The Logic Of Collective Action In Rural Areas

AbstractCollective action,as kind of discourse research on social stability and social change,is of great significance in theory and practice.Western scholars believe that collective action,which is mobilized by professional organizations and supported by sufficient material resources,is the political behavior beyond institution.While in China,scholars believe that China's collective action is difficult to continue because of the lack of "legal" status.This paper after investigation on village of AIDS cases found that even though collective action in rural China lack of professional organizations or strong material resources support,still can lead to succeed in a weak state organization.The first part focused on both of western and Chinese related theories of collective action.After comparative study on successful village case study of collective action,we found that existing theory can not fully explain the experience of the phenomenon of reality,which raised the research issue in this article.That is, how disadvantaged AIDS farmers to mobilize a collective action and struggle with strong government to succeed,even under the circumstance of "Organization" suffering in "the plight of legitimacy," fragile specialized mobilization mechanisms and scarce political and economic resources?The second part introduced related research methods and research data.This article,based on case study methods,combining field trip,participant observation method,and non-structured interview to collect research data,attempted to " sum up from the case" in order to achieve the purpose of analysis on emergence and success mechanism of rural collective action.The third part detailed the successful collective action cases launched by AIDS groups in the village.Respectively,the cases included the collective action to obtain compensation for the County Health Bureau,the collective action for reputation occurred with village secretary,and the collective action with county government for unsatisfied with the existing compensation and benefits.The fourth part analyzed the condition of emergence and success of rural collective action.We believe that violation on the lives of moral and ethical led government to the crisis of legitimacy,which is the prerequisite for getting rid of "legalization" the plight of the Chinese rural collective action and even to pursue success.This part also analyzed the weapons of the success of rural collective action. This paper holds that the identity of the weak is the invisible power for successful AIDS villagers'collective action.The weak,for applying its identity of the weak, beyond the resources support in western theory,received access to dominant position micro-power spectrum in battle with non-AIDS,as well as the Government,and ultimately obtain the success of collective action.The fifth part analyzed the drive force of rural collective action.This article holds that collective action in rural China have been able to transcend the mobilization of professional organizations in the western context,for the double superposition of the interests and identity recognition,which ensures that high cohesion in AIDS groups as a village driving force for the success of collective action.The last part is not only a conclusion and dialogue with the relevant theory,but also attempt to put forward a theoretical level on collective action solution.