The DOI matches its Crossref record; 2 of the 2 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Lawyers, State Officials and Significant Others: Symbiotic Exchange in the Chinese Legal Services Market
Abstract
In China's legal services market, lawyers face strong competition from a variety of alternative legal service providers. Based upon 256 interviews with law practitioners and public officials, three years of ethnographic work on a professional internet forum, and extensive archival research, this article develops a theory of symbiotic exchange to analyse the competition between lawyers, basic-level legal workers and other practitioners in ordinary legal work, as well as how the state regulates these competing occupational groups. It argues that the dynamics of professional competition in the Chinese legal services market can be explained by the symbiotic exchange between law practitioners in the market and their regulatory agencies and officials in the state. Chinese lawyers have a weak market position because their exchange with the state is often not as strong and stable as their competitors. The prevalence of symbiotic exchange leads to the structural isomorphism between market and state institutions in China's transitional economy.
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
“What He Did Was Lawful”: Divorce Litigation and Gender Inequality inChina
Li, K. (2015) · Law & Policy · doi:10.1111/lapo.12034 · Cited by 37
Metadata
- Authors
- Liu, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Corresponding author
- Liu, Sida
- ORCID
- Liu, Sida
- Venue
- The China Quarterly
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2011-06
- Volume
- 206
- Pages
- 276-293
- ISSN
- 0009-4439 (ISSN-L)
- 0305-7410
- 1468-2648
- OpenAlex
- W2143340801
- Cited by
- 102
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 35.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The China Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Law › Legal Systems and Judicial Processes
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance
- Social Sciences › Law › Judicial and Constitutional Studies
- Keywords
- lawyers, legal profession, professional competition, structural isomorphism, transition economies
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- Liu, S. (2011). Lawyers, State Officials and Significant Others: Symbiotic Exchange in the Chinese Legal Services Market. The China Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741011000269
