Recently,Associate Professor Feng Yuqing of Southeast University School of Law published a paper in the latest issue of China Journal entitled From Law to Politics: Petitioners' Framing of Disputes in Chinese Courts. China Journal is a SSCI journal with an impact factor of 1.484.
Associate Professor Feng Yuqing graduated from Nanjing University in 2009 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011 with a Master of Law degree. He graduated from the Nanjing University School of Law with a Master of Law degree in 2016. He graduated from City University of Hong Kong with a Ph.D. Since 2016, he has been teaching at the School of Law of Southeast University. He is also a member of the Jiangsu Provincial Institute of Civil Procedure Law, editor of Southeast Law Science, an external reviewer of the Law and Society Review of the SSCI journal, and an executive deputy director of the Judicial Big Data Research Base of the People's Court. . His main research directions are legal sociology and civil procedural law.
The abstract of article is as follows：
Drawing on empirical data collected from petitioners in Chinese courts, this article analyzes how the regime’s political concern for social stability transforms petitioners’ disputes and shapes the evolution of their legal consciousness. Compared with first-time petitioners, who often address their complaints within a legal paradigm, the veteran petitioners take advantage of the judges’ political concern for social stability and present their disputes as potentially threatening social stability. They hold the judiciary responsible for their plight; they petition courts during “sensitive periods”; they employ innovative tactics to draw official attention; and they seek to secure government stability-maintenance funds as a substitute for legal remedies. However, in framing a legal dispute as a political problem, the veteran petitioners risk retaliation. This article’s analysis provides insights into the operation of the court petition system, how the legal consciousness of Chinese petitioners evolves, and how in the petitioners’ eyes the legitimacy of the legal system gets eroded.