Re-envisioning community policing: Histories, discourses, and practices in the People’s Republic of China

This essay extends the debate over whether “shequ jingwu” should be regarded as an imported term of “community policing”, or in nature repetition of long-term Chinese policing practice. This study uses a local community policing practice as a lens through which to explore the nature of community policing in the PRC from historical and sociocultural perspectives. I identify four particular issues that create challenges for policing in the PRC, and argue that community policing is adopted to address certain problems in certain historical moments. After contextual analysis of community policing discourse produced on CNKI, a major knowledge resource database in China, I seek to discuss who assume the epistemic authority to define and explain community policing, and argue that community policing discourses produced by CNKI play as a critical role in legitimating new technologies. By focusing a community policing practice at ground level, I propose the assumption that the routine activities of community policing in China are largely consisted of nonconfrontational interactions such as information work, population management, and social service work. These work stands out to promote a certain social order which is consistent with strengthening bureaucratic centralization promoted by the CCP regime.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

East Asian Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2019

Author dc:creator

• Zhou, Lingxiao

Contributors dc:contributor

• Martin, Jeffrey T.

• community policing
• policing
• discourse
• the PRC

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 Lingxiao Zhou

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/105051

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/105051