Politcal Behavior ( May 2016 )，Qi Zhang、Dennis Chong、Mingxing Liu发表文章Collective Resistance under Authoritarianism:Elite–Mass Strategies in an Experimental Game.

Collective Resistance under Authoritarianism:Elite–Mass Strategies in an Experimental Game

Dennis Chong

Department of Political Science, University of Southern California

Mingxing Liu

China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University

Qi Zhang

School of Economics, China Center for Economic Studies, Fudan University

作者简介 

章奇，复旦大学中国经济研究中心副教授。北京大学中国经济研究中心经济学博士，美国西北大学（Northwestern University）政治学博士。研究方向为比较政治经济学、制度经济学、发展经济学、中国经济。在Political Behavior,  Studies in Comparative International Development， 经济研究等中外学术刊物上发表了数十篇文章，著有《权力结构、政治激励和经济增长：基于浙江民营经济发展经验的政治经济学分析》一书（格致出版社、上海人民出版社2016年出版）。

内容简介

Abstract:

We create a collective resistance game in which elites control the distribution of resources if the masses are compliant. However, if the masses unanimously protest elite allocations, they can capture a greater share of resources for themselves.We study how Chinese villagers, randomly assigned to the role of elites and masses, play this game in repeated interactions under varying information conditions.We find significant variation in the extent to which participants gave weight in their decisions to (1) the amount of the elite allocation and (2) their beliefs about the likely choices of fellow group members. Many individuals made their decisions based primarily on the size of the elite allocation, choosing to protest if the elite offer fell below some threshold level. Only a small proportion of the respondents were attuned consistently to the behavioral intentions of fellow group members in deciding whether to protest the elite allocation. This heterogeneity of preferences among participants has significant implications for their prospects of achieving and sustaining collective action. Knowledge of the amount of resources controlled by elites at the start of the game affected mass calculations of the fairness of distributions and increased the frequency of mass protests. However, the elites exploited the decision rule of many mass members by buying off those individuals with the lowest thresholds, thus preempting or dissolving collective action. This research sheds light on elite–mass interactions under authoritarianism, and in particular on contentious politics in contemporary China.

Keywords：

Collective action，Collective resistance，contentious politics, Authoritarian regimes，Elite–mass conflict，Assurance game，Coordination problem

摘要：

威权体制下抗争性集体行动的发生机制及其结果是集体行动理论重点关注对象。本文利用了田野可控制实验的方法，通过在中国农村居民中随机抽选参与者并随机分配其扮演精英-群众的角色，来模拟分析在精英-群众互动条件下的集体行动发生机制和结果。在实验中，精英具有分配资源的权力，如果群众无法达成集体行动，则精英可以控制分配的结果以对自己更有利。但如果群众能够达成集体行动一致反对，就可以使分配的结果最终更有利于群众。实验结果表明，作为群众的单个参与者的决策（即是否参与集体行动）取决于两个因素：（1）从精英分配计划中所获得的份额；（2）对其他群众参与者决策的预期。并且这两个因素对不同的群众决策而言权重有很大差异。有的群众在决策时对其他人会如何决策毫不在意，完全取决于精英初始分配的性质。只要精英分给自己的份额没有达到一定的阈值，就无条件地选择反对。或只要精英分配的份额超过一定的阈值，就不会选择反对；也有一部分群众把自己的行为完全建立在对其他群众可能行为的预期上。这种群众行为偏好的异质性，会直接影响到群众和精英如何判断集体行动成功发生和可持续性。群众是否明确知道精英的分配方案信息，会直接影响到他们对实际分配结果是否达到能其满意的阈值并进一步影响到集体行动成功的概率。而精英则可以充分利用群众的偏好和决策机制，通过收买阈值最低的那些群众来防止集体行动的发生或瓦解已经成功的集体行动。这一研究给现实中我们所观察到的精英-群众在抗争性集体行动中的博弈策略及其结局给出了一个相当稳健的微观解释，也是学术界首次利用田野可控制实验对威权主义下的精英-群众在抗争性集体行动中的互动博弈的研究成果。

关键词:

集体行动；集体抗争；威权主义；精英-大众冲突；确定性博弈；协调问题

附件：

章奇-Collective Resistance under Authoritarianism.pdf