Browsing by Author "McConnell Elmer, Keegan"

This thesis this demonstrates the powers and limitations of the developing Chinese workers movement in the context of the Chinese labor politics. It begins with a critique of the provocative claims of world labor scholar Beverly Silver regarding Chinese labor politics, including her 2003 prediction of an independent labor movement in China, and her 2009 claims that worker unrest caused the landmark 2008 Labor Contract Law (LCL) as a 'concession wrung from the powerful'. Through a critical realist-inspired critique, this thesis claims that problems in Silvers theories and predictions are rooted in the strong positivist tendencies of her causal modeling. Alternatively, this thesis takes on a critical realist methodology to reexplain the causal production of the LCL and the role of workers in its creation. The alternative explanation provided holds that the LCL was part of a hegemonic project of the Hu/Wen administration, where a growing workers movement, combined with an alternative accumulation strategy, mobilized the labor-relevant bodies of the Chinese state into an open and contested process of policy-production.