MONOGRAPHIC STUDY

　　Constructing the Chinese Covernance System: History and Reality

　　Competing for Attention in the Chinese Bureaucracy

　　Lian Hong

　　Abstract：The curvilinear, but not linear competition for attention is a puzzling phenomenon in the Chinese bureaucracy. That is, a functional department promotes its policy by the authority of the Party committees and governments rather than relying on professional guidance. Traditional theory assumes that multiple principals have the same status. They form intergroup comparison and mutual competition. Under the circumstance, multiple principals compete for the agent’s attention by quantitative appraisal and accountability, which induce the agent’s scare attention and low-powered incentive. In this paper, we propose a Chinese ternary hierarchical structure. Multiple principals have different authority status; they form intra-group comparison and one-way dependency. The incentive intensity of multitasking firstly depends on the affiliated principal’s authority status, and then quantitative appraisal and accountability. This hierarchy structure endogenously induces the curvilinear competition for attention and the agent simultaneously has high-powered and low-powered incentive. We further analyze the unexpected consequences of hierarchical structure, such as the Matthew Effect of the authority status, the development dilemma of rational hierarchy and the rule of law.　

　　Market Disputes and Government Intervention: A “risk transformation” framework

　　Xiang jinglin

　　Taking a loan dispute in Wenzhou Private Lending Service Center as an example, this study tries to answer why local governments tend to be involved in transaction disputes when they claim to be the rule makers or market regulators. By introducing the perspective of institutional analysis, this paper constructs the theoretical framework of risk transformation and argues that the process of governments’ passive involvement includes two aspects: 1) the transformation of economic risk to political risk; 2) the governments’ responses to the risk transformation. The completeness of law, the association between local governments and market players, and the possibility of the government’s withdrawal from the society are the three structural factors leading to risk transformation. The potential political risk is positively correlated with the governments’ passive involvement in the transaction disputes. This paper contributes to the existing literature by providing a new analytical path for the governments’ role in the market transition and social construction of the market system.　　

　　Studies on Jingtian and Modern China: Research on jingtian in the first half of the 20th century

　　Lin peng

　　As the origin of the Chinese land policy, jingtian is not only “historical”but also concerns the “ideal”and “fact”.Faced with threat to national security and the influence of western thoughts, modern China witnesses a heated debate over jingtian along three lines of understanding: jingtian as “history”,“ideal”and “fact”, more specifically, between the division of “ideal-fact”in the New Text Confucianism and the “history-fact”in the Old Text Confucianism. During the Republican era, scholars reignited the debate over jingtian to draw insights from traditions and explore paths for a modern China. In the 1920s, Hu and Liu conducted research on jingtian as “history” and the “ideal”. In the 1930s and 1940s Guo and Gao reestablished the unity of different understandings over jingtian by reuniting them in social theory. In all the efforts, the tension between “history” and “ideal” remains the focus of the debate. 

　　PAPER

　　Consumption Tendencies of Social Classes in Today’s China: From survival consumption to developmental consumption

　　Zhangyi

　　Drawing upon CSS data to analyze the consumption tendencies of social classes in China, this paper finds out a relatively high average consumption tendency among the social classes of farmers, workers and old middle class. Yet, due to income restriction, the marginal consumption tendency among farmers and workers is relatively low. After a further demarcation between survival consumption and developmental consumption, the marginal tendency of survival consumption among the farmers, workers and old middle class is relatively high. By contrast, the marginal survival consumption tendency among the new middle class is relatively low, while the marginal developmental consumption tendency is rather high. Thus, the top-level design for China’s supply side structural reform should focus on the famers, workers and old middle class for survival consumption, and the new middle class and the proprietor class for developmental consumption.

　　Parts as the Wholes: The broadening of the scope of community study from the perspective of a village

　　Wang mingming

　　In the mid-1930s, Wu Wenzao combined human ecology and ethnography to create an influential methodology of the “community study”.In this article, the author reconsiders Wus synthesis. As Wu emphasizes, rural communities are “life worlds”in the broad sense of the term. They are sites where the relationships between persons, persons and things, and persons and divinities(sometimes overlapping with persons and things)co-exist. These sites are parts of the larger regional and civilizations whole, but they themselves are also wholes, being places where old and new traditions come to be re-engaged in the local life. This is the very essence of the “little tradition”.Wu rightly defined the community as a world of material(ecological), social, and “spiritual”existence. However, being a social-centric sociologist, he did not allow an adequate space for the understanding of the material and“spiritual”aspects of the“life world”of the community. In this methodological critique, the author reflects on the existing theories of the “little” and “great” traditions.　　

　　Family Background and Children’s Academic Performance: Evidence from the compulsory education in China

　　Li zhonglu & Qiu zeqi

　　Education is a lasting process. Academic performance in primary education plays a crucial role in obtaining further educational opportunities. Thus, it is necessary to examine how family background affects children’s academic achievement at an early stage. Through statistical analysis of data from the Chinese Family Panel Study in 2010(CFPS2010), this paper proposes two pathways through which family influences children’s academic performance. Firstly, parents compete for high quality education opportunities for their children. Better educational opportunities lead to better academic performance. Secondly, parenting behavior and educational support for their children could cultivate children’s learning habits and affect academic performance. We also find urban students’ academic performance are more heavily affected by their families’ socioeconomic status and the students’ effort, compared with rural students. These findings bear important implications for how to reduce the class difference in students’ academic performance and promote educational equity in contemporary China.　　

　　The Intergenerational Emotion and Solidarity in Transitional China: Comparisons of two kinds of parent-relier families in Shanghai

　　Liu rurong

　　The phenomenon of parent-relier embodies the structural tension and intergenerational ambivalence in transitional Chinese families. Two kinds of parent-relier families in shanghai are compared, including the attitudes, response strategy to parent-relier and the impact on the intergenerational relationship. In order to discuss coexistence of conventionality and modernity in today’s Chinese family life, the interaction and tension among the pursuits for materials, values and affective are analyzed. The findings of this research suggest that the reflexive change in urban families has not resulted in the familial individualization. On the contrary, the ethic of the intergenerational responsibility has been reconfigured in the individual reflexivity and negotiated practices. The emotional structure of “parent-child integration”is strengthened in the transitional society, which contributes to the strong cultural resilience of the intergenerational cooperation tradition.　　

　　“Resoluteness”as the Attitude towards Life and the New Intelligentsia: Liang Shuming’s early discussion on the path of Chinese culture

　　Wei wenyi

　　Modern China was faced with a double crisis: the collapse of social structure and a mental confusion. The traditional gentry, who played a role in social integration and moral cultivation gradually declined. However, intellectuals who tended to promote social change took vigorous and constructive action in a positive spirit. In the context of these crises, Liang Shuming systematically constructed the philosophy of life. The attitude put forth was “resoluteness”, which integrated the theory of human nature and historical reality, and responded to the controversy over Western and Eastern cultures. On the one hand, “resoluteness” appeared in a plain form of the universal and abstract will. It then grew into the attitude towards life which was complicated and deep. The attitude integrated the three world cultures, including Confucianism, Buddhist philosophy and Western thought. On the other hand, the new intelligentsia as the bearer of “resoluteness” developed this attitude within their circle, and vowed to reconstruct the rural society. “Resoluteness” was the final answer to life and social problems, for which Liang devoted all his life in searching.

　　REVIEW

　　Economy and Society in the Ethnic Enclave: Revisiting the ethnic enclave economy theory

　　Di jinhua & Zhou min

　　The development and governance of the ethnic enclaves have long-lasting impacts on both international migrants, their ethnic communities and host societies. Prior research has yielded fruitful results but has overemphasized the enclave’s internal social structure, and its temporal effect on assimilation. This paper aims to achieve dual goals. First, it examines the inner logic of a common research path— “studying the economy from the society”. Second, it advances an alternative research path— “studying the society from the economy”. We argue that the new research path places the ethnic enclave at the center of analysis and allows researchers to move beyond the dichotomy of “segregation versus integration”, or “the marginal versus the mainstream”. The paper also highlights the significant ways in which the ethnic enclave affects processes of conflict, cooperation, and negotiation within and across ethnic communities and individual choices in these processes.　

　　Intersectionality: A new perspective for the Chinese gender sociology

　　Su Yihui

　　This paper explores the origin, core concept, fundamental methodology and trend of intersectionality as a paradigm in the global gender study. It also discusses the boundary of this paradigm used in the Chinese gender sociology. Originated from the American anti-racist movement, intersectionality brings class and race inequality into gender analysis. As a critique of the post-modern Feminist, the development of intersectionality includes three models: the inclusive model, the process-center model, and the systematic model. It has been introduced into the developing country and provides guidance to practices to change the gender inequality.