From Autonomy To Official Governance:Research Of The Nationalization Of The Rural Convention In The Qing Dynasty

The rural convention was produced in the Northern Song dynasty, pioneered by the Shaanxi Lantian Lv Dajun. It is a pioneering undertaking in the history of our village governance. And it is also a great attempt for the grassroots to seek their own development. The original rural convention is an autonomous organization dedicated to moral education, and it also made a great contribution for the stability of the social order.The development of the organization also caused the attention of the official. To the Ming dynasty, the official started meddling in the affairs. And in the Qing dynasty the situation was even worse, the national trend of the rural convention becoming increasingly serious, reflected in the settings, functions and management and other aspects. The national trend of the rural convention improved the official’s job performance, but its negative effects were more serious. Because the organization was given too much public functions, and this made its most important enlightenment function weakened. Meanwhile, the generalization of its permissions also made it increasingly intensified conflict with the official, and the leaders domineered over the grassroots. The national trend changed the nature of the rural convention. It became a tool of the official to control the grassroots.This article looks at the phenomenon of the national trend of the rural convention in Qing dynasty, focusing on its characteristics and effects. The first part introduces the development of the rural convention before the Qing dynasty, in order to sort out the overall context of the rural convention and to discover its true colors as an autonomous organization. The second part analyses the transformation of the rural convention in the Qing dynasty, as well as its national characteristics and inherent reason. And the third part expounds the evaluation of Qing dynasty rural conventions nationalization phenomenon. It does play a positive role, but there is no denying that its negative influence is more serious. The failure of the rural convention brought us endless thinking:autonomy and official governance can be said to be a pair of contradictions in social governance, but they supplement each other at the same time, and how to achieve the internal integration should be the eternal subject for a better development of the society.The research of the nationalization of the rural convention in Qing dynasty can bring us many inspirations. Our country present stage also implement the rural villagers’ autonomy system and the system of self-governance among urban residents, how to deal with the relationship between state power and the autonomy is the problem that we must seriously study and solve. Only to find the balance between them can really play the role of autonomy, and realize the basic social order stability.