Drawing on data collected from district‐level governments, this article studies how the Chinese state responds to labor protests in South China. It examines both the internal logic and operational patterns of the state response involving the local courts and an assortment of government agencies. Internal documents and interviews reveal an emerging mode of state reaction. In the context of protest, the courts and related government agencies engage protesters on the street, which often grants a favorable resolution. This “street as courtroom” is a result of the weak capacity of the legal system coupled with a government‐wide campaign to build a “harmonious society.” These findings compel researchers to reconsider the institutional boundaries of the prototypical court, the outcome of social protest, and the appropriate role of the courts in China.

Based on in‐depth interview materials, this article examines why most rural‐urban migrant entrepreneurs in Beijing do not fully comply with a discriminatory license requirement, and in particular, why they prefer license‐renting from the locals. This article suggests that the law's lack of legitimacy adds weight to instrumental considerations. But more important, this license‐renting practice seems to be reinforced and sustained institutionally by local businesses, law enforcement officers, and the local authorities, because their interests are inextricably intertwined with it. The whole situation constitutes a general equilibrium through which various interests are balanced. This case study thus paints a far more complicated picture of the law's impact on people's behavior than usually assumed. Instrumental concerns, or coercive action and sanctions alone, do not adequately explain people's interaction with the law in a “lawless” circumstance; a whole range of instrumental concerns must be considered, and they, together with sanctions, must be understood in the context of a larger institutional environment in which the interactions of various players unfold.

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Based on observations of court trials and extensive interviews with judges, this article explores how judicial mediation in China undermines the rights of the battered women in divorce cases. We find that even if the judges are able to establish that domestic violence is committed, it is often erased in the stage of judicial mediation. This is because judicial mediation inevitably focuses on settlement arrangements. Lingering reference to domestic abuse would simply invite new denials or refutations from the abuser. It thus risks ruining the mediation efforts made by the judge. Our findings raise important questions with regard to the compulsory practice of mediation in family cases in China. It also sheds light on hidden problems created by judicial mediation or conciliation in general.

How courts and judges in authoritarian regimes decide cases behind closed doors has rarely been studied, but it is critically important in comparative judicial studies. Primarily drawing on the minutes of the adjudication committee in a lower court in China, this article explores its operational patterns and decision‐making process. The data suggest that among the criminal cases reviewed by the committee, very few were difficult or significant, but a relatively high percentage of the suggested opinions of the adjudicating judges was modified. In contrast, many civil cases reviewed were difficult to resolve but the committee offered little assistance. Overall the operation and decision‐making of the committee were subsumed by the administrative ranking system inside the court and the authority of the court president was enormous. The analysis also demonstrates the limited role of the committee in both promoting legal consistency and resisting external influences. Instead of achieving its declared goals, the committee has degenerated into a device for both individual judges and committee members to shelter responsibility. The findings compel researchers to reevaluate the role of the adjudication committee in Chinese courts, and the relationship between judges and authoritarian regimes.