PopularProtestChina · The Middle Class, Civil Rights and Popular Protest in Urban China
FP7 — People (Marie Curie Actions)
- Duration
- 2013-12-21 → 2014-12-20
- EU contribution
- €15,000
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MC-IIFR
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The Middle Class, Civil Rights and Popular Protest in Urban China
Dr. Long Sun started the project of Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship (return phase) after he came back to the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China on 21st, December 2013. Serving as an associate professor at the Department of Political science, Dr Sun obtained support provided by the school and department to conduct field work, do research, and participate in conferences related to this project smoothly. Following-up field work In the year of 2014, the researcher team keep in touch with Beijing Bid Committee for Homeowner‘s Association (BCHA), Governance & Community Institute(GOCO), and other critical organizations for defending homeowner’s interests. Dr. Long Sun and research assistants attended some important events launched by BCHA and GOCO to observe Beijing homeowner’s right movements. Face to face interviews were conducted in Beijing, Sichuan and Hainan Province. While the team continue to interview leaders of homeowners’ associations, in-depth interviews were carried out among 15 local officials. With the rapid growth of homeowner’s associations, more and more events were exposed by micro blog(weibo, similar to facebook) and other social medias. Therefore, online observations were employed by the research team to understand the new development of collective actions among Chinese middle class. Analysis and Papers The research team have completed the drafts of four articles and working papers. The first paper entitled “Structural and Institutional Determinants of Voter Turnout in China’s Urban People’s Congress Elections,” co-authored by Dr Zhengxu Wang and Dr Long Sun,has been submitted to Political Research Quaterly. The second paper, titled “Internet and Collective Action in Environment Protection Movements: A Comparative Study of Four Cases”, has been published by Comparative Economic and Social Systems, Vol. 178, March 2015. The third paper, titled “The Development of Local People’s Congress Legislation in Recent 35 Years: Case of Beijing”, has been published by Expanding Horizons, Vol.188, March 2015. The fourth paper, titled “Homeowners’ Associations and Community Development”, completed by Dr. Long Sun, Dr Huosheng Tan, has been accepted as a working paper published by the Centre for Governance Techniques, Tsinghua University. Conferences Dr. Long Sun participated in 8 conferences to introduce the findings of the project and its policy implications. One was held by local government, four were held by universities while three were held by NGOs. It is expected that the academic output from the project will help European, Eastern Asian and Chinese policy circles to enhance the understandings of middle class, social movements and local democratic governance in China.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, political reform in China has been put on ice. The one-party state focused instead on turning China into an economic powerhouse that is on track to overtake Japan this year as the world's largest economy after the US. For the EU, China is now its second most important trading partner. The world has become increasingly dependent on China for its economic growth. But for how long can China continue to enjoy the political stability that has underpinned its economic success and now underwrites global prosperity? Against a background of rising unemployment, a widening gap between rich and poor and rising expectations among its growing middle class, can the authoritarian regime continue to ignore popular demands for greater participation in politics ? The Communist Party is facing more and more challenges from an increasing number of popular protests and demonstrations that have spawned new social movements to fight for civil rights. Surprisingly, it is homeowners' rights groups in the cities that are in the vanguard of this new wave of protests. This project will create an alliance between one of Europe's top centres for research on China and the prestigious politics department at Renmin university to analyse how homeowners' rights movements are growing in China's constrained political context. This alliance is part of a plan build the China Policy Institute at Nottingham into Europe's leading centre for the study of democratization in China. The project will evaluate how homeowners' groups have become the unlikely successors of the democracy movement of the 1980s. The findings will enable Europeans to assess the prospects for peaceful democratic change in China, or whether to prepare for the unthinkable consequences of widespread disruption in the world's populous nation. The project will recommend actions that the EU can take to promote peaceful change and the development of China's civil society.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- Renmin University of China · BeijingCoordinatorChina
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union