On The Change Of Chinese Peasants’ Political Culture And Its Influence Factors

Political culture is an important dimension for understanding the real political life, thetheory of political culture is an effective tool for studying political system and its operation.The research of the change of Chinese peasants’ political culture and its determinants ishelpful to understand the overall situation and trends of peasants’ political values andattitudes and to clarify the main influencing factors of peasants’ political culture. Therefore ithelps us to grasp the trend of peasants’ political culture and its role and meaning to thedevelopment of Chinese democratic politics scientifically and accurately.This paper chooses the survey approach of the study of political culture based on fivewaves of surveys. The logical structure of this paper is that: firstly checking whether thepeasants ’ political culture has changed, secondly analyzing how it has changed, thirdlychecking what factors influence it, finally exploring the path of its change. This paper consistsof the following chapters: The first chapter is the introduction. In the second chapter to thefourth chapter, it is about the change and its influencing factors of peasants’ political value,the evaluation of democracy and the concept of democratic election. The fifth chapterexplores the applicability and explanatory power of life cycle, generational shift andinstitutional learning. The sixth chapter summarizes the basic findings, innovation anddeficiency.This paper shows that the political culture of the Chinese peasants become moremodernized between1999and2011. But at the same time, peasants’ political culture also hasconsiderable complexity, its dimensions is not consistent. Personality factors, social andeconomic conditions, political socialization, social psychological factors and publicparticipation affecting the different dimensions of peasants’ political culture, and thesignificance, direction and degree are different. Life cycle effect is weak to Peasants’ PoliticalCulture change. Peasants’ political value and evaluation of democracy shift generationally,and the concept of democratic election change in the institutional learning path.In a word, Chinese peasants’ political culture is transitional, mixed and complex in thetransitional period. The findings of this paper show that Chinese peasants’ political culture isnot an obstacle to the realization of democratic aspirations. On the contrary, it may be the important cultural environment and psychological foundation for the development ofdemocratic politics in China.