Above the Roof, Beneath the Law: Perceived Justice Behind Disruptive Tactics of Migrant Wage Claimants in China

He, Xin; Lun-gang, Wang; Su, Yang

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2187863

Cited by 13 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Finally, while our findings add to a growing body of literature that finds that rural‐to‐urban migrants are increasingly entangled in social exclusion and punitive and coercive state control (Zhong, Xu, and Piquero ; Li ; He, Wang, and Su ), our findings are also aligned with the classic research goal pursued by sociolegal scholarship—exploring the gap between “law on the books” and “law in action” (Friedman ). Our finding of a significant relationship between Hukou status and sentencing outcomes suggests that Chinese criminal justice practices (and their end results) are shaped and conditioned by the structure of Chinese society.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Hukou Status and Sentencing in the Wake of Internal Migration: The Penalty Effect of Being Rural‐to‐Urban Migrants in China

Jiang

Kuang

2018

Law & Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While the disparate legal treatment of immigrants in Western jurisdictions has been well documented in sociolegal scholarship, the potential legal inequality experienced by rural‐to‐urban migrants in China, who have become China's largest disadvantaged social group, has not garnered much attention. To fill the gap, this article empirically examines sentencing disparities related to the Hukou status of criminal offenders by employing quantitative data on criminal case processing in China. The results of our analysis reveal that rural‐to‐urban migrant defendants are more likely to be sentenced to prison than their urban counterparts. In addition, the penalty effect of being a rural‐to‐urban migrant is further magnified in jurisdictions with a larger concentration of migrants. Our findings suggest that discrimination against rural‐to‐urban migrants has become an emerging, significant form of legal inequality in China's criminal justice system, refracting and reinforcing the deep‐seated structural inequality associated with Hukou status in China. The research and policy implications of these findings are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Hukou Status and Sentencing in the Wake of Internal Migration: The Penalty Effect of Being Rural‐to‐Urban Migrants in China

Jiang

Kuang

2018

Law & Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…When interviewed by the media about the Deng Yujiao case, the Vice President of the Hubei Higher People's Court said that judges should consider how the public perceives cases on trial and avoid arousing public sentiment . The Vice President's statement is consistent with studies of the Chinese legal system that show that, to appease the public, Chinese courts and Party‐state agencies involved in legal disputes take public opinion into consideration, particularly when pressure from public opinion is intense (He ; He et al ; Liebman , 2011b).…”

supporting

confidence: 62%

“…Research also suggests that legal disputants themselves might influence the construction of legality in the networked public sphere by sharing their experiences with journalists or directly with the public via the Internet. He et al's () study of migrant wage claimants finds that workers who feel alienated by formal legal institutions appeal to the court of public opinion to address their grievances. In a similar vein, Yang's () research on the Internet finds that rights protection activism is common in China's online public sphere.…”

Section: Construction Of Legality In the Networked Public Spherementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many ordinary citizens as well as legal and media professionals believe that strong public opinion raises the probability that Party‐state agencies will respond to problems and grievances (He, Wang, and Su ; Liu and Halliday ; Yang ). Consequently, public opinion has become a tool that various actors attempt to mobilize public opinion to influence political and legal processes (Fu and Cullen ; Halliday and Liu ; He et al ; Liebman ; Liu and Halliday ; Stern ). Indeed, cases of legal mobilization indicate that beliefs about the Chinese Party‐state's responsiveness to public opinion are not ungrounded.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

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

“…They have a sense of responsibility to, and often pride in, their family members. As documented, they would choose not to visit their families during the Spring Festival, the biggest holiday of the year for the Chinese, if they could not bring some money home (He, Wang, and Su 2013). They seemed to think that if they had asked family members to pay, they would have lost not just the money, but also face.…”

Section: The Institutional and Cultural Logics Of Legal Commensurationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Institutional and Cultural Logics of Legal Commensuration: Blood Money and Negotiated Justice in China

2017

SSRN Journal

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Legal commensuration is a complex mechanism of valuation. It entails social exchanges among parties in the litigational context. The way the law evaluates the unevaluable is guided by many specific facts about the parties and is influenced by its own institutional priorities. The criminal reconciliation process in China is used as a real-world empirical illustration. Drawing mainly on data collected from fieldwork investigation of two basic-level courts, this article identifies two factors that affect the process and outcome of legal commensuration: institutional interests promoting reconciliation and the cultural meanings of money. Political considerations play a decisive role in incentivizing judges to facilitate reconciliation. But the cultural meanings of money also shape judicial outcomes. In particular, blood money is valued both for its certainty and its symbolic value as a token of apology. Through a brief comparison of the Chinese and U.S. courts, the article shows that our emphasis on process can generate a more socially grounded understanding of legal commensuration.

show abstract

Above the Roof, Beneath the Law: Perceived Justice Behind Disruptive Tactics of Migrant Wage Claimants in China

Cited by 13 publications

References 35 publications

Hukou Status and Sentencing in the Wake of Internal Migration: The Penalty Effect of Being Rural‐to‐Urban Migrants in China

Hukou Status and Sentencing in the Wake of Internal Migration: The Penalty Effect of Being Rural‐to‐Urban Migrants in China

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

The Institutional and Cultural Logics of Legal Commensuration: Blood Money and Negotiated Justice in China

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About