Article

Regaining honour and regaining legitimacy: shame, obedience and risk practices amongst Chinese communist officials

Details

Citation

Zhang S & McGhee D (2018) Regaining honour and regaining legitimacy: shame, obedience and risk practices amongst Chinese communist officials. Economy and Society, 47 (3), pp. 453-476. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2018.1528103

Abstract
As part of its anti-corruption campaigns in China, the Communist Party of China (CCP) provides officials opportunities to redeem themselves and renew their vows of loyalty to the Party and the people they serve. Officials must regain honour through a process of self-confrontation and self-renunciation in compulsory meetings in which they are encouraged to transform their immoral thoughts and behaviours through confessional criticism and self-criticism practices. These meetings facilitate officials’ redemption through a divinized, ritualistic and theatrical process. In the process of confession and penance, officials must expose themselves to a type of ritual martyrdom, which combines elements of shame, a commitment to absolute obedience and exposure to risk. This paper is based on original fieldwork comprising 50 interviews with high-, mid- and low-level officials across China during 2014 and 2015.

Keywords
redemption; honour; Communist Party of China; ethics; legitimacy; anti-corruption

Journal
Economy and Society: Volume 47, Issue 3

StatusPublished
Publication date31/12/2018
Publication date online16/10/2018
Date accepted by journal19/09/2018
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/33724
ISSN0308-5147
eISSN1469-5766

People (1)

People

Professor Derek McGhee

Professor Derek McGhee

Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences