Abstract
Conventional discourse in citizenship studies tend to assume that individuals are clearly aware of their rights and this rights-consciousness drives them to participate actively. This assumption, however, neglects the cases of interest-driven participation before the advent of rights-consciousness of the participants. By studying the homeowners’ collective action in Beijing, this study finds that the most direct incentive motivating the homeowners to participate in the first place is self-interest rather than strong rights-consciousness. Homeowners become actively involved in the process of democratic participation well before they have acquired a clear and strong sense of rights-consciousness. Nevertheless, despite starting off as interest-oriented, homeowners’ democratic practices have awakened their rights-consciousness and further cultivated a sense of citizenship identity. This interest-driven participation has paradoxically helped to create the democratic ethic of Chinese urban citizens. It has important implications for understanding political participation as well as citizenship formation in China.
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Notes
Stewart (22, p.67), citing Hammar (8, p.12), differentiated between foreign nationals, denizens and citizens. Foreign nationals are those citizens from another state, who have not been granted full residential rights in the state in which they are domiciled, and who therefore should be thought of as occupying only a temporary status. Denizens are those who, although they are not citizens of the country in which they have their domicile, have a legal and a permanent resident status.
As our first case will show, homeowners must set up homeowner committees because individual homeowners cannot claim collective interests in court, especially when dealing with collective interests within the community.
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Xia, Y., Guan, B. The Politics of Citizenship Formation: Homeowners’ Collective Action in Urban Beijing. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 19, 405–419 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-014-9305-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-014-9305-3