抗争性政治中的群体差异与资源借用：中产抗争与农民抗争的个案比较

Group Differences and Resource Borrowing in Contentious Politics:A Comparative Study of Collective Action in China

中国已经进入群体性事件多发期,以城市业主为主体的中产抗争日渐增多,与传统的农民群体抗争事件形成鲜明对比。本文通过田野调查和深度访谈,分析了两个相互关联的案例,阐释了中产阶级、农民群体、媒体和政府之间的博弈过程。研究发现,与农民相比,中产抗争的武器更加多元化,具有去政治化的表演性和创新性,有能力塑造多元的话语结构和维持媒体的关注,最终导致了农民抗争的失败和中产抗争的成功。这种差异根源于,在抗争性政治的实际过程中,中产阶级与国家的边界具有模糊性。一方面,中产阶级虽然在资源上强于农民,但在权威国家中,多种话语和符号通常并存于一个社会运动之中,而处于同情者位置的广大受众决定了哪种话语能成为主导。因此,中产得通过媒体,借用农民抗争的道义资源,在民间合理化自己的抗争诉求。另一方面,中产虽然相对于国家是弱者,但执行国家控制措施的很多单独个体也是中产的一部分。因此中产在牵涉到其自身利益的议题上有意愿将抗争议题去政治化,避免抗争越界,通过协商抗争,在国家管制结构里合理化自己的诉求。这两个过程结合在一起,促使了中产和农民在抗争方式、组织、资源和话语上的差异,从而导致这两类运动结果的迥异。

China has witnessed a rising number of protests in recent years. Different from conventional agricultural protests, these instances of collective action have been initiated by the urban property-owning middle class. Through field work and in-depth interviews, this study compares two related protests,one by farmers and the other by the middle class, and investigates the dynamics between these two groups, as well as the media and the government. We find that compared with farmers, weapons of the middle class are more diversified, depoliticized and innovative. The middle class is more capable of constructing plural me- dia discourses and maintaining the media＇s attention, leading to the success of their protests. We argue that the difference between these two types of protests is rooted in the ambiguous boundary between the middle class and the state during the political process of the protests. Even though the middle class mem- bers are more resourceful than the farmers, they have to borrow moral resources from the weak to legiti- mate their protests in the eyes of the public opinion. However, even though the middle class is vulnerable to the state,many individuals who execute public policies are a part of the middle class. On the issues con- cerning the middle class＇s interests at large, they are willing to facilitate the protests, and help negotiate with the state to justify activists＇ requests. Together,these two processes together shape the difference between these two types of collective action （one by framers,the other by the middle class） at least on four aspects： repertoire of action, organizational mobilization, resources and media discourses. These lead to different results for those protests.