Mechanism Of Individual Behavior And Collective Action In Land Reallocation In Land Consolidation

Land reallocation in land consolidation is the most critical instrument for amelioration of land fragmentation.Land reallocation helps to achieve goals of current mainstream paradigm of promoting large-scale farming by land registration and land transfer,in the meantime avoiding both excessive involvement of administrative power leading to excessive land transfer and undermining subsistence of subsistence farmers.Land reallocation is also a critical tool for interests balance among stakeholders in all stages of land consolidation.Despite the importance of it,the promotion of land reallocation in China is rather sluggish and farmers are very reluctant to participate in land reallocation in general.In the meantime,land reallocation institutions vary across regions in China and the performance of them contrasts.This phenomenon urges this paper to explore the individual behavior mechanism,the influences of different institutions on the realization of collective action and the reginoal institutional sustain and change mechanism in land reallocation,to eventually promote land reallocation practice and to guide the institutional reform of it.To solve the questions mentioned above,this paper investigates collective action in land reallocation from the following three levels: Individual behavior.In this level,this paper analyzes the influencing factors of farmers participating behavior without taking strategic interaction,and studies the spatial allocation of land parcels after land reallocation;Actors interaction.This level tries to examine varies equilibria of game between farmers in land reallocation under different social interaction structure,to reveal the structure which facilitates the realization of collective action in land reallocation;Institutional change.This level summarizes the general characteristics of land reallocation institutions in two different regions in China,compares the different change process of them and tries to figure out the institutional change mechanism of land reallocation in China.The systematic scrutinization leads to the following conclusions:(1)Self-interest motivation,social norm,opportunities and ability have significantly positive influences on farmers` participating behavior in land reallocation.Social norm and ability have the maximum impacts and they also are probably the constraining factors of farmers` participating behavior.The fuzzy legitimacy of land reallocation in China may restrict the participation of those who has strong self-interest motivation;And varied participating ability,level of cooperation relationship and organization of the projects leads to varied participating behavior.The self-interest motivation has significant but relatively small influences.Meanwhile,there are negative interaction effects between self-interest motivation and social norm,also between social norm and opportunities,which means that enhanced self-interest motivation will weaken the influences of social norm,and improved social norm will weaken the influences of opportunities as well.(2)As for the spatial allocation of land parcels,this paper constructs a linear transportation model based on farmers` preferences and compare it with drawing-lots methods from aspects of amelioration of land fragmentation,the degree of position change after land reallocation.The results show both methods significantly reduce land parcels number,while linear transportation model based on farmers` preferences curtails distance between land parcels and rural residency and minimize change of parcel location at the same time.But drawing-lots are more in principle of procedural fairness.(3)In level of actors` interaction,this paper analyzes the realization of collection action among farmers who applies different strategies in varied social interaction structure.This paper concludes that social interaction structure has significant impacts on the eventual equilibria behavior of farmers` collective.In the structure of unorganized bargain among farmers,farmers fall into prison` dilemma where farmers scramble for better location in project area because there are limited interests and no control of externality.The dilemma can be conquered by improving social interaction structure from the following three aspects: to introduce some degree of enforcement;to change the attribute of collective of actors by reducing the number and differentiating the member;and to introduce some degree of isolation among farmers employed different strategies.Introducing enforcement can be operationalized by applied principle of“majority consent”;To combine land reallocation with land transfer can help to change the attribute of collective of actors;and to isolate different farmers with different strategies,land reallocation can be implemented through stages separated by time or space.(4)This paper examines the differed institutional sustain and change process between Wudi county of Shandong province and Longzhou county of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.The institutionalized linkage and institutional complementarity caused the different institutional change process between these two counties.In institutionalized linkage aspects,local government-dominated land reallocation of Wudi county is remarkably affected by political embeddedness,where local government officials try to avoid social risks in their jurisdiction,therefore local government officials are inclined to quit land reallocation;Meanwhile,in this mode of land reallocation,social embeddedness cannot fully exert because farmers are only executors of local government officials` order,which restrict their agency and spirit of self-sacrifice.The change of institutions in complementary domain has also caused the collapse of land reallocation institution into unorganized bargain form in Wudi,because land consolidation must be implemented through projects and is mainly focused on engineering construction,and the individualization and property-oriented property right reform both leads local government officials and rural leaders to quit land reallocation.In Longzhou,things are different.Rural leaders` agency and spirits of self-sacrifice fully exerts through social embeddedness in infancy stage of land reallocation,while the self-exploration and self-decision-making mechanism has successfully control social risks,thereby facilitating the involvement of local government official;In addition,the provincial government has made policies to differentiate land reallocation from large land consolidation projects to adapt the land consolidation institutional change.The rules self-made by farmers themselves during land reallocation can counter the property rules,and the social capital fostered and positive experience constructed by long-time social interaction have also been conducive to sustainability of land reallocation institution in Longzhou.(5)The fuzzy legitimacy of land reallocation in China` law system leads to the diversified and everchanging land reallocation institution equilibria,among which local-government dominated land reallocation and rural self-organized land reallocation can both successfully achieve the large-scale implementation of land reallocation,while land reallocation cannot scarcely be implemented by unorganized bargain among farmers.The participation level of farmers also depends on their selfinterest motivation,ability,the perceived social norm and opportunities.Under the individual and property oriented reform of property right institution and the address of formal project and infrastructure construction in land consolidation institution,institutional linkage has been gradually leading local government quit land reallocation,while rural self-organization of land reallocation becomes an efficient and sustainable mode to promote land reallocation in current China,through integration of political embeddedness,adaption of institutional change in complementary domain,and cultivation of social capital and ability of farmers.Based on the conclusions above,this paper suggests that to promote land reallocation in China,it must be distinguished from land readjustment by law.Land consolidation should be categorized by law according the importance of land reallocation,and operational principles encouraging land concentration should be provided in related policies.In the meantime,promoting rural self-organization,enhancing farmers ability to participate in land reallocation also are conducive to promote land reallocation.