Power, Discourse And Social Control

This paper, with social control theory as methodology and with the relationship between the state and society in macro-historical perspective as its main framework, elaborates how the KMT rebuild the rule of order and effective implementation of local control in Wanzai county of Jiangxi province after CCP withdrew the Soviet Area, and all of these processes are considered an organic part of the construction of modern state power in the 20th century in China. Based on this, the paper is to clarify historical significance and social consequences of the reconstruction of the new order in Wanzai County.In addition to "Introduction" and "Conclusion", the paper is divided into two parts, consisting of five chapters. The two parts, from the perspective of building the political power at the grass-roots level in one and controlling local society in another, research the order of local regime in Wanzai County.The first section, consisting of two chapters, is mainly on the specification and analyzation of the Wanzai's local power. Through the presentation of bureaucratic organization system in Wanzai County, this section indicates that the National Government has reconstructed political order and has sunk its power to the level of Bao in grass-roots after 1934.Chapter 1:The National Government implemented government reform at the county level, which aimed to improve the efficiency of administration to serve the attacking the Soviet Area and the ameliorating political system defects. The state strengthened county magistrates'selection and service rating system, strengthening the county administrative personnel qualification examination and assessment and monitoring the implementation of top-down. In this process, the state established a modern bureaucratic system and civil system, avoiding the phenomenon that county executive's career was depended on county magistrate.Chapter 2:National Government's county government reform not only reflected in the county level, but also to improve the grass-roots social organization system. For this effect, the District Department'function is weakened, into something like the county dispatched supervisory bodies. Township and village organizations began to expand, became the focus of national political power at the grass-roots level. At the same time, Bao began to assume the administrative organization of the most at the end. However, with the extension of the regime, the basic administrative staff came into erosion of state power, a general decay and deterioration. This was partially to offset the construction of state power efficiency.The second section is composed of three chapters, which are on Wanzai's local management and its social influence. Starting with social management of Baojia, this section discusses kinds of measures adopted by Wanzai's local authority to permeate social life and education ideology among the people, and gives a conclusion of its significance and social influence to that era.Chapter 3:In the 1930s, a significant method of political revolution at grass-roots level was to stop autonomy and rebuild Baojia. Baojia was regarded as a political method of preventing evildoer to associate bandit suppression. In this progress, functions of Baojia were enhanced and it gradually possessed characters of military and policeman, which led the Kuomintang (KMT) oppress people more seriously. Considering its advantages only, Baojia was indeed the effectiveness in Wanzai county and even in Jiangxi Province. Since the failure of fifth counter encirclement campaign, the power of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Wanzai didn't recover all the time and even withdrawal out completely after 1942.Chapter 4:The construction of state power is not only demanding success in political construction, but also taking effect on social life. For this propose, this chapter discuss in three aspects. Firstly, the government of the Republic of China carried out cooperative movement to revive countryside. Though the movement didn't rescue its downfall, it was indeed strengthen its domination in economics. Secondly, the government established an innately patriarchal system to satisfy the need of bandit suppression, and regarded it as supporter in patriarchal domain. Thirdly, in order to providing fund of Bao School, the government sorted and counted public funds and money among the people strictly. Under the strong national power, social existence space is being suppressed or reduced.Chapter 5:After recapture the Soviet Area, the government of the Republic of China confronted legality problem. In order to eliminate remnant thought of communism and inculcate state ideology, the government pushed Bao School at full stretch. This policy promoted the transformation from traditional education to modern one. But due to lacking of fund and teachers, and chaos of management, the objective of Bao School to integrating social rule idea was not remarkable. At the same time, in the progress of implement Bao School, the government also adopted policies of banning home school and private school, which revealed local authority's irresponsibility. The normalization of private school essentially showed that the process of the state power augmentation and the process of the civil power reduction in angle of state view.In summary, from 1930 to 1940, Wanzai county had continued the policies of authority delegation which inherited from Qing dynasty. The legality of regime took the place of the legality of traditional culture, and replaced traditional local authority which was depending on mandatory and irreplaceable of state power. Accompany with the center of bureaucratic government moving from county to Bao, elites of provincial were under state supervisory control, and gradually followed state political path. It is more seriously that the local resources were completely exploited by the nation government, which led to its living room narrowed until losing its function in bygone days. Thus, the state government had constructed a rule order of strengthens the government and weaken the society, achieved the goal of controlling basement layer of the society.