Playing by the Informal Rules: Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable despite Rising Protests

Formal institutions, such as courts, are commonly given credit for containing social conflict. This talk will show how informal norms—the unwritten rules that reflect gaps between law on the books and law in practice—can also play an important role in mitigating contention. In particular, they help explain why a non-democracy like China can remain stable amid mounting protests, though it is underdeveloped in terms of formal institutions. Drawing on an original nationwide dataset of protests and multi-sited ethnographic research in China, Yao Li will describe the conditions under which informal norms function—and fail. She will conclude with a discussion on how to monitor the overall trajectory of political contention in China and what implications the Chinese experience might have for other countries. This talk is based on Li’s recent book: Playing by the Informal Rules—Why the Chinese Regime Remains Stable despite Rising Protests.