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Podcast: New Books in Human Rights
Episode: Samantha A. Vortherms, "Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship: Security, Development, and Local Membership in China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
Description: The redistribution of political and economic rights is inherently unequal in autocratic societies. Autocrats routinely divide their populations into included and excluded groups, creating particularistic citizenship through granting some groups access to rights and redistribution while restricting or denying access to others. This book asks: why would a government with powerful tools of exclusion expand access to socioeconomic citizenship rights? And when autocratic systems expand redistribution, whom do they choose to include?In Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship: Security, Development, and Local Membership in China (Stanford UP, 2024), Samantha A. Vortherms examines the crucial case of China—where internal citizenship regi...