Policing China

E. Scoggins Suzanne

Description

In Policing China, Suzanne E. Scoggins delves into the paradox of China's self-projection of a strong security state while having a weak police bureaucracy. Assessing the problems of resources, enforcement, and oversight that beset the police, outside of cracking down on political protests, Scoggins finds that the central government and the Ministry of Public Security have prioritized "stability maintenance" (weiwen) to the detriment of nearly every aspect of policing. The result, she argues, is a hollowed out and ineffective police force that struggles to deal with everyday crime.Using interviews with police officers up and down the hierarchy, as well as station data, news reports, and social media postings, Scoggins probes the challenges faced by ground-level officers and their superiors at the Ministry of Public Security as they attempt to do their jobs in the face of funding limitations, reform challenges, and structural issues. Policing China concludes that despite the social control exerted by China's powerful bureaucracies, security failures at the street level have undermined Chinese citizens' trust in the legitimacy of the police and the capabilities of the state.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Criminal procedure
• History of Asia
• China

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501755606
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

POLICINGCHINA

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

TheStudiesoftheWeatherheadEastAsianInstituteofColumbiaUniversitywere inaugurated in 1962 to bring to a wider public the results of significant new research on modern and contemporary East Asia.

POLICING CHINA StreetLevelCopsinthe Shadow of Protest

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS

SuzanneE.Scoggins

ITHACAANDLONDON

Copyright © 2021 by Cornell University

Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,orparts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2021 by Cornell University Press

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Scoggins, Suzanne E., 1979– author. Title:PolicingChina:streetlevelcopsintheshadowofprotest/ Suzanne E. Scoggins. Description:Ithaca[NewYork]:CornellUniversityPress,2021.|Series:Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020037659 (print) | LCCN 2020037660 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501755583 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501755606 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501755590 (epub) Subjects:LCSH:Policeadministration—China.|Police—Politicalaspects—China. Classification:LCCHV7935.S3332021(print)|LCCHV7935(ebook)| DDC 363.20951—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037659 LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020037660

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction:TheDeathofXiaoHu 1.  Policing China: Demographics, Mission, and Funding 2.  Uneven Resources and Manpower Concerns 3.  Limitations of Police Reforms 4.  Controlling the Local Police 5.  Politicization and the Boundaries of Authoritarian Resilience 6.  Poor Policing and StateSociety Conflict

Notes Works Cited Index

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Acknowledgments

Asisoftenthecasewithresearchofthisnature,Iamunabletoproperlythank the respondents who helped make this project a reality. There would be no book without the Chinese police officers and ministry officials who were willing to sit down and talk with me about their jobs. I am truly grateful for their friendship and candor. Theresearchandwritingforthisbookspanadecade,andtherearemanywho were there for its duration. Kevin O’Brien, whom I will forever refer to as the best adviser in the business, was an invaluable resource who guided me through failed starts, poorly fleshedout ideas, and many, many drafts. I am glad he fully recov ered from choking on a dish I ordered in a Xi’an restaurant toward the end of my fieldwork. Despite a rocky start, our conversation that day was the beginning of the paper “China’s Unhappy Police” and marks the first point at which I realized I had enough material for this book. AgreatdebtisowedtoothersatBerkeley.LauraStoker—neverknownfor sugarcoating advice—was unequivocal that I had to get back into the field and talk to “police officers, any police officers” after my first fieldwork trip revealed that I would have trouble following my original research design. I am glad she struck down the possibility that I could simply go to the archives in Hong Kong and make do. Peter Lorentzen was a tireless supporter of the project, and while in the field I often returned to his advice that I find out how a police station in China works, which seemed like a manageable goal and kept me going. I am also grateful to Rachel Stern for her pointed questions and suggestions. This book is better for them. ResearchingthepoliceinChinawasattimesanerverackingexperience.Iwas lucky to have the company of my roommate and fellow researcher Alexsia Chan for much of that time. She kept me sane and curious about the world around me when things fell apart. Jianhua Xu, Jeffery Martin, Hualing Fu, and everyone at the Policing Studies Forum at the University of Hong Kong were also an intellec tual lifeline during fieldwork. They helped me figure out which questions to ask and how to relate my observations back to other policing developments both in China and beyond. I am also grateful for my lifelong friends in China who made a challenging time fun: Lili Blum, Jacky Guan, Alicia Anderson, Katherine Sun and the Sun family, Leo Wang, Luna Zhou, and Kevin Woo, who still complains

vii

viiiACKNOWLEDGMENTS

that I spilled coffee on his notebook fifteen years ago in Chinese class but who nevertheless went on to become one of this project’s biggest supporters. Writingthebookturnedouttobejustbarelyeasierthanresearchingit. A special thanks goes to Ben Allen and Chris ChambersJu for their weekly check ins. Our little accountability group has become a ritual, and I am lucky to have their collective encouragement. The keen eyes and encouragement of Yanilda Gonzalez, Sheena Greitens, Lauren McCarthy, and Nicholas Smith were also instrumental to the final product and my trajectory as a scholar more generally. I inadvertently crashed their APSA panel shortly upon returning from the field, and the informal policing group and friendship that resulted from that confer ence have become invaluable assets. A huge thank you also goes to my ATeam: Abby Wood, Akasemi Newsome, and Alexsia Chan. There are few friendships like graduate school friendships, and they have supported the writing of this book on a near daily basis, often one pomodoro at a time over group text or video chat. Manyothersofferedcommentsandassistancealongtheway.Thanksaredue to Rachel Bernhard, Margaret Boittin, Meina Cai, Jennifer Choo, Julia Choucair Vizoso, Julia Chuang, Aileen Cruz, Rongbin Han, Lina Hu, Xian Huang, Francesca Jensenius, Charlotte Lee, Carl Minzner, Dann Naseemullah, SeungYoun Oh, Youjeong Oh, David Sklansky, Albert Wu, John Yasuda, and the community of scholars at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies (BELS) group. This project has benefited greatly from their time, insights, and suggestions. IamalsoprivilegedtohavewonderfulcolleaguesatClarkUniversity.Aspecial thanks goes to Heather Silber Mohamed for answering all kinds of questions at all hours of the day over text, to Valerie Sperling for her early insights into the book publishing process, to Nina Kushner for helping me work through a critical lastminute question, and to Lex Jing Lu for his good humor and camaraderie in the process of finishing up the book manuscript. Last but certainly not least, I am grateful for the stellar skills and tireless enthusiasm of my research assistant, William Chen. Ofcourse,noneofthishappenswithoutmyeditoratCornell,RogerHaydon. I was fortunate to have approached Roger before I knew too much about his repu tation, particularly his predilection for the word “no.” Roger’s insights and sup port through the review process have made the final product much better, and I am grateful to the entire team at Cornell University Press for their work on the book. A special thanks goes to Ariana King and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University for reviewing and including the book in their series. The three anonymous reviewers commissioned by Cornell and Weather head were instrumental to refining the argument and flow of the manuscript, as

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

were the detailed insights of Sheena Greitens, Andrew Mertha, and Jianhua Xu, who were kind enough to provide detailed comments on earlier drafts. Theprojectwasfieldworkintensive,andIamgratefulforthefinancialsup port of the Boren Fellowship, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the University of California–Berkeley, the China Times Cultural Foundation, the Association for Asian Studies, and the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship. I also owe a special thanks to UC Berkeley’s Center for Chinese Studies, which supported my fieldwork from infancy to completion through a series of grants, and to CDDRL, which supported me financially and intellectually as I worked through my findings and wrote up the results. Thisbookisdedicatedtomyfamily.Myparents,JimandAnneScoggins,gave me the great gift of their tireless love and support in the way that only parents can. I will forever be shaped by their guidance. Their influence is matched only by that of my husband, Edward Hung. I could not have invented a better partner. He has weathered many a trip to China, moved his legal practice and our fam ily across the country so I could pursue my academic career, and proofread far too many papers and versions of this manuscript. He did all of this gladly, and I doubt I could have finished anything without his love or the boundless joy of our three little girls. Thank you, Octavia, Katerina, and Zelda. You are my inspiration.