Contentious versus compliant: diversified patterns of Shanghai homeowners' collective mobilizations

In: Journal of contemporary China, Volume 28, Issue 115, p. 81-98

Abstract

The 1998 housing reforms in Chinese cities have played a substantial role in setting social transition in motion. Not only has it produced an urban middle class of homeowners but it has also powerfully patternized collective mobilization. Fieldwork conducted in Shanghai reveals that homeowner communities living in 'commercialized apartments' (CAs) versus 'government-sold apartments' (GSAs) undertake distinct types of collective action. CA owners contentiously defend their rights and interests, whereas GSA owners remain compliant and lobby for welfare subsidies. This distinction in collective mobilizations between homeowners seems to originate in the distinct sources of homeownership. The logic of state capitalism underlies CAs and that of socialist patriarchy underlies GSAs. Analyzing a couple of mobilization episodes, the authors, by theory of contentious politics, focus on exploring the crucial mechanisms in the process of mobilization to explain why in the different settings the similar mechanisms have produced different outcomes. (J Contemp China/GIGA)