Abstract
In 1994, the 18 tortuous years of Dahe Hydropower Station migrants’ collective petition in Shanyang Town in Southwest China finally came to an end.
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Notes
- 1.
NBS: China Labor Statistics Yearbook, China Statistics Press, 1996, 2005.
- 2.
The “Cultural Revolution” in 1966 was not a revolution of the conventional sense because this “revolution” was a political action commanded by the supreme leader. “On the Resolution of a Number of Historical Issues since the Founding of the Country” passed in the Eleventh Six Plenary Conference in 1981 characterized the “Cultural Revolution” as “a mistake launched by the leaders, exploited by anti-revolutionary groups and a serious disaster to the party, the country, and people.”
- 3.
In general, the theory of social movement dominated by the North American scholars and the new social movement theory dominated by the European scholars have substantial difference in the subjects of research and the method. The former emphasizes the traditional social movement with empirical methods, while the later focuses on new social movements based on non-material needs, such as the feminist movement, environmental movement, anti-war movement, and the cultural implications and identity politics of social movements (see H. Kriesi et al. 1995; Touraine 1988). In the emotional transition of research on Western social movements, however, these two lines tend to intersect. In a less restrictive sense, we therefore use the contemporary emotion theory to study new Western social movements.
- 4.
There are still a lot of doubts in the academia about whether the social class theory is appropriate in analyzing contemporary China’s contentious politics when both revolution and riot are nonexistent. This book will not go deeper into this area.
- 5.
A third dimension has been proposed: the degree of social reform pursued by contentious politics (Zhao 2006: p. 3). This argument is mainly to distinguish between revolution and rebellion. Both of them are completely illegal, but what revolution pursues is the fundamental change or the “social revolution” suggested by Skocpol (2007), while rebellion pursues a small degree of social change. However, in modern China, there is no classic “revolution” or “rebellion”. So this book will not include this dimension.
- 6.
Collective litigation is the way the vulnerable groups seek legal relief by joint lawsuits or through legal representatives. The current administrative law does not stipulate collective administrative litigation. Most courts employ separate filing and a joint trial, or separate filing and a divisional trial in their administrative trial practices. We view this judicial practice of administrative disputes as a broad group of litigation (see Fan 2005).
- 7.
In 2006, the Supreme Court suggested in the Notice on Properly Handling the Group Administrative Litigation: “With the deepening of social reform, the social interest pattern has become increasingly diverse and complex, and the number of administrative disputes also has a growing trend. In particular, the group administrative disputes induced by the social hot issues such as rural land levying, urban housing demolition, enterprise reform, labor and social security, environmental protection is the most prominent. Legally handling group administrative litigation is closely related to people’s benefits and the social harmony and stability, so it must be taken seriously by the People’s Court.” “For the major complex and influential group administrative litigation, we should be initiative and timely to report to local party and legally and properly deal with the litigation under the leadership and coordination of the party committee. We should also further strengthen the communication and integration with the administrative executives in order to obtain the understanding and cooperation from them, and enhance the positive interaction with the judicial and administrative departments. For the trends and tendencies reflected in the litigations, the potential group litigations, and the problems that could affect social stability, we should promptly forward a judicial proposal to make it easy for the party committee and government to take proper measure, and prevent and reduce group administrative disputes from the origin. We should also strengthen the coordination with the news media, correctly guide the public, and prevent malicious speculation of group administrative disputes.” http://www.law.lib.com/law/law_view.asp?id=291541
- 8.
The petition system in current China is very similar to the litigation institution in imperial China (see Ocko 1988). Both of them attempt to ignore the social class in bureaucracy, and establish a direct relationship between the people and the country. Both are unusual ways to resolve disputes. Therefore, many farmers nowadays still refer to petition as to “reach the blue sky” and “bring a hard lawsuit”.
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Ying, X. (2013). Introduction. In: A Study of the Stability of Contemporary Rural Chinese Society. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36400-6_1
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