Chinese Law and Society Talk Series

The Prerogative Supermarket: Institutionalizing Extralegality in China

Date & Time: February 26, 2026 (Thursday) 11:00-12:00

Venue: Room 901, 9/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong

Language: English

Abstract:

Some regimes face a persistent tension between preserving legal integrity for legitimacy and resorting to extralegal practices for social control. Drawing on the dual state framework, this study argues that such tension can be mitigated through the institutionalization of extralegality, which creates a distinct prerogative sphere that absorbs political pressures and shields formal legality from politicization. The study examines China’s Comprehensive Governance of Public Order Center (社會治安綜合治理) system—an unprecedented consolidation of the Party-state’s fragmented stability-maintenance apparatus under the Chinese Communist Party. The CGPOCs coordinate actors ranging from Party organs and government agencies to clan elders and religious leaders to craft hybrid, often extralegal, solutions to socially contentious disputes. By diverting such cases away from the courts, the system reduces judicial exposure to political pressure while reinforcing judicial professionalism.

Speaker:

Professor Yueduan Wang is Assistant Professor at Peking University and holds a JD and SJD from Harvard Law School. A leading scholar of authoritarian law and politics, he is the author of Experimentalist Constitutions (Harvard, 2024), with widely cited work on China’s political-legal system and its comparative significance in top law and area studies journals.

Chair:

Professor Albert H.Y. Chen, Cheng Chan Lan Yue Professor and Chair of Constitutional Law, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong

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