Abstract:

The quickening of social transformation and tardiness in system establishment restrain farmers’ expression of their interests and thus lead to increased problems in farmers’ collective behavior,which attracts researchers’interests.Those researches greatly promote studies on public policy design.However,Western social movement theory does not apply to China because of the differences in both social background and notions on social movement.Recent researches mostly focus on the definition of moral peasants and rational peasants. The authors think that studies on farmers’ collective behavior should focus on both individual cases and integral framework.Different measures are suggested to deal with different types of farmer collective behaviors which can be classified by dynamic mechanism,mobilization mechanism,opportunity structure,strategy application and plight presented.

Key words: problems concerning agriculture, country side and farmers, farmer collective behavior, mass contingency events, social transformation, social movement theory, moral peasants, rational peasants, “economic man”