Authoritarian cooptation of urban protests in China: normative, cognitive, and regulatory controls through the media

Abstract

The Chinese government’s practice in tackling large-scale urban protests in recent years indicates a new trend in political cooptation, which differs from its traditional handling of contentious politics. This study explores the mechanisms of authoritarian cooptation by analyzing the government’s handling of the anti-incineration protests in Guangzhou in 2011–2012. The results of the textual analysis and the data collected in in-depth interviews suggest that the government strategically applied normative, cognitive, and regulatory controls as mechanisms of authoritarian cooptation. Specifically, the government promoted public trust through the normative cooptation of the media, thereby fostering the image of a responsive government. It also used the strategy of cognitive cooptation to divert the issue from waste incineration to waste sorting, thus convincing journalists and the public of the safety and scientificity of the incineration technology based on endorsements by expert advice. The strategy of regulatory cooptation was applied when the government made compulsory the enforcement of projects and regulated media content. Consequently, the protest was fragmented and dispersed, and the mobilization of the movement was undermined.

Keywords:

• authoritarian cooptation
• normative
• cognitive
• regulatory cooptation
• protest
• media

Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editors and the anonymous journal reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments on the article.

Notes

1 State-run mass media such as CCTV and the People’s Daily reported that according to the classification of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), paraxylene is in the third class of carcinogens. That is, the available evidence does not show that PX is carcinogenic in humans. However, these reports do not reveal that the lack of evidence of carcinogenic substances does not mean that PX is safe in the human body, and many scientists have actually suggested to avoid inhaling it for long periods.

2 For example, reports called the mayor of Guangzhou “Brother Hua” and depicted him as an endearing and dedicated local official (Advice, May 18, 2012 and The Return of Brother Hua on July 27, 2012 in the Daily).

3 Jiangwaijiang was an online forum where house owners in Lijiang Garden, a residential quarter in the Panyu District, could voice their opinions during the anti-incineration protest in 2009.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was supported by the Project of the Humanities and Social Science Research Fund of the Ministry of Education of China (“The Function of Environmental Communication from Risk Management Perspective,” grant number 17YJA860002), Tsinghua University’s Initiative Scientific Research Program, and the 2015 Youth Project of the Asia Research Center at Tsinghua University.

Notes on contributors

Fanxu Zeng

Fanxu Zeng is an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghu University. His research areas are political communication, media and civil society, and environmental communication. His published research includes articles in Environmental Politics, Chinese Journal of Communication, China: An International Journal and in many Chinese journals.

Jia Dai

Jia Dai is an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, mainland China. Her research interests include media sociology, new media and social transformation, and environmental communication. Her published research includes articles in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Environmental Politics, Journalism Practice, the Asian Journal of Communication, the Chinese Journal of Communication, and in many Chinese journals.

Wei Jiang

Wei Jiang is a graduate student in the master’s degree program at the School of Communication and Design, Sun Yat-Sen University. She is currently a production designer at the Guangzhou branch of China Unicom. Her research interest is political communication.