The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780472057856)

The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society examines how a group of Chinese intellectual elites referred to as the liberals or ziyou pai edified the civil society project beginning in the 1990s to build an independent space to constrain state power, increase political participation, and promote China's democratization. In the early 2000s, activists in movements such as the environmental and the AIDS movements identified with the liberals and regarded their activism as part of the project of building civil society. However, since the late 2000s the liberals' influence has gradually declined. In prominent social movements in the 2010s such as the labor and feminist movements, activists have openly criticized the liberal interpretation of civil society and regarded liberals' civil society agenda as irrelevant.

Mujun Zhou employs the concept of interstitial space, or the space where the exercise of power has not been fully institutionalized, to examine the history of the civil society project over the past three decades and its changing relationship with other social movements. Zhou suggests that by advocating for civil society the liberals gained allies and thematized many social problems rising during China's economic reform; however, liberals' activism also produced new forms of power inequalities.


Author: Mujun Zhou
ISBN-10: 0472057855
ISBN-13: 9780472057856
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Language: English
Published: 02/17/2026
Pages: 286
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.80w x 0.70d