"'If not the Party, then Who?': (Re-)Organizing Society the Party Way under the New Central Society Work Department"
Published: 21 February 2025
Seminar by Dr Holly Snape, University of Glasgow
In spring 2023, the Communist Party of China (CCP) established a new Central Society Work Department (CSWD), charging it with functions from managing citizens’ petitioning to figuring out how to “build” the Party among gig economy workers. The CSWD’s portfolio also covers Party building in NGOs and businesses and subsumes what was previously the state civil affairs system’s functions of interfacing with “self-governance” entities in communities and villages. The national-level CSWD’s establishment is currently being mirrored down to at least the county level, creating a vast network of new “society work” agencies all over the country. Based on an examination of the CSWD’s functions, local documentary data, and preliminary fieldwork, this talk will cover what we know about the CSWD and “society work” so far and will examine possible scenarios in its development, focusing particularly on how it might shake up relationships between CCP and society.
Biography
Dr Holly Snape is a Lecturer in Politics at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on Chinese Communist Party institutions and practices, Chinese documentary politics, and civil society and she is currently leading a British Academy ODA project to compare social policy in the Chinese and Vietnamese party-led systems. Holly is Editor in Chief of Chinese Law and Government.
The Scottish Centre for China Research is grateful for the support of the MacFie Bequest for its seminar series.
For further information, contact Professor Jane Duckett <jane.duckett@glasgow.ac.uk>
First published: 21 February 2025
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