The state is able to take advantage of the social capital by deploying social actors and in exercising social capital, through the process of persuasion. They'll be putting on pressure on these families, but the pressures being put on them are social pressures. People would often cave into this social pressure. So, there is compliance, but it doesn't feel like state repression.

Lynette Ong

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A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Lynette Ong is a professor of political science at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is the author of the recent book Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:48
• Thugs for Hire - 2:47
• Political, Economic, and Social Brokers - 12:52
• Zero-Covid Protests - 20:34
• Outsourcing Repression After the Protests - 32:17

Key Links

Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China by Lynette Ong

"China’s Massive Protests Are the End of a Once-Trusted Governance Model" by Lynette Ong in the Foreign Policy

Learn more about Lynette Ong

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