Collaborative Research: The State and Life Chances in Urban China

这是对中华人民共和国中国从计划经济向市场经济过渡的研究，重点是一个可以为后来的民主化奠定基础的公民社会的诞生，以及这些巨大的变化如何影响个人的人生道路和人生机会。该项目将收集和分析3000份具有代表性的分层城市居民的回溯性生活史。它将考察国家社会主义再分配制度中独特的分层机制的影响：1)职业和组织的等级秩序，2)政治变化，包括政治运动和国家政策的突然、急剧变化。分层的动态将使用事件历史框架进行建模。此外，这项研究还将审查作为近年来经济改革的一部分而引入的新的分层机制。这项研究将有助于科学地理解国家政策和生命过程之间的相互作用，为分层制度的比较分析提供见解。对这个人口最多的国家的研究，将大大有助于为政策制定者提供决策依据。这个国家选择了向市场经济的彻底演变，同时阻止了政治民主化。

This is a study of the transition of the People's Republic of China from a command economy to a market-oriented economy, focusing on the birth of a civil society that can form the basis of later democratization and on the ways that these massive changes affect the life pathways and life chances of individuals. The project will collect and analyze 3,000 retrospective life histories of a stratified representative sample of urban residents. It will examine the impacts of the distinctive mechanisms of stratification in state socialist redistributive systems: 1) the hierarchical order of occupations and organizations, and 2) political changes, including political campaigns and sudden, sharp shifts in state policy. The dynamics of stratification will be modeled using an event history framework. In addition, the study will examine new stratifying mechanisms introduced as part of the economic reforms of recent years. %%% This research will contribute to scientific understanding of the interplay between state policies and the life course, providing insights for comparative analysis of stratification systems. Research on the most populous nation, that has chosen to undertake radical evolution toward market economy while holding back political democratization, will contribute greatly to the knowledge base on which policy makers can base their decisions.