'In today's China, you don't starve, you're poisoned': Consumer welfare and citizenship in urban China.

摘要

When Chinese consumers encounter dangers and injustices in the marketplace, their opportunities for recourse are defined by the state. As subjects of government policies designed to increase domestic consumption and maintain social stability these consuming citizens become rights-bearing citizens. Through participant observation in a consumer protection organization, interviews with consumer rights lawyers, journalists, employees of state-sponsored consumer organizations, and independent activists, as well as focus groups with a cross-section of Chinese consumers, this dissertation investigates the role of the consumer protection apparatus in shaping consumer grievances. The domain of consumer protection is emblematic of an important characteristic of the relationship of the Chinese government to the Chinese people. In order to preserve its power the party-state must maintain economic growth while finding ways to alleviate its side effects. Concerns about corruption, environmental and health threats, or police abuses can become mass grievances that threaten local and national political stability. While consumer propaganda promises opportunities for redress and the promotion of the rule of law, thus shoring up the legitimacy of the state, this study reveals that the consumer protection apparatus operates to discourage citizen action while tasking consumers with the responsibility for self-protection. The consumer law, on the other hand, retains the potential to assist citizens in making legitimate claims on powerful state actors, a tool that has been successfully employed by many of China's independent consumer activists. This dissertation argues that claims grounded in consumer-citizenship force the state to choose between disregarding the laws they created or empowering citizens with the tools of the law.