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    20 November 2009, Volume 29 Issue 6
    Articles
    Sandwiched between Resources and Institutions: Survival Strategies of Rural Migrant Workers’ Grassroots NGOs             
    He Jingwei, Huang Peiru & Huang Hui
    2009, 29(6):  1-21. 
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    Abstract: Studying the grassroots organizations is indispensible if one wants to investigate the evolvement of China’s folk societies. Over the past two decades, the serious problem with the workers’ labor rights and the absence of intervention by the government or the workers’ union in the Pearl River Delta have brought about a constellation of grassroots NGOs to protect the rural migrant workers’ rights.  However, it has been very difficult for these NGOs to function in this overall unfavorable existential environment for nongovernment organizations in China, where labor rights and human rights are highly sensitive issues.  Facing the dual institutional and resource constraints, these grassroots NGOs have been using a number of survival strategies. Their existential state correlates closely with their political ideology and rightprotective ideas. They have to rely upon the moral legitimacy beyond the institution in order to obtain social support and the silent recognition from the government. They have also set up consulting committees and/or boards of directors to seek endorsement from the intellectual elite. Some even resort to personal relations with government officers. The recent NGOs constructed within the constitution have provided new data for studies on the rural migrant workers’ rightprotecting NGOs in the Pearl River Delta.

    A Study on Residential Committees’ Community Power and Prestige in the Transformation Period                
    Min Xueqin
    2009, 29(6):  22-38. 
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    In the transformational period of the urban society, residential committees’ community power and prestige are being unprecedentedly challenged. The survey of the random sample from 61 residential communities in District BX in Nanjing demonstrates that the residential committees’ executive power still primarily comes from the government’s designation. Their resources for their residents’ most desired autonomous power, cogovernance and supervision power, and emergency management power are, however, insufficient. Other types of profit and nonprofit community organizations have taken away some of the residential committees’ power during their direct participation in community services and management, and thus have impacted the committees’ prestige as well. With further differentiation in the economic and sociocultural areas among the community dwellers, the power and prestige of the residential committees will also be differentiated among those living in different communities.

    “Personal Choice” or “Forced Choice”:An Event History Analysis of the Corporative Employees’ Occupational Mobility in Nanjing
    Long Shuqin
    2009, 29(6):  39-59. 
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    This paper uses event history analysis of the empirical data of 666 corporative employees in Nanjing to delve into their occupational mobility. The analysis revealed the factors that influenced the occupational mobility and the mobility trend in the labor market that was differentiated by the types of ownership of the work units (danwei). The study found out that the opportunity structure resulting from the societal transformation was the primary force behind the corporative employee’s career mobility, that the division in the labor market resulting from the societal transformation laid down the game rules for their occupational mobility, and that the individuals’ family backgrounds and personal properties were only chips in these games. Thus, the personal choice of the corporative employees in their occupational mobility during China’s societal transformation was very limited as the choice was determined by the social structure; in other words, it was a forced choice.   

    The Intergenerational Mobility Patterns, the Ideal Type, and the Chinese Reality 
    Li Yu
    2009, 29(6):  60-84. 
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     Based on the literature review of the intergenerational mobility studies in the West, this paper proposes three mobility patterns of the ideal type and analyzes their institutional prerequisites and structural properties, hoping to shed some light on the mobility characteristics and trends in China’s contemporary society. The paper contends that different constitutional contexts and societal conditions produce different mobility patterns. Three idealistic patterns correspond to three different societal types, respectively. First, mobility under the mode of meritocratic contest, characterized by mobility opportunities distributed according to the individuals’ competencies and contributions, is completely congruent with a society under market economy. Second, mobility under the mode of status inheritance, characterized by the familial socioeconomic background’s decisive impact on the status quo of the children, transmits the societal structure of inequality across generations: The wider the unequal gaps are, the more difficult the crossclass mobility becomes and the more prominent the intergenerational inheritance is. Third, mobility under the mode of state sponsorship is characterized by state intervening social mobility through policies and institutions: Certain classes are specified to have more mobility opportunities or to be deprived of such opportunities that they deserve. This paper finally presents some basic conclusions about the changes and current state of mobility patterns since the start of the reform in China.

    SelfJustification of Bribery in Moral Terms and Entrapped Corruption: An Archive Study on the Municipal Supervisory Office in City H
    Li Hui
    2009, 29(6):  85-106. 
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    This paper uses the stateindividual model to look into the practice of bribery based on the case interview records and minutes in the Municipal Supervisory Office in City H. This archive study has found that the traditional categorization of bribery as an immoral exchange does not accurately capture its essence; on the contrary, the bribers have displayed a very strong tendency to selfjustify bribebased exchanges in moral terms through all kinds of signs and symbolic behaviors in the process of such practice. From the angle of economics, bribe is described as a market conduct to trade power and money  this description is suspicious of getting the concept of bribery a bit too simplified. Bribery should bear a fundamental difference from pure market exchanges. The author tends to describe bribery as the briber’s performance of selfjustification in moral terms, which is entrapped in the special form of social exchanges between giftgiving in the tradition and trading in the modern market.

    Frame Borrowing by the Elite and the Grassroots:  A Comparative Study of the Collective Counteracts of the Landless Peasants and the Intellectual Elite
       
    Li Xiangyi
    2009, 29(6):  107-126. 
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    This paper uses the concept of frame borrowing to compare the collective counteracts of the landless peasants and the intellectual elite, the two qualitatively different groups in the same “primary” collectivecounteract framework. The former have borrowed the latter’s discourse and strategies to construct their movement framework, described as “the grassroots’ frame borrowing”; whereas the latter have borrowed the former’s narrative frame and its characteristics of the weaker group, described as “the elite’s frame borrowing.” However, due to the asymmetry between these two types of frame borrowing, it is very likely for the elite to jeopardize the presentation of the grassroots’ interest, which may be partially displaced.

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    The Rationality of Peasants’ “House Growing”:A Case Study of Village S in City W
    Wang Sanyi & Lei Hong
    2009, 29(6):  127-147. 
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    his study examined the “housegrowing heat” during the urbanization of the suburban areas through a field investigation of a selected village in the outskirt of City W. The data were collected mainly via interviews supplemented by observations and documentations. From the subjective angle of those who were engaged in “house growing,” the researchers looked for the reasons why the peasants were keen at “house growing.” The study found out that the peasants’ “house growing” was an action choice not out of their actual needs but mainly out of their desires for surplus compensation, business operations, higher incomes, psychological balance, and emotional belongingness.  The trigger of the peasants’ “house growing” rationality was the government, which was the radical internal cause of this “housegrowing heat.” The study concluded that more concerns and research should be directed to how the government was to adjust its own behavior.   

    Labor Cooperation, Ritual Exchange, and Social Grouping:An Analysis of the Village Community Structure of the Zhuang Nationality in Longji
    Guo Lixin
    2009, 29(6):  148-172. 
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    This paper attempts to describe and analyze the structure and operation of the clans and villages of the Zhuang Nationality in Longji, Guanxi, to present the constructivist logic in concrete terms of a local society of the Zhuang Nationality. The paper holds that ‘Jiamen’ (clan) is the consanguinity structure of the ambilineal line, on the basis of house as its core structure, and sharing the isomorphism with the household. ‘Wan’ (village) is the consanguineous and geographical combination, a community centering around the village patriarch. ‘Jiamen’ and ‘Wan’ construct themselves based on mutual helping in labor and cooperating in ritual operations. As a reservoir in the house, they represent and carry on the ideal of the Zhuang Nationality to work and live, and to marry with their own people.

    From the Institutional Underclass to the Structural Underclass: From Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged  Reflecting the Chinese Underclass Management Problems
    Jia Yujiao
    2009, 29(6):  173-188. 
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    In the United States, the rapid social transformation process has produced a special kind of group that could not be accurately classified according to the traditional social stratification theoretical system, that is, the underclass. Their essential characteristic is its severance from the employment system and the code of conduct in mainstream society. Wilson has swiftly grasped this characteristic and overthrown the traditional view of the institutional underclass. Instead, he attributes the underclass formation in the residential clusters to the socioeconomic structural transition at the systems level.  He then proposes a management mechanism through establishing political alliances, making general policies, and constructing political
    strategies with hidden agendas. Based on Wilson’s theory and Sun Liping’s theory of rupture, this paper discusses the Chinese underclass management problems.

    A Critique on the Research of Chinese Protest Morements in Last Decade
    Li Deman
    2009, 29(6):  189-209. 
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     Since the 90’s of the last century, there has been a continuous increase in the frequency and influence of protest movements in China, which has attracted the attention of many researchers both at home and abroad. In this research area, there exists theoretical and conceptual diversity. Primary analysis approaches include process analysis, structure analysis, and mechanism analysis. Its theoretical guidance comes from collective actions, everyday resistance, and political process, with a special focus on the relationships between protest movements and democratic politics.      In methodology, traditional empirical research is on the rise and quantitative and comparative research is the direction of the future.

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    An Overview of  Annual Review of Sociology  in 2007
    Liang Maochun
    2009, 29(6):  210-220. 
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