走向法庭还是走上街头：超越维权困境的一条行动路径

Abstract

Abstract: There are different processes and consequences between defending civil rights via noninstitutional means and institutional legal channels. “Rightful Resistance” is intensely debated in existing literature. Many works discuss various paradoxical attributes of collective actions outside the system，for instance，opportunity paradox，risk paradox，organization paradox and institution paradox. This study intends to show that protecting civil rights through litigation and legal activism can overcome these paradoxes，even though action sought within the system has its own constraints. The most common constraint is that legal fees are high and outcomes are timeconsuming and unpredictable，thus it discourages its adoption. Street protests generate direct political pressure on local governments and force them to react with quick temporary measures to meet the demands. Legal actions require high costs but not always deliver results. However， the choice of outside or within the system action is not just determined on the base of costbenefit calculation， it is a matter of political opportunity structure as well. The homeowner activists in this case study opt for the court， not the streets. Their decision can be explained by factors such as the political administrative structure of the locality， a responsive local media， Internet network，and the higher educational level of the homeowners.

Key words: legal activism , justified protest , administrative lawsuit
, defending civil rights , community

GUAN Bin. To the Courts or to the Streets：The Dilemma of Rights Defending Movement[J]. Chinese Journal of Sociology, 2015, 35(6): 206-234.

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To the Courts or to the Streets：The Dilemma of Rights Defending Movement

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