Consensus crisis and civil society: the Sichuan earthquake response and state-society relations

In: The China journal: Zhongguo yan jiu, Heft 71, S. 91-108

Abstract

A consensus crisis is characterized by challenges to the state's managerial capacity, a critical need for civil society's services, a general agreement on priorities and goals, and the state's efforts to construct a morally respectable image. These features amplify the structural conditions favorable for relatively amicable state-society interactions. Existing studies of social response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake focus on state-society relations, but neglect the role of situations. I argue that the earthquake is an example of a consensus crisis, which provided civil associations with a situational opening of political opportunity. (China J/GIGA)