Opportunistic Bargaining: Negotiating Distribution in China

Using a detailed case study of house eviction in peri-urban China as well as original data from an online survey experiment, this article explores the opportunistic bargaining phenomenon in China in which citizens leverage the policy priorities of authorities with tactics that are not approved by the state to bargain for goals beyond those promised by the state. We find that opportunistic bargaining is widely accepted by Chinese citizens and that such an inclination is encouraged by successful precedents and clear signals of an opening through which to leverage government policy priorities; however, it is dampened by unclear signals and failed precedents. We also find that opportunistic bargainers tend to hold more negative perceptions of the current regime and are less likely to abide by state rules or social norms. The characteristics of opportunistic bargaining appear to be the opposite of the dominant "rightful resistance"framework.