Yueduan Wang and Ying Xia. “State-Sponsored Activism: How China’s Law Reforms Impact NGOs’ Legal Practice.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 49, no. 1 (2024): 451–77.
This study explores how attorneys and law-related NGOs navigate legal opportunities in China amid ongoing democratic backsliding. Following “law-based governance” reforms that professionalized the judiciary, expanded legal aid, and granted NGOs public interest standing, the research—based on in-depth interviews—finds that legal professionals have leveraged these openings to grow their litigation work, policy influence, and funding access. However, these gains are tempered by significant cooptation: the reforms channel NGOs’ and lawyers’ activities into state-sanctioned processes, aligning their interests with those of the state. The study highlights the dual role of attorneys in such environments, where they both engage with and are constrained by authoritarian legal structures. The author illustrates how regimes may support legal participation strategically to maintain control, offering insight into the complex position of legal professionals in backsliding or hybrid political systems.