Ideological Mobilization Revisited: A Case Study of the Returning Educated Youth Movement in Socialist China

• In Event: 121 - Section on Marxist Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Social Movements I

Abstract

In this paper, I propose to revisit the concept of ideological mobilization in studies of social movement. The studies of ideological mobilization can create meaningful conversations on theoretical and empirical issues if they are combined with 1) the broader cultural values in a society and 2) its mobilizing structure and organizational principles. I then use an empirical case of the returning educated youth movement in socialist China to illustrate my points. The returning youth movement was a state-led social movement that called on the rural youth who received education in cities to return to their home villages and work as socialist new peasants. Although the movement lasted for more than two decades and paralleled with the sent-down youth movement, very few studies have paid attention to it. Through analyzing the tension between the altruistic discourse that the state produced to mobilize its young people and the meritocratic discourse prevalent in the educational system of that era, I discuss the heterogeneity of ideological discourses in socialist China. This tension was then removed during the Cultural Revolution through a restructuration of both the movement itself and the educational system. I then discussed the transformation of the mobilizing structure in the ideological mobilization and demonstrated that the changing mobilizing structure contributed to the shift of ideological discourse. Finally, I reconsider the deterministic tendency in Marxist ideology theory. In the returning youth case, I argue that the mobilizing structure mediates the deterministic relationship between ideological discourse and China’s economy.

Author

• Pengfei Zhao, Indiana University