Doctoral Dissertation Research: Fighting for Property Rights: Land Takings and Popular Resistance in Rural China

本论文项目的重点是农民利用法律制度和其他机制来解决中国农村土地管理纠纷。近年来，土地纠纷已成为中国农村的一个主要问题，通常是地方官员和开发商与农民在土地产权处理方面的斗争。在试图解决这些争端时，农民可以利用一系列争端解决机制，如信访办公室、仲裁委员会、法院和公开听证会。本研究探讨了农民如何解决关于这些不同机制的相对有效性的“信息赤字”，以及为什么农民选择某些争端解决机制而不是其他机制。本研究采用的主要方法是深度访谈，在两个土地纠纷常见的沿海省份进行了为期9个月的深入访谈。这些数据将用于调查农民如何看待城市化、土地管理、法院和其他法律机构，他们对相关法律的了解程度，以及他们在选择解决纠纷的策略时考虑的因素。访谈还包括旨在收集有关农民如何获取信息的数据的问题，包括教育、与律师的关系、法律援助以及在媒体上了解法律故事。除了对农民的采访外，还对其他利益相关者进行了采访，包括学者、地方政府官员、律师和法官。尽管争议解决策略的选择是法律与社会和社会运动文献中的一个重要理论主题，但很少在法律制度发展的非民主国家的背景下进行研究。此外，在战术选择的文献中，信息环境的研究仍然不足。本研究在中国农村土地管理的背景下解决了这两个问题，有助于理解寻求实施法治的非民主国家的司法途径。

This dissertation project focuses on farmers' use of the legal system and other mechanisms to resolve disputes over how land should be managed in rural China. Land disputes have emerged as a major problem in rural China in recent years, commonly pitting local officials and developers against farmers in struggles over the handling of property rights in land. In attempting to resolve these disputes, farmers can avail themselves of an array of dispute resolution mechanisms, such as petition offices, arbitration committees, courts, and public hearings. This study investigates how farmers address "information deficits" about the relative effectiveness of these various mechanisms and why farmers choose certain dispute resolution mechanisms instead of others. The primary methodology employed in this research is in-depth interviews, conducted over the course of nine months in two coastal provinces where land disputes are common. These will be used to investigate how farmers view urbanization, land management, courts and other legal institutions, how much they know about relevant laws, and what factors they consider when choosing tactics to resolve disputes. Interviews also include questions designed to gather data on how farmers acquire information, including education, ties to lawyers, legal aid and exposure to legal stories in the media. In addition to interviews with farmers, interviews are conducted with other stakeholders, including academics, local government officials, lawyers and judges. Although the choice of dispute resolution strategy is an important theoretical topic in the literature on law and society and social movements, it is rarely examined in the context of a non-democratic state with a developing legal system. Moreover, information environments remain understudied in the literature on tactical choice. This study addresses both issues in the context of land management in rural China, contributing to the understanding of access to justice in non-democratic states that seek to implement the rule of law.