| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Consensus crisis and civil society: the Sichuan earthquake response and state-society relations
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.
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