Birds in the Cage: How Administrative Litigation Reshapes Political Control in Xi's China

Overview

The comparative literature on hybrid and authoritarian regimes has highlighted the role of institutions in sustaining them. As studies focus on “nominally democratic” institutions such as elections, parties, and legislatures, the scholarship on comparative authoritarian institutions has begun to examine the strategic roles that courts can play. Prior works on non-democratic states often view courts as tools of dictatorial repression, purging political rivals and surveilling citizens.

However, emerging research suggests that authoritarian courts can be unexpectedly defiant and assertive, taking provocative steps to reshape inter-governmental and state-society relations in significant ways. In China, courts have started to play a role in curbing official corruption, mediating local governance dynamics while regulating government-business relations, revealing the nuanced roles they occupy beyond simple instruments of control and repression.

This book project builds on the growing literature exploring how authoritarian courts can mobilize public participation to enhance bureaucratic control while mitigating risks of collective action. We investigate how central leaders in one-party states like China use administrative litigation to engage popular grievances within a controlled legal framework. By examining varieties of reform initiatives aimed at expanding citizens’ access to local courts while reducing local governments’ interference with the handling of administrative litigation cases, we address the following questions on authoritarian institutions and governance:

• Can top-down institutional reforms in a one-party state create enduring change?

• How have citizens reacted to state-led legal mobilization?

• In what ways has administrative litigation served as a “fire alarm” to address local corruption?

• How have initiatives aimed at enhancing the independence of local courts bolstered the central leader’s top-down control?

Highlights

Drawing on a variety of unique data sources and innovative empirical strategies, our findings will contribute to understanding the changing politics of courts under Xi Jinping. In doing so, the project offers:

• Unconventional qualitative understanding of how the judiciary plays into authoritarian governance and development

• Cutting-edge quantitative and computational analysis (of original court records and survey experimental data) to produce causally identified results

• “Impactful” cross-disciplinary and multi-methods knowledge co-production with researchers and government officials in China