A Letter from China: Social Control in China—A Formal or an Informal Mechanism?

Abstract

Many think that formal social control refers to a criminal justice system in which there are rather many state organs/agencies (eg, police, courts, prisons) to maintain public order, while informal social control refers to the broader social system. This paper argues that China has traditionally established a social control system by making use of the societal inner layer (belief controls such as Confucianism and socialization programmes) and the exterior layer (structural controls such as the baojia system and auxiliary institutions, or the work-unit, danwei), and that this system has continued in the People's Republic. Although this mechanism is generally recognized as an informal social control, it is argued that, historically as well as theoretically, China has regarded this mechanism as constituting formal social control.