Collective Autonomy and the Politicization of the Land: The Practices of the Land System under Rural Collective Ownership

Abstract

This article explores the process and mechanism of the politicization of the land in order to understand the operational logic of the collective land system and the deep structure of the rural political order. The actual process of land politics functions to facilitate the political integration of rural communities and reshape the mode of resource allocation between the state and the rural population. While the politicization of the land manifests the autonomy of rural collective organizations, the rights-based attributes of the land function to undermine the autonomy and disrupt the political links among the state, the collective, and rural residents, hence the depoliticization of the land. The effective governance of rural society entails more room for experiments in the rural collective land system.