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    21 July 2014, Volume 34 Issue 4
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    Articles
    SelfIdentity，Emotion, and Collective Action among the Second Generation of PeasantWorkers in China
    LU Huilin PUN Ngai
    2014, 34(4):  1-24. 
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    Abstract： As a result of opendoor policies and thirty years of Reform， China has become the “world’s factory” and given rise to a new working class comprised of rural migrant workers. Drawing upon a worker’s narrative and our ethnographic studies in Shenzhen and Dongguan， we focus on the selfidentities， anger， and collective action of the second generation of peasantworkers. The special path of (semi) proletarianization has created the working and living experiences of the second generation of peasantworkers in the cities and yielded their trauma， anger，and a deep sense of unfairness. The change of peasantworkers’identity politics has resulted in a significant change of their disposition and action capacities. Compared with the first generation of peasantworkers，the second generation of peasantworkers are much more sensitive to suffering and injustice. The anxiety and pain experienced by the first generation gradually evolve into the anger and resentment that has conditioned the labor strikes and class actions of the second generation. In this paper，we hope to shed light on how human emotion and suffering can contribute significantly to our understanding of collective resistance or class action. Driven by their anger and their sense of fairness，workers have fought against all types of discursive and structural constraints. And as new class subjects，the second generation of the working class now objects to the unfinished process of proletarianization，the racetothebottom globalproduction strategies，the uprooting experience of the city，and their quasi mingong identity.
    The Determinant Factors of Migrant Workers’ Social Identity: An Empirical Study in Shanghai
    CHU Rongwei XIONG Yihan ZOU Yi
    2014, 34(4):  25-48. 
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    Based on a representative questionnaire survey among migrant workers in Shanghai, and employing acculturation and identity formation theories, this article examines the determinant factors which affect migrant workers’ social identity. The research finds out that the huge ruralurban gap has endowed migrant workers an ambiguous identity in which they physically live in city but mentally are identified with the country, and more importantly, their institutional welfares are confined to the country. The ambiguity of their social identity is attributed to both the institutional hurdle of the hukou (household registration) system and constrained agency caused by scare resources. At a more concrete level, this research suggests that five important factors have contributed to the formation of their social identity: proficiency in local language, willingness to make friends with local people (but not other migrant workers from other provinces), income level compared to peers, perceived social acceptance, and access to social insurances. Being positive for all five factors will make a migrant worker more identified with the city rather his/her rural origin. Meanwhile, migrant workers’ demographic features such as education, migrating time and occupation also influence their social identities. Overall, the authors suggest that public policies should be helpful in terms of the transformation of migrant workers’ social identity, particularly their perception changing from “being an outsider” to “being a local”.
    Chinese Characteristics of the World Factory: Sociological Airscape of the State of Workers in the New Period
    GUO Yuhua HUANG Binhuan
    2014, 34(4):  49-66. 
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    As both a production and social matter, particularly a class matter, the topic of labor was important worldwide and became the focus of social science research and thinking which has given rise to a lot of classical theories. In this era of capital globalization, while the labor movement seems like a fading trend in all the major capitalist countries, Chinese workers pose unique stances: not only because of their huge numbers, but also because of their miserable living conditions, as well as the compelling forms of their struggles. The background of all these issues is the collusion between capital and power, which has been called “Chinese characteristics”. Facing labor issues in the new era, especially dealing with the “new generation of migrant workers”, the classical theories have encountered many challenges from “Chinese characteristics”. This paper aims to explore the relationship between the workingclass formation and the emergence of civil society, within the context of the specific institutional allocation and the transformation process in China. Drawing upon structuration theory, it pays special attention to structural forces such as political power, capital and labor, and their interactions. This study suggests that for Chinese workers, the basic citizenship rights are embodied in the implementation of working rights and also of the rights to organize. Therefore, the citizenship rights are the premise of the working-class formation in China, and the way out for working class lies in the fact that they become independent social forces. As a conclusion, the formation of the new working-class and the development of the civil society in China must be a simultaneous process. In other words, the labor movement itself is an important part of civil society building. And the process for Chinese workers to access full citizenship rights, namely the acquisition and protection of working rights—the basic citizenship rights, are fundamental for the solution of the conflicts between labor and capital, and also for the justice during the transformation.
    Social Capital and the Reproduction of Inequality: The Case of Income Differential between Rural Migrants and Urban Workers
    CHENG Cheng BIAN Yanjie
    2014, 34(4):  67-90. 
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    In an attempt to see how and to what extent social capital affects income inequality, this paper explores the income differential between rural migrants and urban workers in contemporary China. The decomposition method is used to identify two ways through which social capital generate income gap between these two groups, including their differences in occupational attainment and those within occupational categories. Data from Jsnet 2009 reveal that the household registration system (hukou) and individual’s interaction with homogeneous group lead to migrants’ lack of accumulation of social capital relative to their urban counterparts, and their subsequent difficulties in getting jobs with higher pay, as well as their limited bargaining power at work. It is clear that it is the combined effects of two ways that make migrants earn less than urban workers. Therefore, social capital works as a micro mechanism which sustains and reinforces social inequality. The effects of social capital discussed above differ from those of human capital. The difference in human capital between migrants and urban workers lies in the urbanrural difference in the distribution of educational resources, which can be regarded as a result of state control. The case is different when we attempt to explain the social capital difference between migrants and urban workers, as it is an autonomous process, in which both groups of people form their own social networks initiatively. The household registration system, as a type of state control, not only causes the social inequality, but also reproduces social inequality due to its power to shape people’s interaction with others. Migrants, thus, are living in both formal and informal social exclusions. Accordingly, future policy should focus on stabilizing migrants’ jobs in cities, and making them embedded in urban social networks.
    Equal Distribution of Limited Chances: A Study of the Citizenship Shifts of Chinese Peasants’ Children
    LI Ding
    2014, 34(4):  91-118. 
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    This paper argues that social mobility and stratification of peasants’children can be a good indicator measuring social openness of China under a rapid industrialization and urbanization circumstance. In an urbanization framework, their social mobility can be operationalized as transition to nonagricultural occupations and change to urban household registration (hukou) holders. Peasants’children here include farmers, rural migrants and those who have changed their hukou type from rural to urban. They have similar original social backgrounds but are differentiated by occupations and household registration types. Based on national representative samples of this population, the paper tries to provide a more complete picture about the openness of Chinese society than conventional studies of occupational mobility based on city samples and labor studies on migrant workers did. CGSS data is used to describe the probability of occupational transition and citizenship transition of peasants’children in different periods and ages. It finds that the occupational transition pace is quite faster than the transition of citizenship. The probability for peasants’children to earn urban citizenship is stably low. The gap between occupational transition and citizenship transition is becoming larger and larger. It also finds that the traditional channels through which peasants’children can become registered urban citizens are becoming narrower. The rapid expansion of urbanization brings in new chances and channels. Based on these, several hypotheses about the changing of mobility mechanism are developed. The main one is that the distribution of citizenship transition chances is relatively fair and equal. These hypotheses then are tested by comparing the regression coefficients of factors influencing these transitions in different jobcohorts with CGSS data. It shows that the occupational transition is highly influenced by the family background. The effect of education is becoming smaller and smaller. Meanwhile, the distribution of limited citizenship transition chances is relatively fair. Education is always the main factor that differentiates the probability of citizenship transition. It concludes that the openness of Chinese society is a complex issue. It is quite open in terms of the Chinese peasants’ children’s opportunities to find a nonagricultural job. But the process is highly influenced by the family background and parents’social economic status, which is especially the case for getting good jobs. Meanwhile there are limited chances for peasants’children to change their citizenship type, but the distribution of the chance is relatively stable and fair. The speeding up of “citizenization of people” (changing their household registration type, giving them equal urban citizenship and public welfare) driven by the government of China will lead to expansion of citizenship transition chance, but the core of openness, fairness, is still a problem.
    Articles
    Goodbye iSlave: Foxconn, Digital Capitalism, and Networked Labor Resistance
    QIU Jack Linchuan
    2014, 34(4):  119-137. 
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    What is the world factory like under the conditions of digital capitalism? How is it different from, and similar to, capitalist world-systems of the past? In this era of Internet and smart phones, can workers form their own networks and resist the logic of capital? From a global and long duré perspective, this article first reviews the “transAtlantic triangular trade” slavery system of the 17th century. It then examines a new triangular trade structure of 21stcentury slavery, of which Foxconn is a key component. Despite the four centuries in between, there are plenty of parallels between the two systems’ empirical specificities as well as their structural characteristics. A new solidarity system is then proposed to account for networked labor resistance. It is argued that such a retrospective exercise sheds new light on imaginations of future world systems, now rehistoricized; that new technologies sometimes bring social regression instead of progression; and that labor studies need to broaden its analytical scope to the world system, beyond individual enterprise, sector, and country, which is made imperative by conditions of digital capitalism fusing production and consumption, as can be seen most clearly in the cyberspace.
    Private Entrepreneurs and Political Development in China: Theoretical Imagination of Private Entrepreneurs in the Marketization as a Class and Its Reflection
    HUANG Dongya
    2014, 34(4):  138-164. 
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    Private entrepreneurs play an invisible but more and more influential role in Chinese political life. Therefore, more studies on governmentbusiness relations become necessary for better understanding of the political development in contemporary China. With the theoretical presumption of “no bourgeoisie, no democracy”, existing researches explore whether there is an autonomous and opposite capitalist class in the process of market transition, and most of them conclude that the capitalist class in China is quite dependent on and colludes with the state because of their shared political values and interests as well as the political cooptation and corporatism of the Partystate. Some other studies reflect on these viewpoints and contend that it’s improper to consider the private entrepreneurs as a homogeneous social class with common interests and identity. The theoretical presumption of “no bourgeois, no democracy” is also questioned and modified. Based on these studies, the paper argues that the existing studies have had too much presumptions with the private entrepreneurs’ role in democratization process, either for it or against it, while neglecting the actual influences of the private entrepreneurs on policy making and implementation, individually or collectively. This, however, signifies great political change in contemporary China. Therefore, this paper suggests it is necessary to reflect on the existing theoretical presumption that in order to deepen our understanding of the relationship between Chinese government and private entrepreneurs. Furthermore, a possible turn in the studies on private entrepreneurs in China is from democratization approach to policy influence approach, as well as the change of focus from “autonomy” to “influence”.
    An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Public Subsidies on Private Enterprise’s R&D Investment
    ZHU Bin LI Lulu
    2014, 34(4):  165-186. 
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    As market failure exists, using public funding to support private R&D activities is a common practice in many countries. Many studies found out that public funding have a great influence on private R&D activities in terms of changing the private cost, expected return and risk of the R&D project. However, it is controversial to determine the direction of this influence—some studies suggest that public funding can stimulate private R&D, while others hold opposite opinions. The article emphasizes that the influence may vary by different firms. Based on the Private Enterprises data in China，the research uses Tobit model to analyzes the effect of public funding on private R&D. The results indicate that public subsidies can promote private enterprise’s R&D investment significantly. Meanwhile, this stimulating effect can also be affected by various firm characteristics such as entrepreneurship、firm size and institutional environment. Specifically, the stimulating effect is stronger in smaller firms, while the public funding has a negative effect on the R&D of firms whose owners have low education or more political connections. Furthermore, for the firms located in the regions with good institutional environment, mostly characterized by weak government intervention and strong legal quality，they would increase their total R&D expenditures after accepting the public R&D support. At the same time, the public funding may also cause crowdingout effect on firm’s R&D expenditures. Many subsidized firms may invest in other projects when their own R&D projects can be fully supported by the public funding, especially when they can hardly start new R&D project because of the restriction of resource like R&D personnel. Therefore，the paper gives some reasonable suggestions to use subsidy effectively. Firstly, the government needs to guarantee sufficient R&D subsidies continuously. Secondly, it is important to choose suitable firms, such as small firms and firms whose owners have high education, to ensure that the public funding can be used effectively. Finally, the government should also improve the institutional environment, like weakening government intervention and strengthening the protection of intellectual property rights.
    “Incomplete Collaboration”: The Strategy for Chinese NGO Alliance：Case Study of NGOs’ Joint Action during the Wenchuan Earthquake Relief
    ZHU Jiangang LAI Weijun
    2014, 34(4):  187-209. 
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    Since the 1990s’, Chinese NGO’s burgeoning development has attracted much attention from both the overseas and Chinese domestic academia, which shows a general shift of research focus from structural debates of the “StateNGO” relationships to exploration of NGOs’ specific action strategies. However, as one of the key phenomenon of Chinese NGOs’ growth and development, the issue of NGO collaboration has not been richly tapped on. Taking NGOs’ joint disaster relief action during the Wenchuan Earthquake as the study case, this research tends to explore the “incompleteness” of NGO collaboration in China. It is contended that incomplete collaboration is a subjectively selected action strategy by NGOs when faced with externally institutional and internally organizational limitations. The strategic mechanisms of NGO incomplete collaboration are demonstrated by selfconstrained joint action objects, organizations’ limited engagement in the alliances and flexible organizing forms of alliances. The incomplete collaboration is induced by limited political opportunities, informal NGO networks and incomplete corporative willingness of NGOs. The authors further point out that, within the general limited political environment of authoritarian China, it is this kind of incomplete collaboration that enables NGOs’ alliance during the disaster relief, which shows effectiveness of the action strategy. Meanwhile, because of its incompleteness, incomplete collaboration also leads to the fragility and weak internal control of NGO alliance, which shows the limitations of the action strategy. More stable and lasting NGOs’ corporation in the future calls for other collaborative models.