Everyday Power Relations in State Firms in Socialist China
A Reexamination
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6008510 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Huaiyin Li (University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 288-321 |
| Publication date | 2017-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern China (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0097700416671878 |
| OpenAlex | W2530319723 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 16 |
Drawing on interviews with 97 retirees from different cities, this article reinterprets power relations in state-owned enterprises during the Mao era, centering on an analysis of day-to-day interactions between factory cadres and workers and between the elites and the ordinary among workers. The main issues addressed in this study include how cadres exercised discretion in administrative activities that directly affected workers’ material and nonmaterial interests, such as wage raises, housing allocations, party membership, promotions, and political awards; to what extent workers developed personal dependence on their supervisors; and whether or not workers were split into two antagonistic groups of activists and nonactivists. Without denying the instances of favoritism and personal dependence in cadre-worker relations under certain circumstances, which became increasingly noticeable in the early reform years, this study underscores the constraints of formal and informal institutions on cadres and questions the validity of the clientelist model in explaining micro-political realities on the factory floor in Chinese industry before the reform era
China · Clientelism · Discretion · Economics · Factory (object-oriented programming · Labour economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · State (computer science · Wage · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Public Administration · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
Communist Neo-Traditionalism
The Social anthropology of complex societies
Kinship, Friendship, and Patron-Client Relations in Complex Societies
The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung
Patrons, Clients and Friends
Soviet Workers and Stalinist Industrialization
State and Society in Contemporary China
Peasant Society and Clientelist Politics
Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia
Patrons, Patronage, and Political Parties
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |