Counterfeiting Legitimacy: Reflections on the Usurpation of Popular Politics and the “Political Culture” of China, 1912–1949

Abstract

The rhetoric of popular political participation filled Republican China’s newspapers, periodicals, and books throughout the 1910s and 1920s. The vocabulary, however, masked a different reality: the monopolization of political life by elites, well-organized political parties, and various kinds of activists. Through a three-part analysis of counterfeit legitimacy in early twentieth-century print media—the widespread use of the word “citizen,” the seeming pervasiveness of civil society associations, and the periodic scheduling of elections—this article exposes the manner in which democratic-sounding rhetoric was manipulated for political gain. Chinese political culture in this era could be characterized as a culture of “misrepresentation” in which politically savvy individuals and groups deliberately cloaked themselves with misleading rhetoric. A recognition of this “usurpation of popular politics” should inform any scholarly attempts to locate a “civil society” or a “public sphere” in early twentieth century China.

Keywords

civil society / public sphere / citizen / elections / associations / Shanghai

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2014 Higher Education Press and Brill