人们如何卷入公共参与事件 基于广州市恩宁路改造中公民行动的分析

How Do People Get Engaged in Civic Participation:A Case Study of the Citizen Activism in Rebuilding Enning Road,Guangzhou

本文旨在探讨是什么使得公民卷入现实的公共参与网络,影响这种公共参与的行动力、持续性和影响力的因素是什么。基于对广州市恩宁路改造中公民参与的研究,本文发现,虚拟社区虽然拓展了人们的现实联系,因其动员的广泛性而推动了公共参与的兴起,但能否转化为现实中有影响力的持续公共参与行动还与线下的联络和动员机制及其特性密切相关:基于人际网络的联络和动员推动了公共参与行动的行动力及其持续性,开放的城市空间则为这种现实的参与行动拓展了影响力。本文对不同联络和动员机制的区分,有助于从"历时性"和"差异化参与"的角度解释公民参与在转型期中国的发展。

This paper discusses how citizens get engaged in networks for civic participation and what affects the initiation, continuity, and impact of an actual action. The case study of the citizens＇ engagement in rebuilding Enning Road in Guangzhou found that virtual communities expanded people＇ s actual connections~ Internet mobilization, owing to its broad connectedness, helped stimulate the initiation of public participation but the shared channel of this type of media lacked in power to start an actual action or to keep the momentum. The existing studies suggested that whether the public attention and discussion based on virtual communities could be transformed into sustainable and influential public participation in action depended upon whether the ＂issue＂ itself had its sustainability and also, upon whether the mobilizing ＂agent＂ was a rights-protecting group that shared similar interests. The case study reported in this paper, however, found that the off-line ＂liaison and mobilization mechanisms,＂ as well as their closely related characteristics, were significant factors, too. Connection and mobilization via interpersonal networks pushed virtual discussions into real actions and helped keeping the actions going on, while the open space of the city expanded the actual social and policy influences for such actual civic engagement. The distinction of different liaisons from mobilization mechanisms illustrated in this paper helps the explanation of the civic engagement in contemporary China from the ＂ diachronic＂ and ＂differentiated participation＂ angles. The paper concludes that either interpersonal networking organizations being supplementary to the organization of social groups or the public space opened up by the city being supplementary to the closed nature of the structure of the political system itself is still quite limited in the civic engagement in China.