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China’s Crisis Governance and Evolving State-Society Relations during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ao, Ning LU (2023)
Abstract
Existing studies on China’s COVID-19 response have gravitated to a macro-level,
formal institutional analysis, focusing either on the effectiveness of the policy in early stage virus containment or on the growing negative impacts of COVID policy practices on China’s socio-political landscape at the late stage. Using serial interviews
accompanied by online observations and documents, this thesis redirects its attention
to the micro-level, individual response to China’s crisis governance and COVID policy
practices. Informed by Kellee Tsai’s evolutionary framework, it traces Chinese citizens’
changing attitudes towards the policy and its implementation and studies the extent to which such attitudinal changes reflect their... (More)
Existing studies on China’s COVID-19 response have gravitated to a macro-level,
formal institutional analysis, focusing either on the effectiveness of the policy in early stage virus containment or on the growing negative impacts of COVID policy practices on China’s socio-political landscape at the late stage. Using serial interviews
accompanied by online observations and documents, this thesis redirects its attention
to the micro-level, individual response to China’s crisis governance and COVID policy
practices. Informed by Kellee Tsai’s evolutionary framework, it traces Chinese citizens’
changing attitudes towards the policy and its implementation and studies the extent to which such attitudinal changes reflect their perceptions of the state and affect state society relations in China. The findings of the thesis show that although Chinese
citizens displayed growing antipathy towards the zero-COVID policy, it does not
necessarily lead to their questioning of the Chinese polity and the party-state’s
legitimacy. Instead, they are caught in a dilemma of their evolving perceptions of the
state and their entrenched, real-life interactions with it, where a trade-off tends to be
made based primarily on their calculation of personal interests rather than their
improved political literacy. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
supervisor
organization
publishing date
type
Thesis
publication status
published
subject
keywords
China Studies, policy implementation, COVID -19, National Identity
pages
58 pages
publisher
Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
f2aca5c6-660e-4cc0-8d43-28f41d19db75
alternative location
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9125986
date added to LUP
2024-10-02 22:10:15
date last changed
2025-04-04 14:33:46
@misc{f2aca5c6-660e-4cc0-8d43-28f41d19db75,
  abstract     = {{Existing studies on China’s COVID-19 response have gravitated to a macro-level,<br/>formal institutional analysis, focusing either on the effectiveness of the policy in early stage virus containment or on the growing negative impacts of COVID policy practices on China’s socio-political landscape at the late stage. Using serial interviews<br/>accompanied by online observations and documents, this thesis redirects its attention<br/>to the micro-level, individual response to China’s crisis governance and COVID policy<br/>practices. Informed by Kellee Tsai’s evolutionary framework, it traces Chinese citizens’<br/>changing attitudes towards the policy and its implementation and studies the extent to which such attitudinal changes reflect their perceptions of the state and affect state society relations in China. The findings of the thesis show that although Chinese<br/>citizens displayed growing antipathy towards the zero-COVID policy, it does not<br/>necessarily lead to their questioning of the Chinese polity and the party-state’s<br/>legitimacy. Instead, they are caught in a dilemma of their evolving perceptions of the<br/>state and their entrenched, real-life interactions with it, where a trade-off tends to be<br/>made based primarily on their calculation of personal interests rather than their<br/>improved political literacy.}},
  author       = {{Ao, Ning}},
  keywords     = {{China Studies; policy implementation; COVID -19; National Identity}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  publisher    = {{Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University}},
  title        = {{China’s Crisis Governance and Evolving State-Society Relations during the COVID-19 Pandemic}},
  url          = {{http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9125986}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}