Social Mechanisms Of Regime Change Of Modern China

This dissertation takes regime change of modern China as the subject of political science; it is a theoretical monograph and is not a narrative political history. The main part of this dissertation includes four chapters. In chapter one "Introduction", four basic conceptions are defined at first:political change, regime change, social mechanism and modern China. Political change can be defined as the change of certain political system. Regime can be reduced as two elements:the design and operation of political institutions, and thus the change of either or both of the elements shall mean the regime change. In order to interpret social processes, social scientists must construct social mechanisms which can create relationship among social phenomena. Finally, modern China in this dissertation starts at The First Opium War and ends at the The Revolution of1911.Series of academic literature are reviewed in the latter part of chapter one. This dissertation reviews publications from two points. First, main analytical models of regime change are reviewed. This dissertation divides these models into two types:one type favors one kind of explanatory variables over other kinds, and another type pays attention to several kinds of explanatory variables. For the former, this dissertation concerns both the structural analysis such as class analysis, modernization theory, structural functionalism, sociological institutionalism, historical institutionalism, and discursive institutionalism, and the agency analysis such as rational choice institutionalism and transiology; for the latter, there are two comprehensive analytical models:social interpretation and political interpretation. These models are not applied mechanically in this dissertation; their significance is in that they provide clues for research.Secondly, historical research is discussed. This dissertation summarizes the characteristics of contemporary research. In China, historical interpretation is a controversial problem among historians of modern China, and modernization historical narrative constitutes the starting point of a lot of research. There are three academic turns among American historians of modern China since1960s:social history turn, inner Asia turn, and Eurasian turn, they have enlarged the research range on modern China in temporal, spatial, and ethnic dimensions.Next three chapters belong to static analysis, dynamic analysis and theoretical construction respectively. Chapter two "The Initial State of Regime Change of Modern China" focuses on political state of China during certain period (i.e. the first half of the nineteenth century) rather than on political situation in a given year (e.g. Daoguan19th year). Chapter two gives an overview of Chinese regime till the first half of the nineteenth century from five aspects.Nature of the regime is the first aspect. There are four characteristics of Qing dynasty as a dynasty of conquest:absolute monarchy, sinicisation of conqueror to some extent, conqueror’s sensitivity of their identity, and construction of ethnic identity of conquerorThe horizontal and vertical distributions of political power are the second aspect."The separation and check of power" in ancient China is different essentially from the similar institution in modern constitutional states. Then this dissertation discusses four issues about the vertical distributions of political power:stratification among agencies within the state power system, unitary system with high centralization of power, provincial self-rule, and autonomous organizations in city and grass-roots self-rule in rural China.Confucianism as state ideology is the third aspect. The main content of Confucianism includes distinction between Chinese and barbarian, theory of factual legitimacy, principle of social estates, theory of loyalty, filial piety, chastity and righteousness, moral norms favoring community over individual, and theory of benevolent government. Confucianism as state ideology plays important role in four spheres, for instance, it functions as discursive media indispensible for each social class to understand politics; the members of Chinese society are disciplined by it; it is useful for the stability of certain state of social stratification; and it can meet some spiritual needs of different classes. The long prevalence of Confucianism depends upon several exogenous conditions, such as the support of sovereigns and the promotion of state, lack of powerful competitors, static state of agricultural society, and psychological needs of individuals in ordinary life. Endogenous features are also important for the prevalence of Confucianism, Confucianism is itself very attractive to every social class, and its adaptability and compatibility are strong, both are endogenous features for its prevalence.Actual operation of political institutions is the fourth aspect. This dissertation points three phenomena in which political scientists shall be particularly interested:officialism, rule of virtue, whitewash through manipulation of discourse and prevarication.The relationships between center and periphery are the fifth aspect. This dissertation analyses three relationships:the relationship between the central government and the border region, the relationship between China and vassal states, and the relationship between China and foreign states (esp. European states). They correspond with three institutions:institution concerning frontier governance, tributary system, and institution concerning isolation from foreign states.This dissertation consciously emphasizes the features of political research in various ways while describing the initial state of the regime change of modern China. For distance, it focuses on common phenomena rather than particular ones, combines interpretation with description, and applies comparative methods.Chapter three discusses the processes of the regime change of modern China.First, the abstract regime change is constructed according to the analysis of change of social stratification. Section one of chapter three particularly considers the roles in the processes of regime change played by six social classes:sovereigns, senior officials, new occupation groups, new political organization, people without organizational or occupational identity, and women.Secondly, the concrete processes of the regime change are discussed; this dissertation takes into consideration the break of the closed state of Qing regime at first. Series of foreign wars since The Opium War broke the closed state of Qing regime, and they have profound impacts on economy, politics, and national mentality of modern China.Thirdly, the state of the vertical distributions of political power has changed. This dissertation emphasizes both the changes of the relationship between central and local authority and of the relationship between state and society. The relationship between Chinese central and local authority was changing since The Opium War, such change manifested in three fields:expansion of the economic, military, and political powers of governor general and governor; rising of new political interests based on local society; and strength of autonomy. The change of the relationship between state and society is also obvious. For instance, urban autonomous organizations of modern China (esp. chambers of commerce) were not purely economic bunds, they had their own political demands and participated in politics in various ways; after the promulgation of Self-government Chart for City, Town and Country by Qing court, the autonomy of rural grass-roots communities which was a social right based political tradition till then became a legal rights.Fourthly, the reforms of basic political institutions are discussed at last. This dissertation considers mainly the impacts both of abolishment of imperial civil-service examination and of constitutional movement at the first ten years of the twentieth century. Abolishment of imperial civil-service examination led to the change of social structure, the change of social interaction patterns of individuals (esp. intellectual elites), the alienation from Qing regime of masses (no limited to intellectual elites), the collapse of basic of the regime, and the weakness of legitimacy of the regime. Constitutional movement promoted expectation of masses at first and made them disappointed for Qing government at last; at the same time, the legitimacy of the regime disappeared gradually. This dissertation introduces a question: why did reformers implement actively the policies which would rule themselves out? The author gives two explanations:one resorts to rational strategies of reformers and the other particular situation at the beginning of the twentieth century China which structured the choice of reformers.Chapter four is the part concerning theoretical construction. This dissertation constructs three mechanisms.The mechanism of suspension of normative effectiveness of regime is the first one. It manifests itself in five cases:natural elimination and preservation of political institutions; substitution of components of regime for each other; no equilibrium distribution of regime in temporal and spatial dimensions; manipulation of political institutions; and alienation of agencies from regime. These cases reflect the logic of generation of political order which may be named as Normative Kraft des Faktischen.The mechanism of construction of identities of agencies is the second one. This dissertation analyses the relationships between five kinds of agency and regime change: vindicator of the regime, alien, regulator of the regime, challenger of the regime, and public intellectual elites.The mechanism of self-protection of the regime is the third one. It depends on special institutions, such as state education system, state propaganda system, selection system of persons implementing policies and exercising state power, and compulsory system.The relationships between three mechanisms and regime change may be abstracted into two types:the function of the mechanism of self-protection is significant while the functions of other two mechanisms are not significant; and conversely, the function of the mechanism of self-protection is not significant while the functions of other two mechanisms are significant. In the former case, qualitative change of regime may not happen; in the latter case, the processes of regime change are uncertain.Construction of three mechanisms is common for various analytical models discussed in chapter one, thus the differences among these models are less essential than their terms may show. No matter what model or models political scientists may prefer in interpreting regime change, all of them should construct social mechanisms for which three mechanisms in this dissertation are basic.In short, various aspects of Chinese regime changed from The Opium War to The Revolution of1911:the sanction of the regime over some new social classes weakened or even vanished; the closed state of the regime was broken; unitary system with high centralization of power could not be maintained; state was not the monopolist of political power any more; and some basic political institutions were reformed at the beginning of the twentieth century. During these processes of regime change, normative effectiveness of regime suspended, different kinds of actors reconstructed their identities, and self-protection systems failed.