Research On The Collective Incidents In China

China is at a crucial period of transition which causes much social conflict. This leads to mountains of collective incidents. Collective incidents (Quntixing shijian) draw the wider attention from the government, society and citizens to these social conflicts. As a consequence, all levels of government and members of society are thinking about the causes of collective incidents and about how to deal with them in such volumes. More importantly, collective incidents might help China reform itself toward a country embodying the principles of the rule of law. Existing research on Chinese collective incidents does not provide us with enough information to fully understand the situation as it is. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, Chinese collective incidents became a popular academic topic little more than twenty years ago, so there is little quantitative research. Existing research on the collective incidents is vague and does not have quantitative data to strengthen its claims. Now it is high time to explore the theoretical research, and it is probable that analysis of collective incidents will allow us to create theories.By using criminological and sociological theories in analyzing data collected by the Centre of Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice of the China University of Political Science and law (CJDJJ), this dissertation explores why collective incidents still happen frequently while the majority of citizens choose legal means to solve their disputes.The introduction details the academic interest, the state of the current research and the justification for and academic contributions of this research. Of those comments, the one on the qualitative research is highlighted here.The main body includes four chapters. The Chapter One is an overview of collective incidents. The author discusses first the definition of collective incidents. Second the author points out that the academic research can be classified into three levels: macro approach, meso approach and micro approach. Third the author introduces Western theoretical frameworks on the collective incidents. And finally the author argues that we should use scientific research methods to analyze Chinese social problems and meanwhile maintain Chinese traditional values and Chinese citizens’behavior models.The Chapter Two describes how the data collected and then illustrates eight dependent variables and three independent variables, such as stress, trust in government and Chinese tradition values.The Chapter Three reports the findings. Specifically, how citizens prioritize their responses to arising disputes, what the causes of collective incidents are, reasons for social unrest, the nature of trust between citizens and the government and the way values have changed.The Chapter Four analyzes the correlation between dependent variables and independent variables and discusses the reasons which cause the collective incidents. The author here introduces a new theory, called Chinese Dream, to explain the causes of collective incidents. The Chinese Dream theory focuses on citizens drawing the attention of the authorities as a means to protect their rights when they get involved with disputes.In the conclusion, the implications of these findings, for both policy and future research, are considered.