| This study examines social control in Chinese work organizations. Social control refers to any mechanism which deals with problematic or deviant situations, secures individual compliance, and maintains collective order and normative consistency. Chinese work organizations, officially called 'work units', danwei, are literally workplaces where a group of people are employed to carry out a line of business under socialist state planning.;Research data are primarily from an interview of 100 former and present Chinese work unit members, temporarily sojourned in the U.S. at the time of interview, whose units present a spread of Chinese work organizations in terms of location, rank, line of business, and scale. Secondary data include official documents and scholarly contributions from social control, organizational analysis, and Chinese studies. The investigator's own experience in China is also drawn upon.;The research focus is on various forms of social control in Chinese work units. Included are ideology, residential network, dossier, reward-penalty system, administrative discipline, quasi-justice, para-security, vigilance, and inclusion. Each is described and analyzed with respect to structure, process, nature, change, and comparative perspective.;After all the forms of social control are tackled, communist political economy, Chinese culture, and controllee reactions are examined to contextually explain why and how they are possible, unavoidable, and sustained. China's current reform, modernization, and democratization are also dealt with to project social control reality into the future.;The main theme of this study is: the Chinese work unit is not merely a workplace. It is also a party branch to implement communist policies and a governmental agency to keep social order. The key learning is: the main body of social control is not coercive or therapeutical control of criminals or the insane but non-confrontational control of ordinary citizens who create the mainstream and help realize social goals. The effect of citizen control lies in that it is by the controlled perceived as reasonable, habituated as a natural part of lifestyle, and internalized as a necessary element of social order. Benefits or services may also be delivered along with control to increase its acceptability and effect. |
