Mobilizing the Masses: Social Mobilizations of the Chinese Communist Party in the Eras of Revolution, Regime Building, and Reform.

摘要

Can mobilization be adopted as a means of governing to address the public issues? This thesis reconceptualizes the term 'mobilization' in the Chinese context based on three basic factors that alter human behaviors, namely, exchange, coercion, and mobilization. It puts forward a novel analytic framework of governing styles to solve the public issues. Under different circumstances, the configuration of the three basic factors adopted to different degrees will generate three ideal governing styles, that is, mobilized governance, bureaucratic management, and market-based settlement. These three ideal governing styles can be differentiated in three dimensions: the rationality of the behavior's motives, the hierarchy of the organization, and the specialized division of labor in solving the public issues.;Using this theoretical framework for analysis, the author compared the changes of the governing styles of the Communist Party of China in three historical periods - revolution era, Maoist era, and reform era, and explored the reasons of the changes. The change of the party's political status altered the characteristics of its organizational structures. This core factor, together with the adjustment of the central tasks and the changes of the guiding thoughts in the party during different historical periods, determined how these means such as mobilization, coercion and exchange were selected and combined. Mass mobilization techniques and working styles obtained in the revolution era remained effective after the party took its ruling position, and it constituted a major legitimate basis of the party's ruling of the country together with the faithful pursuit of effective 'mass line' tactics. However, as the party's coercion capacity and material resources grew over the years and it was getting more hierarchical, mobilization has been weakened and ignored, which led to the gradual failing of the party's daily mass work and social control.