The paradox of citizen grievances in China: an institutional logics perspective
| Author | Fanyi Kong,Xuhong Su |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523211009957 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The paradox of citizen
grievances in China:
an institutional logics
perspective
Fanyi Kong
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China
Xuhong Su
University of South Carolina, USA
Abstract
Grievance petitioning is a prevailing venue for voicing citizens’ disconten t and seeking
redress in China. Extant literature documents the simultaneous growth of citizen
petitions and local containment, without addressing the dynamics of such a paradox.
Inspired by the institutional logics perspective, this study surveyed over 300 onsite
petitioners and explored how multiple institutional logics are at work and together
produce the paradox. Citizens embrace the grassroots logic, flooding petitions into the
grievance system. Local governments follow the state logic, engaging in comprehensive
containment. Grievance agencies cope strategically with the rise of citizen petitions and
bureaucratic influences, demonstrating the ombudsman logic. Despite local contain-
ment and often less than satisfactory resolutions, citizens still hold favorable attitudes
toward the grievance system, as well as the top bureaucracy, thus sowing the seeds for
more petitions. The paradox manifests the coexistence and interactions of multiple
institutional logics, raising challenges for governance and accountability.
Points for practitioners
The simultaneous growth of citizens’ grievances and local containment presents a par-
adox. Citizens follow the grassroots logic, filing more petitions. Local governments
adhere to the state logic, prescribing containment efforts. In face of competing
demands, grievance agencies embrace the ombudsman logic. The coexistence of and
Corresponding author:
Xuhong Su, Department of Political Science, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC, USA.
Email: xuhong.su@gmail.com
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523211009957
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
2022, Vol. 88(4) 1192–1210
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
interactions among different logics help to explain the recurrent patterns for all parties.
Future reforms need to be designed with a sophisticated understanding of interactive
institutional logics.
Keywords
grievance petitions, institutional logics, stability maintenance
Introduction
Citizens file grievance petitions to seek justice and redress. Broadly defined as
citizen-initiated efforts to reach the administrative apparatus to express problems
and seek resolutions, petitioning has been “the dominant method for handling
citizens’ grievances” in China (Bruckner, 2008: 92). Studies show the use of griev-
ance petitions far surpasses that of formal legal institutions (Minzner, 2006). The
rough estimate of the number of grievance petitions in China approaches 10 mil-
lion a year nationwide. The annual number of mass incidents (i.e. protests, dem-
onstrations, and even riots), the most severe kind of grievance petitioning,
skyrocketed from roughly 10,000 in 1994 to over 80,000 in 2008 by government
reports (Lee and Zhang, 2013; Yang, 2017), and to a rumored 180,000 in 2010 and
possibly over 200,000 ever since. This “high tide” (Li et al., 2012) testifies that
grievance petitioning has been deeply entrenched into the social fabric of Chinese,
becoming the most prevalent venue to voice citizens’ discontent and seek redress.
The past decade witnessed the strong grip of bureaucrats and local governments
(Huang, 2002), along with intensified efforts at “suppressing undesirable elements
in the social order,” coined “stability maintenance” (Lee and Zhang, 2013; Yang,
2017). Massive grievance petitions spread “negative thinking” (
Ca
´belkova
´and
Hanousek, 2004) and likely fuel social instability (Hou et al., 2018; Lee and
Zhang, 2013; Lorentzen, 2013). Local bureaucrats have been driven by target-
based performance metrics (Chen et al., 2018; Liang and Langbein, 2015) and
policed by top-down formal and informal inspections (Huang, 2002; Wallace,
2016). Stability maintenance constitutes a “first priority” target that enjoys the
“single item veto” power over bureaucrats’ career prospects (Yang, 2017). Given
the potential threat, grievance petitioning is often grossly classified as
“undesirable,” particularly in the views of local governments since petitioners
often lodge complaints against them (O’Brien and Li, 1995). Thus, local bureau-
crats and governments have strong incentives to contain grievance petitioning
(Bruckner, 2008), including using coercive power with some regularity (Hou
et al., 2018).
The simultaneous growth of both grievance petitions and local containment in
China constitutes a paradox, calling for more sophisticated understanding. Based
on a survey of over 300 citizens who filed onsite petitions in one provincial
1193
Kong and Su
To continue reading
Request your trial