The Research On The Relationship Between Gentry Administration And State Power In Recent History

The purpose of this dissertation aims to discuss how to guarantee not only the state’s control over lower society but also embodiment of a reality that social autonomy comes into practice in rural area through what ways to deploy rural public power in an eastern country like China which has profound traditions as well as facing modernization. To choose the way of "gentry administration and state power" to solve the above research problem is based on a methodology to combine the empirical studies in history and logical analysis in politics of law.To define the carnal concept is the logical starting point for research. From historical narratives about gentry and linguistic context, this paper delivers a structural defining criterion, including knowledge, fortune, and identification, by refining shared characteristics from different historical periods. The fundamental one is the identification element. In other words, after having elements of knowledge and fortune, a well-recognized gentry must obtain a public identification in social action, because it is to justify his social authoritative. It indicates the understanding of gentry can be conducted in dynamic gentry’s administration (GA). Just from the perspective of the empirical studies in history, the GA is obviously a historical product. An inclusive historical study on GA is thus only able to analyze and interpret but predict for future. However, it does not mean we cannot see the hidden facts from historical appearance, though we must acknowledge the limitation of ration and inquisition. To adopt the logical analysis in politics of law can help us to find certain universal legal principle from historical GA. The concept of "Gentry’s Administration" in this paper is originally from administration theories in politics of law. So-called "administration" emphasizes the co-existence and partnership of multi-subjects, as well as democratic, collaborative, and compromising spirit. "Administration" in nature is to re-integrate public power. In other words, how to reasonably deploy public power between state and society, and how to effectively run the power within state and society in respective as well as collaborate with each other. The gentry’s administration refers to a dynamic balance of the relationship between state and rural society through gentry’s action, that is, to satisfy the need of state to control rural society on the one hand, and on the other to contain over-suppression towards rural area from state power and thus to protect their common benefits. This is apparently a benign relationship of state-society which is embodied in rural field area.The key institution of GA to function well in the centralized state power of the traditional Chinese politics is to deal with its relationship with state power. Based on this premise, this paper examined the interaction and gaming between GA and state power through a historical full length shot in recent history, which is from the middle 16th century to the middle of 20th century. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a backdrop of traditional state, the GA existed as both of the extension of and a protective filter against the state power. It itself embodies the overlapping, co-existent, and collaborative relationship between state and society. It is the "adjustor" function of the GA running the gigantic imperial mechanism. At the end of late Qing dynasty, the GA sometimes overpowered the state authority, but it is trustworthy and reliable in general. The alliance of the two made the Qing imperial safely overcome the inner crisis for contemporarily and reach a new century. However, this collaborative and coexistent relationship between the GA and state power was broken up upon the big social change in the early half 20th century. In the process of modernization from the late Qing Dynasty towards the Republic of China, on the one hand, the GA was inevitably broken because the state power attempted to control rural society directly, and on the other hand, the implementing of rural autonomy at the level of state jurisdiction alienated the GA. Ultimately, the GA was dying out in the setting of both abandoning from state and rural society. Thus, the "buffering area" originated from the GA between state and rural society was no place to go. As a result, the state power confronts rural area, without constructing a state-citizen relationship, which is the ideal of the Western nation-state. On the contrary, the former turned to be unrestrained, while the latter gradually backed to the bottom of line. An overthrowing revolution was therefore incubating and finally blowing out. Hereafter, China has walked on the way of the omnipotent approach in politics until the emergence of rural autonomy since 1980s. Under the western discourse of citizen society, the topic of reorganizing the public power in rural society is mentioned again.From the point of view of constitutionalism, as a social autonomy, rural autonomy is a refection of rural field area between state and society. However, the antagonism power of social autonomy against state power in terms of the principle of law cannot be carried out in practice. The early citizen-society theories based on bifurcation obviously fails to resolve China’s problem. On the contrary, the public domain theories in 20th century can meet Chinese needs on certain aspects. The emergence of public domain represents the change of the western value on constitutionalism, which not emphasizing the strict split between sate and society as well as public and private domain, but proposing amalgamation and penetrability based on splitting. This new constitutionalism value means much for constructing of Chinese constitutionalism, because it not only coincides to the reality of state-society in current China, but also reminds us of a historical tradition in China-the Gentry Administration. In nature, the Gentry Administration reflects the collaborative and co-existent relationship between state and society. As far as this rural community concerned, the GA does pursue and achieve the freedom and autonomy of rural area under some specific historical conditions.If we agree that rural freedom and autonomy is the essence of popular sovereignty and to limit state power for protecting this grass-root democratic politics is the essence of constitutionalism, the Gentry Administration can probably form a Chinese mode towards constitutionalism though some creative transformation under new historical conditions. If the future of Chinese constitutionalism is an image from Chinese social change which self-driven and keeping consistent from content to form, it is helpful for constructing this image through historical approach. From this point, we believe, the Gentry Administration is both empirical and theoretical.