Householdism Behaviour Logic And Public Governance

This dissertation mainly aims to answer what is the logic relation between Chinese peasants and public governance in contemporary rural daily life and focuses on the theme of peasants’ householdism behavior logic in daily life and its influence on publicgovemance from theperspective of households through the householdism analytical framework of professor XuYong by taking a case analytical method of empirical study as a tool. Based on observation of village daily life, the author conducts his study mainly from two aspects:firstly, studying on the peasants’ householdism behavior logic in daily life from a household perspective, including peasants’ behavior motivations, rational modes and structural forms based on household interests; and secondly, studying on the relation between peasants’householdism and village public governance by taking peasants’ householdism in daily life as a basis, including the process and objective values of the village public governance. Throughout the dissertation, the author tries to respond to the peasants’ political participation problem in the modernization process proposed by Migdal (Migdal’ proposition in short) and the proposition of a Chinese rural development path proposed by professor XuYong (Xu Yong’s proposition in short). For this purpose, the author selects a natural village in northern Anhui province---- Chen village as a study object. In terms of academic attitude, the author carries out his study under the principle of taking common peasants as a study subject, a normal-state village as a study object and localization of Chinese rural study as a guide. In terms of structural arrangement, based on the needs of the study theme, the author mainly narrates the dissertation from four levels:firstly, studying on peasants’ behavior motivations and household rationality in daily life based on household interests (chapter three); secondly, studying on the structural of peasants’ household interests and, based on this, summarizingthe behavior logic of peasants’householdism (chapter four); thirdly, studying on the relation between peasants’householdism behavior logic andvillage public governance (chapter five); and fourthly, studying on the relation between peasants’householdism behavior logic and modern public governance object value----citizen and democratic politics (chapter six).Based on the study above, the author makes such conclusions:(1), peasants’ actions in daily life follow householdrationality and the motivations of peasants come from measurement of gains and losses of household interests, thereby constructing a basic social form of householdism; (2), householdism not only exits in the daily life of peasants but also permeates the field of public governance---the practice of village public governance having a householdism logic characteristic. The householdism logic is conflicting with village public governance, and a common rule needed by modern public governance cannot be developed from within a householdism society; and (3), the basic political form of Chinese peasants is householdism politics which is greatly different from the object value of modern public governance----citizen politics or democratic politics. Householdism politics is a protective, conservativeandavoidable political form and therefore cannot provide sufficientvigor and vitality for political modernization of China.Through the study on rural householdism in China, the author holds that Chinese rural society is essentially different from indivisualism existing in European and other western societies and collectivism existing in oriental societies such as Russia and India. Chinese rural society is based on a household tradition and develops a householdism quality. This special household mechanism has not been eliminated no matter in the construction of state power or in the market process in China’s modernizationprocess since the end of 19th century, yet greatly boosts the rise of contemporary Chinese rural householdism on the contrary. Chinese peasants decide whether to participate in systematic life outside households according to the householdism logic and to what extent they participate. In future, the Chinese rural development path cannot be developed without householdism, and the key is how to find a reasonablebalance point of interests between householdism and the common rule.