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

This document is currently not available here.

Find in your library

Share

COinS