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The resilience and tenacity of Falun Gong as a political protest movement in the transnational space, and the secrecy surrounding Falun Gong as an opaque charismatic cult, make the sociological study of Falun Gong particularly difficult. In just about 200 pages, the author not only weaved together a detailed account of two organized social movements, but also analyzed them through a comparative lens addressing a question that has puzzled many, "Why did Falun Gong outperform diaspora Minyun as a "modern social movement"?". [Extracted from the article]

The tentative study explores why information and communication technology (ICT) does not show effective power in increasing Chinese worker activism publicity with the digital divide framework. I conducted in-depth interviews with worker activism participants that are motivated to adopt ICT for mobilising and gaining public awareness and support for their collective actions. The study found that in addition to strategic skills and motivations, perceived importance of the media in activism as well as media censorship and users’ coping strategies are influential in preventing them from effectively using ICT for activism. A typology is accordingly developed to position workers’ perception of adopting the Internet and mass media in activism. The two constructs are then incorporated into a revised pyramid model of the digital divide to describe two advanced divides when people already have access, skills and motivations to use ICT for political pursuits in societies with media censorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In opposition to a free trade pact with China, Taiwan's Sunflower Movement erupted in spring 2014 and occupied the national legislature for twenty-four days. Drawing from the recent debates on the relation between social movements and the state, I elaborate a revised polity model that focuses on the effects of elite disunity, threat, and movement strategy. The Sunflower Movement originated from a tactical misstep by the ruling party that created an immediate sense of threat from proposed closer economic ties with China, thereby facilitating protest mobilization. Student protesters were able to seize the national legislature because of an internal split within the ruling party and support from the opposition party. However, the failure to further exploit these favorable oppurtunities exposed the movement to goverment repression. Fortunately for the movement, the disunity among elites helped the activists manage a dignified exit, which they could claim as a success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political theorists of globalization have argued that foreign inflows to a society can give rise to collective-identity closure-social movements aiming to narrow the in-group, and exclude minorities. In this research we investigate whether exposure to the mixing of a foreign culture with one's heritage culture can evoke need for closure, a motive that engenders ethnocentric social judgments. On the basis of a proposed identity threat mechanism, we tested the hypothesis that exposure to situations mixing foreign and heritage cultures would evoke need for closure for individuals with low foreign identification but not those with high foreign identification. An experiment with Hong Kong Chinese students varied linguistic and visual cues of Western and Chinese culture and found, as predicted, that exposure to mixed Western/Chinese conditions elevated need for closure for those low in Western identification but not those high in Western identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key concept of this article is that while the predominant focus of the rise of cyber islamic environments (CIEs) has been on the Middle East and the West, there exists a neglected but emerging trend of the Chinese-speaking Islamic websites in the midst of growing autonomy of civil social movements as well as the state surveillance. Among the ten Muslim nationalities in China, I first surveys the general situations of the cyber environments in China, in which the Hui Islamic webs ites embedded, and then go on to explore the development and features of some representative Hui Islamic websites. This article illustrates the challenge for Chinese CIEs is to resolve the identity politics, on the one hand demonstrating the political loyalty to the sovereign power of People's Republic of China (PRC) and identifying the global ummah in terms of transborder religious solidarity on the other hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the impact of a domestic-based social movement's efforts to promote international conflict resolution? To end the conflict in Darfur, the US-based Save Darfur Coalition (SDC) has pursued a strategy of international venue-shopping to seek additional sources of leverage on the government of Sudan. The SDC identified China as Sudan's staunch ally in the international arena. During the period leading up to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008, the SDC and its member organizations explored traditional and innovative channels for pressuring the Chinese government. This article will examine the emergence of China as a target, the development of the China Campaign, and the impact on Chinese foreign policy. The reconstruction of the strategies of the SDC is based on a systematic content analysis of the web sites, organization archival material, and newspaper accounts of activities. The main data source consists of in-depth interviews conducted with SDC leadership, Darfuri activists, Congressional legislative aides, and officials from the Chinese Embassy and the Department of State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social movement theories provide a framework for explaining the post-1990 rise in China’s citizen-organized environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs), which consisted of at least 128 organizations as of 2004. We use a political process model, which is based on favorable political opportunities, cognitive liberation, and indigenous organizational strength, to explain the sharp growth in citizen organized ENGOs. In addition, we employ a world society perspective to help clarify why the political environment in China became favorable for ENGO growth, and how international ENGO practices were diffused within China. Our analysis shows that the relatively high status of ENGO founders together with their personal and professional networks also played important roles in ENGO growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from a 2004 national survey, we examine the recent trends in the conditions of migrant workers in China. Our discussion engages the debate in the existing literature between the migrant workers as victims of China's economic growth and as a newly emerging political force with growing bargaining power. The study focuses on three dimensions of migrant workers' status: their socio-economic conditions, relations with rural and urban residents, and conflict resolution behaviour. The findings indicate that while migrant workers continue to occupy more blue-collar and service jobs than urban residents, their economic, social and political status has improved. In some areas, migrant workers show even more political activism than both rural and urban residents. Migrant workers' growing social influence is a positive development in China's political diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores on the rise and fall of the Number One Work Study Mutual Aid Corps in Beijing, China. The proclamations of the Number One Corps, the coverage it received in the periodical press, and the memoirs of key participants, allow researchers to examine not only the intentions of its founders, but also the activities of the Corps and the relationships within it. It tends to reflect on the historical studies that focus on the political aspect of the movement, and literary studies that focus on its cultural aspect. The article seeks to recreate, in as much as possible, the workings of one particular slice of May Fourth idealism and activism and to convey the significance of those heady times for the participants.

In this article, we develop a quadripartite classification of social movement participants based on the participants' levels of interest in a movement goal and the amount of resources that the participants contribute to the movement. We use the latent class model to determine the percentage of participants in each of the four categories in our classification system for the case of the 1999 anti-U.S. student demonstrations in Beijing in the aftermath of the Belgrade Embassy bombing. Finally, we apply the multinomial logit regression to investigate the mechanisms behind the mobilization of different types of participants during the anti-U.S. demonstrations. Our analysis and empirical findings not only show the importance of studying movement mobilization based on a classification of movement participants, but also reveal much about the nature of the 1999 anti-U.S. demonstrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article portrays China `s university students of the 1990s and the differences between these youths and earlier generations. Corresponding to the political apathy and commercial ardor of post-1989 China, the once appealing political idealism and activism of the 1980s was quickly replaced by a sort of fast-food consumer culture that dominated Chinese society and campuses in the 1990s. Many students chose to distance themselves from sensitive political issues, though they still followed current affairs closely and held a strong nationalist outlook. They learned how to reconcile with existing social conditions and made their decisions, on career or politics, based on the principle of individual interests. Being compelled to shift their status from the `proud children of heaven' to ordinary members of society, students readily went to great lengths to merge in and be submerged by the secular world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the views of veteran Chinese dissident Xu Wenli, who was arrested in 1979 during the Democracy Wall movement as an outspoken proponent of political freedoms, on democratic gradualism in China. Charges filed against Wenli in 1981; History of movement towards democracy in the country; Growth of the understanding of democracy in the country.

Offers information on the life and early political activism of Peng Shuzhi. Origins of his political activism; Role in the development of Chinese communism and the Trotskyist movement in China; Contribution to the formation of the Communist League of China.

Social movements transform participants' identities. Why they do so is an unresolved puzzle. I argue that for participants, social movements are liminal phenomena characterized by varying degrees of freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. As such, the transformative power of social movements depends on their degree of liminality. Those that approximate most to the pure type of the liminal offer to the participants high degrees of freedom, egalitarianism, communion, and creativity. They transform identities most powerfully. In the 1960s, China's Red Guards experienced a profoundly liminal movement. As a result, an age-cohort that was coming of age began to recreate itself. The personal transformations of the Red Guards would persistently bear on Chinese politics and society up to the 1989 Chinese student movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deliberates on the victory of People's Commune in China. After violent class struggles and line struggles, July 1 People's Commune victoriously entered 1961. The practical experience of over two years of struggle supplied many useful lessons, both positive and negative. From the day of the birth of the people's communes the great leader Mao Tse-Tung was extremely concerned about their growth. Over a period of two years he issued numerous important directives to guide these newborn things along a path of healthy development. In early 1961, Mao personally presided over the drafting of the "Rules Concerning Work in the Rural People's Communes (Draft)" (i.e. The Sixty Rules). When "The Sixty Rules" reached July 1 Commune in April 1961, they received the enthusiastic support of the broad commune members and cadres. The most important item for the implementation of the policies of "The Sixty Rules" was the decision to make the production team the basic accounting unit. This step affected every aspect of the relations of production in July 1 People's Commune.

The article discusses the impact of the formation of commune in China. As soon as July 1 People's Commune was born, it demonstrated a strong vitality. Nevertheless, this newborn thing still had to be consolidated and perfected through continuous struggle. Right after July 1 Commune was established, there did not exist and could not exist ready-made rules. They lacked even more experience in running a commune. in the July 1 Commune the most important manifestation of the "communist wind" was produced by the "public" teams, i.e. the commune "freely and without compensation" disposed of the material goods, land, manpower, and savings of the production brigades and production teams in order to develop the economy at the commune level. At the same time, the commune, without compensation, also usurped a large portion of the labor force at the production brigades and teams as well as other means of production. The commune inappropriately increased the collective accumulations of the brigades and production teams and retained a large proportion of this under its own control.

The article traces the historical background of People's Commune in Shanghai. After victoriously passing through the violent struggle of the Rectification, Anti-rightist, and Socialist Education movements in 1957, the poor and lower-middle peasants and the broad peasant masses of July 1 District advanced toward their new goal with an ever-rising will to fight. They, together with the peasants of the entire suburban district, submitted a proposal calling for the achievement of a per-mou yield of 100 chin of cotton, 1,000 chin of grain and 10,000 chin of vegetables, thus making an even greater contribution to socialism. This was a new high tide of socialist enthusiasm of the broad poor and lower-middle peasants. Day and night the work sites of water conservancy projects were bubbling with activism. In May, the Party Central Committee proclaimed the general line of "going all out and aiming high for a faster, better, and more economical building of socialism." As soon as this happy news arrived, the July 1 villages immediately began to bubble with enthusiasm. Teams and villages everywhere echoed the song of the masses praising the general line.

The article informs that in 1962, when July 1 People's Commune was becoming prosperous and maturing while carrying out "The Sixty Rules," it encountered a new test. For three successive years, from 1959 until 1961, China suffered from serious natural disasters. At this time the Soviet revisionist block suddenly violated the "agreement," withdrew their specialists, demanded the repayment of loans, and even colluded with imperialism and the reactionary forces of various countries to arouse an anti-Chinese tide. For a while black clouds were rolling turbulently as a coven of devils dancing confusedly as a small handful of unreformed landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements, and rightists started trouble and launched a new attack against socialism. The flood of free markets exerted a very bad and disruptive influence on the collective economy of July 1 Commune. In the past, Ch'i-pao chen lad always been a place where colluding capitalism concentrated in the towns and villages of July 1 District.

The article focuses on the social movement in the mountain village of Sha-shih-yü, China and the natural disaster that has taken place in the village. In 1964, the terraced fields had been further improved and redeveloped, and the robust growth of the crops delighted the hearts of the peasants. However, during those happy days a terrible disaster strikes the community in the shape of hailstorm. However, on the next day, just as the people were weeding and adding fertilizer to the crops damaged by the hail, a furious wind suddenly whipped up an ominous blackish-yellow mass of thunder clouds overshadowed the landscape of Sha-shih-yü. Shortly afterward, the mountain floods came bursting forth in all their fury, and the massive flood waters came roaring down the slopes of the 9 hills and surged into the 17 gullies, demolishing 800 embankments and swirling away over 100 mou of terraced fields. Some who had felt that the effects of the calamity were beyond remedy are now thinking of ways and means for repair and reconstruction. Chinese premier Mao-Tse-Tung encouraged the villagers that they should learn from Tachai village which was also hit by a similar natural disaster some time ago and had successfully overcome that period of sorrow and grief because of their self-determination.

The article focuses on the rapid urbanisation of China which gives rise to the country's social mobilisation of internet users. It mentions that the number of Chinese using the internet represents a 20 percent increase in a year. French political scientist Michel Offerlé cites the three major resources that can be mobilised by social movements which are the level of expertise, considerable manpower, and reliance on controversy to increase public awareness.