Exposing Repression Behind the Scenes

Abstract

Exposing Repression Behind the Scenes Yao Li (bio) In the post–Cold War era, incumbents in authoritarian regimes have increased their toolkit for repression. In addition to blatant, forceful forms of repression (such as making mass arrests and shooting protesters), less visible, more sophisticated means of coercion have become vital components of a regime's repertoire to stifle unrest. Joining a bourgeoning literature on authoritarian repression, Lynette H. Ong's book Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China presents a rigorous account of how the Chinese state takes advantage of nonstate actors to impose violent and nonviolent methods of social control. In particular, the book elaborates on how authorities hire private agents (e.g., thugs and gangsters) and rely on grassroots brokers (including local elders and members of urban residents' committees) to neutralize social protests against land appropriation and housing demolition in urban and rural China. Outsourcing Repression is highly relevant for anyone seeking to understand state repression, urbanization, and Chinese politics. Regarding violent acts carried out by thugs-for-hire, Ong describes these thugs' typical profile and the conditions under which they operate. She argues that such everyday repression is a lower-cost strategy that can minimize the likelihood of social protest and violent backlash—as long as any violence remains low-intensity, severe casualties or significant confrontations do not result, and no overt government complicity is involved. Yet, once any of these conditions fails to be satisfied, thugs-for-hire are no longer a low-cost repressive measure but a liability to the hiring authority. This paves the way for the state to increasingly turn to brokers and nonviolent tactics to resolve conflicts in demolition projects. These brokers are classified into three types (political, social, and economic), depending on the sources of their brokerage—whether their power or legitimacy stems from their state or quasi-state status, their social capital, or their role in bridging information asymmetry between state and society. [End Page 172] Correspondingly, these brokers play varying roles in mobilizing the masses, extracting compliance, and lowering the cost of state repression. For instance, with the help of social capital and emotional mobilization, social brokers employ persuasion to neutralize resistance to demolitions; in this sense, the brokers' social standing helps legitimate their actions and decrease the chance of backlash. Economic brokers (or huangniu), by contrast, bridge negotiations between the state and disgruntled residents by facilitating the matching of residents' demands with supplies of special favors by officials. These brokers expedite reaching a deal between the two parties in which official compensation is higher than that mandated by government policy or what residents are normally granted. Through nearly ten years of multi-site field research in China, spanning from the last year of the Hu-Wen era to the Xi administration, Ong has captured regional and temporal variations in state repressive actions and contention in the country. As she illustrates, incidents of forced evictions by thuggish violence have waned over time and become less prevalent in urban areas than in rural ones. In parallel, the frequency of persuasion and other nonviolent tactics being deployed has taken on increased prominence since 2011, and they are more prevalent in metropolitan areas than in smaller inland cities. Revealing changes across region and time indeed contribute to a dynamic and sophisticated narrative of state repression in demolitions. That said, the picture would be even more complicated by a systematic examination of social factors that may impact the deployment of outsourced repression and strategies for mobilizing the masses. These factors could include types of communities, forms of resistance (i.e., collective vs. individualized resistance), social groups with different resources, and the role of media and public attention. For instance, are inhabitants on the margins of urban areas more likely to be victims of everyday repression and be forcefully evicted by thugs-for-hire than those in urban centers? Do the resources and capital that citizens possess affect the state's choice of repression tactics? Does media or public attention help reduce the use of outsourced repression but boost that of persuasion or other nonviolent tactics? As outsourcing repression and mobilizing the masses have come to the fore in land appropriation and housing...