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Since the early 1990s, urban neighborhoods have seen a rapid growth of protests by homeowners for their "rights." This paper tries to study the origin and development of the rights movements from the perspectives of political process and mobilization structure. Based on field work in several homeowners committees in Beijing, the author argues that the rapid changes of the social structure, mobilization structure and general discourse on the movements contribute to the increase of homeowners' rights movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the data of 606 questionnaires collected in 23 neighborhoods in Beijing in 2008, this paper analyzes the degree, motivation and implications of homeowners' political participation. First, urban homeowners tend to participate in the rights movements. Second, gender, occupation and the level of income have significant influence on homeowners' participation in these movements. Third, as an important part of Chinese middle class, Beijing homeowners tend to support the incumbent regime and to be in favor of the status quo. Most of them are in favor of the social order and economic growth. However, those who have a strong sense of "status inconsistency" and a strong sense of internal efficacy are more likely to participate in rights movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]