Abstract
How do authoritarian states respond to, and seek to defuse, popular protest? This study answers this question by developing the concept of discursive accommodation and tracing the co-evolution of contention and strategic elite communication in China. It reveals that the Chinese Communist Party leadership has responded to waves of intense unrest with increasing, yet not unconditional, sympathy for protesters. It argues that the rationale behind this response pattern has been first, to deflect discontent from the regime and, second, to temper local official and protester behavior. And yet, the unintended consequence of discursive accommodation may well have been the acceleration of mobilization. Investigating elite discourse provides an alternative angle to understand why contention in China has become endemic, but remains conspicuously moderate. It helps to unpack the one-party state’s ability of coexisting with considerable popular pressure and not be washed away by it, and managing protest without institutionalizing it.
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