Authoritarian Absorption: The Transnational Remaking of Epidemic Politics in China - Couverture rigide

Long, Yan

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0190900199 ISBN 13 : 9780190900199

Editeur : Oxford University Press Inc, 2025

Synopsis

Authoritarian Absorption portrays the rebuilding of China's pandemic response system through its anti-HIV/AIDS battle from 1978 to 2018. Going beyond the conventional domestic focus, Yan Long analyzes the influence of foreign interventions which challenged the post-socialist state's inexperience with infectious diseases and pushed it towards professionalizing public health bureaucrats and embracing more liberal, globally aligned technocratic measures. This transformation involved a mix of confrontation and collaboration among transnational organizations, the Chinese government, and grassroots movements, which turned epidemics into a battleground for enhancing the state's domestic control and international status. Foreign interveners effectively mobilized China's AIDS movement and oriented activists towards knowledge-focused epistemic activities to propel the insertion of Western rules, knowledge, and practices into the socialist systems. Yet, Chinese bureaucrats played this game to their advantage by absorbing some AIDS activist subgroups―notably those of urban HIV-negative gay men―along with their foreign-trained expertise and technical proficiency into the state apparatus. This move allowed them to expand bodily surveillance while projecting a liberal façade for the international audience.

Drawing on longitudinal-ethnographic research, Long argues against a binary view of Western liberal interventions as either success or failure, highlighting instead the paradoxical outcomes of such efforts. On one hand, they can bolster public health institutions in an authoritarian context, a development pivotal to China's subsequent handling of COVID-19 and instrumental in advancing the rights of specific groups, such as urban gay men. On the other hand, these interventions may reinforce authoritarian control and further marginalize certain populations―such as rural people living with HIV/AIDS and female sex workers―within public health systems.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Yan Long is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a political and organizational sociologist studying the interactions between globalization and authoritarian politics across empirical areas such as public health, civic action, urban development, and digital technology.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2025
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0190900199
• ISBN 13: 9780190900199
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 404
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italie