Academic Journal of Science and Technology ISSN: 2771-3032 | Vol. 13, No. 3, 2024 101 The Mode Change of Social Mobilisation for Natural Disaster Emergency Response in China Hongchuan Dong School of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610000, China Abstract: Social mobilization is one of the important means to cope with natural disaster crises in China, and scientific cognition of the changes and evolutionary logic of the natural disaster social mobilization mode is an important proposition to further promote the modernization of national governance and the construction of the framework of big security and big emergency response. Since the founding of New China, the social mobilization model for natural disaster response has gone through three major historical stages: relying on the government to coordinate and order, exploring diversified social participation, and cooperating with multiple subjects in governance. If we look at the natural disaster emergency social mobilization model with historical institutionalism, we will find that it has achieved a three-stage transformation with the reform and opening up and the promotion of national governance modernization since the 18th National Congress as the key nodes, with the social governance model and the power distribution pattern as the path-dependent elements, and with the intrinsic requirements of China's modernization of public crisis governance as the driving mechanism throughout. Looking ahead, the social mobilization model for natural disaster emergency response should realize the coordination and linkage of two-way mobilization of the government and society through the organic unity of consensus, norms and integration of interests, so as to create a “community” model of social mobilization for natural disaster emergency response. Keywords: Natural disasters, social mobilization, historical institutionalism, national governance. 1. Introduction China is one of the countries most affected by natural disasters in the world, with a wide range of affected areas, a large number of affected people and large economic losses, which have posed great challenges to our economic development and social stability. In a report released on the 31st International Day for Disaster Reduction, the United Nations Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Agency (UNISDR) pointed out that the number of natural disasters that occurred globally in the 20-year period from 2000-2019 increased dramatically, with the number of people affected by disasters globally reaching as high as 4.2 billion people, resulting in an economic loss of 2.97 trillion dollars. Among them, the Asian region suffered the highest number of natural disasters, with eight of the top 10 countries in the ranking of disaster events being in Asia. And China ranked first with 577 disaster events, becoming the country with the highest number of disasters in the world. In the context of globalization and high informationization, the emergence of natural disaster risks is usually accompanied by social risks, such as the rapid spread of network public opinion and panic, and the infiltration of unlawful elements to take advantage of the opportunity, and once it is not possible to quickly and effectively curb the spread of risks, it will be very easy to develop into a large-scale catastrophic event, which will bring a huge threat to the stability and healthy development of the economy and society. Therefore, the government must respond quickly to risk events, contain the spread of risk in the shortest possible time and concentrate its efforts on eliminating the risk, minimize economic losses under the premise of ensuring the safety of people's lives, and return to normal production and life as soon as possible. This undoubtedly puts forward high requirements for the government's emergency response ability, risk disposal ability and resource mobilization ability. However, the risk of natural disasters in modern society has developed from a single risk in the past to a compound risk, and in the context of government streamlining and narrowing the scope of functions, the complex and severe crisis response to natural disasters has put the government under even greater pressure. Nowadays, the heterogeneity of the society is increasing, and the interests of different groups are complex and diverse, so it is difficult for the government to meet the needs of the citizens in terms of rescue forces, diversified rescue methods, material reserves, and financial allocations. If we rely only on the government's power it is difficult to effectively respond to the crisis, and even miss the best time for risk control leading to the outbreak of more serious crisis events. Therefore, the government should mobilize the strength and resources of the whole society and coordinate the actions of multiple subjects to jointly respond to disaster risk events. In other words, social mobilization is the title of natural disaster risk response, which is the inevitable requirement for rapid and effective response to natural disaster risk. For more than 70 years since the founding of the country, the Party and the government have attached great importance to disaster relief work, and put forward the policy of “relying on the masses, relying on the collective, self-help in production, mutual assistance and mutual help, supplemented by the necessary relief and support from the state” at the Eighth National Conference on Civil Affairs in 1983, which is a policy of disaster relief with Chinese characteristics, in which social mobilization plays a very important role. Social mobilization plays a very important role in this policy of disaster relief with Chinese characteristics. Under the leadership of the Party and the government, China has made great progress in the management of natural disasters, and accumulated a lot of successful experiences, but at the same time, we are also facing a number of profound and complex problems. Contemporary China under the complex risk society, some unresolved modernization problems and post- 102 modernization problems that are beginning to form are intertwined with each other, and the coexistence of diversification of governance risks, plurality of risk subjects, and complexity of risk relations test the governance capacity of the country. The report of the 20th Party Congress puts forward specific requirements to “improve the level of public security governance” and “establish a framework for big security and big emergency response”. “a specific requirement. Social mobilization is not only a powerful measure to unite social forces, but also of great significance in coordinating the response to natural disaster events across sectors, levels, regions and fields. In this context, social mobilization is not only a powerful practice to overcome urgent and dangerous problems, but also an effective way to crack the conventional policy objectives under multiple constraints, and an important way to realize the modernization of national governance. Changes in the mode of social mobilization have a direct impact on whether the government can respond to natural disasters legally, quickly and efficiently while maintaining social stability. 2. Literature Review At present, many scholars at home and abroad have carried out a lot of research around social mobilization. American scholar Karl Deutch first put forward the concept of social mobilization, which he defined as “the process of the collapse of the erosion of the vast majority of the old social, economic, and psychological obligations that people have assumed”, in the process of social transformation, society's members' thoughts, personal habits, and behaviors change comprehensively, and even their political inclinations are altered. Domestic scholars such as Ding Yuanzhu and He Zhifang interpret the social mobilization model based on the perspective of national governance, believing that social mobilization is to bring into play the positivity of pluralistic subjects on the basis of the leadership of the ruling party, and to achieve the fundamental purpose of maintaining social stability through the aggregation of interests; Long Taijiang, Wang Hongwei, Lei Xiaokang and others analyzed the function, composition and operation mechanism of social mobilization from the perspective of disaster emergency response, and on the basis of which, they put forward a model optimization path and transformation strategy; Liu Yizhi, Li Bin and others summarize the characteristics and changes of different stages of the social mobilization model from the perspective of its historical changes.In general, academics have done a great deal of research on the mode of social mobilization and its operation in natural disasters, but fewer scholars have have grasped the process of model change and its internal logic from the historical lineage. Therefore, by sorting out the course of social mobilization mode change in China's natural disaster emergency response, and deeply analyzing its internal evolutionary logic with the analytical paradigm of historical institutionalism, we can help to more clearly and comprehensively understand its intrinsic meaning, grasp the direction of the future development of the house, help to enhance the party's governing capacity and governing foundation, enhance social cohesion, and promote the process of Chinese-style modernization and improve the national emergency management system, It is of great significance to realize the pattern of common construction and sharing of emergency management. 3. Methodology and Analyze Historical institutionalism, which has been on the rise since the 1980s, is one of the three main branches of the new institutionalist paradigm. Historical institutionalism uses institutions as a means to study history, emphasizing the exploration of the laws behind institutional change in the process of historical development and the search for the root causes of policy changes in stable systems. Specifically, historical institutionalism not only inherits the important viewpoints of the old institutionalism, but at the same time absorbs the relevant theories of historical sociology, and on the basis of which, it has formed the analytical paradigm of the structural view and the historical view. The structural view emphasizes, on the one hand, the important role of the political system and, on the other hand, the structural relationship between different political variables and the significant impact of the arrangement of the variables on the political consequences. In the historical view, the core concepts of “critical node” and “path-dependence" are used. Dependence” as the core concepts, historical institutionalism emphasizes the key events and environmental factors, especially the historical attributes of the system, and explores the trajectory and motivation of the system from equilibrium to rupture to re-formation in the time sequence. Historical institutionalism links the macro-level socio- economic context with the micro-level social reality through the meso-level institutions, providing a unique perspective for the analysis of institutions at the meso-level. The fit between the historical institutionalism paradigm and this paper is manifested in the following points: first, China's social mobilization for natural disaster emergency response, as a non-conventional governance institutional arrangement, involves structural relationships between vertical and horizontal governments as well as between the government and the society, which is suitable for meso-level research; second, the Party and the government have been making good use of mobilization in response to natural disasters since the founding of the country, and it has been more than 70 years since then. Second, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Party and the government have been making good use of mobilization to cope with natural disasters for more than 70 years, which is a large time span and a clear historical lineage, and the analytical paradigm of historical institutionalism can comprehensively grasp the process of mode change and its motivation; third, historical institutionalism emphasizes the influence of structural relationships among political variables on political outcomes. The change in the mode of social mobilization is essentially a change in the State-society relationship, which intrinsically involves the interaction of variables such as the power structure, concepts and the environment, and the structural view of historical institutionalism can well explain the impact of the relationship between these variables on the change in the mode. (i) Top-down: phase of reliance on government co- ordination orders (1949-1977) After the founding of New China, the Party Central Committee attached particular importance to the role of social mobilization. The model of mobilization adopted during the New Democratic Revolution, in which the Party was the central mobilizer of people of all nationalities and classes, was continued, except that the focus of mobilization shifted from the struggle for national liberation to socialist 103 construction. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, several major natural disasters in China were resolved through extensive mobilization of the masses; in 1952, the State Council issued the “Decision on Vigorously Launching a Mass Campaign to Prevent and Combat Drought,” in which it was mentioned that “mobilize all possible forces to carry out a mass campaign to prevent and combat drought,” a document that reflected the mode of mobilization adopted by the Party to solve the problem of natural disasters at that time in China. This document reflected that the mode of solving natural disaster problems in China at that time was to make decisions by the Party Central Committee and carry out large- scale mass campaigns throughout the country. During this period, the mode of social mobilization mainly showed the following characteristics: (1) Command mobilization. After the founding of the PRC, China practiced a planned economic system and a monistic social structure, in which the state monopolized all resources and members of society were highly dependent on units and communes. Under this system, politics manifested itself as a kind of omnipotent politics, i.e., the government was all-embracing and omnipotent. In the face of a natural disaster crisis, the Party Central Committee and the State Council promulgate a certain policy, based on administrative authority, and transmit the order downward through the vertical sectional structure, and finally members of the society respond to implement it. (2) Passive mobilization. As the mobilization mode in this period was based on administrative orders and institutions, there was an organizational bond of subordination between the mobilizing subject and the mobilized target, and the mobilized needed to obey the orders of the mobilizer and did not need to consult the opinion of the mobilized. Under the relationship model of “strong state-weak society”, the political, economic and social systems are highly overlapping, and social life is politicized and organized, and no social organization can exist independently of the government and political power. Social organization and politicization of social organizations have led to poor social autonomy, and in the face of natural disasters, society cannot act as an independent subject, let alone take the initiative to take measures to cope with the disaster crisis, and therefore can only become the object of mobilization.(3) Monolithic Mobilization. Under the planned economy system, the functions of the state were dramatically expanded and penetrated into all areas of society, and social development was immature, based on the “unit system”, with all members of society being subordinate to the leadership of the party and the government. In the whole process of mobilization, except for the final response to the call for mobilization, from decision-making to deployment and implementation, social forces did not play a role as independent subjects. Therefore, the mode of social mobilization in this period was a completely top-down mobilization with the government as the single subject. (ii) Bottom-up: exploring the stage of pluralistic social participation (1978-2012) The implementation of reform and opening-up in 1978 became a “key point” in the change of the social mobilization model, which began with the change from a government-led political mobilization model to a government-led model of coordinated and pluralistic social mobilization. Along with the implementation of the market economy system in China, the state's control over the society has become less and less, the individual's dependence on the system has become less and less, and the diversification of social interests and social organizations has led to the decline of the state's political mobilization capacity. Under the market economic system, the social forces have more space for development, and the model of “strong state-weak society” has begun to change. began to change. Some grassroots self-organized civil groups began to appear, and after the country's development was in line with the world, the entry of international NGOs drove the development of domestic civil organizations. In addition, the reform and opening up brought more development opportunities to private enterprises, and the private economy gradually grew into an important part of the socialist economic system. 1990, the State Council approved the Circular of the State Planning Commission and the State Seismological Bureau on Strengthening the Opinions on the Work of Reducing Disasters in the Event of Damaging Earthquakes, which mentioned that “the local people's governments and the relevant departments of the State Council should organize and mobilize the social forces to produce and save themselves”. This was the first time that the mobilization of social forces was proposed in a policy text at the national level, and from then on, the mobilization of social forces began to become a necessary step in the national disaster relief process. 1992 and 1993, the General Office of the State Council forwarded to the State Seismological Bureau the“Notice on the Report on the Opinions on Earthquake Trends and Earthquake Prevention and Disaster Reduction Work in 1992”and the “Notice on the Opinions on Earthquake Trends and Earthquake Prevention and Disaster Reduction Work in 1993”. The Circular on the Report on Earthquake Trends and Opinions on Earthquake Prevention and Disaster Reduction for 1993 pointed out that the development of earthquake insurance business was an effective way of realizing social assistance, which not only could reduce the financial burden, but also was a necessity for disaster prevention and reduction work to adapt to the transition to a socialist market economy. The introduction of these two documents represents that the government began to realize the importance of using market forces to cope with disaster crises, and the mode of social mobilization under the market economic system has a richer connotation, and the main body of mobilization and the way of mobilization also began to change from monotonous to diversified. 1995, the State Council issued the “Regulations on Emergency Response to Devastating Earthquakes”, which pointed out that “the Red Cross Society of foreign countries and the international community through the Red Cross Society of China to provide social assistance to the victims of earthquakes. In 1995, the State Council issued the Regulations on Emergency Response to Damaging Earthquakes, in which it was stated that “the Red Cross societies abroad and the international community shall be responsible for accepting and arranging for emergency relief provided by the Red Cross Society of China. This was the first time that the State Council made arrangements for international and domestic social organizations represented by the Red Cross to participate in rescue matters in an emergency response document for an earthquake disaster, and it also represented that a major body of social mobilization, social organizations, had begun to participate in crisis mobilization for natural disasters. 2006, the State Council issued the National Earthquake Emergency Response Plan. In the section on emergency response, the plan provides detailed instructions on the mobilization and participation of social forces from different regions, centering on the disaster area, 104 and regulates the coordination and linkage mechanism of cross-regional social mobilization. In the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the exploration of social forces' participation in disaster response reached a peak stage. After the earthquake, volunteer teams, civil enterprises and social organizations from all over the country participated in the rescue, playing a huge role in raising manpower, materials and funds. After the earthquake, the State Council made several statements on the issue of post-Wenchuan earthquake reconstruction, including the Regulations on Post- Wenchuan Earthquake Restoration and Reconstruction and Opinions on Policies and Measures to Support Post- Wenchuan Earthquake Restoration and Reconstruction. In these documents, it is mentioned that “post-earthquake restoration and reconstruction should follow the principle of combining government-led and social synergy”, and that social capital should be encouraged to invest in the reconstruction of the disaster area under preferential conditions of tax exemptions and reductions, including making donations, granting loans by financial institutions, and helping to solve the problem of employment for the people in the disaster area. In 2010, the State Council issued the Regulations on Natural Disaster Relief, which states that “villagers‘ committees, residents’ committees, and social organizations such as the Red Cross, charitable societies, and public foundations shall, in accordance with the law, assist the people's government in carrying out natural disaster relief work,” and that “the State encourages and guides the participation of units and individuals in natural disaster relief donations and voluntary service activities,” making it clear that enterprises and individuals should be encouraged to participate in natural disaster relief activities. ”, clarifying the status of enterprises, individuals and social organizations as synergistic subjects in natural disaster relief. The connotation of social mobilization at this stage is twofold: first, the Government mobilizes a large amount of human, material and financial resources to be channelled to the disaster area in a short period of time through its administrative power; and second, the Government encourages, through social mobilization, the participation of individual citizens or families, communities, social organizations, business organizations and international organizations in the relief work, in order to make up for the defects of the Government's single way of providing relief and its lack of flexibility in its actions. (iii) Upper and lower synergy: the stage of cooperative governance by multiple subjects (2013-present) The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee pointed out that the effective way of national governance is to always adhere to the leadership of the Party, give full play to the leading role of the government, take social synergy and public participation as the carrier, and strengthen the safeguards of the rule of law. 2013, the State Council issued the Opinions on Policies and Measures for Supporting Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction of the Lushan Earthquake, in which it proposed ‘combining state support, social assistance, mass mutual aid, and production self-help’ and adhering to the reconstruction model of government-led, social synergy, local-led, and various support. In 2013, the State Council issued the Opinions on Policies and Measures to Support Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction of the Lushan Earthquake, in which it proposed to ‘combine state support, social assistance, mutual assistance, and self-help,’ and adhere to the reconstruction model of government-led, social coordination, and local-led, multi-dimensional support. In 2017, the report of the 19th Party Congress proposed ‘creating a social governance pattern of common construction, common governance and sharing’ and ‘perfecting the social governance pattern led by the Party committee, led by the government and shared by the government’. ‘Improve the social governance system led by the Party committee, responsible by the government, coordinated by society, participated by the public, and guaranteed by the rule of law.’ In the context of the modernisation of the national governance system and governance capacity, the diversification of governance subjects is an inevitable requirement for the modernisation of governance. The government, together with citizens, communities, enterprises, and social organisations, forms a network pattern of social governance, in which the government plays a leading role and guides social forces to participate in social governance. In 2019, the Ministry of Emergency Management issued the Guiding Opinions on Doing a Good Job in Post-Disaster Recovery and Reconstruction of Particularly Significant Natural Disasters, which proposes to ‘encourage the democratic parties, the Federation of Industry and Commerce, non-partisan individuals, group organisations, charitable organisations, scientific research institutes, various types of enterprises, compatriots in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, overseas Chinese and returned overseas Chinese, etc. to participate in post-disaster restoration and reconstruction through advice, voluntary services, donations and contributions, and investment in business, etc.’, which clarifies in greater detail the scope of the social body in disaster relief and specifically proposes multiple ways for social forces to participate in post- disaster reconstruction. In 2020 and 2022, in response to forest fires, droughts, floods and other natural disasters, the State Council successively issued the National Emergency Response Plan for Forest and Grassland Fires and the National Emergency Response Plan for Flood Control and Drought Relief, which once again emphasised the need to mobilise social forces to actively participate in emergency response and emergency response, and the Opinions on Further Promoting the Healthy Development of Social Emergency Response Forces, issued by the Ministry of Emergency Management, put forward that In the Opinions on Further Promoting the Healthy Development of Social Emergency Response Forces issued by the Ministry of Emergency Management in 2022, it is proposed that the Ministry should ‘further improve the policy system and working mechanism of social emergency response forces, strengthen the mobilisation and guidance, co-ordinate the social resources, innovate the mode of service delivery, strengthen the standardised management and comprehensively enhance the quality of the construction and the level of development of the force’. In general, at this stage, the Government is working to improve the quality of construction and the level of development. In general, at this stage, the government not only focuses on giving full play to the advantages of the top-down social mobilisation model of ‘focusing on doing big things’ and constructing a disaster relief system quickly and efficiently, but also gives full play to the advantages of the bottom-up mobilisation model in terms of its professionalism and flexibility, as well as the advantages of the horizontal market mobilisation of resources, and makes use of administrative, economic, legal and other diversified means to form an 105 emergency response system based on the principles of administration, economy, and law, At the same time, it is also giving full play to the professional and flexible advantages of the bottom-up mobilisation model and the resource advantages of horizontal market-based mobilisation, making comprehensive use of administrative, economic, legal and other diversified means, and forming a ‘governance-type’ social mobilisation model for disaster emergencies that is led by the government and coordinated by multiple social actors. 4. Results and Discussion (i) Critical nodes: the institutional context of reform and opening up and modernisation of state governance Critical node is an important concept of historical institutionalism, also called historical joint point, which refers to a shorter period of time in which actors' choices have a much greater likelihood of influencing the outcome. Critical node theory emphasises the existence of a certain nodal period in the process of institutional change, in which shocks from the outside can destroy the institutional equilibrium and lead to the fracture of the system. On this basis, strong political action can have an important or even decisive impact on institutional change. From the perspective of time and event, critical nodes can be divided into two kinds, one is the window of opportunity divided by time, i.e. the critical period of institutional development, and the other is the starting point of major events divided by events.The critical period of the development of the social mobilisation model for natural disaster emergency response is closely related to the national development milestones and the reform programme, and it can be roughly divided into two time nodes, namely, the period since reform and opening up and the period of advancing the modernisation of national governance since the 18th National Congress. First, after the reform and opening-up in 1978, the State shifted its focus and development goals to economic construction, and social institutions were continuously improved and social forces gradually grew. Along with the dismantling of the ‘unitary system’, the value orientation of members of society has become more diversified, their interests have become more diverse, and social heterogeneity has greatly increased, so that the top-down social mobilisation model has lost the historical conditions necessary for its existence. In this context, it is difficult to mobilise a large number of dispersed people for natural disaster risk prevention and emergency response by relying only on the government's power, and the changes in citizens' values and the increase in their awareness of participation have also made it impossible for the government to obtain the public's general approval by relying only on its administrative authority. Driven by external factors, the government must guide the participation of social forces. The landmark documents are the State Council's ‘Regulations on Emergency Response to Destructive Earthquakes’ issued in 1995, the ‘Regulations on Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Restoration and Reconstruction’ issued in 2008, and the ‘Regulations on Relief of Natural Disasters’ issued in 2010, which successively emphasise the important position of social organisations, individuals, communities, and enterprises in disaster emergency response. These three documents successively emphasised the important position of social organisations, individuals, communities and enterprises in disaster response, and the Regulations on Post-Wenchuan Earthquake Restoration and Reconstruction for the first time made government-led and social coordination the main principle, and emphasised the diversified strengths of market mechanisms in disaster response. Secondly, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee proposed to promote the modernisation of the national governance system and governance capacity, and under the leadership of the Party, government-led, social coordination and citizen participation is an effective way to realise national governance. In the context of the risk society, the development of the social mobilisation model, as an important means of national governance, must be consistent with the goal of modernising national governance. Therefore, after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, the development direction of the social mobilisation model in natural disaster risk prevention and emergency response is to establish a synergistic mechanism between the government and social forces under the government's leadership and the participation of the society, so as to integrate the two forces and give full play to their respective advantages.In 2017, the report of the 19th National Congress emphasised once again the importance of creating a social governance system in which the government is responsible for, and the society is synergistic with, the ‘government-led, socially coordinated’ basis to continue to improve the linkage mechanism between the government and social forces, and to explore cross- regional, cross-field, and cross-level synergy models. The landmark document of this period is the Opinions on Further Promoting the Healthy Development of Social Emergency Response Forces issued in 2022, which points out that it is necessary to strengthen the mobilisation and guidance of social forces, build a top-down and bottom-up linkage emergency management system, and explains the synergistic participation of social emergency response forces in detail from a variety of aspects such as coordinated development, policy support, capacity building, action norms, mobilisation and guidance, etc., which also represents that the The social mobilisation model for natural disaster emergency response is undergoing an institutional shift. (ii) Path Dependence: Social Governance Patterns and the Distribution of Power ‘Path dependence’ is a concept in economics that historical institutionalism has borrowed to analyse the process of change in policy regimes. At present, scholars basically believe that path dependence describes a situation in which it becomes less and less likely to change a certain path over time. Specifically, when the established structure is a source of incremental gains and produces positive feedback effects on the political actors embedded within it, leaving or deviating from the established path will become less and less likely over time. The manifestations of path dependence in the process of changing the social mobilisation model for natural disaster emergency response in China are as follows: First, at the beginning of the founding of New China, the Party and the government completed the ‘Three Anti's’ and ‘Five Anti's’ campaigns through social mobilisation, which achieved the purpose of consolidating the regime, and then in the following years, the ‘Iron and Steel’ and ‘People's Steel’ campaigns were completed. In the following campaigns, such as the ‘Great Steelmaking’ and ‘People's Communalisation’, the institutional advantage of ‘concentrating power to do great things’ was brought into full play. Therefore, the social mobilisation model of calling on the whole nation to carry out a large-scale mass movement, centred on the Party and backed up by the authority of the administration, was applied 106 in the prevention and treatment of natural disasters, and after the initial success of the nationwide drought campaign in 1952, top-down social mobilisation was also used as the main means of emergency response in the post-disaster relief and reconstruction of the Tangshan Earthquake of 1976, both in the process of the relief effort and the post-disaster epidemiological prevention and post-disaster reconstruction. This has achieved remarkable results in both the rescue process and post-disaster epidemic prevention and reconstruction, which has further strengthened the system in terms of positive incentives. Second, after the reform and opening up, social power has been developed, social heterogeneity has been increasing, and citizens' values have begun to be diversified. Along with the reform of government institutions, the “all-powerful government” has changed to a “service-oriented government”, and the top-down social mobilisation mode is no longer adapted to the requirements of national governance. The top- down model of social mobilisation is no longer suitable for the requirements of national governance, but the path- dependence effect has led to the continuation of the system even if it is no longer effective, and the government's model of taking charge of everything still has an impact on the participation of social forces in the emergency response process over a long period of time. Although the government has begun to pay attention to the importance of mobilising social forces to participate in the process, but in the implementation of the process is still the government as the core, vertical hierarchy as the path, and administrative orders as the driving force, the participation of social forces shows the participation of fewer main bodies, participation in a single way, participation in the level of shallow participation and participation in the lack of regulation and other shortcomings, the government in guiding social forces to participate in the ‘heavy mobilisation, light coordination’ of the government to guide the participation of social forces. In guiding the participation of social forces, the government is ‘focusing on mobilisation but not on coordination’, which affects the formation and arrangement of the social mobilisation model in the new stage. Under the influence of factors such as ‘incremental rewards’, the system is constantly self-reinforcing after its formation, and after generating positive effects, ‘the learning effect, coordination effect, adaptive expectations, and the increase in sunk costs will make it more and more difficult to change the system’,’ says He Junzhi, “Structure, History and Social Mobilisation”. This is one of the reasons why our country did not change the mode of social mobilisation immediately after the reform and opening up and chose to retain the old mode. Thirdly, into the new century, after several major natural disasters, the emergency social mobilisation model presents the characteristics of administrative mobilisation and social mobilisation being present at the same time, especially in the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008, the non-government forces played a great role in disaster relief and post-disaster reconstruction, which fully demonstrated its responsiveness and flexibility, professionalism and innovation, and the great resource advantages of market mobilisation in the horizontal direction. Therefore, after the Wenchuan earthquake, the government paid more attention to the mobilisation of social forces in natural disaster crises, and the Wenchuan experience was also applied to the subsequent Yushu and Lushan earthquakes. Inspired by the successful experience, the bottom-up social mobilisation model has been continuously strengthened, and the status of social forces has been raised accordingly, especially after the 18th and 19th National Congresses, when social forces have formally transformed from the auxiliary role of complementing government forces to the main role of synergistic linkage with government forces. After the formation of the disaster mobilisation model of ‘government-led, social multi-dimensional coordination’, it has expanded from earthquake disaster prevention and control to a variety of disaster prevention and control fields, such as forest fires, droughts and floods, and has become a fixed model for natural disaster emergency response mobilisation, as proposed by the central government and imitated by the local governments, and has been strengthened under the effect of learning and coordination. It has now become a fixed model for natural disaster emergency mobilisation. (iii) Power mechanism: the inherent need to modernise public crisis governance in China Historical institutionalism stresses the important role of the behavioural choices of political actors in institutional change, arguing that any institutional change requires the behaviour of actors in order to be promoted or organised, and that it is the interaction of actors with the existing system in a specific political vein that constitutes the evolutionary process and mechanism of progressive institutional change.In the process of the change from the top-down social mobilisation model to the government-led, socially pluralistic and collaborative mobilisation model, the national macro system In the process of changing from a top-down social mobilisation model to a government-led, social-multiple collaborative mobilisation model, the changes in the national macro-institutional context, the changes in the concept of social participation in disaster emergency response, and the game between multiple actors together constitute an important driving force for the model change. 1. Environmental factors: changes in the macro- institutional context At the beginning of the founding of New China, the relationship between the state and society showed a pattern of ‘strong state-weak society’, and the implementation of the planned economy system led to the rapid expansion of the functions of the state, which penetrated into all fields of society and played an absolute dominant role in social affairs, with the government becoming the only main body of social management. The government became the sole subject of social management, and a top-down mode of social mobilisation for the purpose of socialist construction and on the basis of administrative orders was formed. After the reform and opening up, Comrade Deng Xiaoping pointed out at the very beginning of his rule that ‘the people need a political situation of stability and unity, and are tired of large- scale campaigns’, and that ‘if campaigns are often carried out, they cannot actually settle down for construction.’Under the market economy system, social forces have been continuously developed, and the relationship between the state and society has begun to shift to the ‘strong state-strong society’ model, with the members of the society diverging from highly homogeneous to highly heterogeneous interest groups, and the members of the society being divided from highly homogeneous to highly heterogeneous interest groups. Social members have diverged from highly homogeneous to highly heterogeneous interest groups, and the structure of social interests has gradually diversified. After the change of the national macro system, the traditional mode of social mobilisation has lost the necessary institutional conditions for 107 its existence, and its effectiveness has been greatly reduced, making it unable to meet the needs of natural disaster emergency mobilisation. Therefore, the government needs to start from the society, strengthen the dialogue with citizens through social organisations, and achieve the purpose of indirectly mobilising the dispersed social public through mobilising social organisations, which requires the government to make changes based on the traditional mobilisation model, introduce the participation of social forces and give full play to their advantages. For this reason, from the issuance of the Regulations on Emergency Response to Damaging Earthquakes in 1995 to the promulgation of the Regulations on Natural Disaster Relief in 2010, citizens, communities, social organisations and enterprises have gradually established their status as the mainstay of society in the mobilisation of emergency response to natural disasters, with the participation of social forces making up for the government's deficiencies in buffering, responsiveness, innovativeness and affinity. Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, China has entered a stage of comprehensively deepening reform and promoting the modernisation of the national governance system and governance capacity, with government responsibility, social coordination and citizen participation as effective ways to realise the modernisation of national governance, and the 19th National Congress has even proposed the creation of a social governance system led by the Party committee, with the government responsible, social coordination, public participation, and safeguarded by the rule of law. As an important means of national governance, social mobilisation plays an important role in integrating social resources to resolve crises in the face of complex shocks and challenges such as natural disasters. Therefore, in the context of modernisation of national governance, it has become the development direction of the social mobilisation mode for natural disaster emergency response in the new era to strengthen the synergy between the government and social subjects in natural disaster emergency response mobilisation, to establish an up and down linkage mechanism, and to form a network governance pattern of multiple subjects. 2. Conceptual factors: change of social participation awareness In the early years of the founding of the country, China formed a monolithic social governance pattern of state - unit - individual, social organisation, social organisation and politicisation of social life, under a highly centralised political system, the public has a single set of values, acts at the behest of the government and lacks participation autonomy. After the reform and opening up, the disintegration of the unitary system and the transition from a planned economy to a market economy, the public is no longer dependent on the unitary system, the homogeneity of society is weakening and heterogeneity is increasing, and the values of social members have begun to change from monolithic to pluralistic. On this basis, the enhancement of social power and the public's dissatisfaction with the traditional government's monopoly model have led to a growing call for citizens‘ participation in social governance, an increased awareness of citizens’ participation, and more and more cases of citizens' active organisation and participation in natural disaster crisis management, making it difficult for the top-down model of social mobilisation to effectively integrate social members and social resources. How to effectively guide social forces to participate in disaster prevention and relief, how to better utilise the unique advantages of social forces and market mechanisms, and how to realise the synergy between governmental forces and social forces have become urgent issues to be resolved at this stage. In this context, the problems brought about by the conceptual change become the external impetus for the change from administrative mobilisation mode to collaborative mobilisation mode. 3. The main factor: the game of multiple action subjects From the founding of New China to the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the relationship between the state and society has undergone a transformation from ‘strong state - weak society’ to ‘strong state - strong society’. The relationship between the state and society has undergone a transformation from ‘strong state - weak society’ to ‘strong state - strong society’, and behind this relationship is a change in the pattern of power distribution between the government and society. Under the planned economy, the ‘all- powerful government’ was all-encompassing and omnipotent, and state power was highly centralised, while social forces were immature and the ability of society to organise itself was weak, making it difficult to achieve effective social mobilisation. After the reform and opening up, under the influence of the new public management trend, China's government began to change from an ‘all-powerful government’ to a ‘service-oriented government’, and the government began to streamline its organisations and decentralise its power, so as to give the society more space for development. At the same time, under the market economy system, social forces have been growing, gradually assuming the responsibility for social governance and spontaneously participating in the process of disaster crisis management. As a result, changes in the distribution of state power have led to the first change in the mode of social mobilisation. After the 18th National Congress, General Secretary Xi put forward the need to comprehensively deepen reform and promote the modernisation of the national governance system and governance capacity, and the Fourth and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 19th CPC Central Committee made further arrangements for comprehensively deepening reform. The CPC Central Committee has repeatedly stressed that a social governance system based on government responsibility, social coordination and public participation is an effective way to modernise the national governance system. On this basis, the social mobilisation model for natural disaster emergency response has changed from the ‘government- society parallel’ model of the previous stage, which was mainly characterised by ‘shallow participation’, to the ‘multi- dimensional synergy’ model, which is mainly characterised by ‘deep synergy’. ‘Multiple synergies’. The report of the twentieth CPC National Congress proposes to ‘establish a large security and emergency response framework’ and ‘improve the capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation and relief, as well as for handling and ensuring the protection of major public emergencies’, and social mobilisation plays an important role in the modernisation of national security governance. At present, although China has formed a social mobilisation model for natural disaster emergency response with the Party and the government as the core, and citizens, communities, enterprises and social organisations as the main body, and social forces are fully involved in the process of disaster prevention and relief, it is still difficult to completely detach from the top-down path of power relations in essence, and there are inherent limitations in the process of participating in 108 the action as well as in the degree of influence on decision- making. In addition, studies have shown that the participation of subjects in the multiple-subject governance model is not always ‘organised’ and ‘united’, but sometimes ‘passive’ and ‘dispersed’. Sometimes it is ‘passive’, ‘dispersed’, and the level of participation is shallow.Looking ahead, in the new era of China's ‘governance of China’ emergency governance situation, the key to achieving effective collaboration between the government and society in natural disaster emergency social mobilisation lies in the construction of a stable crisis governance community. Crisis governance community needs to uphold the unity of governance objectives, adhere to the concept of homogeneous crisis governance, take action to maximise collective interests, and play a comparative advantage between organisations to complement each other and assist technical functions when dealing with crises, thus realising the efficient coordination and orderly cooperation of multiple governance subjects, and constructing a stable, active and effective crisis governance community, which will ultimately empower the whole process of disaster resolution and crisis governance.Therefore, the future direction of social mobilisation for natural disaster emergency response is to create a ‘community’ model, i.e., through the integration of consensus, norms and interests, allowing the government, social organisations and the public to consciously form a ‘community’ based on the principles of interaction and consultation, reciprocity of power and responsibility, and the common goal of solving social problems and responding to governance needs. interrelated, mutually reinforcing and stable groups. (i) Consensus integration The premise of effective synergy between the government and society is to have a unified goal, which requires the cohesion and integration of multi-party consensus to reach unity before specific actions. The purpose of consensus integration is to improve the quality of information exchange and sharing in crisis situations through effective communication on the basis of equal dialogue and to achieve an overall grasp of the crisis event. In addition, different subjects often have different perceptions of crises and risks, and communication can eliminate cognitive differences, build a foundation of trust for government-society co-operation and governance, and avoid falling into the ‘Tacitus Trap’. In the social mobilisation of natural disaster crisis, consensus integration is to resolve the contradiction between citizens' action-oriented personal interests and the government's public interests based on the respect of rational consensus in the emergency response and rescue phase of disasters, and to avoid the phenomenon of irrationality in the group caused by individual rationality. (ii) Normative Integration Due to the suddenness and destructiveness of disasters, top- down authoritarian mobilisation often precedes bottom-up social mobilisation. In the past, the government often emphasised the ‘sea of people tactics’ and ‘universal mobilisation’, but in this process, the government was given more power, and the grassroots managers often ignored the legal and institutional restrictions, and the public power may infringe on the private power. Therefore, the construction of crisis governance community needs to strengthen the legal and institutional norms, so that the integrated norms are more in line with the demands of crisis governance, more to meet the need for cooperation between the government and society, and better achieve the complementary advantages between the government and enterprises. (iii) Integration of interests In natural disaster governance, the fundamental goal of the government and society is the same, except that from the perspective of individual citizens, its action logic is to minimise individual losses, while the government is value oriented to the safety of life and property of all citizens. This will lead to the phenomenon of ‘free-riding’ in the organisation, and the rational choice of individuals will ultimately lead to the failure to maximise the collective interests. 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