process (pedagogy of atomized action); and to re-frame workers’ discourse to claim citizenship rights (pedagogy of discursive action). Fu seems to suggest that above-ground organizations either partner with the government to deliver social services or perform the pedagogy of discursive action while underground organizations perform the pedagogy of micro-collective action and the pedagogy of atomized action. It is, however, empirically rather the case that organizations resort to a variety of actions and combine these according to individual needs, the political economy of the organization, social trust and social capital, and not only to the level of state repression.
Fu concludes that mobilizing without the masses contributes in the short term to the state's primary goal of social stability by individualizing contention. In the long term, however, it “transforms the grammar of contention” (p. 142), teaching workers to frame discontent in terms of citizenship rights, which ultimately is in itself a political change. Fu holds a common view that heralds labour organizations as the potential mobilizing structure alternative to state-run trade unions: “In the absence of a formal mobilizing structure that can bind the aggrieved together in a sustained manner, protestors typically disband when they receive concessions” (p. 93). However, what is striking is that all the actions coached by these organizations are taken up by workers all over China without the support of labour organizations. Studies of China's labour, and of contentious politics in general, ought to adjust this over-emphasis on formal organizing structures and acknowledge workers’ autonomous agency.
Finally, it is remarkable that the book includes a detailed appendix on research methods. However, it is unfortunate that it does not reflect on the ethical concerns that the study raises. While the cases of study are anonymized, the majority of the organizations that constitute the sample population are identified outright (pp. 38–48). A note would have been appreciated on the implications of uncovering these covert actions for the future of the organizations under the ever-more repressive Xi Jinping administration.
Fu's book provides further and original detail to the literature on civil society and labour organizing in China, and, more significantly, contributes original evidence to an ongoing discussion in the field of contentious politics on mobilization under authoritarianism. Readers of both fields will find this book of relevance.
