Date of Award

6-2012

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Mark Dallas

Language

English

Keywords

collective action, China, occupation, regions, industry

Abstract

Since the creation of labor markets in China, there has been a rapid increase in collective contentious action, such as striking and protesting, and this has attracted the attention of many scholars. Because the country contains such a myriad of diverse regions, scholars have commonly analyzed Chinese collective action through a “regional” lens. While that approach has been useful, this paper goes further by disaggregating Chinese collective action along two dimensions: by micro-region and by occupational sector. More specifically, this research disaggregates large macro-regions to show diversity at the city-level within regions. It also considers differences in collective action across occupations and industries, such as transportation workers and factory workers in the auto parts, electronics and textiles industries. To illustrate this disaggregated approach, I have constructed a searchable database of collective action in China over the past years, which consists of 94 verified cases of collective action. These cases have demonstrated that the targets of and reasons for collective action among China’s regions have been far less general and uniform than scholars have projected. In disaggregating collective action within many of China’s vast regions and across occupational groups, I have developed a new framework to analyze China’s collective action.

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