This dissertation project focuses on farmers' use of the legal system and other mechanisms to resolve disputes over how land should be managed in rural China. Land disputes have emerged as a major problem in rural China in recent years, commonly pitting local officials and developers against farmers in struggles over the handling of property rights in land. In attempting to resolve these disputes, farmers can avail themselves of an array of dispute resolution mechanisms, such as petition offices, arbitration committees, courts, and public hearings. This study investigates how farmers address "information deficits" about the relative effectiveness of these various mechanisms and why farmers choose certain dispute resolution mechanisms instead of others. The primary methodology employed in this research is in-depth interviews, conducted over the course of nine months in two coastal provinces where land disputes are common. These will be used to investigate how farmers view urbanization, land management, courts and other legal institutions, how much they know about relevant laws, and what factors they consider when choosing tactics to resolve disputes. Interviews also include questions designed to gather data on how farmers acquire information, including education, ties to lawyers, legal aid and exposure to legal stories in the media. In addition to interviews with farmers, interviews are conducted with other stakeholders, including academics, local government officials, lawyers and judges. Although the choice of dispute resolution strategy is an important theoretical topic in the literature on law and society and social movements, it is rarely examined in the context of a non-democratic state with a developing legal system. Moreover, information environments remain understudied in the literature on tactical choice. This study addresses both issues in the context of land management in rural China, contributing to the understanding of access to justice in non-democratic states that seek to implement the rule of law.
