A Review of the Current Research on Collective Action in China

Abstract: In domestic academic circles, the study of collective action is becoming an interdisciplinary subject. This paper aims to make a brief survey of this research field and put forward some judgments. The author finds that at present, in the research direction and method of collective action, structural analysis is much used and process analysis is little used; Rationalism analysis is much used, while constructivism analysis is little used; On the other hand, with the increasing application of process analysis and constructivism analysis, various research directions and methods began to merge with each other. On the research topic, the existing research mainly involves the causes of collective action, political opportunity system, mobilization structure, strategies and means, discourse and so on. Unfortunately, most studies lack sufficient theoretical care and necessary empirical support on these issues. It is worth noting that a large number of new collective actions or new features of collective actions have challenged many existing theories and need more attention from researchers.

[Keywords:] collective action; Structural analysis; process analysis

Since 1990, with the rapid economic growth and social changes in China, new social contradictions or social conflicts with economy and interests as the main content have gradually increased, especially in grass-roots society, which is almost a universal social phenomenon. This social phenomenon has also attracted the attention of many social problem researchers. In recent years, the basic research in this field has gradually increased. In this process, researchers are constantly learning and drawing lessons from western social movement theory, and at the same time they are also committed to the construction of localization theory.

In this kind of literature, there are a group of concepts with "family similarity", such as "collective struggle", "action to defend rights", "mass incidents", "social conflict" and "collective action", and each concept often contains a series of sub-concepts. When researchers explain the concepts they use, they often insist on the uniqueness of concepts in connotation or research methods.

In order to facilitate academic dialogue or communication between researchers, this paper takes the concept of "collective action" as a unified concept to study the current social contradictions or conflicts in China [1] and refers to the literature marked with the above concept as "collective action" research literature. In a word, this paper mainly investigates the basic research literature of Chinese mainland's "collective action" by domestic scholars after 1990.

There are two ways to comment on this article. First, take the western social movement theory as a reference. First of all, due to the relative maturity of its theory and method, we can clearly understand the basic situation of China's collective action research in reference; Secondly, some researchers used some western social movement theories for reference and started a dialogue. Finally, some explorations and puzzles in the development of western social movement theory may also be faced by China researchers. Secondly, this paper evaluates these documents with Lao Dan's "concept problem" and "experience problem" 〔2〕

This paper is divided into two parts: "research direction and method" and "research theme" for discussion in turn.

I. Research direction and methods

1. structural analysis and process analysis

Structural analysis can be simply defined as "structure" as the core concept, and the research object is all collectives, trying to explain the behavior of these individuals and groups through the relationship between individuals and collectives and related collectives. A basic premise is that participation and action in collective action are consistent with the division of social organizations. [3] In the literature studied in this paper, structural analysis method is the most widely used, which mainly focuses on analyzing the characteristics of grass-roots government and social structure that produce rural collective action.

Representative studies, such as Zhao Shukai, believe that the conflicts in rural society are mainly caused by the "deprivation of interests" of farmers by grass-roots governments; [4] Zhang Jing believes that the current grass-roots government is a grass-roots structure with low stability and is increasingly involved in social conflicts through the analysis of the interest-related structure between grass-roots government and society and its role changes. [5] In the same context, Yu extended this analysis to the analysis of rural power structure, arguing that the imbalance of rural power structure and the anomie of grass-roots government behavior caused by interest differentiation and conflict are the root causes of rural social and political conflicts, and at the same time, the starting factors of this imbalance mainly depend on specific induced events. 〔6〕

Subsequent researchers are also constantly expanding this research. For example, Zhang Yulin believes that under the pressure political/administrative system with economic growth as the main term evaluation index, local officials and profit-seeking entrepreneurs form the same interest group, thus forming a "political and economic integration system". In the environmental conflict caused by this system, for the farmers who are in a congenital weak position, the "mass incident" accompanied by violence is almost the only way they can choose to urge enterprises and the government to make concessions. [7] Xiao believes that "since the mid-1990s, their (farmers') actions have become more and more noticeable". [8] This kind of literature emphasizes the decisive role of structural characteristics in collective action. In this way, Yu put forward an explanation framework of "oppressive response", [9] thinking that in some cases, the motivation of collective action is not based on the choice of the subject, but on the response to the internal and external pressure of the "group" (participant group), thus correcting and supplementing the current popular "selective incentive" theory to explain collective action. In a recent article, this structural analysis method was turned to the study of "action orientation" in the internal structure of farmers' rights protection activities. 〔 10〕

Structural analysis has also been applied to the analysis of urban collective action. Representative studies, such as Feng, have investigated the influence of unit heterogeneity on the collective struggle mechanism (and then the control mechanism), that is, the segmentation effect of unit characteristics. Feng's contribution lies in not adopting the simple corresponding model of "structure-action", but comprehensively applying some mainstream explanatory frameworks of western social movement theory, adding a mechanism link between structure and action, forming a "structure-mechanism-action" model, in which the mechanisms are summarized as "creating relative deprivation", "providing political environment" and "promoting resource mobilization". [1 1] However, Feng did not give an effective explanation on how the above three mechanisms are interrelated or influenced each other in the specific segmentation effect. At the same time, this study is still a static perspective, which can't take into account the complex interactive process of protest events.

Researchers are also rethinking the shortcomings of this structural analysis method. For example, in view of the structural invisibility of static structure analysis, Guma put forward the research strategy of "process-event analysis", that is, "trying to change the object to be studied from a static structure into a dynamic process composed of several events, and taking the process as an independent explanatory variable or source". [12] Ying Xing expanded this research method, thinking that "narrative" method and logical-scientific discourse are also a basic cognitive way, which is of great significance for enriching the imagination of sociology. [13] In the specific research, Ying Xing and Jin Jun told the story of collective petition of immigrants from a hydropower station in southwest China, showing how the weak can be conveyed through the "problem-solving" technology in China's unique contemporary social power operation mechanism, and how the strategies and boundaries of farmers and the state can be found in the process of collective petition and the subsequent collective "trouble". [14] Later, Ying Xing told stories to reveal how power works in the two-way practice of top-down and bottom-up when collective petition occurs in the new period. [15] Li Liu showed the characteristics of "uncertainty" in a study on collective actions caused by urban demolition. [16] He criticized that the explanation of "structure" exaggerated the restriction of structural conditions such as social policies on the behavior choice of stakeholders (actors) and ignored the cognitive ability and behavioral ability of actors. In fact, stakeholders are dynamic "actors" who pursue diversified goals, and there is an unequal power relationship between "actors", so their interest expression naturally appears complicated and uncertain.

The assumption of "process-event analysis" on actors conforms to the constructivist perspective in western social movement theory, that is, actors are embedded in and composed of society, and their boundaries and characteristics change in interaction with other actors. Yang used this method to study the social conflicts caused by the development of a scenic spot in southwest Shandong in detail, and showed a mechanism and process that structural analysis could not find, namely, "a series of conflicts in traditional rural communities are not only the competition for interests, but also the contest between two concepts based on different knowledge States; In this conflict, with the use of various struggle strategies, a new power network has gradually formed. This power network reflects not the compromise or victory of one party to the conflict, but the process of "learning" from each other to create new relationships. " 〔 17〕

So far, this paper seems to give readers the impression that "structural analysis" and "process-event analysis" hold the attitude of restraining the former and praising the latter. In fact, in this paper, these two methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. The former can provide some key initial conditions and situations for collective action, but it often fails to effectively explain the "connection" between structure and action. The latter shows some key mechanisms and processes of collective action, but it cannot explain why these mechanisms are at work instead of those. According to Charles Tilly, the former is a large-scale reason, while the latter is a small-scale reason. [18] Therefore, this paper thinks that the combination of the two methods seems to be more conducive to our research. Zhang Jing, a scholar, believes that "process" ("event") factors must be paid attention to when applying structural/institutional analysis, and they are inseparable. [19] Recently, more and more researchers advocate combining these two methods. For example, Qu Jingdong proposed that we should adhere to the disciplinary perspective of combining structural analysis with mechanism analysis to deal with major issues in the social transformation of modern China. [20] The current research situation is that most researchers use structural analysis, and the research using "process-event analysis" is still very weak. This paper holds that the study of collective action needs more "process-event analysis" methods, and integrates various methods on this basis. At present, some researchers have begun to try to integrate these two methods. For example, Zhang Lei applies the theory of resource mobilization and political process at the meso and micro levels, and the social and political phenomenon of interest group theory at the macro level, and combines these two levels to investigate the deep-seated reasons and mobilization mechanism of the owners' rights protection movement. [2 1] When Meng Wei inspected the collective actions of the owners of Qinshui Mountain Villa, he showed the behavior characteristics of urban owners in implementing strategic actions with collective actions.