PT Unknown
AU Heberer Prof. Dr., T
TI Strategic Behavior of Private Entrepreneurs in China: Collective Action, Representative Claims, and Connective Action
SE Working Papers on East Asian Studies
PY 2016
VL 108
DI 10.17185/duepublico/48111
LA de
DE Private entrepreneurs as strategic groups; political strategies and corporate political action; collective action; connective action; lobbying; weapons of the rich; everyday forms of policy influence
AB This paper starts out from James C. Scott’s seminal book “Weapons of the Weak” dealing with everyday
forms of collective action by private entrepreneurs. It raises the question by what kind of formal
and informal mechanisms Chinese entrepreneurs exert political influence in order to protect or enforce
their interests. The author explored two aspects: First, the way in which private entrepreneurs in
China act in a collective manner, i. e. as a strategic group; and second, how collective action by private
entrepreneurs is altering both political structures and the institutional setting of the political system
and what effect this is having on stabilization of the system as a whole. In addition, this paper examines
patterns of formal and informal representation of private entrepreneurs in Chinese politics.
The author contends that as Chinese entrepreneurs increasingly turn to patterns of collective action
they are developing into a coherent group with a broad range of strategies aimed at safeguarding their
interests, and that in so doing they are playing a salient role as system stabilizers.
ER