Social Protests Triggered By The Major Urban Engineering Research

Accompanying the deep economic reforms, which leads to dramatic interest pattern and value changes, China faces frequent social contentions. In recent years, the booming development of city constructions in Shanghai also elicits serious social contentions. Since Shanghai's important status in China, the research on Shanghai's social contentions would make sense to China's social contentions and push further studies on the same topic.Based on reviewing domestic and foreign researches on social contentions, this dissertation proposes its theory supposition that the main reasons of contentions are people's interests suffered injury and the behaviors of government are irregular during the questionnaire opinion, decision-making and construction, operation processes of important and large projects. And the intense degree of contentions is decided by: (a)the degree of interests losses; (b) if the government have made effective interactive actions during the processes of important and large projects. The implication of this dissertation is that he contentions have become an important factor of democracy emergence and institutional change.Combining with the social contention theory, this dissertation tries to form a dynamics between the act of government and contention. The logic of the dynamics illustrated as follow. If people's interests are damaged, and if the government actions are irregular during the process of questionnaire opinion, construction and operation, it may lead to social contentions. Once the contentions occur, if government and people lack effective interactions, the scale of contention will expand. The formation of the postulation is followed by four parts of contentions.The first part reviews the situation of important and large projects in Shanghai in the past five years, as well as the contentions which are caused by the constructions of important and large projects. This review discovers that if their interests don't receive the harm or the harm is small, people will not anticipate in the contentions. If the project has created a big harm to people, moreover the behaviors of government are irregular in the construction's process, people will anticipate in the contentions.The second part chooses the project of Shanghai-Hangzhou Magnetic Suspension and the project of Hongqiao Synthesis Transport Hub as cases to carry on analysis. After studied different cases as well as the different people in the same case, we discovered that the interests hurts more, the intensity of contention is bigger. In addition, we discovered that in the four processes of the contention, such as the mobilization, the approval, the contention and the scale expansion, although the government has carried on certain interactions with the people, but the opportunity, the way, the level, the role, the goal of interactions are wrong, which causes the contentions to expand unceasingly.Thirdly, how to prevent the contentions happens? And how to avoid the scale of contention expand? I give my own advice.Finally, we find contentions enhance people's democratic awareness and enrich people's resistance experience. On the other hand, the contentions make government officials to change, and impetus system reform. So the contentions have positive significance to our country's political democratization process.