Collective Action for the Market-Based Reform of Land Element in China: The Role of Trust

Abstract

The market entry of collectively-owned operating construction land (COCL) is an important policy of the Chinese government to promote the flow of rural land elements in the market. Describ-ing, characterizing, and understanding collective action for COCL marketization in China is conducive to identifying potential contradictions in a timely manner, constructing common goals, and promoting stakeholder cooperation to improve the efficiency of land marketization. Our re-search question is to identify which conceptual and theoretical models would be most appropriate to evaluate the market-based land reform in China. Relying on a narrative review approach, we interpret the literature and infer that trust is conducive to cracking the collective action puzzle of COCL marketization, and propose a conceptual or theoretical framework for the joint analysis of social capital, trust, and cooperation performance for modeling and investigating the important role of trust in collective action. Concentrating on the role of social rationality in land marketization, we suggest a pathway to break away from the collective action dilemma focusing on land property rights to build stakeholder trust relationships. Subsequent research could continue by developing indicators to measure social capital, trust, and cooperation performance and empirically investigate the relationship between them on this basis.