Rural Social Capital And Village Groups Governance - The Wanxi Longzhen Thinking

Today modernization is the trend of the social development, but modernization doesn't mean that rural society will be lost. Whereas it can lead to the fusion and development of city and countryside. They interact and advance mutually. Modernization denotes that traditional society transits to modern society, but it doesn't imply that the tradition will disappear. Traditional factors also play great roles in modernization, especially in the rural governance. Rural social capital puts traditional elements together, so, in my paper, I apply rural social capital to researching the governance of a small village group which is at the bottom of the rural social organization, and try to find out the function of rural social capital on the governance of the small village group, and probe into the traditional and modern point of contact in the course of the village modernization, and discuss the position and function of the governance of the small village group in the course of the governance of rural society, looking forward to the future of the governance of the small village group.The small village group is the basic organization in the structure of the village governance. It is a typical "familiar society". Its governance is different from that of administrative village which is "semi-familiar society", and is more different from the governance of villages and towns. The condition of the governance of the small village group can directly influence that of village governance, further influence that of villages and towns, and at last influence that of the whole rural society. However, Chinese and foreign scholars in the course of researching the rural society and its governance in China, most of them focus their study on villages and towns' and administrative village governance, while ignoring the research of the governance of the small villagegroup. Therefore, I singled out a typical example--Long Town (located in thewest of Anhui province ), which is located in the undeveloped areas of China, especially in the middle and western parts, to study its governance at the smallvillage groups. After New China has been set up, with national power further penetrating into the countryside, the rural society has been taking acute changes. Besides, after reforming and opening up, market economy embedded in the rural society. Just like many other towns in the middle areas in China, community memory at Long Town is gradually being lost. In the meantime, because economic and social differentiation is not full, traditional factors still work on the rural governance.In my paper, I put emphasis on inquiring into the interaction among four kinds of force-system elites in the small village, non-system elites out of the small village group, elites out of the village( another force) and ordinary villagers in the small village group. And their interactions impact on the governance of the small village group. In my paper, some vivid cases are applied to presenting the logic of action between elites and villagers. My paper highlights the function of rural social capital on the governance of the small village group by unfolding "social fact". Meanwhile, we may also see through relations between state and society in the form of "social miniature" of the small village group, explore state how to permeate the basic level and how to control the rural society, in the course of constructing modern state (nation-state), inspect democratic politics in the country, and question the effect of the institution of villager's autonomy on the rural society.