China’s Troubled Quest for Order: Leadership, Organization and the Contradictions of the Stability Maintenance Regime

China’s pursuit of rapid growth has gone hand-in-hand with the development and elaboration of a stability maintenance regime. If there is a China model, then a key element of that model is the stability maintenance regime. This article traces the origins and evolution of the multiple institutions that make up this regime and reveals a confluence of technocratic leadership and organizational factors that have shaped the character and dynamics of this regime, including its intensification in the 2000s.As successive leaders of the regime have turned to seemingly rigorous mechanisms of measurement, discipline and control to curb petitions, reduce crime or improve court efficiency, all in the name of preserving stability, they also sowed the seeds of various forms of excesses. There have been efforts to address some of the most glaring abuses in recent years but the regime continues in the era of Xi Jinping, torn between a strong preoccupation with stability and a desire to promote law-based governance.