An Empirical Study on the Generation Mechanism of NIMBY Conflicts of Construction Projects

Abstract

In the highly overlapped contexts of urbanization and social transformation, and with the advent of the “Risk Society,” the social issues, called “Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY)” conflicts, caused by the construction or operation of the NIMBY projects have become a serious problem in China. Hence, it is in urgent need to find out the influencing factors and discover the generation mechanism of the NIMBY conflicts. From the perspective of social conflict theory, the authors built a process model of the NIMBY conflicts on the basis of identifying stakeholders and analyzing their interest interaction. Thereafter, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey, followed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealing the underlying influencing factors of the NIMBY conflicts. Finally, they performed the confirmatory analysis method of Structural Equation Modeling to test the preliminary research hypothesis of the model and its interaction path in AMOS 18.0, with the results showing that unequal exchange and consensus mobilization will contribute to the formation of common consciousness of the opposition party, the opposition party’s common consciousness and action mobilization affects the generation of social conflicts. The process model reveals the generation mechanism of the NIMBY conflicts, and it facilitates further investigations in the governance of the NIMBY conflicts.

Keywords

NIMBY conflicts / social conflict / construction projects / mechanism / empirical study

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2016 The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at engineering.cae.cn