The Free Actor’s Absence and the Dilemma of Collective Action——A Case Study of the“Train Project”in Pudong Construction

The unsuccessful“train project”in Pudong construction brings to light the dilemma of collective action in the period of China’s transition, that is, actors’failure to exchanging their resources to get out of their encountering troubles during the course of collective action. Based on the viewpoint of free actors and its reasonableness for decision-making, this article probes into the reason of the failure and draws a conclusion that organizations and farmers at that time lacks in abili- ties to grow into free actors for constructing collective action.