Outsourcing Repression: Everyday

State Power in Contemporary China

Lynette H. Ong
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Outsourcing Repression
Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University

The Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University were
inaugurated in 1962 to bring to a wider public the results of significant new
research on modern and contemporary East Asia.
 Outsourcing Repression
Everyday State Power in Contemporary China

LYNETTE H. ONG
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ong, Lynette H., author.
Title: Outsourcing repression : everyday state power in
contemporary China / Lynette H. Ong.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021056065 (print) | LCCN 2021056066 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197628768 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197628775 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780197628799 (epub) | ISBN 9780197628782 (UPDF) |
ISBN 9780197628805 (Digital-Online)
Subjects: LCSH: Political persecution—China. | Social control—China. |
Government, Resistance to—China. | Power (Social sciences)—China. |
Urbanization—Political aspects—China. | Gangs—Political
aspects—China. | China—Politics and government—2002-
Classification: LCC JC599.C6 O58 2022 (print) | LCC JC599.C6 (ebook) |
DDC 323/.0440951—dc23/eng/20211210
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021056065
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DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197628768.001.0001
To all those who received the short end of the stick in the state’s
ambitious scheme
 Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments

1 Bulldozers, Violent Thugs, and Nonviolent Brokers

1.1 The Puzzle: Balancing Coerced Compliance with Minimized
Backlash
1.2 The Theory and Arguments: Outsourcing Repression to
Augment Everyday State Power
1.3 Challenges to Conventional Wisdom: State Power,
Repression, and Authoritarian Control
1.3.1. Reimagining State Power
1.3.2. Cost-Minimizing Repression
1.3.3. A New Tool in the Autocrat’s Toolkit
1.4 Empirical Strategy
1.5 Roadmap

2 The Theory: State Power, Repression, and Implications for

Development
2.1. Everyday State Power
2.1.1. Operationalizing State Strength
2.1.2. Everyday State Power and the Dictator’s Toolkit
2.2. When Everyday State Power Can and Cannot Be Exercised
2.2. The Arguments in Brief
1. 2.2.2. Scope Condition
 2.3. Everyday Repression and Thugs-for-Hire
2.3.1. Benefits of Everyday Repression via TFH
2.3.1.1 TFH as Perpetrators of Illegal or Illegitimate
Acts
2.3.1.2 Nonstate Identity Offers Pretense of Plausible
Deniability
2.3.2. Costs of Outsourcing Violence to TFH
2.3.2.1 Agency Problems and Accountability
2.3.2.2 Risks Usurpation of State Authority
2.4. Mobilizing the Masses and Brokers
2.4.1. The Octopus and Its Tentacles: State, Brokers, and
Society
2.4.2. The Masses as Internal Security Agents
2.5. Theoretical Contribution
2.5.1. Reimagine the Contours of State Power
2.5.2. Novel Contribution to the Repertoire of State
Repression and Authoritarian Control Strategy
2.5.2.1 Everyday Repression and Sticks Wielded by a
Third Party
2.5.2.2 Mobilizing the Masses and Persuasion
2.5.3. Social Control in China
2.6. Temporal Distribution of Carrots, Sticks, and Persuasion, and
Preemptive vs. Ex-Post Measures
2.7. Implications for the State’s Role in Economic Development
2.8. Alternative Explanations

3 Outsourcing Violence: Everyday Repression via Thugs-for-Hire

3.1. Conceptualizing Everyday Repression
3.1.1. Everyday Repression and Everyday Forms of
Resistance
 3.1.2. What Incentivizes Everyday Repression?
3.2. Outsourcing Violence to Thugs-for-Hire
3.2.1. Benefits and Costs of Outsourcing Violence
3.2.1.1 Benefits
3.2.1.2 Costs
3.2.2. Thugs-for-Hire in China
3.3. Repertoire of Violence: Agents and Violent Strategies
3.3.1. Methodology and Datasets
3.3.1.1 Media Sources and Potential Biases
3.3.2. Descriptive Statistics
3.3.2.1 Distribution of Violent Cases by Year
3.3.2.2 Repressive Agents—Violent Actions
3.3.3. Propensity for Violence: The Effects of Agent Type on
Repressive Strategies
3.4. How Agent Types Affect Citizen Mobilizational Responses
3.4.1. Nonviolent Citizen Responses
3.4.2. Violent Citizen Responses
3.4.3. Discussion of Findings
3.5. Conclusion

4 Case Studies: Thugs-for-Hire, Repression, and Mobilization

4.1. Situating Case Study Evidence in a Broader Theoretical
Context
4.1.1. Temporal and Regional Variations
4.1.2. Agency Problems
4.1.3. Plausible Deniability and Evasion of Accountability
4.1.4. Outsourcing Violence and State Capacity
4.1.5. Interactions Between the Strategies of Everyday
Repression and Mobilizing the Masses
4.2. Case Studies of Thugs-for-Hire and Other Agents at Work
 4.2.1. Arson and Violent Demolition in the Former French
Concession in Shanghai in 2005
4.2.2. Violent Land Grab and Housing Demolition in a
Kunming Village in 2011
4.2.3. Massive Demolition and Violent Land Grabs in
Zhengzhou in the Mid-2010s
4.2.3.1 Demolition Revolution (拆迁革命)in Sunzi
Village
4.2.3.2 The People vs. District Government in Lunar
Village
4.3. Intercepting Petitioners and Black Jails
4.4. Conclusion

5 Networks of State Infrastructural Power: Brokerage, State

Penetration, and Mobilization
5.1. Brokerage
5.2. Brokers in Chinese Society
5.2.1. Political Brokers
5.2.1.1 Shequ, Residents’ Committees, Residents’
Small Groups, and Block Captains
5.2.1.2 Village Committees, Villagers’ Small Groups,
and Production Team Leaders
5.2.2. Social Brokers
5.2.2.1 Volunteers and Village or Community
Enthusiasts
5.2.2.2 The Chaoyang Masses (朝阳群众)
5.2.3. Economic Brokers
5.3. Brokered State–Society Relationship
5.3.1. How Brokers Connect State and Society
5.3.2. Functions of Brokers
5.3.2.1 Intimate and Personal Information Collection
 5.3.2.2 Mobilizing Vehicle for the State
5.3.2.3 Conflict Manufacturing, Mediation, and
Resolution
5.3.2.4 Legitimating Vehicle for State Actions
5.3.2.5 Legitimate State Repression to Induce
Compliance
5.4. Government Agents and Brokers in Demolitions: Distribution,
Strategies, and Citizen Responses
5.4.1. State Strategies: Positive and Negative Inducements
and Persuasion
5.4.1.1 Negative Inducements: Lianzuo, State
Employment Termination, Hukou, Pensions,
and Tax Audits
5.4.1.2 Positive Inducements: Material Incentives and
“Carrot-Shaped Sticks”
5.4.1.3 Persuasion: Thought Work or Emotional
Mobilization
5.4.2. Quantitative Data: Government Regulations and
Media-Sourced Data
5.4.2.1 Content Analysis of Government Regulations
5.4.2.2 Media-Sourced Data Analysis
5.5. Conclusion: Brokerage and Networks of Infrastructural
Power

6 Brokers in Harmonious Demolition: Mass Mobilizers, Mediators,

and Huangniu
6.1. The Strategy of Mobilizing the Masses
6.1.1. The Mass Line (群众路线)
6.1.2. Mass Mobilization (群众动员)
6.2. Persuasion as a State Control Strategy: Guanxi and
Emotional Mobilization
 6.3. Mobilizing the Masses in Housing Demolition
6.3.1. Self-Governed Renovation Committee or Zigaiwei (自
治改造委员会/自改委)
6.3.1.1 The Case of Caojiaxiang (曹家巷) in Chengdu
6.3.1.2 Reminiscent of Mass Line Politics
6.3.1.3 National Breakthrough in Demolition
Governance: Outsourcing Repression
6.3.1.4 Failed Zigaiwei Case 1
6.3.1.5 Failed Zigaiwei Case 2
6.3.2. Simulated Demolition
6.4. Mediation: Conflict Prevention and Resolution
6.4.1. People’s Mediation (人民调解)
6.4.2. Mediation in Preemptive Conflict Resolution
6.4.3. Mediation Case Study
6.4.3.1 Case Study: Family with Deceased Father had
Diverging Views on Settling Ancestral Property
6.4.4. Persuasion and the Grammar of Human Compassion
6.5. Huangniu: Professional Profit-Seeking Brokers
6.5.1. Nature of Bargaining
6.5.2. Huangniu’s Profile, Credentials, and Functions
6.5.3. Huangniu Case Study: Mechanisms that Make
Economic Brokerage Succeed or Fail
6.6. Conclusion

7 Comparative Context: South Korea and India

7.1. South Korea
7.1.1. Authoritarian Era (1948–1987)
7.1.1.1 Relations Between the State and Criminal and
Civil Society
7.1.1.2 Eliminating Shantytowns and Urbanization
 7.1.2. Democratized South Korea (1987–)
7.1.2.1 Demolition Service Companies with Violent
Agents
7.1.2.2 Housing Movements and Civil Society
7.1.2.3 Rapid Urbanization Came with Strident
Discordance
7.2. Contemporary India
7.2.1. Stalled Urbanization
7.2.2. Goondas and Violence
7.2.3. Brokers and Informal Networks
7.2.4. National and Regional Land Resistance Movements
7.3. Conclusion

8 Conclusion
8.1. Main Findings
8.2. Application of Outsourcing Repression Beyond Urbanization
8.3. Generalizability of Arguments Beyond China
8.4. Xi Jinping’s Sweeping Black Campaign
8.5. Implications for China’s Political Future
8.6. Future of Field Research in China

Appendices
Appendix A: Content Analysis of Government Regulations
Appendix B: List of Interviewees
Appendix C: Media-Sourced Event Dataset
Appendix D: Additional Tables and Graphs for Chapter 3
Notes
Bibliography
Index
 Figures

1.1 Agents and Mechanisms that Lead Outsourcing Repression to

Augmentation of Everyday State Power
1.2 Field Research Sites and Year of Visits
2.1 Practicing Everyday State Power
2.2 Capacity for Violence and Public vs. Private Force
2.3 Mechanisms of Outsourcing Repression
2.4 How Outsourcing Repression Enhances State Power
2.5 Strategy Types in Central Government-Issued Land Taking and
Demolition Documents
2.6 Stability Maintenance Measures in Central Government-Issued
Land Taking and Demolition Documents
3.1 Severity of Repressive Acts vs. Financial Cost of Deployment
3.2 Distribution of Violent Land Taking and Demolition Cases by
Year (1992–2017)
3.3 Number of Times Present for Each Agent Type (N = 5,067)
3.4 Comparing the Marginal Effects of Agent Types on Repressive
Strategies (Panel A = Disrupt; B = Injure; C = Kill; D =
Restrict; and E = Covert)
3.5 Comparing the Marginal Effects of Agent Types on Nonviolent
Citizen Responses (Panel A = Protest; B = Petition; and C =
Legal Mobilization)
3.6 Comparing the Marginal Effects of Agent Types on Violent
Citizen Responses (Panel A = Damage Property; B = Self-
harm; and C = Harm Agent)
3.7 Frequency of Self-Immolation and Deadly Attacks on Agents
(1998–2017)
4.1 Chen’s Residence in Shanghai’s Xuhui District
4.2 Sit-In by Flower Villagers to Prevent Demolition
4.3 Red vs. White Banner War in Sunzi Village, Zhengzhou
4.4 Villagers’ Poster Titled, “Don’t You Dare to Cheat the People!!!
(莫以百姓可欺)” in Lunar Village, Zhengzhou
5.1 Brokered State-Society Relationship in China
5.2 Schematic Representation of Brokerages
5.3 Agents vs. Strategies in Demolition
5.4 Modes of Promoting Land Taking and Demolition in
Government-Issued Documents (as proportions of total
documents in the category)
5.5 Modes of Citizen Participation (as proportions of total
documents in the category)
8.1 Electronic Signboard Spotted at a Four-Star Hotel in Shanghai
Promoting the Sweeping Black Campaign
 Tables

2.1 State and Nonstate Agents vs. Observability of Repressive

Actions
3.1 Organizational Capacity vs. Target of Repression and
Resistance
3.2 Heatmap of Cross-Tabulation: Repressive Strategies vs. Agent
Types
4.1 Location, Year of Field Visits, and Time of Violent Demolitions
5.1 Central and Municipal Government-Issued Documents on Land
Taking and Demolition: Themes and Subthemes
5.2 Rural vs. Urban Distribution of Nonviolent Strategies
5.3 Heatmap Distribution of Nonviolent Strategies by Agent Types
5.4 Cases of Citizens’ Compliance or Resistance Depending on
Agent Strategies
6.1 Mass Mobilization as a Political Strategy
6.2 Conceptual Rubric of Mobilizing the Masses
7.1 The State’s Relations with Criminal and Civil Society, and
Everyday State Power in South Korea (1945–Present)
7.2 The State’s Relations with Criminal and Civil Society, and
Everyday State Power in India (1967–Present)
A.1 Keywords used in Content Analysis of Government Regulations
D.1 Number of Counted Presence for Each Agent Type (N = 5067)
D.2 Cross-Tabulation: Repressive Strategies vs. Agent Type
D.3 Repressive Strategies Given Agent Type
D.4 Citizen Nonviolent Responses Given Agent Type
D.5 Citizen Violent Responses Given Agent Type
D.6 Citizen Responses Given Repressive Strategies
D.7 Marginal Probability Effects of Agents on Repressive Strategies
D.8 Marginal Probability Effects of Agents on Violent and
Nonviolent Citizen Responses
D.9 Distribution of Nonviolent Strategies by Agent Types
(Percentages in parentheses)
 Preface

Outsourcing Repression addresses strategies put in place by the

state to seize farmland and demolish houses when its actions lack
legitimacy. The strategy of outsourcing repression to nonstate violent
and nonviolent agents has proven expedient and largely effective.
Authorities in China have figured out that by hiring street hoodlums
and patron-trusted local influentials, they can get the job done
expeditiously. Thus, Outsourcing Repression is a study about how to
repress the right way—and minimize the costs of backlash and
resistance at the same time. Examining these issues empirically,
using urbanization as a window of observation, I elaborate on how
they can be further applied to other areas similarly devoid of legality.
At a fundamental level, I demonstrate the ways that outsourcing
repression redraws the boundaries between state and society and
the topography of state power, surpassing state repression or even
social control—and animating a new creature of the state.
This research has brought to the fore the prominence of violent
and nonviolent repressive strategies in different times. As I moved to
field sites in the inner core of metropolitan cities over time, I gained
an appreciation of the increased salience of nonviolent coercion
under the guise of the official discourse of “harmonious demolition.”
From 2011 to 2019, I conducted on-the-ground ethnographic
research before and after President Xi Jinping’s ascendancy to
power. The case studies speak to the unique challenges a field
researcher faced in the respective periods. While those in disciplinary
and China studies conscientiously debate how future field research
can and should be carried out in this rapidly deteriorating political
environment, this book offers the fruits of my labor in the not-so-
distant past.
 Research conducted in the early 2000s for my last book, Prosper
or Perish, provided the basis for this book, in which I analyze the
search by local authorities in China for alternative revenue sources
to meet unfunded mandates created by a semireformed fiscal
system. When revenue from township and village enterprises dried
up in the late 1990s and early 2000s, local authorities
enthusiastically bet on land sales and urban development as new
revenue sources. Even though the end product of this monograph
involves repression and state power instead of the political economy
I initially envisioned, I draw implications in appropriate places
throughout the book for what this type of coercive distribution
means for the state’s role in economic development.
 Acknowledgments

Given the long and arduous process that research entails, this book
would have been impossible without the many people who have
accompanied me at various stages of this journey. I stand on the
broad shoulders of scholars and colleagues who have contributed to
the field of authoritarian politics, the study of the state, and China
studies.
My China-based colleagues and friends have helped me
tremendously in understanding the country—both its allures and
idiosyncrasies. With wise advice and good humor, many went out of
their way to open doors for me and helped me navigate the field.
Their tenacious capacity to survive, and even thrive, in an
increasingly challenging environment has always been a source of
inspiration.
I extend my gratitude to Dave McBride, my editor at Oxford
University Press, who has enthusiastically supported this project
from the outset, steering it in the right direction.
Over the decade during which this research was conducted,
numerous colleagues and friends have taken time to discuss ideas
and invited me to conferences, workshops, and seminars to present
working papers, from all of which I have benefited tremendously.
Among them were Ben Hillman, David Goodman, Shan Wei, Qian
Jiwei, Peter Lorentzen, Xiaobo Lü (Columbia), Mary Gallagher,
Christian Davenport, Yuen Yuen Ang, Cai Yongshun, Ray Yep, Feng
Cheng, Ting Gong, Chen Chih-Jou, Jean Hong, Li Lianjiang, Pierre
Landry, Stephen Noakes, Elena Meyer-Clement, Jesper Zeuthen,
Genia Kostka, Patricia Thornton, Xin Sun, Kerry Brown, Hyun Bang
Shin, Tim Hildebrandt, Federico Varese, Jean Oi, Andy Walder, Lizhi
Liu, Melanie Manion, Dan Slater, Kimberly Marten, Sheena Greitens,
Suzanne Scoggins, Dimitar Gueorguiev, Victor Shih, Kristen Looney,
Jenn Pan, Iza Ding, Blake Miller, Peng Wang, Yanhua Deng, and
Yang Zhong.
I am thankful for the support of the Weatherhead Center for
International Affairs at Harvard University under the leadership of
Michelle Lamont and subsequently Melani Cammett for generously
offering me a fellowship to host my writing for this book.
I have also drawn on the generosity of colleagues and friends who
provided insightful comments on earlier drafts and chapters,
including those circulated at a book manuscript workshop. They are
Liz Perry, Kevin O’Brien, Ben Read, Meg Rithmire, Jenn Earl, Brian
Taylor, David Cunningham, Xu Xu, Martin Dimitrov, Xiaobo Lü (UT
Austin), John Fitzgerald, Anita Chan, Andy Kipnis, and Charles
Crabtree. My colleagues at the University of Toronto, including Ed
Schatz, Seva Gunitsky, Lucan Way, Yoonkyung Lee, Yiching Wu, and
Adam Casey, also offered critical comments on earlier versions of
this manuscript.
Carolina de Miguel, my department colleague who passed away in
2020, was someone who always made time to chat, read my work,
and discuss it over lunch or coffee. Her generous and humane spirit
remains a source of inspiration and is sorely missed. The intellectual
communities of scholars in political science, global affairs, and Asian
studies at the University of Toronto have provided me with the
inspiration and advice I needed: Antoinette Handley, Ryan Balot,
Peter Loewen, Ron Levi, Joseph Wong, Rachel Silvey, Diana Fu, Sida
Liu, Greg Distelhorst, Tak Fujitani, Frank Cody, Melissa Williams,
Aisha Ahmad, Phil Triadafilopoulos, Ludovic Rheault, and Kenichi
Ariga.
I would have been unable to write this book without the team of
dedicated students who have given me incredible support, often
under tight deadlines. Although naming them all would be
impractical, the following are a few whose help was critical in the
final stages of the writing: Kevin, Alex, Alissa, Hao, Zhouyang,
Minghan, Brodie, Jasper, Yifan, and Yitian.
Much of the writing was done during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Weaving together the stories my interlocutors shared over the
course of the research provided much comfort and ameliorated to
some extent the toll taken by the extended lockdown in Toronto. I
am most grateful for the trust of my interviewees and interlocutors,
allowing me to tell their stories. This book is dedicated to them.
Lynette H. Ong
Toronto
July 1, 2021
 1
Bulldozers, Violent Thugs, and Nonviolent
Brokers
The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they
force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in
their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own
execution, that is an act of utmost brutality.
—Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

In July 2010, I stood at the Shanghai Expo’s main national pavilion on

the banks of the Huangpu River, marveling at the grandiosity of the
architectural juggernaut before me. Much like the 2008 Beijing
Olympics, the ostentatious Shanghai Expo was intended to display
China’s raw economic and political ambitions as well as to mark its
arrival on the world stage. The Expo’s theme of “Better City—Better
Life” underscored these messages, intended for domestic and global
consumption.
Fast forward six years. In the summer of 2016, my field research
for this book led me to interview a group of Shanghai residents who
had lost their homes because of the Expo. “My home was situated
right where the main national pavilion stood!” an evictee in his 60s
told me.1 After his forced removal in the early 2000s, he was never
properly resettled or compensated. He and a group of other evictees
from Shanghai have paid monthly visits to the Beijing Petition Bureau
for nearly two decades in the hope of having their housing grievances
addressed. Nevertheless, all efforts to reassert their property rights
and regain their dignity have been nearly futile.
That summer I interviewed another group of Shanghai residents,
who shared with me their experience engaging with market brokers
to bargain with local governments for even more lucrative
compensation over and above the brand-new apartments and
handsome cash payments they had been promised and given.2 The
juxtaposition of the two groups of Shanghai residents, who faced
similar eviction pressures, albeit at different times—but ended up
receiving diverging treatments by the state—is instructive. Their
stories encapsulate in miniature the varied configurations of the
power of the state and the distinctive means through which it coerces
compliance.

1.1 The Puzzle: Balancing Coerced Compliance

with Minimized Backlash
Economic growth necessitates the redistribution of resources—
including land, labor, and capital—from one group to another.
Autocracies may be more effective than democracies in forcibly
redistributing resources by means of coercion or the imposition of
rules and subsequently withstanding the pressure exerted by the
losers (Wintrobe 1998),3 yet wielding the stick comes with a cost.
Persistent coercion may invite backlash, provoke resistance, and
delegitimize the regime (Davenport and Inman 2012). If a regime
bent on growth enacts a policy that redistributes resources and
subsequently causes dissent among the losers, how the regime
balances coerced compliance with minimized backlash remains a
question.
In this book I use urbanization as a window of observation for
state policies that entail immense resource reallocation to study the
practice of state power to gain compliance and mute dissent. Rapid
urbanization, by its very nature, involves vast population relocation
and resource redistribution among groups. In China, property owners
have been coerced into compliance, their voices muffled as the state
tries to fast track the urbanization process. To be sure, popular
resistance has arisen against land taking and housing demolition,4 yet
no country has ever pulled off the spatial transformation and
relocation of people on the scale achieved by China while
simultaneously maintaining social stability.
 To capture the essence of the monumental scale of China’s
urbanization, consider this: an estimated total of no fewer than 52
million peasants were displaced between 1987 and 2010 (Han 2009;
Shengsan Jiang, Liu, and Li 2010). An estimated increase of 10.4
million acres in land used for urban construction purposes occurred
from 2010 to 2017—equivalent to 125 percent of the land mass of
the U.S. state of Maryland.5 If we compare China with India, another
large developing country similarly fixated on pursuing growth through
industrialization and urbanization, the contrast is stark. State efforts
to requisition farmland in India are frequently met with strong
peasant resistance and are mediated by a range of brokers who hold
significant bargaining power.6
In this book China serves as a case study to exemplify a state that
practices vigorous everyday state power over society by outsourcing
repression to nonstate agents who use violent and nonviolent
strategies to extract compliance and stifle dissent. The authoritarian
nature of China’s political system, led by the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP), serves to strengthen this power; but it is not a necessary
condition. Theoretically, everyday engagement of third-party agents
by the state to coerce pushes the boundary on what scholars
currently understand as state repression. Because the repressive
capacity of the state is a central element of its strength, I also invite
readers to reimagine what constitutes the notion of state power.

1.2 The Theory and Arguments: Outsourcing

Repression to Augment Everyday State Power
Advancing two major arguments, this book presents a theory about
outsourcing repression which lies at the core of everyday state power
over society.7 First, the state implements unpopular policies
effectively and swiftly by using the “everyday repression” of
outsourced violence.8 Carried out by “thugs-for-hire” (TFH), it is an
expedient state strategy to impose its will on society.9 Although
violent repression usually incurs costs, outsourcing violence to third-
party agents provides the pretense for plausible deniability and
evasion of political accountability. Second, the state extracts citizen
compliance and resolves state‒society conflicts by mobilizing the
masses (MTM), which involves marshalling a small segment of society
—the brokers—to gain acquiescence from the larger society. Because
mass mobilization is conducted through social networks, brokers with
social capital legitimate state repression, in turn minimizing resistance
and backlash.
An unconventional autocratic tool, outsourcing violence to TFH
serves as a proverbial stick. When outsourced to third parties,
however, violent repression is a stick with no identifiable wielding
agent, allowing for plausible deniability and the evasion of political
accountability that is a major cost of violent repression. I call this
strategy “everyday repression,” denoting the banal, low-grade violent
repressive acts of coercion, deployed when formal state coercive acts
are impractical (Ong 2015b). It is most effective in minimizing costs
when the hiring authority can effectively distance itself from the
illegitimate violent acts and serious casualties caused by it.
Meanwhile, MTM is a political strategy that shapes citizen behavior
through persuasion, an authoritarian tool independent of the
proverbial carrots and sticks, often carried out alongside rewards and
punishments with the similar intention of extracting compliance. MTM
via persuasion is carried out by political, social, and economic
grassroots brokers, who persuade citizens through mobilization of
affective emotions like love, trust, and respect. Critically, because
persuasion is lubricated by social relations and their attendant
emotions, it is not commonly perceived as state repression—thus
allowing for lower-cost state extraction of consent.
Figure 1.1 Agents and Mechanisms that Lead Outsourcing Repression to
Augmentation of Everyday State Power

Figure 1.1 illustrates the agents and mechanisms through which

outsourcing repression augments everyday state power. The nonstate
agency of TFH and brokers enables the state to exercise low-level
violent everyday repression and to mobilize the masses with socially
embedded emotions. The elusive private identity of TFH makes
possible plausible deniability and the evasion of state accountability,
and brokers with social standing legitimize the state’s mass
mobilization. Collectively, these strategies minimize the resistance and
backlash typically associated with state repression.
Everyday state power is not, however, a guaranteed outcome of
engaging nonstate agents. Outsourcing repression works to the
state’s advantage only under certain conditions, leading to variation
in the successful practice of everyday state power over society, the
outcome variable of this study. Untrained TFH can exert undisciplined
violence that results in excess casualties, making the evasion of
responsibility a challenge. When government officials are seen as
endorsing TFH explicitly, the agents’ illegitimate violence is then
associated with state sponsorship. As with brokers, they bring net
benefits to the state insofar as they remain legitimate in the citizens’
eyes. When they are corrupt or prioritize personal interests at the
citizens’ expense, they cease to legitimate state mobilization. Under
these circumstances, outsourcing repression is costly, and everyday
state power is diminished accordingly.
I illustrate these arguments through a study of the Chinese state’s
efforts to spearhead urbanization as an engine of growth. Most
governments face formidable challenges in land redistribution, but
the Chinese state has been far more successful in imposing its will on
society and forcing citizens to acquiesce to state orders—thanks to its
engagement of nonstate agents. Beyond urbanization, the state also
engages TFH in areas of illegitimate or illegal actions, such as the
rural exactions of the 1990s, and the intimidation of protestors,
petitioners, dissidents, journalists, and other troublemakers. To
appreciate how ubiquitous the strategy of mobilizing the masses is,
simply consider the role of neighborhood committees and the
nationwide army of volunteers in controlling people’s movements
during the fight against SARS and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Grassroots brokers not only contribute enormous manpower to state
pursuits, but they also invoke affective emotions to persuade citizens,
a strategy that is often overlooked.
In addition, temporal and regional variations in China are
noteworthy. In general, the prevalence of violent repression by TFH
diminished from the 2000s to 2010s, the period covered by this
study; but nonviolent, brokered mass mobilization has increased in
prominence over time. In a regional variation, people living in the
inner core of metropolitan cities, such as Shanghai and Chengdu,
tend to see significantly less or no violence, whereas those in the city
peripheries and the rural areas still experience violent repression.
Using in-depth case studies, I show that the violent repression
prevalent in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of the mid-income
Henan province, in the mid-2010s had already occurred in
metropolitan Shanghai a decade earlier in the mid-2000s. By the mid-
2010s, however, Shanghai had “progressed” into the nonviolent mass
mobilization era.
Despite these variations, outsourced violent coercion can be
deployed alongside nonviolent mobilization. As the case studies will
illustrate, much depends on the availability of thuggish agents and
trustworthy local volunteers willing to do the state’s bidding and the
extent to which they can effectively repress or mobilize the society.
These considerations are location specific.
In this book, the state refers to the Party‒state, notwithstanding
the occasional bifurcation of the central‒local state interest.10 Using
“state” in this volume, I refer to local governments that have direct
agency, not the central leadership. But some of the outsourced
repressive strategies, such as mobilizing the masses, have been
actively promoted by the central government as in the “Fengqiao
Experience” (Z. Zhu 2018). Overall, local governments’ outsourcing of
repression has been either explicitly promoted or tacitly approved by
the central authority. Condonation by the center is palpable in the
case of “black jails,” where petitioners are illegally detained.11
To what extent do these arguments apply beyond China? Everyday
state power is the state’s exercise of power through society, or via
society itself. To exercise this power, the state must be strong enough
to control the behavior of the violent agents or nonviolent brokers
with whom it engages. In the absence of state domination over
agents, the latter should normatively believe that doing the state’s
bidding contributes to the collective public good. Furthermore, that
authoritarianism is not a necessary condition for the outsourcing of
repression deserves emphasis. The arguments advanced here could
be applied to other autocracies as well as democracies, subject to the
scope condition that I will elaborate in Chapter 2. I illustrate in
Chapter 8 the prevalent use of criminals and gangsters by the
authoritarian South Korean regime under Park Chung Hee and Chun
Doo Hwan to conduct mass evictions. This violent practice continued
after the country transitioned to a democracy in 1987, albeit less
blatantly and more tacitly. In democratic India, goondas, or
neighborhood gangsters, lend their “muscle power” to local politicians
to intimidate political rivals, gather campaign budgets, and win
elections in return for political protection for their illegal business
pursuits.

1.3 Challenges to Conventional Wisdom: State

Power, Repression, and Authoritarian Control
1.3.1 Reimagining State Power
What constitutes state power? I consider its three key dimensions—
state‒society relations, state capacity, and obedience to state power
(vom Hau 2015)—and appraise outsourcing repression for its
capability to shine new light on the traditional construct and contours
of the power of the state.
The repressive strategies discussed in this book reconstruct state‒
society relations because they allow the state to mobilize nonstate
actors to pursue state objectives.12 When TFH are engaged in state
projects, they become part of the state’s army of foot soldiers, whose
goal is to intimidate and coerce citizens. Similarly, when brokers are
mobilized, they are effectively transformed into state extensions that
conduct persuasion or “thought work” on the citizenry. State‒society
boundaries are then blurred and shifted against the society. In other
words, TFH and brokers become complicit in the state’s repression of
society, using violent and nonviolent strategies, respectively.
Outsourcing repression to nonstate actors heightens the presence
of everyday state power throughout the society. This augmented
state power is not acquired through repression in the conventional
sense; instead, it involves a two-step process. First, the voluntary
participation of proxies—impossible with brute repression—must be
secured. Second, the elusive nonstate nature of violent proxies (TFH)
or legitimation by nonviolent proxies (brokers) then allows the state
to control society, simultaneously managing dissent and minimizing
backlash. Brokers who serve as legitimizing vehicles help to change
the perception of repressive acts, thereby blunting resistance to
them. In Outsourcing Repression I invite readers to reimagine state
power—the state occupies new ground with augmented penetrative
capacity, through which it can unconventionally acquire societal
approval of its very power.

1.3.2 Cost-Minimizing Repression

State repression typically involves trade-offs between increased
control and loss of loyalty, giving rise to what Ronald Wintrobe (1998)
called the “dictator’s dilemma.” This is the reason that no regime can
survive through naked coercion alone. I argue, however, that
reconstituted everyday state power makes possible the state’s
enforcement of compliance, which is met with minimal backlash.
Thus, I theorize a counterintuitive form of repression—when carried
out by nonstate agents, outsourced repressive acts lower the costs of
state repression.
This book is a study of outsourced violent and nonviolent
repressive acts, the former conducted by TFH, such as street
gangsters, hooligans, or hoodlums, who render their muscle power as
a for-profit service. As opposed to armed state coercive agents,
namely the military, paramilitaries, or the police, capable of
committing massive violence (Alvarez 2006; Geddes, Wright, and
Frantz 2018; Mazzei 2009), TFH deploy low-level violence or threats
of violence to carry out coercion. They are an integral part of the
state’s “everyday repression,” denoting banal, ordinary repressive acts
expediently imposed on marginalized citizens who defy everyday
state directives (Ong 2015b). Critically, the concealed identities of
TFH allow the state to maintain an arms-length relationship with
them and their illegitimate violent acts. This provides the pretense for
plausible deniability and evasion of accountability, which lowers the
costs associated with violent repression accordingly. As untrained
agents, TFH may, however, commit undisciplined violence in excess of
what is necessary to execute the tasks assigned to them. The latitude
for deniability improves when serious casualties, including deaths, are
absent and when the hiring authority can effectively distance itself
from the agents.
In contrast, outsourced nonviolent repression is exercised through
the engagement of brokers who mobilize the masses for state
pursuits. By connecting the two disparate parties of state and society,
brokers facilitate information gathering, surveillance, public goods
provision, and mobilization (Baldwin 2013; Koter 2013; Mares and
Young 2016, 2019; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001; Stovel and Shaw
2012). I divide brokers into political brokers, whose brokerage power
stems from the state, namely residents and village committees; social
brokers, who draw on social capital to exercise brokerage, such as
volunteers and community enthusiasts; and economic brokers, who
have connections with political insiders and who have gained the
trust of state and society, allowing them to use their informational
advantage to seek profits by bridging trust deficits, such as the
huangniu in my case study.
In general, MTM is a political strategy that mobilizes the people for
state pursuits. When organized into a movement, it becomes a state-
organized social movement (Ekiert, Perry, and Yan 2020) like Mao’s
Red Guard Movement or Nashi, the youth movement organized by
Putin (Hemment 2020). In the present context, MTM refers to
mobilization on an individual basis to gain citizens’ compliance.
Because ideology holds less appeal in post-Mao China than it once
did, contemporary brokers mobilize through emotion-lubricated social
relations or guanxi networks, cultivated over a lifetime to serve the
dual purposes of sentimentality and instrumentalism (Kipnis 2002). In
effect, social brokers who invoke guanxi for the purpose of
persuasion serve to legitimate the state’s mobilization of society for
statist goals. Because of social capital they possess, brokers’ actions
are not usually perceived as state repression; hence, nonviolent
brokered repression is more likely to be accepted by society,
significantly reducing the likelihood of resistance and backlash.

1.3.3 A New Tool in the Autocrat’s Toolkit

I also introduce some tools new to the autocrat’s toolkit—third party-
wielded sticks and persuasion—and argue that they enhance state
control of society largely without the fear of backlash.13 Both falling
under the ambit of outsourced repression, they correspond to
everyday repression via TFH and MTM through brokers, respectively.
Sticks wielded by private agents allow for plausible deniability insofar
as the hiring authority can effectively distance itself from the TFH and
the illegitimate violence does not result in severe casualties. If these
conditions are met, outsourcing violence is superior to the
conventional stick of violent state repression because it allows the
state to keep perpetrators of violent acts at arm’s length.
Meanwhile, persuasion is an autocrat’s tool, wielded by brokers
who command social capital, with which they mobilize the masses for
state pursuits. Social brokers thus legitimize the repression and blunt
the resistance and the backlash that would have otherwise occurred.
Even though persuasion can serve as an independent tool, it is often
facilitated by carrots (inducements) and made credible by sticks
(emotional coercion). With the declining traction of ideology, the
Party‒state sometimes uses carrots to induce the participation of
brokers to extract acquiescence from the larger society, which in turn,
as the target of mass mobilization, is coaxed by inducements, cowed
by psychological coercion, or simply admonished by thought work (思
想工作) in the parlance of Chinese politics. Brokered persuasion thus
serves an important legitimating function to state repression.
Like propaganda, persuasion is a mass communication tool
designed to influence people and change their behavior (Jowett and
O’Donnell 2014; O’Shaughnessy 2016). Notably, persuasion and
coercion are often nondichotomous; “even as some forms of coercion
are more or less violent, some forms of argument are more or less
coercive” (Crawford 2009). Put differently, persuasion can have the
intended and actual effect of coercing acquiescence from message
recipients. Although propaganda has received much attention in the
literature of authoritarian politics, persuasion has not received nearly
as much. The effectiveness of persuasion in enforcing obedience
underscores the primacy of legitimacy. This stands in contrast to the
much celebrated Ambiguities of Dominance, in which Lisa Wedeen
argues for the symbolic effects of propaganda in bolstering the Asad
regime even though few Syrians bought into the actual messages
behind the grandiose spectacles (H. Huang 2015; Loveman 2005;
Wedeen 2015).14 In Wedeen’s words, “Asad’s cult is a strategy of
domination based on compliance rather than legitimacy” (2015, 6). In
contrast, persuasion—unlike propaganda—does not produce the
spectacle effect; and thus, without legitimation, it is nothing more
than empty words.
When is the autocrat more likely to use persuasion vis-à-vis carrots
and sticks? Broadly speaking, persuasion and carrots are nonviolent
means of control; sticks are violent measures. Regimes adopt
nonviolent repressive measures if given an underlying normative
preference15 or when violent measures become too costly. Persuasion
is the least costly of all the tools in material terms and in backlash
minimization. Carrots draw directly on material resources, and as
citizens’ income levels rise, the threshold for material inducements
also increases. What constituted carrots to the urban citizenry in the
2000s would certainly not qualify as financial inducements to the
urban middle class in the 2010s. Meanwhile, sticks impose the
highest costs in terms of the potential resistance and backlash they
may invite; therefore, we should expect persuasion to be deployed
when one of the following conditions is met. First, the material costs
of carrots are too high; second, carrots have lost their appeal to the
targeted citizens; third, the costs of sticks are unbearably high; or
fourth, legitimacy is of utmost importance to the state.
Condition 1 accurately describes the Maoist period, during which
the scarcity of financial resources meant that Mao could not dole out
carrots to induce compliance. In other words, the masses, that is, the
people, who were in relative abundance—not guns or money—
became Mao’s greatest resource. Mao’s revolutionary experience of
drawing on the relatively abundant resource gave rise to the tradition
of relying on the masses to act as internal security agents. This
stands in contrast to the secret police institutions in other socialist
countries, such as the KGB in the former Soviet Union and the Stasi
in East Germany. In contemporary China, however, persuasion is
deployed because compliance from the targeted citizenry cannot be
easily bought with material inducements (Condition 2) and in some
regions, especially in metropolitan cities, and the cost of using sticks
or overt repression is too high for the regime (Condition 3). Critically,
persuasion assumed primacy in China under Mao and continues to
dominate under Xi because both political leaders recognized the
importance of preserving legitimacy amidst the regime’s widespread
suppression of the society (Condition 4).
This study is inspired by the existing literature on repression in
China. Notably, Yanhua Deng and Kevin O’Brien’s (2013) “relational
repression” and Elizabeth Perry’s (2002b) “moving the masses” have
informed much of my understanding of how mobilizing the masses
works. Separately, Ching Kwan Lee and Yonghong Zhang’s (2013)
“bargained authoritarianism” underscores the state buying stability
from aggrieved citizens. This book, however, diverges from the
existing work on state repression in that it is the first to bring
together the gamut of violent and nonviolent strategies (or sticks,
carrots, and persuasion) and demonstrate their temporal and regional
variations.
This book builds on my earlier work on the state’s outsourcing of
violence to TFH as a means of implementing unpopular everyday
policies and dealing with protestors and dissidents.16 It is the first
book-length manuscript that devotes attention to the use of thugs
and criminals as repressive agents, an important area of state
repression that has received little attention.17 State-sponsored
violence no longer takes place in the metropolitan cities of China on
an everyday basis today. Why and the conditions under which
nonviolent measures are substituted for violent repression is a key
inquiry of this research. To that end, I have carefully assembled and
analyzed the outsourced violent and nonviolent repressive measures
that have been previously unexamined or have hitherto been studied
separately in the existing literature.

1.4 Empirical Strategy

I have employed various methodological tools, including field
interviews, quantitative media-sourced data, and content analysis of
government regulations, to capture temporal and regional variations
in state repressive actions and the ensuing conflicts. My first
empirical strategy drew on more than 200 field interviews conducted
annually over the span of nearly a decade from 2011 to 2019 with
householders, petitioners, activists, Party cadres, and lawyers in both
rural and urban areas in China.
I visited a total of eight provinces or provincial-level municipalities
that encompassed dozens of rural farming villages, villages-in-a-city
(城中村), and residential compounds on the outskirts of cities as well
as urban communities in the inner-city cores. As illustrated in Figure
1.2, the field research locations were Anhui’s provincial capital, Hefei;
Beijing municipality; Yunnan’s provincial capital, Kunming; Sichuan’s
provincial capital, Chengdu; Henan’s provincial capital, Zhengzhou;
Shanghai municipality; Guangdong’s provincial capital, Guangzhou;
and Tianjin municipality. I also visited Mumbai and New Delhi in 2015
to interview activists, lawyers, and academics whose work delved into
land conflicts in India. All the interviews are annotated in Appendix B.
Figure 1.2 Field Research Sites and Year of Visits
Note: Square markers represent locations of detailed case studies in Chapters 4
and 6. Circle markers identify visited sites not covered in the case studies but are
the sources of interview quotations, sprinkled throughout the book.

Each of these field research trips typically lasted between two and
four weeks. I had the opportunity to participate in the everyday
activities of the communities, observe activists’ speeches and rallies,
and interact with village and urban grassroots cadres on a daily basis.
These largely semistructured interviews were conducted in paddy and
corn fields, teashops, public squares, street-level corridors of
shophouses, private residences, and community and grassroots
government offices as well as half-demolished villages with debris
surrounding me and my interviewees.
In each of the interviews, I adopted a common structure that
began with warm-up questions about the interviewees’ basic
household information, occupations, and economic conditions before
broaching relatively sensitive topics, such as their encounters with
government repression and activism. This interview technique
allowed me to build the trust of the interviewees over the course of
one lengthy session, and, not infrequently, over multiple sessions in
repeated follow-up visits. Some interviewees, nevertheless, still
preferred to deflect my queries and regurgitate government
propaganda. I attempted to corroborate controversial evidence from
multiple sources instead of accepting it at face value. Sometimes, for
reasons of personal safety, I could not revisit the field sites for follow-
up investigations as I had desired. Some of the field interviews
yielded sufficient data to weave together detailed case studies as
covered in Chapters 4 and 6, but others amounted to scattered data,
in which case the interview quotations are sprinkled throughout the
manuscript.
The long decade over which the field research was conducted has
provided me with some unique observations. At the beginning of the
research in the early 2010s, I encountered the pedestrian nature of
thuggish violence in forced land grabs and housing demolitions. Over
time, as I moved to field sites in the inner core of metropolitan
Shanghai and Chengdu, I discovered the increased prominence of
mobilizing the masses as a state strategy under the guise of the
official discourse of “harmonious demolition.” Without a doubt, the
preponderance of violent repression has declined over time, but that
of nonviolent coercion has risen correspondingly. Another deeply felt
observation is the changing nature of field research in China—
certainly a turn for the worse—particularly the challenges posed by
increased self-censorship, state surveillance, and even outright
prohibition of the subjects of intellectual inquiries. The number of red
lines has increased, and what used to be grey zones of research has
moved into the space defined by the red lines. Not accidentally, the
progression from grey to red was also marked by the ascendancy of
Xi Jinping’s presidency. I offer my thoughts on the issue of field
research in China in the concluding Chapter 8.
To complement field observations, my second empirical strategy
was the construction of an event dataset, consisting of forced land-
taking and demolition cases sourced from Chinese and English media.
The dataset contains more than 2,000 cases from the 1990s through
to the late 2010s. The data quality is subject to the usual caveats
associated with media-sourced data favoring large-scale, violent,
newsworthy incidents. To address the selection-bias issue, I
triangulated alternative sources, including smaller civil society-run
websites that draw on reports filed by independent citizen‒journalists
and victims throughout the country. The independent reporting
complements the large and widely publicized cases reported by
commercial media. Quantitative data analyses are covered in
Chapters 3 and 6. A detailed discussion of the dataset construction
and its caveats is elaborated in Appendix C.
Furthermore, to supplement these two largely society-centric
methodologies, I collected regulations on land-taking and housing
demolitions issued by the central government and the Shanghai,
Chengdu, and Zhengzhou municipalities from the 1990s through to
the 2010s. These cities hosted the detailed case studies in this book.
I applied content analysis to the regulations to analyze discernible
patterns in government discourse and changes in state strategies to
gain compliance, resolve conflicts, and promote social stability. The
findings from content analysis appear in Chapters 2, 3, and 6. Taken
together, the varied empirical strategies were designed to address the
research questions from the perspectives of both the state and
society. They also complement each other because in-depth
contextual case studies reveal what statistical analyses do and do not
inform.

1.5 Roadmap
The next chapter situates the book’s findings in the relevant bodies of
theoretical literature on repression, state power, and authoritarian
politics. The findings push the boundaries of the traditional
conception of state repression held by political scientists and
sociologists. When outsourced to third-party agents, state repression
can realize the intended effect of extracting compliance while
minimizing dissent and backlash. Thus, when state‒society
boundaries blur and relationships change, everyday state power is
reconstituted and augmented. This book therefore reenvisions the
traditional conception of state power. Even though this study does
not center on the question of growth, I draw implications for the
state’s role in economic development at the chapter’s end.
Important temporal and regional variations occur in the use of
rewards, coercion, and persuasion in urbanization projects. Incidents
of forced evictions by thuggish violence have declined over time and
are less common in urban than in rural areas. Concomitantly, the
frequency in the use of nonviolent strategies, particularly persuasion,
has risen over time; these strategies are more prevalent in
metropolitan than in smaller inland cities. Evidence for these
temporal and regional patterns is borne out in qualitative case studies
and media-sourced quantitative data from Chapters 3 through 6.
Chapters 3 and 4 cover the violent strategy of everyday repression;
Chapters 5 and 6 pertain to the nonviolent strategy of mobilizing the
masses. Relevant literature about China and context-specific
information are engaged and discussed in these four empirical
chapters while the intent of Chapters 1 and 2 is to speak to broader
disciplinary readers.
In Chapter 3 I conceptualize a novel form of repression—everyday
repression carried out by TFH—as a state response to foot-dragging
and banal noncompliance captured in what James Scott called
“everyday forms of resistance.” It provides quantitative evidence from
media-sourced data to support the argument that everyday
repression is a lower-cost repressive strategy, pointing to its negative
or lesser effect on the likelihood of street protest and violent
backlash, particularly in comparison with police and government
officials.
Chapter 3 presents quantitative and qualitative data to detail the
profile of typical TFH and the conditions under which they operate,
but the chapter that follows does the opposite. Drawing on detailed
primary case studies, I turn in Chapter 4 to exceptional cases of
outsourced violence that resulted in death or large-scale contention
or that received official government sponsorship. Under those
circumstances, TFH were no longer a lower-cost repressive measure;
instead, they became a liability to the hiring authority. The case
studies also demonstrate the negative consequences for governance
when the relationship between local governments and thugs
transformed from principal‒agent to patron‒client, heightening the
risk of usurpation of government authority by criminal groups. In
effect, they demonstrate the rare practical consequences of violating
the unspoken conditions of outsourced violence.
Chapter 5 covers nonviolent brokers who are part of the state’s
networks of infrastructural power. Political brokers, such as members
of urban residents’ committees and rural village committees, who
derive their brokerage power from state appointments, are perceived
as grassroots state or quasistate agents. Social brokers, such as local
elders, community enthusiasts, or long-time volunteers, derive their
brokerage power from the social capital they possess in the
community, drawn from years of relationships, or guanxi, cultivated
with members with attendant emotional ties, or ganqing. Economic
brokers are private individuals but with connection to political
insiders. They are trusted by both the state and society and who seek
profits by bringing the two parties closer in negotiations and facilitate
deal-making between them. Compared to the political brokers, social
brokers who exploit their social capital to mobilize the masses
encounter significantly less resistance. Their standing in the
community helps to legitimate the repressive acts, thereby blunting
resistance, enforcing compliance, and lowering the cost of state
repression.
Drawing on thick case-study evidence, I demonstrate the
repression-legitimating social brokers in action in Chapter 6. Their use
of persuasion as a control instrument, underpinned by guanxi and
ganqing, helps to reduce citizen resistance to state policy. In practical
terms, their social standing legitimates their repressive acts and
reduces the likelihood of backlash. This chapter also illuminates how
economic brokers help resolve state‒society disputes by bringing
together disgruntled citizens and government officials to negotiate an
agreement. This prevents disputes from becoming protracted and
contributes to the maintenance of social stability. Nonviolent
repressive measures have gained prominence as the costs of violent
coercion have escalated over time particularly in metropolitan cities,
yet as the case studies illustrate, even though they are nonviolent in
nature, they are not necessarily less coercive than violent repression.
In Chapter 7 I contextualize the experience of China with two
comparative cases: South Korea (the most similar case study) and
India (the most dissimilar case). I trace how the changes in state‒
criminal and state‒civil society relationships affect the exercise of
everyday state power in these two countries. Authoritarian South
Korea in the high-growth era most closely resembles that of
contemporary China, where the principal‒agent relationship meant
that the state wielded power over criminal groups, allowing it to
engage and direct violent agents’ behavior to its advantage. After its
transition to a democracy in 1987, overt state-sponsored violence
might have disappeared; but the state still turns a blind eye to covert
private violence insofar as it attains societal compliance. In the post-
1987 era, the increased strength of organized civil society has posed
the greatest challenge to state power in South Korea.
In contrast, the Indian state and criminals are entangled in a
patron‒client web. Criminals or goondas become informal sovereigns
who provide public services in housing settlements and deliver vote
banks to local politicians because of the state’s lack of penetrative
capacity into slums. The state’s interactions with rural society are also
mediated by local influential brokers, hampering the state’s capacity
to penetrate and influence voting or political behavior directly. State
power in India is further checked by a raucous organized civil society.
The cases of democratic South Korea and India demonstrate that
authoritarianism is not a scope condition for my argument of
outsourcing repression even though autocracies can generally
exercise tighter control over society.
Chapter 8 concludes the book, and in it I draw implications for
thinking about state‒society relations in China and the country’s
political future under President Xi Jinping. I also discuss the
ramifications for field research in China, given the tightening political
environment.
 2
The Theory
State Power, Repression, and Implications for
Development
Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment
and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand
times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear
of punishment.
—Mahatma Gandhi

This book is about how an authoritarian state acquires power through

society. The state does not exercise power through naked coercion or
brutal oppression that sparks revolts and hardens aboveground or
underground rebellion. It is a form of state power attained by
outsourcing coercion to nonstate agents and mobilizing society
through the masses. Critically, exercising this form of state power
minimizes backlash and thus lowers the cost of repression. This book
engages and contributes to bodies of literature on state power and
repression, and it draws implications for the state’s role in economic
development. It prompts readers to revise their traditional conception
of state repression and reimagine new ground that state power can
credibly and actively occupy at the society’s expense.
This research has broader implications for the study of comparative
politics. My argument brings scholars of repression and state power
into closer dialogue with one another, generating significant new
insights for both. On one hand, this study impels scholars of state
control to reconsider what constitutes repression when nonstate
agents are engaged to do the state’s bidding. On the other hand, it
urges scholars of authoritarian politics and the state in general to
grapple with new boundaries and topography of state power when
the Leviathan could penetrate deeply into the society to mobilize the
masses within.

2.1 Everyday State Power

Everyday state power is the quotidian exercise of state authority to
lead, govern, and rule society, but how it is manifested in a state with
strong capacity deserves attention. Although state capacity is
recognized as essential for development, democratization, and
political stability, what constitutes state power remains poorly
delineated (Albertus and Menaldo 2012; Bellin 2004; Gerschewski
2013). “State power” typically denotes the following: first, in
Weberian terms, it is the state’s monopoly of the legitimate use of
violence in its territory (Weber 1965). For example, “stationary
bandits” use violence to defend citizens from “roving bandits” (Olson
1993). Second, in Michael Mann’s (1993) conceptualization, despotic
power comprises the actions a single leader can take without routine
or institutionalized negotiations with other regime members, whereas
infrastructural power involves the capacity to implement policies.
Third, Joel Migdal (1988) has defined “state capabilities” along the
lines of the state’s ability to penetrate society, regulate social
relationships, extract resources, and appropriate resources in
determined ways.1 These definitions are, however, limited in
facilitating an understanding of the extent to which state power is
unopposed or accepted by society. One can say a strong state has
the capacity to get jobs A, B, and C done, and a weak state does not;
but saying so does not indicate whether the incapacity results from a
lack of state capability or the presence of societal resistance.
Although distinct, both are constitutive elements of state strength.
More broadly, writing about complex organizations, Amitai Etzioni
has argued for three types of power: coercive power, utilitarian
power, and normative power (Etzioni 1975).2 Different types of
power, Etzioni argues, in turn yield their corresponding compliance:
the use of physical force yields coercive compliance; the use of
material means, such as salaries, yields remunerative compliance;
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support, while two pieces of wood fastened to the sides form the
other. A seat board is fastened to the upper side rounds, and a table
board to the two lower side rounds. A small piece is nailed to the two
back posts for a back.—Contributed by J. S. Fritzen, Minneapolis,
Minn.
 Blower for a Fireplace
Having considerable trouble with a smoky fireplace when trying to
start a coal fire in the basket grate, I decided to make a blower of
sheet iron. A blower covers the upper part of the fireplace and forces
the draft through the basket grate until the fire gets a good start, then
it can be removed. Before making the blower I again had trouble one
morning when the chimney would not draw, and the whole room
became filled with smoke; I then grabbed a newspaper and held it up
against the upper part of the fireplace like a regular blower. To my
surprise the suction of the chimney held the newspaper in place
without any outside aid. In a few minutes the fire was roaring, and
best of all, when it became hot, the newspaper caught fire and was
sucked into the flames. This in reality became an automatic blower,
as it removed itself when no longer needed.—Contributed by
Charles F. Kopp, Amite, La.
 An Ironing-Board Wall Fastening

Ironing Board Supported on Wood Hinges at the Wall to Provide a Space for
the Covering

One of the most useful and convenient articles for a household is

an ironing board, one end of which is fastened to the wall by means
of hinges to allow it to be folded up against the wall when not in use.
Wood brackets are preferable to the metal hinges, as there must be
some little space between the wall and the board to allow for the
thickness of the covering. The brace which extends from near the
end of the board to the base of the wall is best hinged with canvas
strips, as they will last better than any other material for this joint.
The hinges should be put in place when the board is in a vertical
position to allow the brace to go in position without straining.—
Contributed by J. H. Beebee, Rochester, N. Y.
 Oars Flattened to Make Rowing Easier
When rowing a small boat, we were bothered by the turning of the
oars in the locks, so that the blade of the oar was not in proper
position to take the water. We overcame this by planing off slightly
one side of the oar, so that when this surface was against the lock,
the blade was in the correct position to catch the water. It is
unnecessary to grip these oars tightly, as they fall naturally into place
and save the novice a great deal of trouble. In locks where this
method is undesirable, the handgrips may be cut as a guide.—H. D.
Burnside, Madison, Wis.
 A One-Piece Bracelet Cut from a Calling Card

It Is Hard to Imitate a Quick and Skillful Performance of This Simple Trick

A trick that will amuse and interest persons both old and young
can be performed with a calling card, cigarette paper, or other similar
material, cut with a scissors or knife, as indicated in the diagram.
The card is shown, and the performer announces that he will pass
his hand through the card, making a bracelet of it. He will, of course,
be challenged, and proceeds as follows: He folds the card
lengthwise and cuts through two thicknesses from 1 to 2, 3 to 4, etc.;
then opens the card, and cuts from 1 to 13. By stretching the paper,
as shown in the sketch, the hand may be passed through the card
readily. The spectators are soon trying to duplicate the trick.—R. E.
Jones, Velasco, Texas.
 Device for a Finger Tug-of-War Game
Considerable pleasure and pastime was afforded by the tug-of-war
game which I made. Two contestants, one at each end, take hold of
the rollers with their forefingers and thumbs and endeavor to move
the pointer to their respective ends. The game interests persons of
various ages, and they all want to try it.
 The Contestants Grasp the Rollers, One at Each End, and Attempt to Draw
the Pointer Over in Their Favor

The device should be made strongly to stand the wear on it. The
top and bottom are boards, ¹⁄₂ by 8 by 24 in., and four blocks, 3 in.
high and 2¹⁄₂ in. square, are fastened between them at the corners
with screws. The rollers are set in the blocks, and held by small nails
passing through them and set against the inner faces of the blocks.
The pointer is made of a strip of brass, bent to the shape shown.
Cords extend from the pointer inside of the box and are tied to the
rollers.—James E. Noble, Kingston, Ontario, Can.

¶In applying a white paint over a dark, or mottled, surface, tint the
first coat with a little black, making it gray; then the next coat will
show solid white.
 Window Frame and Table for Dark
Room
By JOSEPH LIMBRUNNER

Themade
amateur photographer often has a poor dark room, sometimes
worse by the use of an evil-smelling lamp. If he wishes to
use a room that has daylight, he finds it difficult to convert the room
quickly for his purposes, especially if he desires to make use of the
daylight for his work. Under these conditions, the arrangement
described in this article was devised, and proved so satisfactory that
I pass it on to the host of amateurs who find satisfaction in making
part of their equipment. The table and window frame in place are
shown in Fig. 1. The table is removed by withdrawing the rod, and
bending up the hinged legs. The frame and window covering are
removed by releasing the four small hooks. Ruby, yellow, or ground
glass may be inserted in the sliding frame, as required, nearly all of
the light being shut out, or light admitted without a glass, by sliding
the frame.
 Fig. 3
Fig. 1 Fig. 2
Fig. 4

With This Sliding Frame and Folding Table, the Work of the Photographic
Dark Room can be Done by Daylight in the Home Bathroom

The general arrangement of the parts is shown in Fig. 2. The

dimensions are suggestive only, being suited to a small window in a
bathroom, where the equipment was installed. The table is merely a
board top supported by hinged legs, which are braced by a
removable round wooden rod. A frame, C, as detailed in the section
at A-B, Fig. 3, is fitted closely in the window casing. It is covered with
heavy cardboard, tacked on. The ways J, in which the frame for the
glass slides, are fixed to the lower rail of the frame C, and to a
crossbar at its middle. A 5 by 7-in. opening is cut in the cardboard to
admit the light, as shown in Fig. 2. Holes D are bored in the ways to
receive pins which hold the frame at various positions, as indicated
by the stop holes E, Fig. 4.
The sliding frame is detailed in Fig. 4. It consists of a back frame
of ¹⁄₂-in. wood, sliding in the grooves of the ways J, and a frame of 1-
in. stuff, mounted on the front of it. The openings may be made to
suit the size of plate to be used, 5 by 7-in. openings being indicated.
The openings are provided with rabbeted edges, as indicated by the
width G, and the height H, in which frames of light weight, for the 5
by 7-in. glass plates, are fitted. The frames may be made, or plain,
cheap picture frames may be used. The sliding frame is raised and
lowered by means of the handle F. The cardboard covering the
larger frame should be painted a dull black, and the wooden parts
may be shellacked in the natural color.
When developing films or plates, the frames with the red and
yellow glasses should be inserted in the sliding frame, and held in
place by turn buttons. The red glass will ordinarily be satisfactory for
developing, but on very bright days, with the sun shining directly on
the glass, a layer or two of “post-office” paper is placed over it. The
yellow glass may be used when fixing, and other work requiring a
subdued light, but not when developing is done. For printing, put in
the yellow and the ground glasses, the latter admitting sufficient light
for the purpose. To use the dark room occasionally in the evening, I
set a lamp on a well-protected shelf outside of the opening in the
cardboard, and proceed as in the use of daylight.
 Non-Blow-Out Cigar and Pipe Lighter

“It is a poor Irishman that cannot light his pipe when the wind is
blowing,” but the sketch shows a device that will make a “Paddy” out
of anyone, with a great saving of matches. It is made from a small
piece of brass tubing, or drawn shell, ¹⁄₂ in. in diameter, and about
1¹⁄₂ in. long. The open end is placed in the bowl of the pipe or over
the end of the cigar, a match inserted through the slot, and a quick
stroke on the threaded portion ignites the match. The small holes
provide air. The top is soldered in place.—James H. Rodgers,
Montreal, Canada.
 Electric Counting Glass for Thread Fabric
The intelligent housewife and shopper, as well as persons
professionally interested in the structure and quality of woven fabrics
of various kinds, can make good use of a counting glass for close
examination of such material. In its simplest form the device consists
of a cigar box with a ground-glass top and a small electric light
inside. Where larger pieces of goods are to be examined a small
table with wooden legs and wooden frame for the glass may be
made.
 Woven Fabrics are Examined under the Magnifying Glass and the Number
of Threads to the Square Inch Counted

The diagrams at A and B represent the threads making up the

cloth as stretched on the rollers of a loom. The lengthwise threads,
or warp, are shown at A, and the cross threads, or weft, at B. By
magnifying the material with a glass exposing an area of ¹⁄₂ or 1 in.
square, the threads may be counted or closely examined and the
quality determined. This also enables one to identify goods as being
the same.—F. Ball Pinkus, La Crescenta, California.
¶An inexperienced workman broke eight curved window panes on a
lake steamer by attempting to cut them on the inside, instead of on
the outside of the curve, in fitting the glass.
 Clock Device to Record Time of Appointments
and Other Events
An ordinary clock, fitted with an electrical device to record the
length of telephone conversations or appointment hours, or indicate
when a door is opened, is shown in the illustration. The record is
made by the hands in contact with brass rings attached to the face of
the clock, the front of the rings being covered with white paper,
dipped in a chemical, on which black dots are caused to appear, at
each contact. By examining the dots and noting the items
corresponding to them on a memorandum, the length of
conversations, etc., may be observed.
 The Electrical Device Attached to the Clock Records Contacts Made by the
Opening of a Door, and the Using of a Telephone

Two rings of ¹⁄₁₆-in. brass, one within the other, and having side
arms, are mounted on the front of the clock, as shown in the
illustration. The ring on arm A should be slipped under both hands,
and should have spring enough to hold it in contact with the small
clock hand. The ring fixed to arm B must be in contact with the large
hand, but must be some distance from the small hand and the