Studies On The Institutional Evolution Of Interethnic Political Integration Of China

This dissertation tries to explain the institutional evolution of interethnic political integration of China. The research focuses on two issues—one is to establish the theories about institution of interethnic political integration (IIPI), the other is to explain the steady and evolution of the institution, figure out its results and challenges it faced in modern time, then to find countermeasures for it.IIPI is not a single institution but a rule system that brings the ethnic groups and the ethnic regions into the political system of the nation-state. The basic factors of the IIPI include ideology (which supplies the aim of the institution), organizations and concrete institutional arrangements (which supplies the ways of the institution). It claims that the degrees of institutionalization of interethnic political integration and its effects are different when the state's legitimacy base and means to maintain it are different. The reasons of stabilization (one of the characteristics of the institution) of IIPI is path dependence, it makes the institution go steadily. The increasing stock of human knowledge, the development of ideology and the impact of outside force can unchain the situation of lock-in. It makes the evolution and innovation of institution become possible. In multi-ethnic state, the different supplies of IIPI shape the development of ethnic groups. The ethnic groups' developments put forward new requests to the developments of the IIPI. The process represents the dialectic relations among the nation state and ethnic groups. It also shows the abilities of the nation-state.Through the historical aspect, adopting the qualitative research method, according to the path of new institutionalism, the paper retrospects to the formation, development, and innovation of the IIPI among different developmental periods of state in China. The paper begins with the IIPI of the dynastic state. It didn't have a clear boundary, based on the legitimacy of god-given regality, in the frame of centralization of state power, on the preconditions of the inequality of ethnic relations, "Bridle" institution was formed under the "Pay Tribute" system. Though the "Bridle" institution played an important role to maintain the unification of the state, it didn't integrate the ethnic groups completely after all. Along with china's being dragged into the world system and began its modernization in late Qing Dynasty, the inherent knowledge and institution systems were impacted intensively. The ethnicities of multi-ethnic state emerged. Ethnic groups became a key structural power of the nation-state. One of the reasons of Kuomintang's failure is that it couldn't resolve the ethnic problems.It proved that only under the leading of CCP that could all the ethnic groups establish the new China, then could the new IIPI be set. In the period of planned economic system, the state controlled almost all the resources, it could realize the unitary integration of the ethnic groups and the regions of ethnic groups by institution system based on Ethnic Reginoal Autonomy System (ERAS). But ERAS was once destroyed during "Cultural Revolution".Along with the market economic system's practice in China, the change to pluralistic societies appeared in China. The ethnic consciousness revivals and its requests are put forward. Together with the international factors'effects, there is a need to improve the efficiency, methods and institutional building of IIPI. How to transfer the unitary integration model to pluralistic integration, develop ERAS, realize the innovation of IIPI, then to improve the efficiency of the IIPI, these are the important issues in the building of IIPI nowadays.The conclusion is that IIPI of China has experienced a continuous process. The modern IIPI is the combination of China's traditional political civiliazition and Marxism. It is proved to be a suitable form for China. During the process of modernization, if the multi-ethnic state wants to fulfill the aim of IIPI, it needs to achieve the innovations of the IIPI, institutional arrengments and the implement mechanism. The institution still plays important role in this course. It is the efficiency running of the institution that makes the power of interethnic political integration enhanced. The abilities of the state get improved at the same time.