This two-volume set examines the process of integration of rural society and the establishment of the modern state in China. It attempts to transcend general policy claims by analysing China’s rural governance within the state’s integration of rural society over the course of the twentieth century.
Drawing on contemporary examples of state integration while observing the particular background of the Chinese context, this set systematically examines the entire process of the rural reconstruction of China over the course of the 100 years since the period of the late Qing Dynasty, while analysing the special characteristics of each period as well as current societal trends in the Chinese countryside. The first volume explores state penetration of the countryside and the transformation of the rural population from the point of view of politics, labour and resources, administration, and institutional integration. The second volume examines contemporary state integration via the economic activities of traditional rural societies, alongside fiscal, cultural, social, and technological integration. The conclusion summarizes three characteristics that are evident in the process of rural integration and the establishment of the modern state in China.
The two-volume set will be essential reading for scholars and students in Chinese Studies, Political Science, Rural Studies, and those who are interested in the rural reconstruction of China in general.
Volume I 1. Introduction: The Modern State Integration of Rural Governance 2. Regimes, Political Parties and the Masses: Political Integration in the Countryside 3. Land, Products and Labour: Resource Integration in the Countryside 4. Mobilisation, Tasks and Orders: Administrative Integration in the countryside 5. Policies, Laws, and Regulations: Institutional Integration in Rural Society Volume II 1. Planning, Market, and Service: Rural Economic Consolidation 2. Extraction, Distribution, and Investment: Rural Fiscal Integration 3. Propaganda, Education and Literature: Cultural Integration in the Countryside 4. Class, Collective, and Community: Rural Social Consolidation 5. Consumption, Fertility, and Health: Life Integration in Rural Society 6. Discourse, Transportation, and Information: Rural Technological Consolidation 7. Conclusion 8. Epilogue
Biography
Xu Yong is Professor at Central China Normal University who currently serves as Chief of its Political Science Department. He has been devoted to the research of rural China and Chinese politics and has had a significant influence on the research on the relationship between the state and the country based on field study. His representative works include Unbalanced Chinese Politics: A Comparison of City and Country (1992), Villager Autonomy in Rural China (1997), and The State: In the Change of Social Relations (Volume I and II) (2020).
