Abstract:

This article presents a comparative study of homeowners' organizational coalitions in Shanghai and Guangzhou. Based on the analyses of the data from documents, first-hand interviews and Internet networks, the homeowners' organizational coalition in Shanghai was found to be weaker than that in Guangzhou. This article proposes an analytical framework that integrates the insights from social movement coalition studies and urban governance studies to explain the differences between the homeowners' cross-neighborhood coalitions in the two cities. Compared with Guangzhou, the property governance system in Shanghai is relatively advanced, and the probability of the homeowners experiencing common threats or severe rights infringements is relatively low; hence, the homeowners in different residential neighborhoods are less likely to collaborate. In addition, the highly developed base level governance structure in Shanghai also has the capacity to pre-empt the radicalization of conflicts and prevent them from becoming city-wide public issues. Finally, the lack of allies within the political system also encourages homeowners' localized collective action at the neighborhood level in Shanghai. Given the responsive nature of contention at the city level in China and the Chinese social management system's dual functions of social control and interest representation, future urban-contention studies should pay attention to the institutional roots of contenders' claims and institutional constraints on collective contention as well as the state's multifaceted roles. On the one hand, the state can, to some extent, pre-empt the emergence of large-scale collective actions through institutional design. On the other hand, the availability of institutional allies plays an important role in facilitating the formation of lateral coalitions.

Key words: Organizational coalition, governance structure, political opportunity (threat), contention