| Social mobilization is essential for promoting rural revitalization.The grass-roots government has mobilized rural gentries organizations,such as the "Council of Rural Gentries," and employed them as an intermediary of the state embedded in rural society,as a result of the strengthening of the social mobilization system.Rural gentries play both morally and economically significant role.The grass-roots government is therefore expects they may fulfill a variety of roles in rural revitalization,such as industry construction and cultural promotion.At the same time,rural gentries are also necessary for the countryside to perform a variety of purposes.As a result,under the constraints of multiple parties,the grass-roots government has made choice arrangements for mobilization and established a variety of institutional processes.This research found three strategies: mobilizing rural gentries to educate villagers from a cultural perspective;mobilize rural gentries to draw resources from an economic perspective;combining economic and cultural perspectives.Why does the grass-roots government present a differentiated institutional process for the issue of mobilizing rural gentries? This is the central question of this research.According to traditional state-society theory,there is a "brokerage" mechanism,which is an elite intermediary between the state and rural society.But these studies are insufficient.Firstly,they concentrate on the power design of macro-structural while ignoring the values choices that grass-roots governments have chosen to uphold in the "moral" and "economic" spheres.And hence,scholars believe that the grass-roots government would follow the same path to mobilize the society.Secondly,they both support the assumption of holism.On the one hand,the mobilization path is considered to consist of a single chain,on the other hand,the mobilization targets are not described,which leads to ambiguity influence of group characteristics.Therefore,this research selects the group of rural gentries as the target of social mobilization.We establish an analytical framework for the "institutional process model of mobilization" through combining social mobilization theory,new institutionalism theory,and attention distribution theory.At the same time,integrating the method of text analysis,grounded theory and multi-case comparative analysis to explore the process details of mobilizing rural gentries.This research found that the institutional process of mobilization can be separated into "start-up" and "running" processes,and within the constraints,grass-roots governments will pick various strategies to mobilize rural gentries.First of all,in the "start-up" process,the mobilization issues present the morality and interest attributes,giving grass-roots governments the opportunity to adopt selective strategies.They will use the strategic action of "issue bundling" to integrate the moral and economic attributes of rural gentries,which can accomplish multiple goals of rural revitalization,particularly the reconstruction of the rural ethical foundation and social resource extraction.It is divided into three categories: "morality constrains interest" "apparent morality but essential interest" and "morality driven through interest".Secondly,in the "running" process,the grass-roots government adopts "difference sequential collaboration" approach to make the mobilization effective.On the one hand,by emphasizing cultural characteristics,the positive function of rural gentries is created,thus strengthening the legitimacy of government mobilization and establishing a shared understanding between the government,rural gentries and farmers.On the other hand,the grass-roots government establishes the political connection between the government and the rural gentries through the party-government absorption mechanism,and builds the social connection between the villagers and the rural gentries through the social embedding mechanism.Constituted a functioning mechanism for grass-roots government to mobilize rural gentries.Ultimately,three paths will eventually be proposed when the "start-up" and "running" processes work together.(1)In "morality constrains interest",grass-roots government employs the ethical attributes of rural gentries to drive away the excessive rational recognition of interests,and based on weak consensus and weak political-social connection,produces the result of "suspension mobilization";(2)In "apparent morality but essential interest",the grass-roots government relies on the ethical attributes to obtain the resources associated with rural gentries,thus promoting industrial revitalization and economic development,and based on symbolic consensus and "strong political-weak social" connection,produces the result of "involutional mobilization";(3)In "morality driven through interest",the grass-roots government recreates the interest relationship between the government and the villagers by means of rural gentries,drives the reproduction of social relationships,and based on strong consensus and "weak political-strong social" connection,produces the result of "co-prosperity mobilization".Three features of this research innovation are highlighted.Firstly,it divides the specific targets of rural social mobilization according to the differentiation presumption.Secondly,the initiative of grass-roots government and the differentiation of the mobilization process are advocated in a multi-dimensional mobilization situation.Finally,in traditional studies,the mobilization process is reduced to homogenous and single-linked,this research has focused into the two parts that make up the mobilization process: "start-up" process and “running” process.This research contributes to the advancement and expansion of the issue of social mobilization and rural gentries participation. |
