Table of Content

20 May 2018, Volume 38 Issue 3

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Stratified Mobility in Chinese Bureaucracy: A Model and Empirical Evidence

ZHOU Xueguang, AI Yun, GE Jianhua, GU Huijun, LI Lan, LU Qinglian, ZHAO Wei, ZHU Ling

2018, 38(3):  1-45. 

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Spatial mobility among officials has been an important mechanism of political control in China's governance. We propose a model of stratified mobility across administrative jurisdictions to explain patterns of spatial mobility in the Chinese bureaucracy, and develop related concepts, typologies, and measures for our empirical analyses. We illustrate our theoretical arguments using empirical findings of spatial mobility in a large bureaucracy-local governments in one province of China, from 1990 to 2008. This research contributes to the study of the Chinese bureaucracy by (1) providing baselines for the key empirical patterns of mobility among offices and across administrative levels; (2) developing a set of concepts, categories and related measurements for characterizing social network structures resulting from personnel flow across government offices.

The Paradox of Technical Governance: A Public Opinion Survey's Political Process and Its Results

PENG Yaping

2018, 38(3):  46-78. 

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The logic of technical governance goes as follows:the knowledge of society can be obtained by the state via technology and thus social problems are identified and resolution are found. Questions have been raised about whether technical governance would ever work. For many the answer is negative and doubtful. However,one defense remains:technical governance fails not because the idea is inherently flawed but because the technology is not good. Would technical governance succeed with better methodology and more technical rigor? In order to challenge this defense,this paper examines the operation of opinion polls-a form of technical governance supported by rigorous quantitative social research methodology-run by a sub-district government in the city "S". In particular,this paper asks whether it is possible for a government-run poll to reflect manipulated public opinions,despite the strictest compliance with quantitative polling methodology. The finding of this paper gives an affirmative answer. It argues that on the surface polls are statistic surveys but in actuality they are a political process controlled by the government despite their compliance with all statistical requirements. The power structure of the local government determines the questionnaire questions and their multiple-choice answers (the screening,compressing and quantifying of social scenarios),and the final make-up of public opinion index. The rigorousness of methodology does not guarantee the authenticity of "public opinion" in final poll figures. More likely the outcome is controlled by those who organize polls. Hence,quantifiable technical governance presents contradiction:the state manufactures biased public opinions precisely when it is looking for unbiased public opinions. In the end,the government constructs an image of society in its own reflection.

Multi-Process and Outcome Stratification: On the Equality of the Chinese University Schooling Process

LI Ding

2018, 38(3):  79-104. 

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Chinese universities and college students have become increasingly differentiated. How do socioeconomic backgrounds affect student performance in school and outcomes after graduation? Based on data from the Beijing College Students Panel Survey (BCSPS), this paper examines the differences in schooling processes and outcomes among Chinese college students of different social origins. Results show that while students from rural and urban origins do not differ in academic performance,extra-curricular activities, and psychological traits, there are marked differences in cultural capital, expectations after graduation, and actual outcomes. Such differences vary by school types. While family economic capital benefits students from non-211 universities more than students from 211 universities in terms of school performance, family cultural capital seems to play an important role in affecting subjective wellbeing among students in 211 universities. As for placement after graduation, whether or not students continue domestic postgraduate education is determined primarily by students' academic and non-academic performance in school, however, family economic and cultural resources affect the likelihood of pursuing postgraduate degrees abroad. The boom of students studying abroad and their subsequent return home have profound implications on the equality of higher education and social stratification in contemporary China.

Gendered Pathways to Rural-to-Urban Hukou Conversion and Income Returns in Mainland China: An Analysis Based on CGSS2008-2013 Data

GUO Wei, LU Jiaying

2018, 38(3):  105-135. 

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This study is a quantitative investigation of gendered pathways to rural-to-urban hukou conversion and income return using the Heckman selection model and multiple regression analysis with interaction terms based on the data from the CGSS(2008-2013). It attempts to help further understand the context of the ongoing household registration system reform in China. We use the 2008 purchasing power as a standardized measure for this study. The results indicate that men achieve the rural to urban hukou transition mainly through selective mobility tools such as education and job recruitment,while women depend more on policy programs such as land resettlement and marriage. However,the proportion of rural women who obtain urban hukou through selective mobility means increased significantly since China's reform. As for the income return of rural-urban hukou conversion,the study shows that within the group of conversion by selective mobility means,women score higher than men. In addition,the income return effect of rural-urban hukou conversion declines as time passes. A significant decline is especially noticed for men as the household registration reform deepens. Our study provides a systematic analysis of quantitative results through the lens of gender role changes in the modernization process of China,and discusses difficulties and potential conflicts facing the future reform of the Chinese household registration system.

The Deconstruction of the Classical Family and the Sanctification of Marriage: Augustine's New Construction of the Basic Unit of the Society

FENG Xiaomang

2018, 38(3):  136-169. 

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Family, which is a construction based on and controlled by natural powers in the ancient times, is the basic unit of classical society. From the point of view of Christianity, Augustine dissociates the individual from secular communities and restores him to a purely spiritual entity, so as to establish a starting point for the Christian model of society. Meanwhile, the classical family, as the basic organizational form of community, is deconstructed by Augustine through denaturing its natural power. Augustine denies the virtuous and ultimate meaning of any secular communities. As a result, Augustine understands human society, in the framework of Christianity, as a "societas" based on the principle of equality and love. In this metaphysical society, marriage is established and sanctified on the same principle of equality and love, and so the hallowed marriage contract becomes the smallest basic organizational form of human society, instead of family in ancient times. Augustine thus creates a brand new model of society based on the marriage contract as its basic unit. Although this new model occupied the dominant position in medieval Europe, it has always had an inner tension between the ideal and the reality. With the collapse of Feudalism and Catholicism, this model began to disintegrate, but the principle of equality, love and contract remains. The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment together emancipated the individual from the religious community and established the modern idea of individual as capable and deserving of "liberty and reason". On this basis, modern thinkers such as Hobbes and Hegel introduced the principle of equality, love and marriage contract as the organizational logic of the family, and then of the society. By this way, modern thinkers form a complete chain that starts from the atomic individual and ends with the whole of society so as to establish an entirely new pattern for the organization of human society. The family of this new type i.e., the "core family" based on the marriage system as T nnies and Durkheim suggest, becomes the basic unit of modern society.

Buddhist Temples and Ancestral Halls: The Reconstruction of Tusi's Ritual in Western Yunnan

LIAN Ruizhi

2018, 38(3):  170-202. 

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In imperial China, abolishing tusi (native official) offices was always justified as retaliation for disobeying the orthodoxy of the Chinese state. For example, in the early Ming period, the Heqing tusi was abolished and the chieftaincy's domain put under imperial official's direct control following such a false accusation. Next, the imperial officials constructed Confucian schools and sought to restrict Buddhist temples and beliefs, and advocated orthodox ritual among the local elite by prohibiting heterodox temples and encouraging them to revise their history. At the same time, some tusi consciously engaged in the work of establish their own proper rituals based on the Canonized Chinese Classics. In this paper, I focus on two cases, the tusis of Lijiang and Monghua, discussing how native officials rebuilt their rituals according to the standards set for the feudal lords of ancient China and utilized three strategies to declare their noble status in the eyes of the Chinese state. The first strategy was building a patrilineal ancestral hall. Second, to strengthen their superiority, they constructed written genealogies which included an origin myth and common ancestor, connecting legendary ancestors to the inherited tusi title. Third, under the feudal political system, they legitimized and promoted Buddhist temples as historical heritage to ensure claims to their territory. In Lijiang tusi's case, the paper explains the making of written genealogy not only confirmed Mu tusi's leading position among tribal society by transcript oral mythical figure into ancestor, but also legitimizing their alliance with Guzhong and Bai politics according to their brotherhood-originated story. At the same time, they built an ancestral hall as a legal institution to claim their status as Chinese ancient feudal lord, which implied they could rule their territory properly. In the other case, Monghua tusi was under maternal alliance's support, tracing their ancestor to Nanchao King. As they became the descendant of ancient king, they renovated ancient Buddhist temples and took over inherited ritual status in the native society. Through these arrangements, we can clearly observe the tusi, as the agent in border area, was able to take advantage of their historical capital to consolidate their local interests.

Three Faces of the Online Leftists: An Exploratory Study Based on Case Observation and Big Data Analysis

GUI Yong, HUANG Ronggui, DING Yi

2018, 38(3):  203-239. 

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Leftist social thought is not a unitary and coherent system of thought and left-wingers are made up of divergent groups. In this study, we propose a theoretical typology of two dimensions of theoretical resource and ideological orientation to analyze left-wing social thought in online space. A combination of case observations and big data analyses of Weibo tweets is applied to investigate the three types of leftist social thought online, identified as state-centered leftism, populist leftism, and liberal leftism. State-centered leftism features a strong support of the state and the current regime and a negative attitude towards the West. Populist leftism is characterized by the unequivocal affirmation of revolutionary legacies and support of grassroots movements for disadvantaged population. Liberal leftism maintains a grassroots position and a decided affirmation of individual rights. In addition, supervised machine learning and social network analysis techniques are used to identify online communities of the three types of leftist social thought and analyze the interaction patterns within and across the communities as well as the evolution of community structures. This study found that during the period of 2012-2014,the camp of liberal leftist gradually decreased in numbers and the corresponding communities dissolved while the interaction between populist leftist and state-centered leftist camps intensified and the opinion differences between the two increased online confrontations. This article demonstrates that the mixed approach of combining traditional methods with big data analysis has enormous potential in the sub-discipline of digital sociology.