Abstract
Social transformation represents profound changes in production mode and lifestyle, which calls for structural changes in economy, culture, politics, and society, thus leading to a changed nature of political power, a core subject in political science.
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Notes
- 1.
Professor Li Jingpeng (1995) points out that power and interests lie at the heart of all political phenomena including class struggle (see p. 12). He adds that the new system of the study of political science is focused on the operation of political power and studies political subjects, political behaviors, political relationships, and political mechanisms (see p. 14).
- 2.
Selected Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 4 (1972), 212.
- 3.
Li (1996), 3–4.
- 4.
Ibid., 1.
- 5.
Fei and Luo (1988), 230. According to Luo Hanxian, the socialist economy in China today is in transformation. There are three aspects to it: the transformation from natural economy to commodity economy, the transformation from administrative economy (result of the people’s communes’ administrative power) to independent economy, and the transformation from agricultural economy to diversified economy (dominant industries have shifted in some economically developed areas.).
- 6.
Chinese social development research group, “Institutional Innovation and Challenges in the Mid-term of China’s Reform,” Sociological Studies 1 (1997). The report believes that at the turn of the twenty-first century, China would be in the most important transformation period. The transformation comes in two types. The first is institutional transition from a centrally planned redistributive economy to a socialist market economy. The second is structural transformation from an agricultural, rural, isolated, and traditional society to an industrial, urban, open, and modern society. Though the two changes took place concurrently during the past ten years of reform, they are totally different in nature. As a specific reform, institutional transition takes place in countries with planned economy. Even when the reform is progressive, institutional innovation must be accomplished in a relatively limited period. Otherwise, long-time institutional friction and lack of regulation will result in social disorder. Structural transformation is an unavoidable step in the modernization of all countries. As a matter of fact, it takes much longer than expected, as it usually needs the efforts of several generations to really change a country’s status in world economy. The concurrence of the two changes, plus the socialist political system that China still upholds, distinguishes China’s development model from those in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, which feature institutional transition, and those in emerging industrial countries and regions in East Asia, thus forming the current Chinese characteristics in social development.
As for the Chinese path of development, American scholar Maurice Meisner believes that China, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, was neither a socialist nor a capitalist country, no matter how many changes took place during that period. The Chinese path of development will never be fully understood as long as Marxists and non-Marxists still insist on the outdated hypothesis that there are no alternatives to capitalist and socialist society in the modern world. See Meisner (1992).
- 7.
Wang Sibin, “The Status of Social Work Program in China’s Transformation Period,” Journal of Peking University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) 4 (1997).
- 8.
Zhao Huizhu, “Research Review of the Recent Social Mobility,” People’s Daily 14 Feb. 1998.
- 9.
Zhang Kejian, “Basic Features and Negative Changes of Interpersonal Relationships in Social Transformation Period,” The New Orient 2 (1997).
- 10.
North (1994), 3.
- 11.
Ibid., 126.
- 12.
The three categories of institutions have been widely acknowledged in the West. For more details of the three categories and their influence on institutional innovation, see International Center for Economic Growth (1992), 133–156.
- 13.
Huntington and Nelson (1989), 1.
- 14.
Huntington (1988), 74.
- 15.
Huntington points out that such phenomenon prevails in early modernized countries, with the USA as the only exception. In the eighteenth century, the American War of Independence, the principles of equality and democracy, high literacy rates, high level of education, and the prevalence of land ownership (except in the South) contributed to massive political participation by peasants before the emergence of cities in the USA. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies 74.
- 16.
Samuel P. Huntington and Jorge I. Dominguez, Political Development; Greenstein and Polsby (1996), 189–205. In Chapter III of No Easy Choice: Political Participation in Developing Countries, Huntington and Nelson focused on the relationship between social and economic development and political participation. See pp. 45–69. Norman H. Nie and Sidney Verba have also discussed this topic. See Handbook of Political Science, vol. 2, 326–334.
- 17.
Japanese scholar Ikuo Kabashima divides these factors into four categories to interpret their respective influence on political participation. See Kabashima (1989), 13–14.
- 18.
Ikuo Kabashima summarizes the research findings of Samuel P. Huntington, Jorge I. Dominguez, Norman H. Nie, Sidney Verba and Anthony M. Orumon the relationship between political participation and racial, religious and regional differences: “The differences in religions, races and regions result in conflicting ideologies between different groups in the organization and drive citizens to take part in politics.” For more details of Anthony M. Orum’s research on the relationship between races and political participation, see Orum (1989), 288–290. Works of other scholars can be seen in aforementioned notes.
- 19.
Ikuo Kabashima, Political Participation, 6–10.
- 20.
Norman H. Nie and Sidney Verba, Political Participation; Fred I. Greenstein and Polsby (1996), 300–303.
- 21.
Ibid., 319.
- 22.
Lester W. Milbrath, Political Participation (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1965), qtd. in Anthony M. Orum, Introduction to Political Sociology, 283.
- 23.
Almond and Powell (1993), 64–65.
- 24.
Ibid., 594–596.
- 25.
Wang Puqu, Principles of Political Science (Peking University Press, 1995), 210–214.
- 26.
These arguments are summarized by the author. For interested readers, please refer to the work of Samuel P. Huntington. Political Order in Changing Societies. Also, Huntington and Jorge I. Dominguez. Political Development.
- 27.
G.A. Almond and G.B. Powell Jr., Comparative Politics Today: A World View, 619.
- 28.
Anthony M. Orum, Introduction to Political Sociology, 402.
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Fang, J. (2016). Social Transformation Characteristics and Political Participation. In: Non-institutional Political Participation. China Academic Library. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0048-5_2
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