Empowerment through emotional connection and capacity building: Public participation through environmental non-governmental organizations

This paper is a comparative study of formal and informal social networks and their effects on subjective well-being in Australia, Britain, and China. Formal social networks are measured by group affiliations, and informal social networks are measured by personal connections with kin, friends, and acquaintances. An analysis of the national representative sample surveys from the three countries shows that the formal networks are of notable importance in increasing people’s subjective well-being in Britain and urban China, but the informal networks have much greater impacts in all three countries, particularly in rural China. We propose a cultural–structural interaction framework to explain the observed differences in the network influence on subjective well-being in the three countries.

https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/59898186/JOHS_D_16_00535_R3.pdf

Social Networks and Subjective Well-Being: A Comparison of Australia, Britain, and China

This paper discusses how citizens become engaged in networks for civic engagement and what affects the initiation, continuity, and impact of an actual action. My case study of the citizens’ engagem...

How do people get engaged in civic participation? A case study of citizen activism in rebuilding Enning Road, Guangzhou

Existing research points out that social relations are crucial in governing employment relations and eliciting commitment but fails to clarify how they work in different contexts. Using an employer-employee nested dataset and interview records in the Yangtze Delta, this study addresses the effect of employer-employee native-place ties on employees’ organizational commitment and how the effect is moderated by a firm’s internal labor market. This study finds that native-place ties can enhance employees’ organizational commitment, especially when the ties are stronger and constructed at a higher level. The firm’s internal labor market functions as an effective moderating variable: when the internal labor market becomes more open and provides more upward opportunity for its employees, native-place ties become less effective in promoting organizational commitment.

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The social bases of a committed labor force: how guanxi works in the Chinese factories?

In order to establish a green and low-carbon agricultural economic system based on the principles of recycling, reduction and resource utilization, to promote a comprehensive green transformation of the economic development and to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, this article examines the farmers’ willingness to participate in rural environmental governance. Through a questionnaire survey in the Fujian, Anhui and Shanxi provinces, this article explores the influence of homogeneous and heterogeneous relationships in social networks on the farmers’ willingness to participate in rural environmental governance using a logit model and tries to reveal the deeper mechanisms. The results show that: (1) heterogeneous relationships have a significant positive effect on farmers’ participation in rural environmental governance, but homogeneous relationships do not have a significant effect. (2) The larger the size of the social network, the weaker the farmers’ willingness to participate in rural environmental governance. (3) Age and education level have significant effects on willingness to participate. The older the age, the weaker the willingness to participate; the higher the education level, the stronger the willingness to participate. (4) The larger the number of family members, the stronger the farmers’ willingness to participate in environmental governance. (5) The subjective cognitive status of farmers also has an important influence on their willingness to participate. The more environmental knowledge is acquired, the stronger the willingness to participate in rural environmental governance. Therefore, to promote rural environmental management, there is an urgent need to keep modern farmers on rural land and to make the countryside a beautiful space for living and working with complete living functions.

Study of Farmers’ Willingness to Participate in Environmental Governance Based on Recycling, Reduction and Resourcing

Relational sociology is a sociological study about the essence,underlying logic,and social influences of social relationships.The author analyzes the significance of creating China′s relational sociology at a time of socioeconomic transformation,evaluates the position this subject of study occupies in the field of sociology,raises the point that China′s relational sociology must satisfy internationally recognized scholarly standards,and makes a proposal about how to develop and enhance the research programs of relational sociology.

Bian Yan-jie

Papers

Relational Sociology and its Disciplinary Status