What—and how—have Tianjin workers been thinking?

Abstract

What are Chinese workers thinking? Few questions have been more freighted with tense significance for the Chinese state in recent years. Survey data analyzed using Q-methodology suggest that at the crucial moment when the Chinese labor market was being radically restructured, workers in Tianjin were thinking in several distinct and coherent ways about the changes they were experiencing. Each of these outlooks involved a complex and textured admixture of positive and negative postures toward various aspects of the structural reforms, but none provided fertile ground for radical disaffection or protest. This finding challenges or at least supplements explanations for the working class’s quiescence and defeat that emphasize political repression and disorganization.

Publisher

Springer Verlag

Publication Date

12-1-2008

Publication Title

Journal of Chinese Political Science

Department

Politics

Additional Department

East Asian Studies

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11366-008-9026-6

Language

English

Format

text

Link to Full Text

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