Analysis On The Demonstration Effect Of Collective Action

During the November 2008, there are different degrees of taxi strikes in more than twenty cities of China. During the taxi strikes both the demeanor of taxi drivers and the attitudes of the governments are entirely different with the former professional Uygur power events and the pervious government processing manner. Because of this, this series of events have become a hot topic in academic circle.After the taxi strikes occurred in Chongqing, the similar events occurred one after another, such as Sanya in Hainan, Yongdeng in Gansu, Shantou in Guangdong, Hongjiang in Hunan, Chaozhou in Guangdong and so on. This kind of events with the coupling and continuity nature form a complete chain reaction equation. As the representative of the taxi strikes, the taxi strikes first occurred in Chongqing has played a demonstration effect, and this demonstration is not confined to a particular region, both economically developed coastal cities and economically undeveloped mid-west cities. Besides, this kind of demonstration has a pattern of features, showing a certain degree of similarity. The latter strikes refer the former strikes to start the process, some partly change the way of discourse and actions, and some completely copy.In the recent incidents such as Xiamen PX event, Shanghai Maglev event and Chengdu-Pengzhou petrochemical event," walking", " shopping"," collective drinking tea", "collective rest" have become the public rational way of expressing demands, referenced by other cities'people, and also has formed the demonstration effect.In recent years, the people's enthusiasm for political participant is growing rapidly. Besides the traditional means of political participant such as elections, hearings and reading news, expressing demands by Internet and seeking interests by collective actions become more common ways. In November,2008, mobilization pattern of populace's soft resistance and the collective action with the similar process which existed in the nationwide large-scale strikes events started from the Chongqing taxi strikes and other Uygur power events have demonstrated the recent development of the demonstration effect in the politics, the sociology, as well as the political communication field. By analyzing the logic of action of the drivers and the government before and during and after the incidents, the paper tries to discover the heterogeneity and homogeneity of the social phenomena, then analyze how they work in the process to form the demonstration effect. It includes how every mechanism guides the development of events, how they coordinate in the process, and whether an event has all the mechanisms. Finally, discuss the impact of the demonstrate the effect of collective action on social stabilityBy referencing the existing research results on the West social movement theory and the related materials about these taxi strikes, this paper try to analyze the occurrence and development of the demonstration effect from the mechanism study angle. And on this basis, from theoretical perspective the paper discuss the validity, universality and cross-domain of reference from these events.