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Homeowners' Activism in Beijing: Leaders with Mixed Motivations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2013

Yongshun Cai  and
Zhiming Sheng
Yongshun Cai*
Affiliation:
Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Zhiming Sheng
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Shanghai University.
*
Email: socai@ust.hk (corresponding author).
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Abstract

It is commonly accepted that leaders play a crucial role in collective action. Existing literature has suggested a number of factors that contribute to the emergence of leaders including, among others, personality, sense of moral responsibility, community pressure, self-interest and institutional exclusion. However, current research tends to suggest that activists are driven by a particular reason to become leaders and that their motivation is static. Based on intensive fieldwork in residential communities in Beijing, this article illustrates that leaders' motivations can be mixed or multiple and that leaders may re-prioritize or adjust their objectives over the course of collective action. The re-prioritizing tends to alter the leaders' behaviour and affect group solidarity and interactions with other group members.

Keywords

leaderChinamotivationhomeownercollective action
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 215 , September 2013 , pp. 513 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2013 

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