"Administrative Village": The State Governance Of Country Society

"Village"appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and wildly used in the Wei, Jin and South-and-North dynasties, the system of village had been instituted until the Tang Dynasty. As a result of separately administrating of city and countryside, village was a unit divided according to the living area; it was different to the hierarchy units established by the number of families.Whether the traditional rural governance was official government or self-government was dependent on four elements, as follow: governance organization, administrative divisions, governors and charges, and governance functions. The administrative process of rural governance was also the administrative process of these elements. "Administrative village" was established when regime went to the countryside, "regime going to the countryside" began in the early 20th century, both the Qing government and Nanjing KMT Government wanted to practice state-making, but when the state power was not too formidable to go down to the grass roots, the superincumbent performance of state-making was bound to be failure. The Communist Party of China organized peasants, led them to take part in revolution, and found a way of integrating to the home village, finally the state governance of country society had been realized:the top-down governance hierarchy, the distinct administrative divisions, institutionalization of bureaucrat and charge, and the administrative activities. "Administrative village" is an administrative division, in order to administer countryside effectively; the state divided the rural areas into several pieces and regions. With the state power stretching to the country and permeates, the village changes from its natural attributes into administrative attributes. From 1949 to 1954, "Administrative village" played an important role in the rural grass-roots power construction at the grass-roots level in rural areas. After that, the significance of "administrative village" changed, the governance unit separate into division and entity, "administrative village" continues to use just as a administrative division, the area coverage has been changing frequently, the same as the governance entity and function. Administrative village symbol the state governance of country society, which is the product of modern state building.