Abstract

Accompany with the growth of homeownership, China has also witnessed a sweeping increase of homeowners' protests in the urban grassroots. When these actions are read from the meaning for civil society, action features per se are ignored. Many scholars agreed that the grassroots protests in rural China follow the logic of rightful resistance. But there is little attention paid to the urban neighborhood activism. Do the homeowners employ the rightful resistance for their protests? Is there any difference between the rural and urban rightful resistance? And what factors influence homeowners’ action choice? When the proactive claims emerged in countryside, have the homeowners shown some requirement beyond the existing rules and regulations? The study is is to explore these questions and further the understanding on the characteristics and substance of grassroots resistances in urban China.