Country Autonomous Research

This doctoral dissertation including seven chapters discusses the modern villager self-government during later Ching Dynasty and the Republic of China.Chapter one is introduction. First of all, it elaborates the author's comprehension of basic concepts, such as modern age, village, country, hometown, farmer, village people, autonomy, management, census management.Secondly, it Reviews The domestic and international studies of the villager self-governmentThirdly, it introduces the author's basic conditions, methods, the way of thing and basic standpoints.Finally, it points out the academic arguments about villager self-government which specifically includes the concept of self-government, the origin of self-government in our country, the main body of villager self-government, the theory about the relation between our state and village people, the theory about the unity of state, society, and legal system, the way and standard of social transformation, the organizational law of contemporary villager self-government.Chapter two discusses the theory and system of villager self-government in modern times. It consists of two parts, the first part elaborates the villager self-government during later Ching Dynasty, involving Taiping villager system, Kang you-wei and Liang Qi-chao's thinking and so on. The point of this part lies in remarking on the projects and practice of villager self-government in later Ching dynasty.The second part discusses the theories and practice of villager self-government during the Republic of China, involving sun yat-sen's thoughts, Yuan shi-kai and Beiyang government's practice, the early experimentation of villager self-government, Liang su-ming's trial and local organizations' modes of villager self-government during Kuo min-tang governing, and also, the Yan xi-shan's reform and the villager self-government during Nanking government period.Chapter three is the special analysis of modern villager self-government organizations. The first part introduces the dominators' aims who found the self-government organizations during past dynasties, and gives the textual research of the sources where those organizations' leaders came from, their functions and social status. The second part discusses the relations among autonomous organizations, state, and society, pointing out that the village, community, and neighborhood administrative system are the fundamental organizations of feudal bureaucracy, the leaders' political and economic interests and the great disparity in rank relation between them and ordinary farmers, all the things tell us that they are absolutely not the "farmers' protectivebrokers".The forth chapter analyses the census management from various aspects, involving the basic concept and characters of "family" in traditional society, and the relations among family, clan, and state. Finally, this chapter introduces the reasons that the clans' centripetal force and the state's brinkmanship, indicate that the clans tried to reversed their dying out destiny by rely on state, they posed as the protector of families with the "public property shortage" excuse, resisting the state's power. Actually, the clans are the middle step during the forming of the political and cultural system, which has the character of "the similar structure of state and family".The fifth chapter insists that the traditional legal system is a centralizing unity through describing the traditional legal relations, indicates that the positive laws, the domestic disciplines, the rules set by the villagers are sources for each other, On this foundation, this chapter describes the centralizing relations in this legal system, insists that the domestic disciplines and the rules set by the villagers are not folk law, there is no dualistic legal system existed in ancient China.The sixth chapter proves the author's opinion about the villager self-government through contrasting the gentry in town and country, insisting that the gentry assisted the feudal by governing the country, but the business-gentry in town lead the guild autonomy,...