Kevin J O''Brien
Biographic Data
| ID | 180116 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kevin J O''Brien |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kevin J |
| FAMILY NAME | O''Brien |
| SIGNATURE | BRIEN K J O |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 394 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The Violence of Climate Change: Lessons of Resistance from Nonviolent Activists
Rural politics in contemporary China
We examine overarching themes in the contributions, including critiques of neo-liberalism, rural-urban linkages, the relevance of mixed methods and cross-disciplinary approaches, the need to engage social theory, and variation across space and time. At the same time, we provide an overview of rural Chinese politics and explain that the goal of the collection was to bring findings that have appeared in area studies or disciplinary outlets into con…
Rightful resistance revisited
James Scott (1985 Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]) placed 'everyday forms of resistance' between quiescence and rebellion. Others have noted that defiance in unpromising circumstances need not be quiet, disguised and anonymous if the aggrieved use the language of power to mitigate the risks of confrontation. How does 'rightful resistance' (O'Brien and Li 2…
How Authoritarian Rule Works
Common features of the articles by Xueguang Zhou and Jiang Shigong include attention to governance rather than reform or regime change, to informal as well as formal rules, and to practice over texts. The articles differ mainly in their level of abstraction and the reach of their findings. But even here, Zhou’s “organizational practices” are essentially micro-level variants of the broader, constitutional principles that Jiang explores. Both autho…
China Since Tiananmen: Rural Protest
Although China's farmers did not play a large role in the 1989 protests, they have been quite contentious since. Rural unrest has been triggered in part by reforms and in part by savvy "peasant leaders" who quickly seize opportunities that appear. Recently, many protest leaders have concluded that tame forms of contention are ineffective and that violence and other attention-grabbing tactics are needed. But is rural China about to explode? Not li…
Environment, Economics, and Hegemony
Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China
How do Chinese local officials define their tasks and distinguish between policies that must be executed and those they can safely ignore? Drawing on top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation, we examine how much discretion rural leaders enjoy and how this discretion affects policy delivery. Archival sources and interviews show that selective implementation is an outgrowth of the institutions that govern cadre management. One-level-down…
Institutionalizing Chinese Legislatures: Trade-Offs between Autonomy and Capacity
Some leaders of Chinese local people's congresses emphasize autonomy in order to promote decentralization and enhance representation. Other legislative insiders favor sacrificing autonomy in order to strengthen capacity and improve over sight. Tight coupling between congresses appeals to local legislators because it offers opportunities to mobilize supporters, obtain resources, and expand jurisdiction, while representatives of higher congresses o…
Villagers and Popular Resistance in Contemporary China
Using interviews with peasants and cadres in North China, compliant villagers (shunmin), recalcitrants (dingzihu), and policy-based resisters (diaomin) are distinguished by reference to their resistance routines (or lack of resistance). Compared to both violent acts and everyday forms of resistance, policy-based resistance is typically less risky and more effective, because its practitioners employ beneficial central policies to defy local leader…
Chinese People's Congresses and Legislative Embeddedness: Understanding Early Organizational Development
Evidence from medieval Europe and modern China suggests that cooperation with strong executives plays a larger role in early legislative development than is generally acknowledged: that under conditions of absolutism (or near-absolutism), acceptance and exploitation of subordination may be a means to organizational development. In this article, the author relies primarily on interview data and Chinese field research to show that early legislative…
"Chinese Political Reform and the Question of "Deputy Quality
An ongoing debate over criteria for selecting Chinese people's congress deputies casts doubt on the democratic credentials of many reformers. Archival materials and interviews with Chinese legislative leaders, deputies, and staff demonstrate a range of views on how to improve quality. Some respondents emphasize deputy educational attainment and bureaucratizing congresses while others emphasize social diversity and popularizing congresses. Democra…
Reform Without Liberalization: China's National People's Congress and the Politics of Institutional Change
China's National People's Congress: Reform and Its Limits
Prior to 1976, legislatures did not play a significant role in Chinese politics. More recently, however, efforts have been made to revamp the Chinese legislative system and strengthen its centerpiece, the National People's Congress. This paper assesses the evolving role of the NPC by analyzing the legislative reform debates of 1979-1982 and by evaluating the pattern of changes accepted and rejected. The analysis shows that four long-standing obst…
Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China
How do Chinese local officials define their tasks and distinguish between policies that must be executed and those they can safely ignore? Drawing on top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation, we examine how much discretion rural leaders enjoy and how this discretion affects policy delivery. Archival sources and interviews show that selective implementation is an outgrowth of the institutions that govern cadre management. One-level-down…
Rightful resistance revisited
James Scott (1985 Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]) placed 'everyday forms of resistance' between quiescence and rebellion. Others have noted that defiance in unpromising circumstances need not be quiet, disguised and anonymous if the aggrieved use the language of power to mitigate the risks of confrontation. How does 'rightful resistance' (O'Brien and Li 2…
Villagers and Popular Resistance in Contemporary China
Using interviews with peasants and cadres in North China, compliant villagers (shunmin), recalcitrants (dingzihu), and policy-based resisters (diaomin) are distinguished by reference to their resistance routines (or lack of resistance). Compared to both violent acts and everyday forms of resistance, policy-based resistance is typically less risky and more effective, because its practitioners employ beneficial central policies to defy local leader…
Chinese People's Congresses and Legislative Embeddedness: Understanding Early Organizational Development
Evidence from medieval Europe and modern China suggests that cooperation with strong executives plays a larger role in early legislative development than is generally acknowledged: that under conditions of absolutism (or near-absolutism), acceptance and exploitation of subordination may be a means to organizational development. In this article, the author relies primarily on interview data and Chinese field research to show that early legislative…
Rural politics in contemporary China
We examine overarching themes in the contributions, including critiques of neo-liberalism, rural-urban linkages, the relevance of mixed methods and cross-disciplinary approaches, the need to engage social theory, and variation across space and time. At the same time, we provide an overview of rural Chinese politics and explain that the goal of the collection was to bring findings that have appeared in area studies or disciplinary outlets into con…
Institutionalizing Chinese Legislatures: Trade-Offs between Autonomy and Capacity
Some leaders of Chinese local people's congresses emphasize autonomy in order to promote decentralization and enhance representation. Other legislative insiders favor sacrificing autonomy in order to strengthen capacity and improve over sight. Tight coupling between congresses appeals to local legislators because it offers opportunities to mobilize supporters, obtain resources, and expand jurisdiction, while representatives of higher congresses o…
"Chinese Political Reform and the Question of "Deputy Quality
An ongoing debate over criteria for selecting Chinese people's congress deputies casts doubt on the democratic credentials of many reformers. Archival materials and interviews with Chinese legislative leaders, deputies, and staff demonstrate a range of views on how to improve quality. Some respondents emphasize deputy educational attainment and bureaucratizing congresses while others emphasize social diversity and popularizing congresses. Democra…
China's National People's Congress: Reform and Its Limits
Prior to 1976, legislatures did not play a significant role in Chinese politics. More recently, however, efforts have been made to revamp the Chinese legislative system and strengthen its centerpiece, the National People's Congress. This paper assesses the evolving role of the NPC by analyzing the legislative reform debates of 1979-1982 and by evaluating the pattern of changes accepted and rejected. The analysis shows that four long-standing obst…
How Authoritarian Rule Works
Common features of the articles by Xueguang Zhou and Jiang Shigong include attention to governance rather than reform or regime change, to informal as well as formal rules, and to practice over texts. The articles differ mainly in their level of abstraction and the reach of their findings. But even here, Zhou’s “organizational practices” are essentially micro-level variants of the broader, constitutional principles that Jiang explores. Both autho…
China Since Tiananmen: Rural Protest
Although China's farmers did not play a large role in the 1989 protests, they have been quite contentious since. Rural unrest has been triggered in part by reforms and in part by savvy "peasant leaders" who quickly seize opportunities that appear. Recently, many protest leaders have concluded that tame forms of contention are ineffective and that violence and other attention-grabbing tactics are needed. But is rural China about to explode? Not li…
China's National People's Congress: Reform and Its Limits
Prior to 1976, legislatures did not play a significant role in Chinese politics. More recently, however, efforts have been made to revamp the Chinese legislative system and strengthen its centerpiece, the National People's Congress. This paper assesses the evolving role of the NPC by analyzing the legislative reform debates of 1979-1982 and by evaluating the pattern of changes accepted and rejected. The analysis shows that four long-standing obst…
Reform Without Liberalization: China's National People's Congress and the Politics of Institutional Change
"Chinese Political Reform and the Question of "Deputy Quality
An ongoing debate over criteria for selecting Chinese people's congress deputies casts doubt on the democratic credentials of many reformers. Archival materials and interviews with Chinese legislative leaders, deputies, and staff demonstrate a range of views on how to improve quality. Some respondents emphasize deputy educational attainment and bureaucratizing congresses while others emphasize social diversity and popularizing congresses. Democra…
Chinese People's Congresses and Legislative Embeddedness: Understanding Early Organizational Development
Evidence from medieval Europe and modern China suggests that cooperation with strong executives plays a larger role in early legislative development than is generally acknowledged: that under conditions of absolutism (or near-absolutism), acceptance and exploitation of subordination may be a means to organizational development. In this article, the author relies primarily on interview data and Chinese field research to show that early legislative…
Villagers and Popular Resistance in Contemporary China
Using interviews with peasants and cadres in North China, compliant villagers (shunmin), recalcitrants (dingzihu), and policy-based resisters (diaomin) are distinguished by reference to their resistance routines (or lack of resistance). Compared to both violent acts and everyday forms of resistance, policy-based resistance is typically less risky and more effective, because its practitioners employ beneficial central policies to defy local leader…
Institutionalizing Chinese Legislatures: Trade-Offs between Autonomy and Capacity
Some leaders of Chinese local people's congresses emphasize autonomy in order to promote decentralization and enhance representation. Other legislative insiders favor sacrificing autonomy in order to strengthen capacity and improve over sight. Tight coupling between congresses appeals to local legislators because it offers opportunities to mobilize supporters, obtain resources, and expand jurisdiction, while representatives of higher congresses o…
Selective Policy Implementation in Rural China
How do Chinese local officials define their tasks and distinguish between policies that must be executed and those they can safely ignore? Drawing on top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation, we examine how much discretion rural leaders enjoy and how this discretion affects policy delivery. Archival sources and interviews show that selective implementation is an outgrowth of the institutions that govern cadre management. One-level-down…
Environment, Economics, and Hegemony
China Since Tiananmen: Rural Protest
Although China's farmers did not play a large role in the 1989 protests, they have been quite contentious since. Rural unrest has been triggered in part by reforms and in part by savvy "peasant leaders" who quickly seize opportunities that appear. Recently, many protest leaders have concluded that tame forms of contention are ineffective and that violence and other attention-grabbing tactics are needed. But is rural China about to explode? Not li…
How Authoritarian Rule Works
Common features of the articles by Xueguang Zhou and Jiang Shigong include attention to governance rather than reform or regime change, to informal as well as formal rules, and to practice over texts. The articles differ mainly in their level of abstraction and the reach of their findings. But even here, Zhou’s “organizational practices” are essentially micro-level variants of the broader, constitutional principles that Jiang explores. Both autho…
Rural politics in contemporary China
We examine overarching themes in the contributions, including critiques of neo-liberalism, rural-urban linkages, the relevance of mixed methods and cross-disciplinary approaches, the need to engage social theory, and variation across space and time. At the same time, we provide an overview of rural Chinese politics and explain that the goal of the collection was to bring findings that have appeared in area studies or disciplinary outlets into con…
Rightful resistance revisited
James Scott (1985 Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Google Scholar]) placed 'everyday forms of resistance' between quiescence and rebellion. Others have noted that defiance in unpromising circumstances need not be quiet, disguised and anonymous if the aggrieved use the language of power to mitigate the risks of confrontation. How does 'rightful resistance' (O'Brien and Li 2…
The Violence of Climate Change: Lessons of Resistance from Nonviolent Activists
Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (11 works) · Law (10 works) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance (9 works) · China (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (7 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Public Administration (6 works)