Local Elites And City Political Changes(1850-1949)

This paper is about the modern local elites’ political participation in a study case, and use the" state and society" theory as a research framework, this paper discusses the hengyang local elites’ political particitation and the relationship between the elites with the city political development from1850to1949.This paper focuses on two aspects, one is how to define the nature of the modern local elite property of political participation; two is to analyze the influence of the elites’ political participation on the city social order.Through the study found that, after one hundred years of hard work and practice, modern hengyang local autonomy has failed to gain sufficient development and ended in failure due to the lack of the necessary growth factor and the strong political system support,the official government replaced it become the main form of elites’ participation in city politics;At the same time, along with the local elites participated in the city politics’ degreen deepened ceaselessly, the conflict of interest between elites also furious increasingly, the social order therefore suffered a severe shock and eventually fall into disorder.therefore the social order suffered a severe impact and eventually fall into disorder. It also reflects the fact that social political development in China was struggling in predicament from one side.This paper is divided into four chapters according to the time sequence.The first chapter mainly discusses the hengyang local gentry elites’ political participation and the city political development after the years of xianfeng and tongzhi dynasties. The gentry class in hengyang area got development greatly with the Xiang Army’s rise in the middle of the19th century, not only the numbers soared, but also their personnel structure had showed a certain of the regional features; so the power of local gentry expanded rapidly,and formed a new gentry elite group Included a few business contributionby which took Peng Yulin and other military gentry as the core; at the same time, the gentry lived in city is becoming more and more popular, local elite political participation focus gradually transferred to the city and its range of participation so greatly expanded.Because the former has tremendous political resources, thus put this period of local government authority in the shade.The second chapter analyses hengyang local elites political participation changes before and after the reform movement. Around1890, with Peng Yulin and others has died, Hengyang local authority of the gentry was greatly affected and weakened, but when wang kai-yun mastered the new ship mountain academy,the authority of the gentry with wang in the center also continued to develop; meanwhile, with this period of hengyang local style of writing to restore, the gentry passed through the imperial exams gradually became the core of gentry elite groups. But on the other hand, the increase in the population of people who took part in the imperial exams, caused the gentry class ’difficulties and survival pressure increases, and the gentry appeared professional differentiation.Shortly after the New Deal of later Qing dynastry happened and provided a chance for the expand of the hengyang gentry authority again. The gentry gained a greater political activity space through participating in local autonomy;and the country seized the opportunity to control the former political behavior and the development of local community road. as a result, not only the local elites expanded its range expansion but also show a kind of "duty service" on identity, and this phenomenon would undoubtedly make local autonomy meaning less.The third chapter discusses the hengyang local elites in the period of beiyang government of political participation and the relationship between the local state power. The early republic period is the intial stage of the political modernization in modern China, however, restricted by the years of warfare,the control ability of country to local society had experienced series of setbacks,so that formed many power vacuum in the local society; on this basis, the local elites seized many power through admit or attached to warlordism, and the local autonomy also gained further development.on the other hand, the elites also showed a strong desire of "GuanZhi" identity, and their behavior which controled and suppressed the local administrative authority had hindered the normal development of the urban society in fact. Meanwhile, affected by the "May fourth" movement and the trend of nationalism, this period of hengyang student movement also increasingly arise; but their participation in local politics mainly showed that they regarded the local society as a platform to Practice their ideals of nationalist ideology, and rarely face up to local public interest, therefore, the students had often been in conflict and opposition with the former.The fourth chapter focuses on hengyang local elites and their political participation process of development and transformation which from autonomy to official government.After the1930s, the kuomintang governments began to carry out party and government double track political system, and devolved further its authority to the local society, the local national authority therefore achieved a rapid recovery and constantly strengthened, and local autonomy space was decreased under its extrusion, autonomous connotation also changed,local elites had been absorbed into the state’s political system, became the organic composition of the stete power;howere, when they managed the local society as the public officer,they could not detached from local traditional interest relations, therefore this period of the state power localization had open the door wider for they grabbed local political resources in fact. Under the circumstances, Hengyang city politics presented a "national politics" development trend, given the increasingly intensive local party force competition, the trend had been getting worse, totally deviated from the local political modernization development direction.