Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms
Institutional work research shows how actors purposively create, maintain, and disrupt institutions. Failed or unintended consequences of institutional maintenance remain relatively unexplored, for two reasons. First, the role of coercive disruption actors (e.g., a state) has not been fully explored...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
2021
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86855 |
| _version_ | 1848764878994538496 |
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| author | Xiao, Q. Klarin, Anton |
| author_facet | Xiao, Q. Klarin, Anton |
| author_sort | Xiao, Q. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Institutional work research shows how actors purposively create, maintain, and disrupt institutions. Failed or unintended consequences of institutional maintenance remain relatively unexplored, for two reasons. First, the role of coercive disruption actors (e.g., a state) has not been fully explored. Second, existing literature takes scant account of power and disregards the resistance tactics of subordinate actors. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of a migrant workers’ union in China, we show how subordinate actors were first able to maintain institutional arrangements followed by a maintenance failure under the disruption work performed by the authoritarian state. This study extends the institutional maintenance literature in two ways. First, subordinate actors can sustain institutions insofar as they collectively deploy superficial deference and hidden forms of resistance. Second, maintenance work is vulnerable in the sense that it is contingent on the systems of domination and the level of pressure exerted by the disruption actors. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:26:22Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-86855 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:26:22Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-868552022-01-06T03:02:04Z Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms Xiao, Q. Klarin, Anton Institutional work research shows how actors purposively create, maintain, and disrupt institutions. Failed or unintended consequences of institutional maintenance remain relatively unexplored, for two reasons. First, the role of coercive disruption actors (e.g., a state) has not been fully explored. Second, existing literature takes scant account of power and disregards the resistance tactics of subordinate actors. Drawing on a longitudinal case study of a migrant workers’ union in China, we show how subordinate actors were first able to maintain institutional arrangements followed by a maintenance failure under the disruption work performed by the authoritarian state. This study extends the institutional maintenance literature in two ways. First, subordinate actors can sustain institutions insofar as they collectively deploy superficial deference and hidden forms of resistance. Second, maintenance work is vulnerable in the sense that it is contingent on the systems of domination and the level of pressure exerted by the disruption actors. 2021 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86855 10.1177/1056492619868027 fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Xiao, Q. Klarin, Anton Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms |
| title | Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms |
| title_full | Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms |
| title_fullStr | Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms |
| title_full_unstemmed | Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms |
| title_short | Subordinate Actors’ Institutional Maintenance in Response to Coercive Reforms |
| title_sort | subordinate actors’ institutional maintenance in response to coercive reforms |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/86855 |