BOOK REVIEWS

Kevin O'Brien and Li Lianjiang, Rightful Resistance in Rural China

Rightful Resistance in Rural China is a good example of the heuristic character of the inductive method in political sociology, that is to say, the manner in which a new social reality leads to an evolution in the theoretical framework of a discipline. The book is the product of an impressive 10 years of field work that began in 1994 and ranges from extensive quantitative studies conducted in partnership with Chinese universities to hundreds of semi-direct interviews with farmers and officials. The authors have also tapped greatly diverse primary sources, from government reports to villagers’ complaints, press reports, and Chinese researchers’ studies. But the work is presented mainly as an effort in conceptualisation and theorisation of a type of contentious action that can be defined in terms of neither institutional participation nor social movements, nor even of “everyday forms of resistance