The Study Of Rural People's Environmental Protest

Pollution in present China is very serious and show the tendency of "internal colonization" and "ruralization". As a result,more and more environmental disputes and collective actions appears which are more frequently reported by all kinds of media. As a special type of "contentious politics",environmental protests draw the attentions of some scholars. The related research covers the ways of action and their dilemma, the mobilization mechanism, identity construction, and the function of local culture and social relation networks. Comparing with the related study in abroad,demestic studis seem scattered and need to be strengthened both in width and depth.Charpter 1 shows the social background, history, current situation of rural people's environmental protests and the social risks caused by environmental pollution and protest. Rural people's environmental protests arise from "crisis of living right". Battle cry of farmers appeared early in Mao's era and the early stages of reforming and opening, but were constructed by society as bad images. The rising tendency of environmental conflicts since 1990s, the large numbers of people around the pollution, the intense emotion during the conflicts which may lead to non-real orientation, all make the environmental dimension of societal risks deserve attention.The excess of developing the function of environment may cause environmental pollution and protest bearing the features of risk society.Charpter 2 constructs a preliminary describing types of rural people's environmental protests, dealing with the basic forms, main action ways and features of rural people's environmental protest, then compare rural people's environmental protests with those of urban dwellers.Charpter 3 discusses the roots of environmental conflicts in rural areas from the dimention of social change and social transition. Viewing from the dimention of social change, industrialization is the fundamental reason of pollution. In traditional society,people mainly depend on woods as energy sources, ecological disruption is the main environmental problem, pollution mainly comes from living. The woods energy supports limited population and most of the people lived in rural areas. As a result,pollution can be eliminated through natural purification. Exhausting woods force the people to change energy structure and invent machines to use coal and oil, industry revolution came forth. Industrialization led to rapid increasing of population and accelerating of urbanization, which not only exacerbated living pollution, but also engendered large amount of pollution in itself. Viewing .from the dimention of social transition,"incorporated exploration mechanism of politics and economic"exacerbates environmental pollution and conflicts. This paper discusses detailedly the relations between politics and economy in western society and the forming of"incorporated exploration mechanism of politics and economic" bearing Chinese characteristics.Charpter 4 discusses the political environment of rural people environmental protests currently, using political opportunity structure (or POS) theory (one of the main theoryies in western social movement field). On the basis of making clear the developing process of POS theory, this paper constructs a local analytical frame of Chinese farmers' environmental protests, then using the frame to explain the lead poisoning case in a village of north Jiangsu province in 2008. The shows that political setting of rural people's environmental protest consists of two parts,one is "structural political opportunity",includes Xinfang institution and other protest chances result from part opening of the polity; the other is "signaling political opportunity" which includes central authority's emphasis on environmental protection, rural areas and the construction of "harmony society". The former directly determines the villagers,protests ways; the latter influence the villagers' strategy selection by influencing their perception and psychology.Charpter 5 discusses the internal dynamics of rural people's environmental protests on the basis of lead poisoning case in the village of north Jiangsu province.The case indicates that abnormal health disease of family members result in"disruption of the quotidian" and awakening of pollution risk consciousness. The two latters then pushed each other. The company's unfriendliness to the neighbors and the local officials' improper disposal of the accidents helped the pushing. The specific relation between state and society in present China makes the villagers' pursuit of"popular epidemiology" devoid of organizational and social bases. The deconstruction of villagers' risk cognition by "community of consequence calculation" does not take effect, on the contrary, it is just the deconstruction urge the villagers to find truth of pollution. Mobilization in the environmental protest of N villagers is characterized by incomplete "grassroot mobilization" and "group mobilization",transformation from"mobilization based on goals able to realize" to "mobilization based on goals unable to realize",and the deconstruction of mobilization by benefit. The villagers'psychology changed several times throughout the lead poisoning case. Originally,they succumbed to the arrangement of the local government and the corporation, then,they were unsatisfied with and distrust and be angry with the corporation, also they changed their attitude from trusting the local government to being unsatisfied with and distrusting and being angry with the local government. The protest led to the demonization of local officials by the villagers. As to the psychology of "the bigger of the event,the better",which showed in many other protesting areas,was not evident in N village's case. The villagers could overcome the difficulties of lacking knowledge of law and information to some extent because of the characteristics and social experience of their elite, the developed internet and the geographic features of N village. The villagers' elite was not co-opted,because the villager can not put threat on the corporation's interests,the elite was not qualified of being co-opted,there is no perfect institutional channel for public participation, the villagers were not sure if their represents could maintain their interests when they were co-opted, thus reduced the significance of co-optation.Charpter 6 shows that in order to avoid and cope with rural environmental conflicts, we need a comprehensive thinking from risk avoidance to crises administrating. In the first period, we need to change ways of economic growth and economic structure, move to eco-modernization; we need to improve public environmental participation and broke the relations between politics and economy; we need to improve the institution of environmental influence evaluation, construct the mechanism of environmental social risk evaluation and environmental health risk evaluation. In the second period, we need to improve the political opportunity structure of rural people's interests expression; we need to insure rural people's environmental rights; we need to construct social assistance and social security mechanism for those who suffer from pollution.