Protest Leadership and State Boundaries: Protest Diffusion in Contemporary China

Abstract

AbstractHow does protest spread in contemporary China? This paper analyses one case of cross-firm protest and two cases of cross-village protest in order to demonstrate a mechanism for protest diffusion, a topic rarely studied in the existing literature. It argues that central policies, protest leadership and a connective structure that links protest leaders and followers enable people with shared economic interests to protest together. Protests emerged when protest leaders, who were trained politically by the state and enjoyed moral standing in a small community, started popularizing policy documents among followers. Protest diffusion occurred when representatives from each participating unit coordinated with one another and coalesced around the core leaders, who decided tactics for the entire protest. The protestors, however, did not form coalitions across different administrative boundaries. Thus, protest leaders did play a decisive role in the spreading of a protest. However, the state also moulded and restricted the scale of the diffusion.