Consensus Crisis and Civil Society: The Sichuan Earthquake Response and State–Society Relations

A consensus crisis is characterized by challenges to the state’s managerial capacity, a critical need for civil society’s services, a general agreement on priorities and goals, and the state’s efforts to construct a morally respectable image. These features amplify the structural conditions favorable for relatively amicable state–society interactions. Existing studies of social response to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake focus on state–society relations, but neglect the role of situations. I argue that the earthquake is an example of a consensus crisis, which provided civil associations with a situational opening of political opportunity.