A Populist Threat to China's Courts?

Liebman, Benjamin L.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511977008.011

Cited by 45 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This paper also contributes to our understanding of current developments in the Chinese political, social, and legal spheres. Recent literature about labor law (Su & He ), court petitions (Liebman ), and local level environmental authorities (Cheng ) has looked at the latest changes in the interaction between bureaucrats and citizens. This body of literature evidences greater citizen activism and participation, and how local bureaucrats have been forced to meet activist citizen demands, however, without better capacity or authority to do so.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this context, increases in societal and local government support can easily become a burden on local regulators. To make matters even more difficult for the regulators, citizens have learned how to use these incentive structures to their advantage (Su & He ; Liebman ). In this respect, a strong impression we developed from the interviews, was the feeling among virtually all of the enforcement team leaders of being overwhelmed by the tremendous workload.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

From support to pressure: The dynamics of social and governmental influences on environmental law enforcement inGuangzhouCity,China

Rooij¹,

Fryxell

et al. 2012

Regulation & Governance

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines how changes in governmental and social influences affect environmental enforcement in Guangzhou city, China, between 2000 and 2006. The paper finds that a form of “decentered regulation” has developed. Regulatory enforcement is no longer the sole affair of the government and the regulatory bureaucracy, but has been increasingly influenced by societal forces. The transformation over time shows the promises and limits of decentered regulation in Guangzhou's dynamic authoritarian setting. Analyzing a set of longitudinal survey data and qualitative interviews, the paper finds that by 2006, the rise of civil society and its increased support for protecting the environment had a double‐edged impact on the enforcement of environmental regulations. The paper demonstrates that on the one hand, by 2006, when government support for enforcement was low, societal forces developed an ability to counterbalance such lack of governmental support and positively influence enforcement. However, it also shows that when government support was high, a concurrent rise in societal support created a negative effect on enforcement. Thus too much societal support can become an enforcement burden.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From support to pressure: The dynamics of social and governmental influences on environmental law enforcement inGuangzhouCity,China

Rooij¹,

Fryxell

et al. 2012

Regulation & Governance

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Literature on legality and legal consciousness suggests that the Chinese state controls the construction of legality via state propaganda, and is able to shape citizens' legal consciousness given most people's lack of direct experience with the law. (Gallagher ; Liebman : 183; Michelson and Read , Stockmann and Gallagher ; Su and He : 163). Our findings, however, suggest that the construction of legality is not a top‐down process wholly controlled by the authoritarian state, but rather a complex negotiation involving multiple parties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Literature on legality and legal consciousness suggests that the Chinese Party‐state and citizens' personal experiences largely shape legality and legal consciousness. On the one hand, the Chinese Party‐state plays a critical role in delivering the state's legal ideology and creating a positive view of China's legal institutions, mainly through the state‐controlled media (Gallagher ; Liebman : 183; Stockmann and Gallagher ; Su and He : 163). The Chinese state has demanded that the media disseminate legal knowledge to the populace as part of the state's propaganda.…”

Section: Construction Of Legality In the Networked Public Spherementioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting Legality in Authoritarian Contexts: Food Safety, Rule of Law and China's Networked Public Sphere

Lei¹,

Zhou²

2015

Law Soc Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the introduction of the Internet, China's networked public sphere has become a critical site in which various actors compete to shape public opinion and promote or forestall legal and political change. This paper examines how members of an online public, the Tianya Forum, conceptualized and discussed law in relation to a specific event, the 2008 Sanlu milk scandal. Whereas previous studies suggest the Chinese state effectively controls citizens' legal consciousness via propaganda, this analysis shows that the construction of legality by the Tianya public was not a top‐down process, but a complex negotiation involving multiple parties. The Chinese state had to compete with lawyers and outspoken media to frame and interpret the scandal for the Tianya public and it was not always successful in doing so. Data show further how the online public framed the food safety incident as indicative of fundamental problems rooted in China's political regime and critiqued the state's instrumental use of law.

show abstract

“…In the late 1980s, a series of reforms was launched to formalize civil adjudication and reduce mediation. Most of these reforms, however, were reversed in 2003 after the number of disgruntled litigants soared and was perceived to threaten social stability (Liebman ). Today, Chinese judges are once again required to take the “mass line,” that is, to hear the views of the masses; they are also to adopt a less haughty style of judging.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediatory Versus Legalistic Discourse in Chinese Courts

Li²,

Feng

2017

PoLAR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Drawing from detailed courtroom discourses on divorce cases in China, this article provides a micro‐level comparison between two styles of case handling: mediatory and legalistic. The two styles differ in discourse multiplicity, discourse interchange, interruption, and dispute processing. It finds that in terms of dispute resolution, the mediatory style seems to fare better than the legalistic style. One major reason for the difference is that the legalistic style tends to suppress rather than uncover what truly matters for the litigants. The mediatory style also seems to better fit the cultural expectation of suburban and rural China. The findings compel reconsideration of the extent to which rule formalism in transitional China should be promoted.

show abstract

A Populist Threat to China's Courts?

Cited by 45 publications

References 11 publications

From support to pressure: The dynamics of social and governmental influences on environmental law enforcement inGuangzhouCity,China

From support to pressure: The dynamics of social and governmental influences on environmental law enforcement inGuangzhouCity,China

Contesting Legality in Authoritarian Contexts: Food Safety, Rule of Law and China's Networked Public Sphere

Mediatory Versus Legalistic Discourse in Chinese Courts

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About