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Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China

When advocacy organizations are forbidden from rallying people to take to the streets, what do they do? When activists are detained for coordinating protests, are their hands ultimately tied? Based on political ethnography inside both legal and illegal labor organizations in China, the book Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China authored by Professor Diana Fu reveals how state repression is deployed on the ground and to what effect on mobilization. It presents a novel dynamic of civil society contention – mobilizing without the masses – that lowers the risk of activism under duress. This dynamic represents a third pathway of contention that challenges conventional understandings of mobilization in an illiberal state.

Diana Fu is assistant professor of political science at The University of Toronto and an affiliate of the Munk School of Global Affairs Asian Institute. Her research examines the relationship between popular contention, state power, and civil society in contemporary China.  Her book Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China, (Cambridge, 2018) examines state control and civil society contention under authoritarian rule. It won the 2018 American Political Science Association’s Gregory Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics published in the previous two years. Her articles have appeared in Perspectives on Politics (2019), The China Journal (2018),Governance (2017), Comparative Political Studies (co-winner of the best article published by CPS in 2017), and Modern China (2009).  Her research and commentary have appeared in Boston Review, CBC, The Economist, The Financial Times, and Reuters among others.

Presented by the the India China Institute .











When: Thu., Apr. 18, 2019 at 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Where: The New School
66 W. 12th St.
212-229-5108
Price: Free
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When advocacy organizations are forbidden from rallying people to take to the streets, what do they do? When activists are detained for coordinating protests, are their hands ultimately tied? Based on political ethnography inside both legal and illegal labor organizations in China, the book Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China authored by Professor Diana Fu reveals how state repression is deployed on the ground and to what effect on mobilization. It presents a novel dynamic of civil society contention – mobilizing without the masses – that lowers the risk of activism under duress. This dynamic represents a third pathway of contention that challenges conventional understandings of mobilization in an illiberal state.

Diana Fu is assistant professor of political science at The University of Toronto and an affiliate of the Munk School of Global Affairs Asian Institute. Her research examines the relationship between popular contention, state power, and civil society in contemporary China.  Her book Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China, (Cambridge, 2018) examines state control and civil society contention under authoritarian rule. It won the 2018 American Political Science Association’s Gregory Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics published in the previous two years. Her articles have appeared in Perspectives on Politics (2019), The China Journal (2018),Governance (2017), Comparative Political Studies (co-winner of the best article published by CPS in 2017), and Modern China (2009).  Her research and commentary have appeared in Boston Review, CBC, The Economist, The Financial Times, and Reuters among others.

Presented by the the India China Institute .

Buy tickets/get more info now