Organizational Structure and Collective Action: Lineage Networks, Semiautonomous Civic Associations, and Collective Resistance in Rural China

This paper examines the form, content, and role of petitions in the context of protests occasioned by the handloom weavers of colonial Andhra, particularly the northern districts of the northern Coromandel region, between 1770 and 1820. Minor and major protests and revolts by weavers erupted with increasing frequency from around the middle of the eighteenth century, whenever their socioeconomic structures and conditions of work and trade were under threat from the old and new elites, as well as from the commercial interests of the colonial state. On these occasions, weavers expressed their grievances through petitions and representations, either in combination with other strategies or independently. These petitions therefore offer opportunities to study and identify the economic and social conditions that prompted weavers to resort to collective action. Careful analyses of the petitions yield considerable insights with respect to the causes of the protests; their spatial and social diffusion; the social profile of contending parties, and their mentalities; the changing organizational structure of the textile industry; the petitions' consequences; and, finally, the attitude of the colonial state towards these petitions.

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Informal Institutions, Collective Action, and Public Investment in Rural China

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s0003055415000155 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 109 (2) ◽

pp. 371-391 ◽

Cited By ~ 63

Author(s):

YIQING XU ◽

YANG YAO

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Public Goods ◽

Local Governance ◽

Rural China ◽

Public Investment ◽

Informal Institutions ◽

Causal Effects ◽

Collective Action Problem ◽

Bureaucratic Institutions ◽

Local Leaders

Do informal institutions, rules, and norms created and enforced by social groups promote good local governance in environments of weak democratic or bureaucratic institutions? This question is difficult to answer because of challenges in defining and measuring informal institutions and identifying their causal effects. In the article, we investigate the effect of lineage groups, one of the most important vehicles of informal institutions in rural China, on local public goods expenditure. Using a panel dataset of 220 Chinese villages from 1986 to 2005, we find that village leaders from the two largest family clans in a village increased local public investment considerably. This association is stronger when the clans appeared to be more cohesive. We also find that clans helped local leaders overcome the collective action problem of financing public goods, but there is little evidence suggesting that they held local leaders accountable.

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Resisting Democratic Backsliding: Malawi’s Experience in Comparative Perspective

African Studies Review ◽

10.1017/asr.2019.62 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 63 (4) ◽

pp. 858-882

Author(s):

Peter VonDoepp

Keyword(s):

Civil Society ◽

Collective Action ◽

Large Scale ◽

Civil Society Organizations ◽

Comparative Perspective ◽

Economic Conditions ◽

Collective Resistance ◽

The Face ◽

Democratic Rights ◽

Action Theories

AbstractWhy does collective resistance to democratic backsliding emerge in some contexts and not others? The experience of Malawi in 2011–2012 offers an opportunity to explore this question. In the face of attacks on democratic rights and institutions, large-scale popular and civil society mobilization challenged the government’s authoritarian tendencies. Drawing on collective action theories and comparing Malawi’s experience to that of Zambia, VonDoepp argues that Malawi’s resistance arose in an environment that was favorable to its emergence. Economic conditions had generated grievances against government, polarization remained modest, and civil society organizations benefitted from credibility and the presence of allies that facilitated activism.

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Informal Institutions, Collective Action, and Public Investment in Rural China

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.2427983 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Yiqing Xu ◽

Yang Yao

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Rural China ◽

Public Investment ◽

Informal Institutions

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Contesting Hydropower Dams in the Eastern Himalaya: The Cultural Politics of Identity, Territory and Self-Governance Institutions in Sikkim, India

Water ◽

10.3390/w11030412 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 412 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Rinchu Dukpa ◽

Deepa Joshi ◽

Rutgerd Boelens

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

Eastern Himalaya ◽

Politics Of Identity ◽

Hydropower Development ◽

Democratic Institution ◽

Traditional System ◽

External Threats ◽

Collective Resistance ◽

Governance Institutions

In India’s Eastern Himalayan State of Sikkim, the indigenous Bhutia communities, Lachungpas and Lachenpas, successfully contested all proposed hydropower projects and have managed to sustain an anti-dam opposition in their home regions, Lachung and Lachen. In this paper, we discuss this remarkable, un-researched, effective collective action against hydropower development, examining how identity and territory influence collective action through production, creation and application of vernacular knowledge systems. The role of the Dzumsa, a prevailing traditional system of self-governance among the Lachungpas and Lachenpas, has been central in their collective resistance against large dams in Lachung and Lachen. Our findings show that contrary to popular imageries, the Dzumsa is neither an egalitarian nor a democratic institution—rather, it is an exercise of an “agonistic unity”. The Dzumsas operate as complex collectives, which serve to politicize identity, decision-making and place-based territoriality in their struggle against internal and external threats. Principles of a “vernacular statecraft” helped bringing the local communities together in imperfect unions to oppose modernist designs of hydropower development. However, while such vernacular institutions were able to construct a powerful local adversary to neoliberal agendas, they also pose high social, political and emotional risks to the few within the community, who chose not to align with the normative principles of the collective.

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"We Knew Our Time Had Come": The Dynamics of Threat and Microsocial Ties in Three Polish Ghettos Under Nazi Oppression

Mobilization An International Quarterly ◽

10.17813/maiq.19.1.66l8khh78976h112 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 47-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Michaela Soyer

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Collective Action ◽

Structural Factors ◽

World War ◽

Normal Response ◽

Perception Of Threat ◽

Collective Resistance ◽

Individual Strategies ◽

Available Resources

Relying on interviews with Jews who were interned in three Polish ghettos during World War II—Piotrokow, Tarnow, and Lachwa—this study clarifies the mechanism by which the perception of threat can motivate collective resistance. As these data show, the normal response to extreme oppression is a reliance on microsocial ties to secure survival; available resources are focused on the protection of those ties rather than committed to collective resistance. Under specific, contingent structural circumstances, however, an unequivocal perception of threat can align this desire to protect the microsocial unit with a commitment to collective action. In Piotrokow and Tarnow, structural factors counteracted the perception of immediate threat. The survival of the microsocial unit appeared to be best secured by individual strategies of action. In Lachwa, the survival of the microsocial unit seemed to be tied to collective resistance, leading to a violent collective uprising against the Nazis.

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Disaggregating the State: Networks and Collective Resistance in Shanghai

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0305741006000178 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 186 ◽

pp. 314-332 ◽

Cited By ~ 73

Author(s):

Fayong Shi ◽

Yongshun Cai

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Collective Action ◽

Local Level ◽

State Power ◽

The State ◽

Collective Resistance ◽

The Government ◽

Different Levels

Collective action directed at the government is not rare in China, but why some actions endure and succeed whereas many others fail remains inadequately addressed. Based on a case of home owners' sustained collective resistance in Shanghai, this study finds that state power is fragmented at the local level. While the disparate priorities among different levels of state authorities provide opportunities for resistance, social networks between participants of collective action and officials or media workers may significantly help the former to achieve success.

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