Abstract
With the implementation of the Household Contract Responsibility System after 1980s, the production mode with household as the core was practiced and further produced the privatization concept of household economy (Kelliher in Peasant power in China: The era of rural reform. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992). An institutional innovation had driven a fundamental change in the entire social and economic life. When the dominant ideology of the state had accepted the “market economy” concept of Western countries and turned the focus to the economic construction, the “privatization” concept recovered and “resurged” because of the relaxed ideological and political control (Hinton in The privatization of China: The great reversal. Earthscan Publications Ltd, London, 1991). In this case, the general understanding of rural China might be summarized as follows. Privatization production made rational calculation the basic principle of interaction between the village government and villagers; village cadres won a position of authority in the village by “doing practical things” for villagers; due to the openness of the national ideological monitor, villagers constructed new forms of civil authority outside the field of state authority. This non-institutionalized authorities maintained mutual competition and dialogue relation with the institutionalized authorities including township government and township court.
Law cannot maintain order by itself, which has to be supported by power…. This power would not be in the hands of one person and manipulated by him, but would be operated and used by many people, thus an arrangement or order is needed for using it. Therefore, there is a power structure or system to exercise power in every society.
Yang Maochun (1980: 44)
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Notes
- 1.
Kelliher had a view that the “privatization ” appeared widely in the society was directly due to the relaxation of personal ideology control by the state in rural area. This happened when public resources and undertakings were controlled by the private. The society would turn from the public control to the private control in all directions, which had really occurred in the process of Chinese rural reform (Kelliher 1992: 176).
- 2.
Document No.7, Zhao County People’s Court (94).
- 3.
Document No. 121, Shijiazhuang City (94).
- 4.
This was a concrete way to fine those who had violated the family planning policy of the state within a year by the Village Committee and Village Party Branch before the annual “family planning work inspection”. The original text of the record here is stored in Li Village.
- 5.
It is selected from an interview record with a villager on April 18th, 1997.
- 6.
Duara once had a detailed analysis on the two-side personality of the low-status local officials in the completion of state tax in the late Qing Dynasty. The magistrate of a county, as official state officer, wouldn’t do the job themselves, so they could only entrust local officials to complete tax tasks. “As a reward for their work, they were entitled to plunder the people without any strict supervision…. All the disadvantages about local official should be understood according to the mode of state agent rather than corruption” (Duara 1988: 46–47).
- 7.
Record of the Family Planning Meeting of the Village Committee .
- 8.
In Li Village, there is a system to distribute collective pear trees to each household according to population change every 10 years.
- 9.
The original text is from the mimeographed script of “Adjustment for Contracting Plan of the Fruit Tree Issued by Li Village Party Branch” stored by the secretary of Li Villager.
- 10.
Bao Zheng, the prime minister in the Song Dynasty, also called Baogong, a legend figure in civil society, is a concrete manifestation of the Chinese’s understanding of authority. Baogong almost became the model of authoritative figures or the prototype of the Chinese’s understanding of authority due to his impartiality. People as high as a leader of the state or as low as a village leader can only establish their authority in others’ heart when they act as the “honest and upright official”, the meticulous Baogong. In civil society, the story of “Baogong’s reincarnation” is used to show the reappearance of impartial social authority while the story of “Baogong’s concealment” is to illustrate the lack of such authority in the society. For example, in Hebei Xingtai area, “Baogong’s reincarnation” is widely spread. In order to illustrate the above point of view, part of the record is as follows: “Baogong’s son was named Biemo and he also wanted to be an honest and upright official. But he didn’t want to imitate his father’s approach. He always wanted to figure out a new way. Therefore, he was against his father in everything. He often set himself against Baogong; when Baogong wanted to beat the dog, he wanted to catch the chicken. In this way, the father and son argued for a lifetime. Baogong saw the disadvantage of his willfulness, which was not beneficial for his future, so he wanted to find a back-up plan. Before his death, he called Biemo around and said: “After I die, do not waste money. Just put me into two stone cisterns and throw me into the Dongyang Ocean.” Recalling his conflict with his father in a lifetime, he agreed immediately since he should no longer hurt his father by denying his final requirement. After Baogong died, Biemo really followed his testament to make a big and thick stone coffin and buried his father into the Dongyang Ocean. Over years, people looked forward to Baogong’s reincarnation, but how long it would take the water to break the big and thick stone coffin! People living on the edge of the sea longed for Baogong’s reincarnation even more. They sought the coffin every day, every month and every generation without success. Once, a relative of the corrupt official discovered the hiding place of the coffin and told the corrupt official. Afraid of being punished by Baogong, he secretly transported the stone coffin into the deeper seabed. It had to wait for the breaking of the stone coffin by the water before Baogong’s reincarnation” (This story is collected by Wu Dashan, Zhang 1989: 374).
- 11.
It is selected from an interview record with a village cadre on August 12th, 1997.
- 12.
There is a basic premise that the benefits obtained by the village cadres should be returned to the villagers. This actually ignores the possible deductions from the benefits obtained from the state by the village cadres before paying back to the villagers. That is the agent fee he obtains in the transaction between the state and the individual. This problem is more complicated without much relation with my following discussion, so I would like to put it aside temporarily with no further discussion.
- 13.
It is selected from the “Warranty by Ten Thousand People” stored by the village secretary .
- 14.
This is what the village secretary told me, but the court archives recorded the sentence of three years imprisonment to Li Qiangwei. But in villagers’ opinion, it was considered a light sentence.
- 15.
It is selected from an interview record on August 15th, 1997 with a village secretary .
- 16.
In the words of Li Villagers, it is called “butter-tonsiled person”.
- 17.
This is in dramatic contrast to the authority of conflict arbitration obtained by the patriarch of the village in “Yixu” of Fujian in 1930s described by Lin Yaohua. Disputes in Yixu Village of Fujian in 1930s were settled through such a process: “The ancestral temple is the highest judicial organ of clan village. Villagers can gather the household head for public discussion and judgment in case of disputes… Disputes are mediated by a parent or household head initially. If they fail, it comes to the branch head or branch temple. If it is refused again, the appeal will be passed to the ancestral temple. The ancestral temple is the Supreme Court of a clan, so it should use its arbitration capacity. Small cases are settled by reprimand and consolation while big issues will be settled in written form after mediation. Anyone dissatisfied with the judgment by the ancestral temple has to complain to the feudal official, but all members in the clan consider lawsuit as a shameful thing” (Lin 1935: 59–60).
- 18.
The questionnaire results of Hu and Hu (1996) in Duanjia Village of Hanchuan County in Hubei Province showed that no one had solved a dispute through court (Hu Biliang, Hu Shunyan, 1996, “Table 9.4 Ways Villagers Used to Settle Disputes”, p. 207). This result, in fact, doesn’t fit into the most basic common sense, because quarrels between husband and wife may be not solved in the court but the divorce disputes should be. Therefore, the survey statistics of Duanjia Village showing that no family dispute was solved by the judicial department is of little practical significance.
- 19.
As a local court presiding judge told me, almost 90% of civil disputes were resolved by the court mediation every year. Especially for divorce cases, the court mediation was a necessary procedure. Because in the court’s opinion, it could maintain family stability, thus social stability would be also kept.
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Zhao, X. (2019). Pluralism of Authority. In: Power and Justice. China Academic Library. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-53834-0_8
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