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Postrevolutionary Mobilization in China: The One-Child Policy Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Tyrene White
Tyrene White
Affiliation:
Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College.
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Abstract

The modernization or developmental model of communist regimes has been widely criticized, but the concept of revolutionary and postrevolutionary phases has endured. Implied in the dichotomy is a fundamental conflict between the politics of revolutionary mobilization (characterized by the push to disrupt and transform bourgeois routines and institutions of the old regime) and the postrevolutionary politics of regularized decision making and institutionalized party rule. The author uses the post-Mao Chinese experience and a case study of China's one-child policy to argue that variant forms of mobilization have remained an integral part of the postrevolutionary Chinese political process, as the Deng regime attempts to rearrange the institutions and routines characteristic of Maoist China rapidly and fundamentally, while preserving a Leninist political order.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , October 1990 , pp. 53 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1990

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References

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8 Ibid., 93 and 94–95. Jowitt's challenge goes far toward acknowledging a continuing role for mobilization in postrevolutionary regimes, but whereas he views the continued use of mobilization to be negative or reactive, a “response to the problems and challenges” of expanding the bases of regime support, I view it as a positive instrument of power.

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23 The primary literature on this period is vast. For analyses and descriptions, see Tyrene White, “Implementing the ‘One-Child-per-Couple’ Population Program in Rural China: National Goals and Local Politics,” in Lampton, ed. (fn. 16), 284–317; Mosher (fn. 4), 224–61; John S. Aird, “Coercion in Family Planning: Causes, Methods and Consequences,” in U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, China's Economy Looks toward the Year 2000, vol. 1, The Four Modernizations (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1986), 184–221.Google Scholar

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27 Interview file, by the author, May 23, 1982, Huashan commune. This interview was conducted as part of two periods of rural fieldwork in China (February-December 1982 and September 1983-June 1984). The commune (now reclassified a rural town) is situated to the northeast of Wuhan municipality, Hubei Province. Additional information on the field site and interview procedures may be found in White (fn. 21).

28 Renmin Ribao, September 25, 1980, p. 1.

29 White (fn. 23).

30 One report from a county in Jiangsu Province indicated that there had been 381 “incidents of revenge” in twelve towns and townships in an eighteen-month period, of which 32 percent were related to family planning. See Suining, Su, “There Are Many Causes of Strained Relations between Cadres and Masses in the Rural Areas,” Nongmin Ribao, September 26, 1988, p. 1Google Scholar, in FBIS, October 7, 1988, p. 13.

31 Xinhua, November 1, 1982, in FBIS, November 3, 1982, p. K20; Xinzhong, Qian, “Nuli kaichuang jihua shengyu xuanchuan jiaoyu gongzuo xin jumian” [Make great efforts to initiate the new phase of family planning propaganda and education work], Renkpuxue Kan 1 (1983), 9Google Scholar; Xinhua, January 10, 1983, in FBIS, January 13, 1983, pp. K13–14; Beijing Domestic Service, January 27, 1983, in FBIS, March 3, 1983, p. K11; Chengli, Shi, “Wo guo jihua shengyu gongzuode fenqi” [Analysis of our country's family planning work], Xibei Renkou 1 (1988), 31Google Scholar; interview conducted by the author, June 8, 1984, Family Planning Commission, Hubei Province.

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33 Interview (fn. 31).

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46 Ibid.; Hainan Island Service, May 18, 1987, in FBIS, May 20, 1987, p. P2.

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48 Hainan Island Service, February 17, 1988, in FBIS, February 18, 1988, p. 21.

49 Henan Nianjian, 1985 [Yearbook of Henan Province, 1985] (1986), 597. By 1987, Qinghai Province reported that 30% of all townships and towns had no family planning organs. Qinghai Provincial Service, February 20, 1987, in FBIS, February 27, 1987, p. T2. See also Liaoning Provincial Service, February 28, 1988, in FBIS, March 3, 1988, p. 38.

50 Qinghai Provincial Service, February 20, 1987, in FBIS, February 27, 1987, p. T2. See also Liaoning Provincial Service, February 28, 1988, in FBIS, March 3, 1988, p. 38. In some cases, “family planning cadres” were individuals who held more than one work portfolio simultaneously. See Zepeng, Shuai, “Jihua shengyu ganbu duiwude guanli jidai jiaqiang” [Management of family planning cadre ranks in urgent need of strengthening], Renkou Yanjiu 4 (July 1988), 59.Google ScholarTianjin Ribao, March 13, 1990, in FBIS, April 11, 1990, pp. 45–46.

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57 Walder (fn. 9), 114–20.

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59 China Daily, July 30, 1987, p. 3; Yunnan Provincial Service, January 3, 1988, in FBIS, January 5, 1988, p. 44; Xinhua, January 26, 1988, in FBIS, January 28, 1988, pp. 16–17; Renmin Ribao, June 4, 1985, p. 3.

60 Yibin, Qu, “Woguo renkou chushenglu mingxian huishengde yuanyin ji duice tantao,” [Reasons for our country's obvious increase in birth rate and inquiry into countermeasures], Renkou Yanjiu 2 (March 1988), pp. 54–55Google Scholar; Cheng, Zhong, “Delegates and Members Show Concern for Family Planning,” Zhongguo Xinwen She, April 11, 1988, in FBIS, April 13, 1988, p. 33.Google Scholar

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74 For example, Michel Oksenberg reports that campaigns were utilized by county officials in Zouping county, Shandong Province. See his “Preliminary Impressions of Zouping County Level Government” (Paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Chicago, April 6–9, 1990).

75 The implications for a single pattern of political authority and a non-Weberian form of bureaucratic evolution parallel the conclusions of Walder (fn. 9), chaps. 7 and 8.