Book Reviews by Yunyun ZHOU
Women and Gender in Chinese Studies Review, 2018
Elizabeth Remick’s Regulating Prostitution in China: Gender and Local Statebuilding 1900–1937 is ... more Elizabeth Remick’s Regulating Prostitution in China: Gender and Local Statebuilding 1900–1937 is one of the most insightful examinations of the role of prostitution in the formation of modern local-states. This book is prefaced with a powerful illustration of why and how we need to ‘write gender and prostitution into the story of modern statebuilding’.
Papers by Yunyun ZHOU
Communication, Culture & Critique, 2022
From February 2020 to the end of 2021, China's state-controlled media focused on creating its "vi... more From February 2020 to the end of 2021, China's state-controlled media focused on creating its "victorious" narrative of combating the COVID-19 pandemic. This article focuses on two high-profile and COVID-19-themed TV series that aim to rewrite the collective memories of the Wuhan lockdown as part of state's affective governance strategies. Using a feminist textual analysis, the article examines the gendered nature of state narratives by dissecting the representation of national heroines of the pandemic. It demonstrates the centrality of heterosexual families and gender performances in romanticizing individual sacrifices and mass suffering. Unlike the socialist-era role models, the personal weakness and emotional flaws of China's new heroines are tactically displayed to enhance emotional authenticity and resonate with contemporary audiences. Yet these state narratives reflect only stereotypical depictions of femininity within a hierarchical gender order in post-reform China, where moralized womanhood is imbued with a sacrificial attitude that serves to discipline China's female citizens.
Politics & Gender, 2021
While research on women's substantive representation in legislatures has proliferated, our knowle... more While research on women's substantive representation in legislatures has proliferated, our knowledge of gender lobbying mechanisms in authoritarian regimes remains limited. Adopting a state-society interaction approach, this article addresses how women's interests are substantively represented in China despite the absence of an electoral mandate and the omnipresence of state power. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this article maps out the intertwining of key political agents and institutions within and outside the state that mobilize for women's grievances and demands. We find that representation of women's interests in China requires the emergence of a unified societal demand followed by a coalition of state agency allies navigating within legislative, executive, and Party-affiliated institutional bodies. The pursuit of women's interests is also politically bounded and faces strong repression if the lobbying lacks state alliances or the targeted issue is considered "politically sensitive" by the government.
Journal of Chinese Governance, 2019
By scrutinizing the semantics of words and going beyond a nominalist approach, this article compa... more By scrutinizing the semantics of words and going beyond a nominalist approach, this article compares the theoretical, linguistic and discursive evolution of the notion of representation in France and China, from its ancient origins to its contemporary interpretations. We argue that the word “representation” in English and “dàibiǎo 代表” in Chinese are not interchangeable synonymous, because “representation” includes a symbolic dimension that is absent in dàibiǎo, and because the latter is rarely used when informal representation is concerned. We also argue that both Chinese and Anglo-American political science research overemphasizes mandated representation and underestimates symbolic representation. Furthermore, our empirical research in three provinces of China and two regions of France demonstrates that in both countries, local officials and elected politicians serve a similar role of political intermediaries, who embody state power and respond to citizens’ demands simultaneously, thus enabling a de-facto representative loop. Such argument refutes the current understanding of representation as a “one-way authorization” that is supposed to come either from below (i.e. from the people) in the electoral democracies or from above (i.e. from the state authority) in authoritarian regimes and thus challenges the over-simplistic dichotomy of democratic and authoritarian regimes in representative studies.
PERSPECTIVES CHINOISES , 2019
RÉSUMÉ : Comme d’autres institutions socialistes ayant perduré lors des réformes vers l’économie ... more RÉSUMÉ : Comme d’autres institutions socialistes ayant perduré lors des réformes vers l’économie de marché en Chine, la Fédération natio- nale des femmes de Chine (FNFC ou FF pour parler de ses branches locales), unique organisation de représentation des intérêts des femmes, s’est constamment réinventée en vue de faire face à de nouveaux défis existentiels. En juillet 2015, la direction centrale du Parti communiste chinois a ordonné une nouvelle vague de réformes des organisations de masse, reprochant notamment à la Fédération des femmes sa distanciation vis-à-vis des citoyens ordinaires et l’affaiblissement de la représentation des intérêts des femmes. Trois ans après le début d’une ré- forme intensive, les structures locales de la FNFC ont-elles été suffisamment transformées en vue de renouer avec leur base, au niveau des masses ? Fondé sur un travail de terrain approfondi dans trois provinces ainsi que sur une analyse néo-institutionnelle, cet article soutient qu’à court terme, bien que la réforme serve principalement à la consolidation de l’autorité du Parti, les branches locales de la Fédération des femmes l’utilisent de façon créative pour élargir leur base populaire et étendre leur représentativité. À long terme, cependant, les FF locales sont confrontées à des problèmes institutionnels qui perdurent malgré la réforme, tels que la marginalisation politique, la bureaucratisation, ainsi que la mise en œuvre inefficace des politiques, qui limitent le développement du féminisme d’État en Chine.
MOTS-CLÉS : Parti communiste chinois, organisation de masse, féminisme d’État, Fédération des femmes, égalité de genre, représentation politique.
China Perspectives, 2019
ABSTRACT: Like other socialist institutions surviving in China’s market reforms, the All-China Wo... more ABSTRACT: Like other socialist institutions surviving in China’s market reforms, the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF or WF when referring to its local branches), as the only state-sponsored organisation representing women’s interests, has been constantly refashioning itself to meet new existential challenges. In July 2015, the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party commanded a new wave of mass organisational reforms, in which the Women’s Federation’s alienation from the grassroots and a weakening representation of women’s interests were questioned. After three years of intensive reform, are the local structures of the ACWF being substantially improved to reconnect to its mass base? Drawing from extensive fieldwork in three provinces and a neo-institutional analysis, this article argues that in the short term, although the reform serves principally as a consolidation of Party authority, local Women’s Federations are creatively using the reform to expand their popular base and broaden their representativeness. In the long term, however, local WFs are facing unreformed institutional problems such as political marginalisation, bureaucratisation, and ineffective implementation, which stagnate further development of China’s state feminism.
KEYWORDS: Chinese Communist Party, mass organisation, state feminism, Women’s Federation, gender equality, political representation.
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Book Reviews by Yunyun ZHOU
Papers by Yunyun ZHOU
MOTS-CLÉS : Parti communiste chinois, organisation de masse, féminisme d’État, Fédération des femmes, égalité de genre, représentation politique.
KEYWORDS: Chinese Communist Party, mass organisation, state feminism, Women’s Federation, gender equality, political representation.
MOTS-CLÉS : Parti communiste chinois, organisation de masse, féminisme d’État, Fédération des femmes, égalité de genre, représentation politique.
KEYWORDS: Chinese Communist Party, mass organisation, state feminism, Women’s Federation, gender equality, political representation.