Abstract
The analyses in the last chapter argued that the fact that the two groups hold very different views of the land expropriation process is indicative of significant social dispute.
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Notes
- 1.
Herein, Giddens emphasises the part of knowledge, which in his terms is ‘conception of how things could be otherwise’ (1981: 149).
- 2.
The reasons for the populace to prefer the appeal system are discussed in Appendix C.
- 3.
This is related to Chinese cultural tradition without doubt. In this sense, I favour construing Chinese ‘state’ nature to be a ‘family-state mixture’, namely, accumulating families to become a state and the state is the amplification and extension of the family, rather than a political community consisting of innumerable contenting groups.
- 4.
With the prefix of ‘public interests’ in rules of land expropriation, even if land-lost farmers could accept removal to meet a worthwhile national goal, as Li et al. (2001: 208) argue, this goodwill could rapidly disappear in the face of official corruption or incompetence.
- 5.
Even if they resort to the courts, they tend to require the courts to resolve the problems by administrative means.
- 6.
Further information in this regard will follow in Sect. 6.3.
- 7.
Ethnomethodology has especially developed this theme. Ethnomethodologists argue that what we have regarded as the ‘everydayness’ of life is actively realised by people rather than a natural state of affairs. For instance, Zimmerman (1970) studied a clinic in which a receptionist was supposed to arrange patients to various physicians by writing their names on one or another physician’s list. But some physicians were delayed by difficult cases; to prevent inordinately long waits, especially for seriously ill patients, the receptionist sometimes juggled the lists, more or less radically, depending on her judgement. Even that simple rule had to be adapted to a variety of exceptional circumstances, an adaptation might be best regarded as ‘common sense’.
- 8.
For example, when the central government assorts letters and visits, it does not exclude those falling short of the scope and procedure of Regulations on Letters and Visits (Zhang and Zhang 2009: 277).
- 9.
Art. 18, Regulations on Letters and Visits (2005), http://www.gjxfj.gov.cn/2006-03/07/content_6399309.htm, accessed 8 Jan 2011.
- 10.
Art. 16, ibid.
- 11.
Art. 20 (3), ibid.
- 12.
Art. 16, ibid.
- 13.
Such behaviour can be explained in slightly modified terms of Giddens’ ‘the unconscious’. The unconscious motivational components of social behaviour are ‘those forms of cognition or impulsion which are either wholly repressed from consciousness or appear in consciousness only in distorted form’ (Giddens 1984: 4). In this sense, it can be said land-lost farmers’ impulsion for dignity is not repressed from consciousness or their cognition of interests appears in consciousness in distorted form.
- 14.
Refer to next chapter about more information.
- 15.
A law professor from Beijing University, Sun Dongdong, claims that 99 % of full-time appellants have psychiatric illness. See also Cai (1989: 48).
- 16.
According to Thompson’s (1971: 116) study, this gender dynamic is not confined in peasant movements but prevalent in poor people’s risings. As he referenced Southey about the reason: ‘[Women] stand less in fear of law, partly from ignorance, partly because they presume upon the privilege of their sex’.
- 17.
As regards the undereducated land-lost farmers, men can more easily find physical jobs than women.
- 18.
The conceptions of the powerless may alter as an adaptive response to continual defeat. If the victories of A over B in the first dimension of power lead to non-challenge of B due to the anticipation of the reactions of A, then, over time, the calculated withdrawal by B may lead to an unconscious pattern of withdrawal, maintained not by fear of power of A but by a sense of powerlessness within B. A sense of powerlessness may manifest itself as fatalism about everything, complete self-deprecation, and total apathy about one’s situation (Gaventa 1980: 16–17).
- 19.
The system of deputy to the People’s Congress per se gives rise to an issue needing concerns. It has not promoted the professionalisation of deputies to the People’s Congress, which is essential in many Western countries. It is stipulated in the US Constitution: ‘No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.’ (Art. I (6), The United States Constitution, http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html, accessed 28 Jun 2011.) Whereas in China, it is common that members of the upper layers of the society or government officials take deputies to the People’s Congress as a concurrent post. It is actually improper that many officials are deputies to the People’s Congress per se, or at least arrange spokespersons through governmental assignment.
- 20.
There is rigid institutional control upon non-governmental organisations in China. It cannot be denied that ‘predicament of legality’ (Ying 2007) is one of the sources that obstruct the growth of institutionally-absorbed social movement taking place in the West.
- 21.
According to Dahrendorf, the so-called quasi-group refers to an assemblage of people in an imperatively coordinated association who share certain interests because of their position in the authority relations of the association. The reason for naming it quasi-group is because such assemblage is not equipped with requisite conditions of a sociologically defined group including frequent contact of members, recognisable structure, and particular action pattern in common. It is obvious that the ‘circles’ mentioned do not show characteristics of formal groups but can be subsumed under quasi-groups.
- 22.
According to Brewer, ‘discussing negative cases which fall outside the general patterns and categories’ while ‘often serve to exemplify and support positive cases’ is essential to ‘[s]how the complexity of the data’ (2000: 54). The discussion of this special case and the discussion of ingratiation among land-lost farmers both fit into such methodological considerations, besides their necessity in portraying a complete account of the facility of power on the part of land-lost farmers.
- 23.
Begiraj (1966) also argues that deep and bitter factional divisions have rendered the peasant community vulnerable to exploitation by local bureaucrats.
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Lian, H. (2017). Facility of Power: On the Part of Land-Lost Farmers. In: The Relationship between Land-lost Farmers and Local Government in China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2768-0_6
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