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Local governance is closely related to democratic participation and social harmony in urban China. Homeowners in Beijing have developed various models of self-government in their residential communities, which are consistent with the government's regulations. This article describes and analyzes three innovative models of self-government. It also explores institutional mechanisms to promote local democratic government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the field work conducted in Beijing, this article is concerned with how Chinese urban homeowners participate in politics to assert their economic rights and interests. In general, Beijing homeowners employ institutionalized approaches to defend their property rights, such as developing an association of homeowners' committees, submitting legislation proposals to the People's Congress at the national and the local levels, and running as independent candidates for the People's Congress at the county-level. Homeowners' political participation will help promote local democratic governance and increase the social stability in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 1990s, urban neighborhoods have seen a rapid growth of protests by homeowners for their "rights." This paper tries to study the origin and development of the rights movements from the perspectives of political process and mobilization structure. Based on field work in several homeowners committees in Beijing, the author argues that the rapid changes of the social structure, mobilization structure and general discourse on the movements contribute to the increase of homeowners' rights movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an important task for political scientists to study homeowners' rights movements in urban China. Based on extended field work in Beijing residential areas, we have completed the following five articles in this special issue. Compared with the existing literature, our study has three features. First, we employ a sampling survey to gauge the attitudes and behaviors of the ordinary homeowners. Second, we focus on the horizontal linkages among different residential areas, describing their patterns and political implications. Third, we compare and analyze the local innovations of some typical residential areas, exploring multilateral relationship among the state, market and society in transitional China, attempting to discover the transformation mechanisms of community governance and understand the local democratic system with Chinese characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on long-term field research on the Beijing Association of Homeowner Committees' Bidding Committee, this article analyzes the cross-neighborhood collective actions organized by the homeowners' protest leaders. With the expansion of the networks of the Bidding Committee, the knowledge and techniques of defending private property rights spread from one residential area to another. The Bidding Committee takes numerous measures, such as supporting member homeowners' committees, developing institutional communication mechanisms, to maintaining and increasing the political influences of the cross-neighborhood networks. Because of the effective strategies employed by the Bidding Committee, the legitimacy crisis of this informal organization has been resolved. With the rapid increase of cross-neighborhood collective actions by the Chinese middle class, a civil society will gradually emerge in urban China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the data of 606 questionnaires collected in 23 neighborhoods in Beijing in 2008, this paper analyzes the degree, motivation and implications of homeowners' political participation. First, urban homeowners tend to participate in the rights movements. Second, gender, occupation and the level of income have significant influence on homeowners' participation in these movements. Third, as an important part of Chinese middle class, Beijing homeowners tend to support the incumbent regime and to be in favor of the status quo. Most of them are in favor of the social order and economic growth. However, those who have a strong sense of "status inconsistency" and a strong sense of internal efficacy are more likely to participate in rights movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]