Chinese Journal of Sociology

The Informal Economy in the Era of Information Revolution and Globalization: The Shanzhai 〖CellPhone Industry in China

Bai Gao

2011, 31(2): 1-41.

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The shanzhai (山寨) cellphone phenomenon reveals the profound economic transformations of our time. First, information revolution has made production tools more accessible and has resulted in much wider participation in production. Supported by the deepened division of labor through the servicization of production, shanzhai cellphone companies are able to expand the Wintel production regime sustained by value chain into a hypothetical enterprise with a multidivisional structure. Second, globalization has linked many scattered longtail markets together. This has enabled the longtail products, which were hardly profitable in the era of mass production, to accomplish the economy of scale. Third, the Chinese innovation of the spatial overlap between an industrial cluster and specialized markets has provided an intrinsic mechanism of industrial expansion: the competition pressures resulted from the spatial concentration of small producers in the industrial cluster force them to differentiate their products which in turn promotes the economy of scope, while the big flows of merchants coming to the specialized markets sustained by the economy of scope help create the economy of scale for the highly individualized longtail products.

The Tournament System and the Growth of Provincial Development Zones in China: Evidence from Provinces

Li Guowu and Hou Jiawei

2011, 31(2): 42-72.

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Establishing Development Zones is an important means by which local governments in China partake in promoting the growth of local economy. In the context of “competing for growth,” there was a sharp increase in the number of Provincial Development Zones (PDZs) from 1984 to 2006 although there were obvious regional differences and temporal fluctuations. Drawing on the provincial data, this study examined how three factors, namely, budget constraints, interprovincial competitions, and national institutional changes, had influenced the growth of PDZs using the “tournament system” theory. It was found that, although the level of the regional economic development did serve as an important budget constraint to the establishment of PDZs, it was the national institutional changes that had greater influences because establishing a PDZ was not a natural process constrained by its own provincial resources. To be more specific, the national institutional changes caused temporal fluctuations in the growth of PDZs (within the province) on the one hand and regional differences in the numbers of PDZs (between provinces) on the other hand. In spite of the general increases in the numbers of PDZs in all provinces, our measurements of the yearly increments of provincial PDZs did not show any significant sign of interprovincial competitions. It requires more empirical studies to test the applicability of the tournament system theory.

The Action Logic of ValueOriented Collective Action: A Case Analysis of the SS Incident

Zhang Jinghong

2011, 31(2): 73-96.

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Based on the field work of the SS Incident, this paper examines at the micro level the behavioral interaction among the participants and the progression of the action logic; analyzes the alternating effects of the interest/valuerelated factors; and explains when, why, and how the bystanders stepped in and out of the collective action – in response to the observations of the scholars at home and abroad. The conclusions reported in the paper are: The transition of the stakeholders’ action goal from selfinterest seeking to moral value endorsement opened up an opportunity for the bystanders to participate; it was the values that served as the essential drive for summoning the bystanders into the collective action; consideration of selfinterest played a significant role in the decision making by the losers when facing the dilemma between taking direct losses to themselves or endorsing social values, at which point the bystanders would soon choose to quit and the collective action was to end; currently, the “valueinterest regressive effect” is an important suppressive mechanism in the valueoriented collective action triggered by an accidental event; and the valueoriented collective action in a transitive China does not fit the collective action theory in the Western world. 

Labor Quarters: Corporative Social Responsibility or Economic Rationality：A Survey of the Enterprises at the Pearl River Delta

Wei Wanqing

2011, 31(2): 97-110.

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Different from the approach of using the sole perspective of political rights to study labor quarters, this paper, based on the survey of the enterprises at the Pearl River Delta, follows the logic of the global capital economy. An examination of the logic behind the capitaloriented labor quarters leads to a conclusion that, in the face of the intense global competition, it is a competitive strategy that the enterprises provide their workers with living quarters so as to control the workers’ production; therefore, it is an outcome of enterprise economic rationality.

Gender Gap in Job Authority and Its Shaping Factors: The Supervisory Authority’s Perspective

Li Zhonglu

2011, 31(2): 111-124.

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Based on the analysis of the survey data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies in 2009(CFPS2009), this paper describes the current gender gap in job authority and examines its shaping factors. The gender gap in the nonstate sectors is found to be wider than that within the state sectors. With humancapital factors being equal, the gender gap among those with job authority has been widened instead of narrowed. Family responsibility is a significant barrier for women to possessing job authority.

Pursuing Change or Maintaining the Status Quo? Measurement of the Sociopolitical Attitudes of the Middle Class

Li Chunling

2011, 31(2): 125-154.

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This paper is to examine the sociopolitical attitudes of the middle class in China and thereby predict the sociopolitical role of the middle class. The key issue is whether the emerging middle class in China is a stabilizer for or a threat to the existing social system. Using a national survey dataset of 2006, the author developed a set of attitude scales to differentiate the major attitudinal features of the political conservatives from those of the political liberals in the analysis of the attitudinal trend of the middle class. The study found diversity in the values of the middle class, showing a mixture of conservatism and liberalism. China’s middle class is certainly a stabilizing force at present but there are uncertain factors that may affect its future role. 

Residential Preferences of Migrant Workers: An Analysis of the Empirical Survey Data from Seven Provinces/Districts

2011, 31(2): 153-169.

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Based on the data from a survey of seven provinces/districts and the field investigation of a residential community in Beijing that is densely inhabited by rural migrant workers, this paper analyzes the migrant workers’ residential preferences and the influencing factors. Migrant workers’ residential preferences demonstrate their desire to settle in cities but at the same time some rather strong signs of psychological ambivalence and ambiguity. Relative to the human capital factor, the factors of family and social support have a larger impact on migrant workers’ residential preferences. This finding confirms the core hypothesis in the paper. The workers’ residential decision is mainly under the influences of three factors: market-related factors, cultural and psychological factors, and institutional factors. Market factors apparently have the most powerful influence and the impact of the institutional factors has been weakened although they are still the foundation of those market factors.

“How High the Mountain, How High the Water”： Right to the Water and Right to the Forest in the Water Project in Village Zetang

Zhang Peiguo, Wang Yang

2011, 31(2): 170-193.

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This paper takes event series as the entry point, follows the epistemological principle of “holistic survival ethics” with a historical enthnographic approach, places the “right to the forest” and the “right to the water” in the narratives that reflect the local people’s survival wisdom and morality, examines comprehensively the historical practice of the two types of rights from the “others” perspective, and reveals the folk law order behind the right to the forest and the right to the water.

Transnational Participation and Social Networking： The Interaction between Strong and Weak Ties of Chinese American Scientists

Sun Xiao’e, Bian Yanjie

2011, 31(2): 194-215.

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There are two models regarding the role of social network in the jobsearch process: the hypothesis of weak ties versus the hypothesis of strong ties. In examining the transnational participation of 30 Chinese American scientists, our indepth interview study has found out that it is the team work of strong and weak ties that matches the knowledge and skills of Chinese American scientists with the need and demand of Chinese institutes, and thus successfully promotes the transnational collaboration between the two parties. Strong ties provide connection, rapport, and support for keeping promises/quality while weak ties supply resources and institutional support in transnational participation for the Chinese American scientists. The important finding in the current study that the mutual complementary relationship of the strong and weak ties in the jobsearch networks contributes to the theoretical hypotheses of strong and weak ties, enriches the research tradition in the field of jobsearch networks, and may provide guidance for the transnational participation of talented scholars. 

Concreteness and Abstractness in Social Life: A Brief Comment on the “ProcessEvent Analysis”

Li Huadou

2011, 31(2): 216-240.

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Enthromethodology bases studying the strategicness and locality of action on recognizing the indexity in action, especially its abstract indexity. Thus, enthromethodology demonstrates its continuity from Parsons’ sociology. However, in later development, enthromethodology has gradually given up abstract indexity and gotten entrapped into individualism emphasizing the agency of the action taker in an isolated way. Complete social ontology should consider the two elements of abstract indexity and the agency in social action, and should also recognize abstract indexity as its basis. From this perspective, we can see the same drawback in the influential “processevent analysis” adopted by the academia in Mainland China, namely, its isolated way of studying action that has ignored the abstractness in sociality, thus substantially reducing its strategic explanatory power. This paper proposes that, through theoretical reviews and at the methodology level, sociological analysis of social abstractness can be categorized into four strategies, which can be further differentiated into demonstration strategies and explanatory strategies.

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