Thinking about the idea of “civil society”, and its relationship with “privatization”.

“Civil society” could be investigated from three levels: individuals (as actors in market exchange, or simply owners), associations (outside the state tutelage), interest groups (representing the interest of some group to participate politics at the formal level).

Privatization, or a more liberal economy, is the necessary condition for a bourgeoning civil society, but not a sufficient condition. The mechanisms between the two are quite complex.

Then we need to figure out how privatization may have impact on these three levels.

Finished the introduction, literature review, and methods part. I use Raymond Williams’ idea of “structure of feeling” in the theory part.

Re-arranged the empirical findings part. HA as a commercial organization in the market, as a deliberative institution within the neighborhood, and as an organization representing the interest of neighborhood in public affairs. Elaborate the debate from the activists side. How the state is experienced at the grassroots level.

Concretize the idea of “contextual objection of state intervention”. Neither challenging nor relying on the state, but debate with the state on 1) which department of the government should be granted the power, 2) which field should the state exert its power, 3) in what way should the power be exercised.

“The Ambivalence of State Control”, which comes before the “three roles of HA” should serve as the context part of the empirical findings. Use Midgal’s idea of “anthropology of the state” to introduce the history of how the state power is involved, and how it is exercised at the grassroots level. Disaggregate the state, analyze contrasting guidelines within the same policy, and incentives of different departments. This helps to clarify how the space for contestations is created.

The debate on what “guide” and “assist” means goes to the introductory part. Start the paper with a description on how the debate looks like. Then introduce the question, debate state intervention on CSO.

Literature review could be written as two sections. The first one is an overview of literatures on the relationship between associations and the state. What are the studies, how researchers have categorized people’s opinions on the state. The second part talks about either Verdery’s idea or some cultural theories.

It is OK to categorize HA’s role as a commercial organization when it struggle with developers for a parking space, for a children’s playground, or just a piece of land, since this is what the developers have promised to fulfill in their advertisements. Homeowners’ movements here could be regarded as the “consumers movement”.

How is it different from the kind of movements like protesting against the meg-lev, or against a high-voltage wire? These issues go beyond the interest of particular neighborhoods. The homeowners are only one of the actors that could be influenced by the projects.

“The state” intervenes the consumers movement less and less today, since the market of the property management and real estate begins to be regularized.

In protests against the meg-lev or high-voltage wire, the homeowners are savvy in “disintegrate” the state. They insist that they are against certain departments of the government, not the whole regime, and they hope to rely on some higher authorities to check the powerful actors so that their rights could be protected. In those issues, it is really hard to explain what the “state intervention” means.

In some way, the logic in both issues is exactly the same. No “collective actions” endangering the stability of “harmonious society”. But in the former case, the state needs to regularize the market. (If you want to take the real estate developers to the court, fine. If you want to dismiss a property management company, fine.) In the latter case… well… where is the boundary?

Roughly outlined the part for HA as a commercial organization. Have to remind myself time and again that this is an ethnography of the state at the grassroots level. Thinking of talking to the theory of the state.

Instead of discussing how homeowners’ need to rely on the state to check the powerful real estate developers in details, I make this as a contrasting background, and analyze how the intervention of the residents’ committee could become a problem.

Decided to say that this intervention is useless, many party secretaries also think it’s useless. Actually they have been intervening less and less. But the empirical materials may not be sufficient for supporting that argument.

Finished the first section of the Empirical Findings, which mainly discusses the ambivalence of state intervention, and where the space for contestation comes from. The good part is tracing the history of how the state power is involved from a perspective of the operation of grassroots institution, though not good enough. Need to refine it later.

Have been thinking about HA as a commercial organization and its relationship with the state for the whole day. Finally decided that I should focus on the ecology at the neighborhood level, while all the other state actors should only be portrayed as the “background”.

“State intervention” may not be a precise generalization. When we say state intervention, we think of government regularizing the market, implementing welfare policies, or something like that, which is not what I want to say.Verdery’s idea on ethnography of state at the grassroots level may be helpful.

Thinking about talking to the literature of state, not civil society.