Nonsocial Movements and Social Nonmovements in China

Abstract

The Dengist regime has transformed China’s politics, economy and society since its inception in 1978. The Leninist one-party state-monopolizing political organization has remained the central political ingredient, with a bitter dash of Stalinistic repression added to the mix. But the state has also engineered significant reductions in the previously high Maoist levels of politicization of economic and social life, mass mobilization and ideological interpellation, while also elaborating new developmental, regulatory and entrepreneurial apparatus. Economic restructuring and the development of new economic institutions have proceeded rapidly though spasmodically, as have growth and inequality. New classes and strata have formed, and society has become far more diverse and fragmented. The country has been opened to the outside world, with significant (though uneven) effects on all these levels. In the first section of this chapter, I adumbrate these transformations.