The Decline Of The Governance Culture Of Folk Regulations

Xiang Yue are important folk regulations for the purpose of self-management and self-service developed on the basis of geopolitical and kinship relationships and promoted by the local elites such as the landed gentry in the grassroots society in a specific time period and space. The unique social environment of China shaped by its traditional cultural atmosphere provides not only the soil for the folk regulations to come into existence, but also the circumstances and driving force for the folk regulations to evolve and develop. The functions of folk regulations multiplied in their evolution, and the administrative function, recruitment-of-public-servers function, and organizational function are emphasized under the influence of the trend toward centralization of authority.In traditional societies, the establishment and maintenance of political order, especially that of the basic level of society, was operated on the basis of cultural order. Governance culture refers to the governance approach in which the rulers take advantage of or acquiesced in cultural means to compensate for governance and to safeguard the ruling. The governance culture represented in traditional folk regulations embraces several dimensions such as legal culture, ethical culture, and edification. These historical regulations helped soften of the coercive force of political power and safeguarded the validity of it. Because of the counteractive effect, state power constantly interrupted the operation of society with external forces, and the governance culture has been changing all the time.Folk regulations bear the beautiful ideal of folk society and represent a "poetic living" model. Confucianism takes folk regulations as its practical path, and in this way the rules of etiquette were practiced and the common people were educated. With the evolution of folk regulations, the culture of it and its original design gradually separated, and the governance culture of folk regulations which was represented by edification, legal culture, and patriarchal culture progressively disintegrated. The folk regulations in the Song Dynasty originated in Lu Shih Folk Regulations, and were adapted by the neo-Confucianist Zhu Xi. Since the Ming Dynasty, the official edification function and local administration functions of folk regulations were enhanced. The folk regulations in the Qing Dynasty became the official tool of edification and announcement of the emperor’s orders. Adapting the functions of other basic-level organizations, folk regulations became more comprehensive and used more often for administrative purpose. In the social upheaval and modernization of the late Qing period, the essence of the governance culture in folk regulations was greatly weakened. The Confucian edification system was terminated by folk regulations, and folk regulations themselves also came to extinction.Governance culture, as a crucial part in the national governance system, and a key indicator of a country’s governance capabilities, is the inevitable requirement of the integration and systematization of national governance. The consideration of governance culture has significant and realistic significance in terms of the improvement of China’s perception of governance and operational plans with distinct Chinese characteristics, the spiritual support for tasks such as the comprehensive and in depth reform, and the solving of profound social problems.This paper has four chapters. The first chapter is the introduction. In this chapter I briefly describe the research status of relevant fields, the methodology and significance of my research, and explain some concepts mentioned in this paper. The second chapter talks about the emergence and development of folk regulations in the Song and Yuan dynasties. I introduce the budding stage of folk regulations in history, and the situation of the promotion of folk regulations in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The third chapter discusses the maturity and evolution of folk regulations in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, especially the reason for, manifestation of and influence of the trend toward emphasis on the folk regulations’ function to recruit people for public services and their administrative function. The fourth chapter focuses on the decline of governance culture in the evolution of folk regulations. By examining folk regulations through the lenses of governance culture, I brief explains the change in the folk regulations’ value and function. Lastly, this paper considers China’s reality and researches the important role of governance culture in the process of "the construction of China’s national governance system and the development of China’s governance capabilities" with pertinent suggestions.