Legitimate resistance

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Legitimate resistance is a form of partially institutionalized popular confrontation with the state in which disadvantaged citizens try to legitimize their concerns by using the state's laws, politics or rhetoric to formulate their protests. Legitimate resistance is contrasted with other forms of popular protest in which citizens question the legitimacy of the rulers. Legitimate resisters accept the legitimacy of the state's laws, policies and core values, but protest when they realize that the authorities have failed to keep their own promises, disregarded laws or generally accepted values. Legitimate resisters are characterized by the peaceful nature of their protests, which often use institutionalized channels of resistance. Unlike conventional resisters, who can use covert or silent means of sabotage against the state, legitimate resisters actively seek the attention of elites and their protests are public and open.

The concept was first discussed by political scientist Kevin O'Brien in his 1996 article Rightful Resistance , which focuses on applications in rural China as well as a variety of other political settings, including the United States and South Africa . The concept was in O'Brien and Lianjiang Li's book Rightful Resistance in Rural China clearly outlined in 2006 and was supported by a number of other theorists of social change adopted to describe the methods by which citizens gradually trying their rights and interests move forward.

Example of legitimate resistance in China

The concept of legitimate resistance, developed by Kevin O'Brien, was originally used to describe protests in rural China, where citizens face a range of abuses, including corruption , pollution , robbery taxes and economic embezzlement. As the "legal awareness" of Chinese citizens increased in the Deng Xiaoping era and after, citizens began using petition channels, the legal system and central government guidelines to hold local authorities accountable . To illustrate, O'Brien gives the example of a group of villagers in Henan Province who are faced with excessive taxes from local authorities. In response, the villagers handed the authorities a copy of the central government regulations imposing strict tax limits and threatened that if local authorities did not cut the inflated taxes, they would raise their complaints at higher levels.

Legitimate resistance in China manifests itself in a number of ways. For example, through the use of the petition system, through village and community elections and through the legal system to remedy grievances. Weiquan lawyers , who regularly take action against authorities, defend people whose human or civil rights have been violated by the party state. These lawyers are said to be engaged in some form of legitimate resistance. Weiquan's attorneys usually present their arguments with appeals to the Chinese constitution , arguing that human rights violations - however they may be sanctioned by the state - violate the country's law.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Kevin J. O'Brien, Rightful Resistance , World Politics Journal, Volume 49, Number 1, October 1996, accessed October 29, 2017
  2. ↑ a b Kevin J. O'Brien and Li Lianjiang, Rightful Resistance in Rural China , Cambridge University Press, February 13, 2006, ISBN 9781139450980 , accessed October 29, 2017
  3. ↑ a b Achim Schaffrinna, A Symbol for Resistance in China , Design Diary, March 31, 2007, accessed on October 29, 2017
  4. ^ Eva Pils, Mike McConville, Comparative Perspectives on Criminal Justice in China, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, ISBN 978-1-78195-585-7 ; The practice of law as conscientious resistance: Chinese weiquan lawyers' experience, in The Impact of China's 1989 Tiananmen Massacre by Jean-Philippe Beja, accessed October 29, 2017
  5. ^ Jean-Philippe Beja, The Impact of China's 1989 Tiananmen Massacre , Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2011, ISBN 978-0-415-57872-1 , accessed October 29, 2017
  6. ↑ Keith J. Hand, Using Law for a Righteous Purpose: The Sun Zhigang Incident and Evolving Forms of Citizen Action in the People's Republic of China , University of California, Hastings College of the Law, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, Issue 45, p 114–147, 2006, accessed October 29, 2017
  7. ↑ Petra Kolonko, Mark Siemons, Kungfu-Meister gives way to excavators , Frankfurter Allgemeine, April 3, 2007, accessed on October 29, 2017