Table of Content

20 September 2017, Volume 37 Issue 5

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Borderland, Border, and State:A Werberian Study

HE Rong

2017, 37(5):  1-23. 

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For the developing countries, the key issue of the rural side of the modernization led by industrialization and urbanization, i.e., how to develop agriculture while facing population mobility and the broken ties of decaying traditional community, is the basic challenge not only to economic policy but to political balance. During 1890's, after several decades of rapid development, the East Elbian region of Germany suffered from poverty, debt, inequality, etc. Young and promising Max Weber, as an agricultural economist, conducts a data survey and analysis on the East Elbian labors, based on which comes into being his disputable 1895 address "National State and Economic Policy", his suggestions, such as closing the borders, keeping out Slavic seasonal labors and Germanize the eastern borderland earn him a reputation of aggressive nationalist.
Focusing on borderland and border, this study suggests that the key point is the global mobility of population, goods and capitals endangers the old frame of state economic strategy and political governance, border in this perspective, is the visible symbol of boundary defining sovereignty with latent multi-layers of cultural meaning. Based on this idea, besides legal, political and economic considerations, this paper suggests a sociological concept of state with a core of "Guomin" or the people mainly living in a country with the identification to certain culture but open to differences, inclusive and with consent, share equal right with corresponding share of responsibility. For a state with multi-nationalities, the theory of "Guomin-state" will be helpful to crystalize a stable identification based on diversity.

Authenticity and the Public Sphere:Charles Taylor's Notion of the Liberal Society

XU Bing

2017, 37(5):  24-58. 

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Centering on Charles Taylor's two papers,"What's Wrong with the Negative Liberty","Liberal Politics and the Public Sphere",and the dialogue between him and Habermas in 2009,this paper interprets his revising of liberalism. "What's Wrong with the Negative Liberty" is the mark of his approach of authenticity in contemporary liberalism,which defends individual freedom on the base of moral psychology. It also argues that the next step will take a view of freedom,which sees freedom as (fully) realizable only within a certain form of society. The certain form of society is liberal society. "Liberal Politics and the Public Sphere" sums up his basic viewpoints of liberal society and his revising liberalism. Liberal society is the form of society which tries to realize the plural goals of the revised liberalism and seeks the balance between the goals,including at least individual freedom,collective self-rule,and a rule of right founded on equality. The political notion is the application of the moderate path with the resonance between the inner and the outer,which is shaped between psychological and moral philosophy and social theory. The main form the modern Western liberal society is civil society,and the two main forms of civil society are market economy and civil sphere. Both of them are bulwarks of freedom,but civil sphere is the central feature of the contemporary civil society to compete the centralization of power and the polarization between the rich and the poor. In the age when authenticity is the important notion of the self and social imaginary,the unitary model of the enlightenment civil sphere should be replaced by the multi-public spheres. The viewpoint of Taylor in the dialogue in 2009 is the extension "Liberal Politics and the Public Sphere". Revising the concept of secularity of Weber,"Liberal Politics and the Public Sphere" argues that secularity isn't just "not tied to religion". Its original sense was "of the age", closing to the sense of "temporal" in the opposition temporal/spiritual. In A Secular Age,Taylor argues that secularity doesn't mean vanishing religion,but,one of the meanings of secularity is that religion is one option among others. To compete with the closing tendency of authenticity and the collapse of the political and social solidarity,he argues that religion should be one of the multi-topics of the multi-public spheres. Based on the usual concept of secularity,Habermas insists on the priority of the secular language in the public sphere. But he recognizes that Taylor is a liberalist and the deep level of the dialogue involves Taylor's notion of the politics of identity.
Taylor's revised liberalism has inspiring value to the situation of China. In order to reverse the splits in Chinese intellectual life and political and social practice which are related to the binary oppositions between socialism and liberalism and between the narrow unitary modernity and the fossilized Chinese culture,constructing the multi-public spheres with the moderate mind is an indispensable historical task. In the preparation of the multi-public spheres,the traditional thoughts of "heart" could help to set up the belief in freedom and take part in the construction of the identity and social imaginary of authenticity.

Constructing the Idea of Organization:Thought Self-Check and Organizational Review of Cadres (1952-1960)

ZHANG Jing

2017, 37(5):  59-77. 

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This paper explores the history of state power construction, focusing on the period of regime change and how the state constructs a new governance structure, according to the ideological examination, work report, year-end summary, organization and examination report of some cadres in the 1950s.The focus of the article is to understand how the state constructs a new governance structure during the period of regime change. This paper shows that the state uses a unique organizational power to carry out a series of administrative activities for the cadres and groups:the cadres take turns to labor, carry out self-thinking clean up, organize the group to exchange learning activities, implement and systematically organize the activities of the trial and handling procedures, the trial of the cadres of the ideological performance of the classification, the formation of written records, the establishment of a new assessment of the behavior of the cadre, in order to institutionalize the organization of personnel work for the preparation of the basis.These processes have laid the foundations of the initial institutionalization of the cadre selection and management system, followed by the development of the principles that have been consolidated and refined. The obvious effect of this process is that the new behavior requirements and employment standards are widely practiced in the urban cadres and the new standards have been used to shape the cadres' own concerns and their work ethic, and the cadres and the new organizations have been gradually constructed. Relationship, and finally established the organizational concept in the use of cadres in the principle of status.The significance of these activities for the understanding of the source of social governance system is that they have not only laid an organizational basis for the establishment of organizational governance authority, but also have far-reaching influence on the behavior of cadres and the overall characteristics of expression.

State Policy Strategy:The Political Elements in Agricultural Technology Adaptation——A Case Study in Minority Region

QIANG Ge

2017, 37(5):  78-104. 

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The promotion of winter wheat was the main achievement of the Tibetan moderation in the 1970's. Wheat, which was barely planted, had become the second largest crop in Tibet. Puzzlingly, Tibetan peasants, who had initially strongly resisted winter wheat, had become active practitioners in just two or three years. In this process, how did the state deal with the resistance of Tibetan peasants and change their ideas? Based on documents and oral history material, this paper argues that, it was political movement that played a key role. Firstly, the class struggle was a crackdown to the resistance to new technology, and also promoted the differentiation of the rural community, mutual supervision among peasants made the "weapons of the weak" become impossible. Secondly, the political movement also functioned as the emotional mobilization. Winter wheat was portrayed as a symbol of emancipated serfs, thus inspired a high degree of political identity and passion among peasants. Based on empirical study, the theoretical contribution of this paper was, bring Tibetan peasants as active actor into the analytical framework of governance. Studying the interaction of the state and Tibetan peasants contributes to our understanding of New China's Tibetan governance. This analytical framework also emphasized:Firstly, Tibetan culture was not an ontological special culture. We must use the principle of universality to understanding the different minority culture. Secondly, the state was not a stranger outsider in Tibet. It got familiar with Tibetan culture and society, knew about the ideas and interests of Tibetan peasants. Additionally, political movement also had negatively impact on Tibetan agricultural. It caused serious Tibetan food crisis in the late 1970s.

On the Rise of the Revolutionary Work Ethic:By Focusing on the “Zhao Zhankui Campaign” in the Shaanxi Gansu Ningxia Border Region

YOU Zhenglin

2017, 37(5):  105-138. 

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After the establishment of the Government of the Shaanxi Gansu Ningxia Border Region in 1937, the public factories were set up gradually in the border region. During the period of 1940 to 1945, in order to enhance workers' enthusiasm for work and maintain a good work order in public factories, the Central Committee of CPC and other relevant policy-makers creatively carried out a series of interrelated transformations on the labor process of the public factories, such as correcting the trade union's "left" tendency and redefining its basic tasks, launching the "Zhao Zhankui Campaign" named after the model worker Zhao Zhankui, transforming the interactional relations between the Party organization, the administration and the trade union within the public factories, and so on. With the implementation of these transformations, a new work ethic, which was mainly used to regulate the labor attitude of workers and the interactional relations between the Party organizations, the administration and the trade union within the public factories, was gradually built up. Since the logical starting point for the construction of this new work ethic was to link workers' work with the revolutionary activities led by the CPC, to emphasize that the public factories were the revolutionary public property which the working class itself also had a share of it, and the workers were working for the revolution, therefore, this article named this new work ethic "revolutionary work ethic". By focusing on the "Zhao Zhankui Campaign" in the Shaanxi Gansu Ningxia Border Region, this paper systematically explores how the revolutionary work ethic had been built up and raised. On this basis, this paper also discusses two related issues:one is the practical role of this revolutionary work ethic, and the other is its continuity and evolution.

Independent Freshman Admission Program （IFAP） and Talent Selection in Higher Education in China： Evidence from National Elite Universities

WU Xiaogang LI Zhonglu

2017, 37(5):  139-164. 

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The admission to higher education not only severs as a main mechanism to identify and select talents but also plays an important function in upholding social justice，promoting social mobility，thus maintaining social order. As one of the important reform on the college admission system，the Independent Freshman Admission Program (IFAP)，which involves the issues of allocation of quality higher education resources (e.g. the chance of receiving education in national elite universities)，has received wide attention since it was launched. In the allocation of scare resources (e.g. quality tertiary education)，the equity and efficiency are the constant dilemma that we have to encouter. There has been much discussion on the equity of educational opportunity in IFAP，and that IFAP has excerbated the inequity in educational opportunities is an indisputable fact. On the other hand，there is lack of empirical evidence on whether or not such inequity is a necessary tradeoff to the efficiency of talent selection. This article analzyes the subsample of three national elite universities (Beijing University，Tsinghua University，and Renmin University of China) from Beijing College Student Panel Survey(BCSPS) to in investigate this question. We pay attention to the heterogeneity of students recruited through IFAP，and divide them into two subgroups：those who could pass the entrance exam even without IFAP，and those who could be admitted only through IFAP，and compare them to those who enter college through competitive College Entrance Examination (gaokao) to examine the impact of IFAP on educational equity and talent selection. Results show that，IFAP is socially stratified， and students selected by the IFAP are more likely to come from families in urban areas，with collegeeducated parents， and graduate from keypoint high schools. On the other hand，there is no significant difference in terms of the academic performance，political participation，noncognitive ability，plan and placements after graduation among students selected by the IFAP and by regular gaokao.The implications of our findings for the admissions policies and procedures are discussed.

How Chinese Rural Family Changes:Nucleating or Individualizing? An Analysis Based on Moral Evaluation of Private Savings

XING Chaoguo

2017, 37(5):  165-192. 

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Ifamily is a new paradigm for explaining Chinese family changes, which is obviously different from "Familism".In such background, the paper tries to discuss the direction of Chinese rural family's change from family economy life, and namely how peasants evaluate private savings. The paper assumes that peasants evaluate private savings either from individual perspective or from family perspective. Based on field work conducted in a village by the North shore of the Yangtze River within the territory of Anhui Province, the results show that private savings' source, amount and use are factors which affect peasants' judgment. In addition, the state of family financial control and intimate relationship also affect their appraisement. Specifically, money obtained by luck and money saved in daily life is more likely to be accepted. Small amount private savings is more likely to be accepted. Private savings for subsistence and emergency is more likely to acquire good appraise than private savings for luxurious. Private savings used inside family and for family are more likely to be accepted than private savings used outside family and for personal affairs. People are more likely to accept private savings hided by people who are financially controlled or in bad intimate relationship. These factors are included in binary framework "individual vs. family", and nuclear family's property safety and livelihood safety are the core evaluation criterions for judging private savings.Therefore, the paper holds that the change of Chinese rural family is still nucleating not individualizing.

Effects of Spouse's Family Background on Elite Status Attainment in Urban China

ZHU Bin

2017, 37(5):  193-216. 

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The attainment of elite status has long been a major topic in the study of social stratification and mobility. Researchers, however, paid more attention to the influences of one's own family background, ignoring the effects of his/her spouse's. Using data of CGSS 2006, this research examines the effects of one's father-in-law on his/her elite status attainment in urban China. The results indicate that (1) father-in-law's culture capital has no effects on one's elite status attainment, because the transmission of culture capital takes a relatively long time, and father-in-law begins to exert influence only after the marriage. (2) Unlike what happened in Eastern Europe, China's market transformation is a gradual transformation under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, which makes the political capital is still in the dominant position, so it is more easily that political capital transforms into economic capital than the inverse. Therefore, father-in-law's political capital helps one become an economic elite while father-in-law's economic capital has little to do with one's attainment of political elite status. (3) Since the marginal benefits might be decreasing when capital is utilized, "fresh" capital from father-in-law, other than that from one's own father which has been used for many times, might be more powerful, thus having a stronger effects after he/she gets married. In contrast, one's own father mainly influences his/her current socio-economic status through the impact of the socio-economic status of marriage. (4) At last, father-in-law's effects are different for different sexes, although the elite transformation applies both to men and women, elite inheritance is more suitable for men.

The Change of “Agricultural” to “Non-Agricultural” hukou,Return of Human Capital and the Earnings Gap between New Citizens and Original Residents

WANG Peng

2017, 37(5):  217-241. 

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The segregation of urban and rural household registration system(hukou)is always considered to be one of the most important causes of Chinese income inequality. Under the background of the accelerated process of urbanization in China,millions of peasants have transformed their hukou status and become new citizens in the sense of household registration system. It is still a question whether these people share the equal opportunity in competition with urban natives,although they have enjoyed same privileges attached to the non-agricultural hukou. Meanwhile,the heterogeneity in new urban residents who come from agricultural sector should not be neglected.By using the data of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS),we found that there exists earnings gap between new citizens and original residents who born with urban hukou,while the gap cannot be explained by the difference of human capitals. The result of quantile regression decomposition shows that new citizens may still suffer the discrimination in labor market. The discrimination may derive from both institutional and non-institutional factors,presenting an inverted U shaped curve with the change of unconditional income quantiles. Meanwhile,there is also significant difference within the group of hukou-transformed-people. The discrimination offsets the human capital advantage of endogenous new citizens compared with old ones,while the exogenous new citizens face the disadvantage of human capital and the discrimination of labor market at the same time. We still don't know whether the discrimination exists during the transformation of hukou,or after this process,but this dimension of income stratification can be considered the subsequent effect of household registration system.