Lawyers, Political Embeddedness, and Institutional Continuity in China’s Transition from Socialism

“That is, from the Mellahi et al. / A Review of the Nonmarket Strategy Literature 167 embeddedness perspective, stakeholders with strong ties to the manager may take precedence over demands of other stakeholders (Michelson, 2007).”

“, 1999; Gulati and Gargiulo, 1999; Hagedoorn and Frankort, 2008; Uzzi, 1996, 1997), few studies applied the idea of embeddedness to the relationships between firms and the state (Michelson, 2007; Talmud and Mesch, 1997).”

“98 Michelson 2007.”

“We treat political embeddedness as involving businessgovernment exchange relationships realized by a multitude of individual and institutional ties to the state and its actors (Michelson, 2007; Okhmatovskiy, 2010; Sun et al., 2010a).”

“In China, attorneys laboring under the double strains of “enormous economic pressure” and “scant institutional support” for protecting unpopular interests “screen out commercially undesirable cases brought by socially undesirable prospective clients” (Michelson 2006, p. 27; see also Michelson 2007b).”

“necessarily decline with the development of market institutions (Michelson, 2007; Shi, Markoczy, & Stan, 2014) because of the impact of multiple contingency factors (Peng & Zhou, 2005; Sun, Mellahi, & Wright, 2012).”

“318 Taussig 2008), expressing civic grievances (Michelson 2006, 2007b; Michelson and Read 2011; Tsai and Xu 2012), and avoiding bureaucratic harassment (Michelson 2007a).”

“As for legal systems, research has shown that, surprisingly, the development of legal systems in emerging economies tends to increase the value of CPCs; scholars explain this result on the basis that legal systems are commonly deeply embedded in political regimes such that they facilitate political connections (Michel…”

“The second meaning of politics in lawyers’ everyday work is defined by their career histories and social networks in relation to the state, which, collectively, are termed “political embeddedness” by Michelson (2007).”

“Furthermore, some defense lawyers with previous work experience in the police, procuracy, or court are also able to use their connections to reduce the difficulties in practice (B0508; B0516; X0505; C0708; H0703; Michelson 2007).”

“0002-9602/2009/11503-0002$10.00”

“However, as legal system development is often intertwined with political interests and ideology (Acemoglu & Johnson, 2005; Michelson, 2007), institutionalizing these new laws and regulations can be lengthy processes.”

“However, there is ample evidence that lawyers have not been able to fulfill their duties (Michelson 2007, Liu and Halliday 2016).”

“This is particularly relevant for SOEs because their political embeddedness—’’bureaucratic, instrumental, or affective ties to the state’’ (Michelson, 2007: 352)—provides opportunities for politicians to influence important decisions in these organizations (Okhmatovskiy, 2010).”

“85 Michelson 2007, 355.”

“…from one place to another, law is a highly localized practice, and much of lawyers’ expertise consists of insider knowledge of the local legal system and social connections with law enforcement officials (Sarat and Felstiner 1995; Mather, McEwen, and Maiman 2001; Michelson 2007; Liu 2011).”

“At the same time, lawyers had to deal with judges who discounted their arguments and police who tampered with evidence and intimidated witnesses (Halliday and Liu, 1997; Michelson, 2007).”

“However, this literature has focused on how the business–government relationship affects the firm, such as bringing a new venture legitimacy and access to resources and thus enhancing its growth (Li & Zhang, 2007; Michelson, 2007; Zhou, 2017).”

“Political embeddedness refers to ‘bureaucratic, instrumental, or affective ties to the state and its actors’ (Michelson, 2007: 352).”

“For example, former government officials often take advantage of their ‘political embeddedness’ (Michelson, 2007) and act as brokers between the state and other social spaces (e.g. the financial market, think tanks or international organisations).”

“This conception encompasses the fact that while guanxi practices have attained highly instrumental roles and strategies in the business sector during the reform period, such practices also encompass reciprocal affective components (Michelson, 2007, p. 355).”

“Unlike the United States, where federal judges enjoy lifetime tenure and have protection against salary reductions to enhance their ability to resist potential political pressures, China's political structure lacks a separation of powers (Michelson, 2007).”

“Organizations’ institutional linkages with the state are often complex (Powell, 1991; Scott, 2014), including ‘bureaucratic, instrumental, or affective ties’ (Michelson, 2007: 352).”

“But in China, despite osten-sible privatization, lawyers are still deeply intertwined with the state, with the career success of individual lawyers and the performance of law firms both generally dependent, in part, on being embedded in webs of relationships with state officials (Michelson, 2007).”

“Even the high-ranking MOJ official we interviewed admitted that there was no clear legal basis for such strategic alliances under Chinese law (G1213).”

“The inter- and intraregional developmental differences dominate the development of the institutional systems [20,27].”

“In simpler terms, the article seeks to explain how these actors perceive the risk of violating the law (cf. Grasmick and Green 1980; Paternoster et al. 1983; Williams and Haw-kins 1986; Braithwaite and Makkai 1991; Decker, Wright, and Logie 1993; Pater-noster and Simpson 1993, 1996; Thornton,…”

“They range from entrepreneurs’ and senior executives’ prior government working experiences[1] (Lester, Hillman, Zardkoohi, & Cannella, 2008; Michelson, 2007) to the hire of the relatives of government officials as firm employees (Wank, 1999).”

“After a state-led “unhooking and restructuring” (tuogou gaizhi) campaign around 2000–2001, the majority of Chinese law firms had become partnerships and most Chinese lawyers private practitioners (Michelson 2007a).”

“Like most other “politically embedded lawyers” (Michelson, 2007), they work with the state rather than against it and seek to dispel fears about their independence and their possible role as protest organizers.”

“Michelson (2007).”

“In this section, we have presented evidence that, in both rural and urban China, insiders have a much higher probability of filing complaints about government services to authorities than outsiders.”

“Vertical and horizontal ties to different economic entities are adaptive and beneficial to the creation of new firms (Guo and Miller, 2010), valuable opportunities flow through symbiotic ties created and maintained between state officials and entrepreneurs (Wank, 1999), and politically embedded ties function effective…”

“For more information on the crime of lawyer ’ s perjury and other professional dif fi culties of Chinese criminal defence lawyers, see Yu (2002); Michelson (2007); Halliday & Liu (2007); Liu & Halliday (2011).”

“Coinciding with the rise of feminism in China, the rise of lawyer activism was closely related to the privatization of Chinese lawyers in the 1990s (Michelson 2007; S. Liu 2011).”

“Despite many fundamental reforms that have liberalized China's economic system to a large extent, China's political and legal institutions are deeply embedded in the former institutional environments and have made no substantial progress (e.g., Pei 2006; Michelson 2007).”

“…embedded personal ties play essential roles in the process of the proposal and adoption of policy ideas rather than expertise provided by consultants (Michelson, 2007), establishing a highly competitive marketplace of ideas is unnecessary in the knowledge regime (Huang and Economy, 2015).”

“As part of political embeddedness, economic actors’ formal and informal ties connect them to the state and its bureaucracy, affecting their economic activities due to power differences (Alvi et al., 2019; Michelson, 2007).”

“These lawyers are highly politically embedded, meaning that they have close individual and organizational ties to the state (Michelson 2007).44 In fact, a score sheet used by the Hunan bar association to rank nominees purposefully weights ties to government and includes a litmus test for loyalty.”

“Even so, the explosion of corporate law firms that has accompanied the economic boom in China (Michelson, 2007 ; Liu, 2006 ) has yet to be replicated in Russia, at least outside of Moscow and St.”

“Although information on individual-level refusals was recorded in neither sample, all indications are that these are reasonably representative samples (see Michelson, 2007, pp. 378 –379, for details).”

“As Michelson (2007c) observed, grievances in rural China are not just individual grievances, but are also family and community griev-ances.”

“Political embeddedness is defined as persistent structural relations with the government and state (Michelson, 2007), residing both at the individual level—top managers’ ties to politics—and at the organizational level—organizational ties to political bodies, including state-owned shareholding (Sun…”

“They have revealed how lawyers interact with other institutional actors within the broader legal and political system to gain ‘political embeddedness’ necessary to carry out their work and to protect themselves (e.g. Michelson 2007b; Liu and Halliday 2011).”

“Dam (2007), p. 250; Michelson (2007), p. 353.”

“In this sense, lawyers remained embedded in an inextricable part of the state bureaucracy.(113) The privatization of lawyers started from the creation of “cooperative law firms” (合作所) in 1988, which were characterized by being “formed on voluntary basis, responsible for their own profits and losses, and able to self-r…”

“This structural dependence between market and state actors is termed “political embeddedness” (Michelson 2007) and is widely observed in theChinese legal profession.”

“This caution stems from the fact that professional associations in China are often under government control, leading some scholars to advocate for a state-centered approach to understanding professions (Liu, 2011; Michelson, 2007).”

“33 Michelson 2007, 358.”