Abstract
While this topic is big, it is a small event that inspired this chapter.
“Power” is basically the ability of an actor or organization to influence the attitudes and actions of other actors or organizations.
—Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Science(Deng Zhenglai (chief editor) trans., China University of Political Science and Law Press, 1992, p. 595).
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Notes
- 1.
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison, trans. by Alan Sheridan, Vintage Books, 1978.
- 2.
Edward W. Said , The Orientalism, Penguin Books, 1978.
- 3.
Pierre Bourdieu, Loic Wacquant: Practice and Reflection—Introduction to Reflexive Sociology, translated by Li Meng and Li Kang, Central Compilation and Translation Press, 1998, and Bao Yaming (chief editor): Interview of Pierre Bourdieu—Cultural Capital and Social Alchemy, translated by Bao Yaming, Shanghai People’s Press, 1997.
- 4.
It is very difficult for the basic-level courts which we visited to get full funding. They not only lacked work expenditures seriously, and some courts even paid their judges 80 % of their salary. In a poverty-stricken county, a judge told me that of the 12 months of the previous year, he received less than 200 yuan each month in 9 months and 3 months in which 100 yuan was delayed temporarily or deducted due to fees (such as poverty relief, “voluntary donation” organized by the court, fees to fight flood and deal with emergencies).
- 5.
In this sense, in today’s China, many subjects which are supposed to emphasize empirical research depend their “research results” on copying other books and “fabricating books,” including using ancient books. Why? Apart from the academic model of “elaborating the theories of the predecessors while having no original ideas of one’s own,” and the training lacking empirical research, one of the important reasons may be having no money to conduct empirical research. If this speculation is established, then judging from this perspective, the issue of money can even influence the general patterns of the academic development of a nation.
- 6.
Please note that that this actually implies the most common definition of power in political science: the ability of actors or institutions to influence the attitudes and behaviors of other actors or institutions.
- 7.
In a court we visited, there were 4 students taking different posts who I used to teach. Apart from them, there was an alumnus of Peking University who was taking a senior post as well as a classmate of an acquaintance who worked as the president of the court. Our interview achieved the best results in the jurisdiction of this court.
- 8.
I only give one example here. When we arrived at the city, we noticed that there were even two departments sending people to meet us at the station, which made us feel extremely uneasy.
- 9.
Foucault, as previous note 1 please also see section 3–6 of Chap. 1 of this book: “Why Send Law to the Countryside?”
- 10.
Bian Zhilin: “A Broken Stanza,” Carving Insects, People’s Publishing House, 1979.
- 11.
This is the opinion of Mr. Li Yiyuan when criticizing this article.
- 12.
This point can be argued. Where is our knowledge-acquiring capability from? Many of our capabilities of observation and analysis, especially the theoretical framework for analysis, are not obtained naturally as we grow up, but are achieved in the long process of education, learning, and training. On the other hand, not all people, or people with the same intellectual potential, have the same kind of opportunity for learning and training. Those opportunities are actually connected to the family’s wealth, social, and living environment of many individuals (please think about the sayings like “children from poor families share the household burden early” and “it takes three generations to cultivate a nobleman” which imply that wealth builds different capabilities of people). If we see part of this capability as a kind of deposited wealth, then the proposition about the utilization of power resource—at least in logic—still holds water for the formation of knowledge capabilities, though I’m not that sure this is truly so. Research and analysis in terms of esthetic interests of related questions can refer to Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. by Richard Nice, Harvard University Press, 1984.
- 13.
Apart from the above-mentioned Foucault, please also see Anthony Giddens : Nation State and Violence, translated by Hu Zongze and Zhao Litao, SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1998, p. 9.
- 14.
It is highlighted in some news concerning real people and events and some literature reports, such as disputes caused by Report on Majiajun (Zhao Yu, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing Corporation, 2000).
- 15.
There are many books of this kind. Please refer Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities, Harvard University Press, 1980; for Chinese materials, please see Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities, translated by Qian Yan, edited by Sheng Ning, collected in Latest Collection of Western Literary Articles, Lijiang Publishing House, 1991. For opposite opinions, please see E. D. Hirsch, Validity in Interpretation, translated by Wang Caiyong, Joint Publishing, 1991.
- 16.
Please see Suli: “Difficult Problems of Interpretation: Looking into Different Ways to Interpret Legal Texts,” Social Sciences in China, Issue 3, 1997. Please also see: Richard A. Posner, Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation, Harvard University Press, 1988, especially Chap. 5.
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© 2016 Foreign Language Teaching and Research Publishing Co., Ltd and Springer Science+Business Media Singapore
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Zhu, S. (2016). Power Resources of Legal Sociology Surveys. In: Sending Law to the Countryside. China Academic Library. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1142-9_11
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