The Power Structure Of The Rural Community And Rural Development

The development of rural community is one of important issue, which has drawn wide attention of many sociologists for a long time. Especially in recent years, as the "agriculture, country and peasant" problems are emerging in more and more rural areas, it arouses great interest in the fields of politics, economics, and sociology etc. By comparative method of case study, this thesis intends to analyze how the factors of the power structure of rural community-political elites, economic elites and cultural elites, influence the rural development, in the hope that the way to govern the rural areas is found.The thesis suggests that the rural community power is the influence and control power, which some villagers with more resources occupied impose on other villagers. After surveying the Dongwan village and Huokan village, the thesis finds out that the city radiation and infiltration to the rural play an important role in the change of rural power structure. The rural community power structure can be divided into two types: one is radiated and infiltrated strongly by city, the other is radiated and infiltrated lightly by city. In the way, it is deduced that there are two kinds of power structure: the strong-infiltration-oriented and the weak- infiltration-oriented. In the former, more power-owners are multiplied; the governance conduct of political elites is influenced strongly by city, with the tendency to show bureaucratic behavior and dominate the village affairs by them. In contrast, in the latter, there are fewer power-owners and little resources, which indicate the strong integration of the power in the community, and therefore, the village governance is difficult.The research further reveals that the quality and quantity of elites have great important influences on the development of rural community. The political elites, economic elites and cultural elites can propel the modernization by interacting with each other. Finding a point to balance the power will stimulate the community to develop harmoniously. Because of existing inertia of traditional planning system, the political elites will still occupy the dominant position for a long time, at least in the west underdeveloped areas. The economic elites enhance and improve their status in the huge economic tide, spread their influences in the community, and at thesame time, contend the power with the political elites. However, the cultural elites are at the lower status, although their influence is improving, but not distinctly. This phenomenon shows there is still a long way to go for reducing the rural illiterate. Therefore, the thesis argues that it is essential to improve systemization and democratization of the rural power structure, and to realize the rural sustained development. Thus, the thesis concludes that to govern the underdeveloped rural areas better, the key way lies in the authoritative, responsive, and multiplying competition and collaboration...