Social Capital in the "New Socialist Countryside": Guanxi, Community Solidarity, and Resistance in Two Post-Socialist Chinese Townships.

Abstract

This dissertation explores why and how personal networks (relational social capital) can/cannot be transformed into community solidarity (system social capital), using ethnographic data collected in two townships in north China. As generally in rural China, social life in both townships is deeply embedded in personal ties (guanxi). However, transformation to community social capital happens in T Township, where organized protests of villagers pressure local governments to respond to their requests, but not in W Township, where collective action is largely unseen. My thesis is that differences in local mobilization of resistance can be explained by differences in the modes of political economy in each township. In W Township, economic development builds upon local rural entrepreneurship and a highly visible endogenous class society; while in T Township, urban capital and rural governments deprive villagers of local resources and compel them to become migrant workers. In the different emergent socioeconomic orders, village cadres, as major organizers of rural communities, and villagers reconfigure and redefine their roles, agendas, and contents of exchange in their everyday tie practices. Their strategic networking through personal ties shapes the capability of their communities to mobilize resources and organize collective action. Socialist governmental structure is well kept in W Township and the vertical tie with village cadres is the vital relationship for survival for common villagers. To exchange for favors, they support the village cadres with respect and restrain themselves from participating in organized resistance that would stain the career records of the cadres. In T Township, villagers, as well as village cadres, depend on the horizontal ties in their community to survive in the anarchist villages and in the cities where they now work. Through their personal networks, the cadres lead the villagers to transcend persisting boundaries in the rural society, and endeavor to collectively petition and protest to authorities against corrupted local officials and for social justice. Through the comparison, I argue that grassroots contexts and contents of network exchanges are crucial dimensions to explore for better understandings of the role of personal ties in collective activism, and the changing state-society dynamics in modern China.