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Public Opinion and Social Justice in China

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Abstract

China’s rise has not only propelled China to be the second-largest economy in the world but also produced an increasing socio-economic inequality that undermines the legitimacy of the socialist political system. What do people think of social inequality and social justice? To understand the public attitudes towards the issue of social justice, this article develops a typology of public opinion and social justice to study how people look at social justice in China. A public survey was conducted and analyzed. Our research shows that people tend to use their subjective belief system to view social justice. We find that overall public opinion focuses more on distributional justice and less than procedure fairness. We also find an increasing number of young people who began to pay more attention to policy-making processes and procedural justice. This finding may have an important implication for policymaking as the Chinese government seeks to reduce social instability.

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Notes

  1. John Rawls used a social contract argument to show that justice, and especially distributive justice, is a form of fairness.

  2. The relationship between belief and perception is a matter of academic debate. Some equated perception to belief, and others tried to prove that perception involves in certain aspects of personal experience or sensation. See, Smith, A. D. 2001. Perception and Belief. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 62 (2): 283–309.

  3. Research has shown that procedural justice can affect young people’s perception of rule of law. See, Saarikkomäki, E. 2016. Perceptions of Procedural Justice Among Young People: Narratives of Fair Treatment in Young People’s Stories of Police and, Security Guard Interventions. British Journal of Criminology 56(6): 1253–1271.

  4. Studies found that the role of socioeconomic status generally influences political participation. See Nelson, D. C. 1979. Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status as Sources of Participation: The Case of Ethnic Political Culture. American Political Science Review 73: 1024–1038.

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Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the Chinese National Social Science Fund (18AZZ004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Urban Economics and Public Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing, China

    Baobin Ma & Ping Du

  2. Kuang Yaming Visiting, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Qingshan Tan

  3. Department of Political Science, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, 44115, USA

    Qingshan Tan

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  1. Baobin Ma
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Correspondence to Qingshan Tan.

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Ma, B., Tan, Q. & Du, P. Public Opinion and Social Justice in China. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 27, 619–636 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-021-09761-4

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