Table of Content

20 July 2025, Volume 45 Issue 4

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Generational Succession and the Remolding of Youth in Modern Chinese Revolution: A Case Study of the Shanghai Left-Wing Youth Movement (1924-1927)

Yannan CHEN

2025, 45(4):  1-33. 

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This paper examines the Shanghai left-wing youth movement during the National Revolution (1924-1927) through the lens of generational succession in the nation-building movement of the 20th century. By tracing the origins of China's youth movement, it elucidates why left-wing youth developed nation-building blueprints distinct from those of the constitutionalist gentry elites in southeastern China. The study first investigates May Fourth youth organizations (notably the Young China Association) to trace the origins of the National Revolution-era leftist youth movement, analyzing how young intellectuals subjectively perceived their role in national construction. Influenced by the idea of a nation as an organic entity inherent in youth culture, young people sought to establish spiritual identification between the individual and the nation-state. This drove their self-transformation according to national ideals and formation of new collectives to forge an integrated modern nation. The transcendental idealism and anarchist ethics prevailing among youth inclined them toward reforming traditional social organizations and ethical relationships mediating between individual and state. Consequently, they rejected the legitimacy of southeastern gentry elites' modernization model based on "gentry-administered democracy".This divergence produced contrasting orientations: the gentry's reforms exhibited an engineering-technical approach-continuing Ming-Qing local autonomy traditions while incorporating American influences to create a modernization program integrating pragmatic education, constitutional campaigns, and national industries. Left-wing youth conversely articulated a moral ethos centered on social justice and nationalism. During the National Revolution, Shanghai's leftist youth reshaped ideological discourse through party organs, revolutionary universities, militant publications, and student federations. These institutions reconfigured young people's consciousness and behavioral patterns, prompting them to interpret self and society through Marxist frameworks. Ultimately, this fostered a materialist worldview encompassing both cosmic and social orders, alongside a collectivist philosophy of life.

The More Modern, The More"Natural": The Emotional Structure of Chinese Food Production—A Case Study of the Growth History of "Sanmen Mud Crab"

Yichen HUI, Cuan LI, Ying XIAO

2025, 45(4):  34-70. 

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In an era of increasingly industrialized and scientific food production, the emotional appeal of Chinese consumers' pursuit of unprocessed and "back-to-basics" food is particularly noteworthy. This paper examines the development history of Sanmen mud crab(scylla serrata), designated as a national geographical indication (GI) as well as an agricultural GI brand, through three distinct phases. First, in its pre-industrial production period, the "natural" endowment attributed to local crabs by Sanmen people laid an unspoken foundational consensus for its subsequent industrialization. Second, the making of "Sanmen mud crab" brand both inherits and reconstructs the "natural" quality from its pre-industrial phase. However, as its brand value and market share grew, tensions emerged between local and out-of-town crabs, between formula and natural feeding, and the pursuit of size versus freshness/sweetness, putting its "natural" endowment at risk. In the third phase, returning university graduates moved beyond the dualistic imagination of science and nature, employing scientific methods to rebuild aquaculture environments and practices, thereby, to a certain extent, managed to overcome the "natural endowment" crisis.The growth history of the Sanmen mud crab reveals that the Chinese fascination with natural food is rooted in a profound emotional structure connecting to "nature". This emotional structure, cultivated by a long agricultural civilization, is universal to humanity, yet it is further developed and reinforced by Daoist philosophy, and Daoist and Chinese traditional medicinal practices, as exemplified by the Chineses understanding of "soil"(土), which is unique to Chinese civilisation. Modernity, by distancing itself from nature and highlighting food risks and human mobility, has activated this emotional structure, leading Chinese people, even amidst industrial civilization, to seek sustenance from the agricultural past. This phenomenon is encapsulated by the phrase: "the more modern, the more 'natural'". Unearthing the specific forms of emotional structures underlying human production and consumption behaviors is an attempt to explore the emotional underpinnings of the meaning of human life, raising the possibility of sociology as a "study of life".

One-Foundationism and Its Reflection: Tao Xisheng's Socio-Historical Research on the System of Mourning Apparel

Kangjia HUANG

2025, 45(4):  71-95. 

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As a pioneer in the study of Chinese social history, Tao Xisheng was influenced by Henry Maine and Hu Peihui. He was the first to connect the study of the system of mourning apparel with social sciences, using his "One-foundationism "theory to point out that the "family" in Chinese society was constituted by the dual principles of qinqin (affection for kin) and zunzun (respect for superiors). He argued that the zunzun principle had shaped the unique nature of the "family" in Chinese society, making it not simply a blood relationship, and it was the key to understanding the "family" in Chinese society. Unlike contemporary scholars who explore the ethical spirit of the "family" through the system of mourning apparel, Tao's research originated from modern critiques of the family. His early social-historical study of the system of mourning apparel approached the subject through the lens of power rather than moral values. In his later years, Tao reflected deeply on this and emphasized the "relativism" nature of the zunzun principle.Tao's intellectual evolution from constructing and then rejecting a systematic theory that interpreted the zunzun principle through paternal authority, significantly exposed the theoretical difficulties since the late Qing dynasty by excessively relying on power domination, especially the uncritical use of paternal authority to understand the "family" in Chinese society. Tao's early interpretation of paternal authority was based on a static society. However, in his later years, despite affirming traditional family values, he did not recreate a new pastoral-idyllic static societal scene. Instead, he revealed the subtle tension and dynamic balance between the values and dominative dimensions of the "family." This dynamic perspective suggests to contemporary researchers the inherent openness of the "family" in traditional Chinese society. It also offers valuable insights for understanding the spiritual underpinnings of the family in present-day Chinese society.

Status-Based Matching and Sheltered Sharing: Elite Family's Marriage under the State Building of the Song Dynasty

Yang WANG

2025, 45(4):  96-130. 

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There are always considerable tensions between the state building and the reproduction of elite families. Clarifying the basic strategies and changes in the cooperation of elite family organizations in the early state power expansion is crucial to understanding the interaction between state governance and social structure. This research uses exponential random graph model(ERGM) and the Song Dynasty dataset from the China Biographical Database (CBDB) to examine the two marriage logics of elite families based on status matching and sheltered sharing, as well as the impact of the Xining Reform on the "matching by status" and "long-standing alliance" marriage modes under these two logics. The research finds that in the early stage of transition from a traditional to a modern state, social mobility increases but state power remains relatively limited. Elite families exhibit low risk preference and conservative behavior patterns. Their marriage strategies are mainly manifested as negative matching based on ascribed status and positive matching based on achieved status from the perspective of individual traits, as well as the continuation of hereditary patronage relationships and the suppression of oppressive patronage relationships from the perspective of relational structure. As the nation building process accelerates, the expansion of state power dominated by utilitarianism, centralization and institutionalization influences the reproduction strategies of the elite by adjusting the social redistribution mechanism, prompting them to adopt more open and risk-taking marriage strategies: on the one hand, increased social openness reduces homogeneous marriages among elite families based on positive status matching, and on the other hand, the expansion of state power strengthens the external pressure and internal demand for elite families to focus on clans, hence promoting the positive influence of sheltered relationships among previous generations on the intermarriages of subsequent generations. The research findings reveal the complex picture of the interaction, coordination, and integration between the "state" and the "family" in the early state building process in China.

Still Water Run Deep: Social Changes, Marital Status, and Changes in Fertility Levels

Xinguang FAN

2025, 45(4):  131-157. 

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Against the backdrop of China's transition to a sustained low-fertility regime, marriage—as the institutional foundation of childbearing—has drawn increasing attention for its role in shaping fertility patterns. This study employs microdata from four waves of China's population censuses (1990-2020) and applies a conditional decomposition method to estimate the structural contribution of marital status to changes in fertility levels among women of reproductive age. In addition, it incorporates provincial-level panel data to examine regional heterogeneity in the relationship between marriage and fertility. The results show that although the overall structure of marital status remained stable over the past three decades, the structural contribution of marital status to fertility change has increased significantly once age and education are controlled for. The effect is more pronounced in urban areas, though rural areas also display a steadily rising trend. Findings from provincial panel analyses further indicate that the explanatory power of marital status is closely associated with regional socioeconomic development, and that the interaction between shifts in marital structure and fertility norms varies across provinces.Theoretically, this study engages with the ongoing debate over the applicability of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) theory in the Chinese context. By foregrounding institutional and structural dimensions, this study extends global demographic theories to non-Western contexts and contributes to the construction of a localized theoretical framework for understanding Chinese fertility behaviors. It highlights the persistent misalignment between structural inertia and shifting fertility values, offering a new lens to explain the persistence of the lowest fertility rates in China.

The Publicness of Private Life: Health Education Program and the Institutional-Relational Construction in Rural Governance

Xueyin HE

2025, 45(4):  158-187. 

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Health education constitutes one of China's current administrative public health service programs and serves as a critical component of grassroots health governance. It encompasses professionally defined health knowledge and the manner in which individuals apply their understanding of health, thereby transcends purely administrative domain. The true significance of health education lies in its role within the specific governance process. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in two counties, this paper attempts to construct a framework for comprehending the logic of "governance of life," taking the health education program as a central thread. The prevalence of chronic diseases in aging rural areas is escalating. Against this backdrop, knowledge of preventive medicine provides a set of knowledge that defines healthy lifestyle. If healthy living is viewed as a private matter, health knowledge can only assist individuals in their efforts to solve their own problems, and government intervention may be perceived as a form of social control. Nevertheless, this paper demonstrates that, in the operation of China's grassroots governance, health knowledge is not accurately imparted to individuals, but rather travels in a contextualized and embedded manner to affect the daily lives of rural residents as an integrated community. Through the health education program, actors within and outside the government system and the medical profession work jointly to create a public governance sphere for addressing healthy living issues. This sphere is constituted by both formal institutions and informal social networks (Guanxi), which are mutually reinforcing and basically inseparable. This paper argues that, in the era of chronic diseases, the instinctive pursuit of personal health has emerged as a potent force for social integration. It reflects a shared vision of an orderly social life while simultaneously serving as a reference to governmentality, enabling state involvement in local everyday life.

The Evolution of Danwei from the Perspective of Generation Relationship: A Case Study of X County in Central China

Litao HAN, Weiling JIN

2025, 45(4):  188-212. 

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Based on the generational distribution of personnel within Danwei, this study conducts a case analysis of a county-level taxation agency in central China, and examinesthe historical impact of generational succession on the behavior and internal ecology of Danwei, discussing the evolution of the mores in Danwei. The study finds that intergenerational relationship is the key clue to understanding the evolution of Danwei. In 1980s, Danwei recruited a significant number of Zidi of the workers(children of employees) by securing funding quotas and administrative allocations. During this period, the intergenerational relationships within Danwei had familial characteristics, centered around formal and informal interactions between "first-generation workers" and "second-generation workers (Zidi)". This led to the formation of a compound authority structure where kinship and formal institutions were interwoven, maintaining effective functioning of Danwei. However, since the turn of the 21st Century, after the retirement of the old workers and the personnel system reform, the"Zidi Danwei" gradually declined, and Danwei began a process of "de-kinship" transformation. The "second-generation workers (Zidi)" and the "third-generation workers (students)" no longer engaged in "quasi-family" interactions, reversing the intergenerational status, breaking the compound authority structure before, and also shaping the new behaviors and norms of Danwei. Across both historical phases, intergenerational relationship remained pervasively embedded in the organizational functioning of Danwei, continuously shaping the evolution of its formal and informal institutions.The intergenerational relationship forms the mores which functions formal institutions. It is also an important perspective to study Danwei in the future.

The Paradox of Extraordinary: A Study of Charisma in Western Civilization in Max Weber's Writings

Ziyang PAN

2025, 45(4):  213-242. 

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Weber's concept of "charisma" refers to a highly personalized "extraordinary" and the "effect" of needing to be recognized by others, and these two elements constitute the internal tension of charisma. Charisma in modern democratic politics is largely manifested as the demagogic ability. The theoretical implication of "demagogy" is that the "effect" of charisma replaces "extraordinary". The complexity lies in the fact that charisma in this sense must, at the level of real-world efficacy, transcend all structures of domination or authority—a task that appears to demand a form of charisma endowed with absolute "extraordinary". Different from interpreting "demagogy" from a political perspective, this article attempts to start from Weber's comparative study of religions and explore what kind of ethical situation can shape the charisma and enable "effect" to replace "extraordinary". The study found that whether in the case of sorcerers, prophets, or religious virtuosos, the bearers of charisma, no matter how they express their individualized "extraordinary", inevitably confront the "effect" that simultaneously negates this very extraordinary. This inherent tension allows both to coexist, yet the resulting charisma becomes entwined with the establishment of "status distinctions" and "structures of domination". Such cultural configurations cannot be reconciled with the "anti-domination" logic of "charismatic democratization", nor with the consequent "demagogy" it engenders. The shaping of charisma by Protestant Calvinism and other Protestant sects absolutely denied the significance of charisma's "effect", making charisma completely "extraordinary". This charisma, however, creates the condition for the full acceptance of "effect". Therefore, the power of charisma in modern politics is no longer achieved by emphasizing differences with others but rather by emphasizing commonalities with others, which lays a key ideological foundation for "demagogy".