ABSTRACTThis article describes the ideological adaptation that occurred in China during the 1990s, when the reform of state-owned enterprises rearticulated the state-labor relationship. The market-oriented reform produced a series of meaning dislocations within the discursive field, departing from the traditional ideology of the party-state. By conducting discourse analysis on media reports published in the People's Daily, this article argues that the party-state deployed various discourse articulation practices to realize its ideological adaptation and maintain internal ideological consistency. Specifically, the party-state employed four types of 'interpretive packages' to reconcile the market reform's rationale with its own orthodox ideology, rearticulating the quadrilateral relationship among the workers, state enterprises, the party, and the government, as well as their roles within this ideological tradition. Discourse articulation has contributed greatly to the construction of a hegemony that constrains and fixes the new meanings stemming from the reform. However, it has also generated unintended consequences, such as conflicts among various discourse practices. The findings provide us with a pathway to understand how authoritarian states stabilize their ideology during periods of accelerated change and allow us to rethink the role of ideology in states' transformation, a topic that could be explored in future studies. AcknowledgementThe authors would like to thank Yanhong Li, and Feng Chen for their insightful suggestions on the earlier draft of this article. Constructive comments from the editor-in-chief, Suisheng Zhao, and three anonymous reviewers are greatly appreciated. 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Lasch, 'The Political Culture of Social Welfare Policy', Evaluating the Welfare State (Elsevier, 1983) <https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/B9780126579802500322>> accessed 22 July 2022.39 Guoguang Wu, 'Command Communication: The Politics of Editorial Formulation in the People's Daily', The China Quarterly 137, (1994), pp. 194–211.40 Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L. 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Perry, 'Studying Chinese Politics: Farewell to Revolution?', The China Journal 57, (2007), pp. 1–22.54 Feng Chen, 'Ideologies and Framing Labor Activism in China', Journal of Political Ideologies (2021), pp. 1–22.55 Ian Seckington, 'Nationalism, Ideology and China's "Fourth Generation" Leadership', Journal of Contemporary China 14(42), (2005), pp. 23–33.56 Suisheng Zhao, 'Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: The Strident Turn', Journal of Contemporary China 22(82), (2013), pp. 535–553.57 Abanti Bhattacharya, 'Chinese Nationalism Under Xi Jinping Revisited', India Quarterly 75(2), (2019), pp. 245–252.Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 19CZZ025).Notes on contributorsWei ChenWei Chen is an assistant professor of political science at the School of Government, and a research fellow at Centre for Asia-Pacific Development Studies, Nanjing University, China. She holds a PhD in political science from Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include labor politics, state governance, and comparative political institutions, with a focus on China. She can be reached at njuchenwei@nju.edu.cn.Peng ChenPeng Chen is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China. He holds a PhD in political science from Sun Yat-Sen University. His research interests include media politics, political communication, and citizen journalism in China. He can be reached at chenp77@gdufs.edu.cn.
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