In the 1930s China, a nationwide social movement named the Rural Reconstruction Movement was thriving. The movement was initiated and participated in by multiple groups of intellectuals, who dedicated themselves to China's modernization project by improving rural populations' economic situation and civil consciousness in an independent-from-state stance. However, most of the intellectuals changed their attitudes in 1932, becoming a part of the political reform initiated by the central state. By conducting a comparative analysis between two most influential projects in the movement, respectively held in Hebei Province and Shandong Province, this article explains (1) How did the co-optation become possible, and why in 1932? (2) Why did different strategies of subsumption bring divergent outcomes for intellectuals (some of them gained more financial support and authorization from the provincial state, while others failed to)? In doing so, this article synthesizes two conventional theoretical models in the sociological studies of state-intellectual relationship, proposing a new theoretical framework that pays equal attention to intellectual's collective agency and structural position. Specifically, this article argues that: (1) Intellectuals' theoretical propositions inform their collective agency in a specific historical moment and shape their strategies. of subsumption during the co-optation in 1932. (2) The realization of intellectuals' agency was dependent upon the congruence between their agency and the demands of provincial states. When intellectuals' strategies of subsumption helped them satisfy provincial states' state-building demands, they were more likely to take advantage of the co-optation to realize their agency.
Di Wu (2025) studied this question.