Although still authoritarian at its core, the communist state's political changes are nothing short of extraordinary if measured by the ever-growing numbers and types of popular protest. Two decades of citizen action in China since 1989 have presented social movement scholars with a goldmine. A veteran scholar of Chinese protest, Kevin O'Brien brings out this edited volume to showcase a group of experienced field researchers, continuing an effort to build a dialogue between Chinese experiences and the Western-honed theoretical models. The book is a welcome addition to literature, as movement theorists have for years lamented the lack of lessons through a broadened comparative scope. Sidney Tarrow, one of the most celebrated statesmen of the existing research paradigm, heralds the publication as a major event in his prologue.
The contributors are invited apparently for their reputed past work. Most of them have published extensively on student movements, worker protests, religious movements, cyber-space protests, or environmental campaigns. Each (in a few cases a pair of co-authors) brings a slice of their long-term endeavour. Reading these studies as a whole, one has to marvel on the apparent contradiction between the oft-cited image of an authoritarian regime, which supposedly allows no freedom of speech, and the seemingly endless possibilities for public expressions of dissent. The answer for this puzzle partly lies in the details exquisitely presented by the able group of researchers. The stories echo familiar themes of political opportunities, mobilizing structures and framing, yet at the same time show patterns that are uniquely – for lack of a better term – Chinese. That a reader at the end may want even more to understand the contradictions and patterns is a measure of the quality and timeliness of this book.
Indeed post-1989 China appears to be a “movement society” in its own way. The chapters lead us behind the staggering numbers of popular protests, cited in the prologue and introduction, to encounter a rich variety of networks, groups, action repertoires, tactics, frames and impacts. The political space is cultivated by defying state repression (chapter one by Teresa Wright and chapter eight by Yongshun Cai); in areas that the state is not able to thoroughly control such as the cyberspace (chapter six by Guobin Yang and chapter ten by Patricia Thornton), work floor (chapter three by William Hurst, chapter four by Feng Chen) and house churches (chapter five by Vala and O'Brien); or in the grey areas where government tolerance or even sponsorship is apparent (chapter two by Xi Chen and chapter seven by Yanfei Sun and Dingxin Zhao). For mobilizing structures, the chapters feature individual leaders (Feng Chen), personal bonds (Carsten Vala and O'Brien), emerging movement organizations (Wright), NGOs (Sun and Zhao), work-unit infrastructures (Hurst) and transnational networks (Thornton). From actions frames, the researchers note the Maoist legacy (Hurst and Feng Chen), as well as new values such as environmentalism (Sun and Zhao), religion (Vala and O'Brien, Thornton), and new sense of efficacy (Yang).
Yet these chapters should not be read as an “also-have” catalogue of familiar elements long observed in the West. This diverse body of empirical work is elevated to a new plane by a masterful chapter by Elizabeth Perry at the end of the book. Noting the protest pattern absent cross-sectional connections and system-changing claims, Perry asks two fundamental questions. Firstly, why do popular actions in China appear to be “rebellious” rather than “revolutionary”? Second, will the numerous desegregated citizen unrests amount to a sum that eventually brings about a revolutionary change? Seen from the contemporary theoretical scheme, the first is a question about collective action repertoire, and the second is about the impact of social movements. If we recall that the majority of movement research in the West has mostly been inspired by the question of movement emergence, these two questions represent a departure, very appropriately, I believe, for the Chinese case. Recent years have witnessed prominent movement scholars such as Doug McAdam, another statesman like Tarrow, to regret the dearth of research that is addressing other issues rather than movement emergence. If Perry's two questions prove to obtain agenda-setting power in the future, students of popular protest in China will have a great deal to contribute.
Early signs of innovative theorizing have already appeared in some of the chapters in this volume. In their chapter on three environmental campaigns, Sun and Zhao reject the movement-centred focus but call for an examination of state–society relations. To instil life into the state as a proactive actor may give us valuable clues as to why the protests seem more “rebellious” than “revolutionary.” In another of the most theoretically inspiring chapters, Xi Chen's conception of “institutional conversion” tells us how seemingly mundane protests in fact have the power of changing the system, if only gradually. The process is not limited in one type of protest only, as other chapters attest to different degrees. Perhaps rebellions are also revolutionary after all.
