Title
Autonomous Choices and Patriotic Professionalism: On Governmentality in Late-Socialist China
Publication Date
2006
Document Type
Article
Abstract
This paper argues that choice and autonomy constitute important new techniques of governing in late-socialist China. College students no longer receive direct state job assignments upon graduation, going instead to job fairs where they experience a degree of autonomy from state planning organs that was not available under high socialism's central planning. Yet even as post-Mao governmental rationalities have promoted autonomous decisions, young professionals' experiences of choice have remained framed within notions of social responsibility and patriotism. This paper examines how both neoliberal governmentality and a nationalism steeped in Maoist notions of state strength, achieved today through reform-era economic competitiveness, are intertwined in the emergence of what is called 'patriotic professionalism'.
Publication Title
Economy And Society
Volume
35
Issue
4
First Page
550
Last Page
570
DOI
10.1080/03085140600960815
Publisher Policy
pre-print, post-print with embargo
Recommended Citation
Hoffman, Lisa M., "Autonomous Choices and Patriotic Professionalism: On Governmentality in Late-Socialist China" (2006). Urban Studies Publications. 18.
https://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/urban_pub/18
