The Contested State vs. Contentious Workers: The Symbolic Labor Politics in Transitional China

How does the Chinese state maintain its legitimacy and manage labor conflicts during its transition to market economy? Through detailed analysis of a 10-year struggle by a group of state workers to defend their pensions by active engagement with state agents, this article attempts to explore the circular feature of the state and how this circular state functions to absorb the labor contentions. This state is composed of three intersecting circles—a circle between different petition offices, a circle between petition offices and courts, and a circle between the local and the center. On the one hand, the circulation of the workers’ case in this circular bureaucratic field elongates the struggles of the workers and prevents the radicalization of their resistance; on the other hand, this circle promotes the circulation and inculcation of statist capitals among workers. This process realizes both the discursive construction of the new state and the symbolic domination of the resisting workers.