Research On Village Covenants In Vietnamese Rural Communities Management

Village covenants in Vietnamese countryside have existed for centuries, serving for self-discipline and self-management. This kind of"law"established by countryside dwellers in old time played a vital role in country autonomy; also, it worked as an useful and important tool for feudatorial government to rule rural communities. Village covenants have been revived during the process of Vietnam reformation. Since 1990s, state law and folk law have been combined in order to rule rural communities more efficiently, village covenants were hereon considered by scholars and policy-makers as an efficient mean.Educational circles have made a lot of valuable achievements in the research on village covenants, but most of these results only confined into description of historical shape and property of village covenants while the particularity has not been analyzed. Essential feature such as if it needs national interference or the prospects of village covenants was neglected. The important issues such as replacement of modern law upon it or keeping law as a plural form are also lack of distinctly recognition. This recognition concerns with the following problems directly, that is, the necessity and possibility of the existence of village covenants, should they exist, and how they should exist? Which kind of functions they should play? Based on these considerations, I chose this subject as my doctoral academic dissertation.This paper attempts to analyze following issues in terms of anthropology and legal sociology, first, the formation, development and changes of village covenants during ancient Vietnam, second, to analyze the reformation process of modern village covenants. Further, to expose property, functions and their roles in legal systems, and finally, to argue the conflicts and compromise between state law and village covenants and their future trend.In the course of demonstration, this paper compares new and old village covenants in Vietnam history, also compare them with Japan, China's village covenants in term of synchrony, so as to introduce the meaning of civil society theory toward the village covenants in rural management. With above demonstration, this paper answered questions such as necessity and inevitability of the trend of Vietnamese village covenants' modernization, Vietnam's successful experiences of using foreign village covenants, also, the combination of western civil society theory and traditional Vietnamese village covenants.In Chapter one, I discuss folk law and village covenants under anthropology and legal sociology. From the visual angle of anthropology and legal sociology, this paper makes clear the purpose and main theme from the very beginning that the Vietnamese village covenants are important components of"folk law", and in the Vietnam long traditional society, The relations between village covenants and state law are complicated, in some aspects they are consistent with each other, but in some aspects, they conflict with each other. Social functions of the village covenants are: village covenants play an irreplaceable role in village people's rural life. Such as in the resolving of social disputes and conflicts, maintenance of public security and civil order, organizing some public activities, etc..In Chapter two, I analyze the changes of the Vietnamese village covenants and roles in the management of rural life. Through the research on historical course, this chapter explains the formulation, changes and the roles played by village covenants in rural life. At first I mainly introduce the geography and the historical conditions of the formulation of Vietnamese village covenants, explain the changes of the Vietnamese village covenants emphatically, make a comparison between the ancient and new Vietnamese village covenants at the same time, and propose the difference on properties and contents. Another content of this chapter is to make an analysis of the roles and disadvantages between the ancient and new Vietnamese village covenants in the Vietnamese rural management, and the preliminary thinking about Vietnamese village covenants.In Chapter three, I analyze the relations between state law and village covenants. Toward the complicated relations existing between state law and village covenants, at first from the management role in the society of"official law"and"unofficial law", through comprehensive analysis and comparison, we have summed up common points and conflicts between Vietnamese village covenants and the state law. Including the understanding of the Vietnamese proverb that"the village covenants exceed the state law", and the possibility and necessity of the consistency between Vietnamese village covenants and the state law. Secondly, through the comparison between domestic and international instances, it emphasizes the necessity and the feasible way of that the state should interfere the village covenants. After defining the commonness and particularity between state law and village covenants and the properties of their interaction, I focus on analyzing the coordination between them, have put forward the way and thought to solve the conflicts between them.In Chapter four, I discuss the development trend and idea about the Vietnamese village covenants. First, this chapter has made a brief comparison between Vietnamese village covenants and village covenants of China, Japan, etc., and attempts to offer beneficial reference for the development trend conception of the Vietnamese village covenants. Then, proceed from current situation of the rural society of Vietnam and make a plan for the development trend and the future of the changing village covenants. Furthermore, according to the idea of civil society and the current situations of Vietnamese civil society, propose the necessity that Vietnam should develop civil society and status of village covenants in the future society. At last, I put forward the measures to develop Vietnamese village covenants.There are a lot of difficulties and important points in the research on Vietnamese village covenants in this paper, accordingly, discussions and considerations on these aspects become the place of innovation herein. Summarily, there are the following three points:First, about the identification of the village covenants and their forming conditions: on the basis of forefathers'research, explain them from the visual angle of anthropology and legal sociology, have confirmed the positions of the village covenants in the legal systems, and put the village covenants in historical and realistic conditions of particular economic, political, cultural etc. To carry on the research, I provide full time environment and functions of the forming of Vietnamese village covenants.Second, I explain that the complicated relations between state law and village covenants, including the common points, conflicts, coordination, interference and influence between them, and combine and analyze the property, advantages and disadvantages of the two in managing the countryside, pointing out the reasons of the conflicts between them at the same time. Then I understand the Vietnamese statement of"the village covenants exceed to king's rule", proposing the way that state should interfere village covenants, that is to say, putting forward the way to solve their contradiction and improve the effects of village covenants in rural management.Third, I affirm the necessity of village covenants in the rural society of Vietnam in the future, considering the village covenants as one of the important means and tools in rural management at present, has proposed some concrete measures to improve the village covenants'effects on managing the countryside.Certainly, because the ability that the my mastery of the Chinese language is not good enough, furthermore, time is limited, so this paper certainly present some limitations and deficiency, for example, the theory of the relations between state law and village covenants is summed up not integrally enough, the expectation about the changes of the development of rural society and Vietnamese civil society in the future, especially the demonstration research about the positions and functions of village covenants in the future society is not deep enough, measures that are put forward are not macroscopical and durable enough so they must be further improved and tested. So in my future post, I will continue the research on this aspect.