Empowering through participation: how effective participation influences farmers’ rights and interests in rural homestead withdrawal in China

Abstract Although withdrawal from rural homesteads (WRH) focus on farmers’ rights and interests, a gap between policy commitments and implementation persists due to ineffective participation. Furthermore, existing literature has yet to effectively unpack the “black box” of how participation translates into the protection of farmers’ rights and interests. To address this, this study constructs an integrative analytical framework of effective participation influencing farmers’ rights and interests. Farmers’ rights and interests are operationalized into three dimensions (living, economic, and social). Also, the framework innovatively incorporates participation awareness as a core element of effective participation. The proposed framework is empirically examined using micro-level survey data from Sichuan Province. The results show that: (1) Farmers’ effective participation is an important factor in protecting their rights in the WRH. (2) Farmers’ effective participation significantly prioritizes living right, followed by economic right, with minimal effect on social right in the process of WRH. (3) Participation awareness has the greatest influence among all elements, acting as the primary starting point for improvement of rights and interests. Participation outcomes, participation ability, and participation support follow in importance. (4) Effective participation may also widen disparities, as its positive impact increases with higher levels of these rights and interests. These findings indicate that improving the mechanism of farmers’ participation, enhancing their participation ability, and motivating them to participate can protect farmers’ rights and interests. Also, local governments should focus on the disparity of rights and interests with targeted measures to address them.