CC BY
2Вэй Ши
Доцент в колледже марксизма, Шанхайский университет политических наук и права.
Обзор исследования «Управление сельскими районами» в Китае (2000-2023 гг.)
Wei Shi
Associate Professor, College of Marxism, Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.
A review of research on «Rural Governance» in China (2000-2023)
Introduction
In the report of the 19th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed for the first time the strategic plan and long-term layout of socialism with Chinese characteristics for the new era of "rural revitalization strategy", and came up with new requirements for "a sound rural governance system that combines autonomy, rule of law, and rule of virtue" [1]. The 20th CPC National Congress once again emphasized the comprehensive promotion of rural revitalization work. In this context, how to optimize rural social governance, promote the resolution of the "three rural issues" of agriculture, rural area, and farmers, and achieve modernization of agriculture has become a continuous focus of attention in the academic community. This requires fully exploring and summarizing the overall overview, hotspot evolution, weak links, and cutting-edge trends of rural governance research in China as a positive response to the Party Central Committee's strategic planning for academic theoretical research guidance. In view of this, this paper, based on Chinese literature on rural governance from 2000 to 2023, sorts out the spatiotemporal dynamic evolution process of rural governance research in the academic community at home and abroad. On the basis of grasping
its overall trend, it hopes to provide a clear research direction for theoretical research and practical application of rural governance.
1. Hot Topics in the Study of "Rural Governance" in China
Firstly, the main keywords sorted at the macro spatial level include regional difference, regional research, urbanization, etc. Regional difference was a hot topic of discussion that emerged from 2005 to 2007. Through literature review, it can be concluded that regional difference in research includes regional difference in village level debt, regional difference in rural research, and regional difference in natural disasters. There is a clear regional layout in rural research in China, such as clan research in South China and ethnic minority research in Southwest China. In addition, the differences in drainage and irrigation water conservancy between villages in the north and south determine the different expectations of villages for the entry of state power, and are of great significance for understanding China's vast regional imbal-anced rural areas and their governance [2].
Regional research actually contains some content about regional differences, but its scope is broader and connotation is deeper. In the process of rural governance, the reality of uneven development in rural areas must be taken seriously, and it is necessary to guide rural governance towards autonomous and democratic governance in accordance with local conditions [3]. From the perspective of the changes in the national rural governance system, it can be seen that under the institutional influence of different historical periods, the order of rural regional governance varies, and the level of public goods and participation in public welfare undertakings in rural areas varies [4].
Urbanization has been a hot term since 2014. Urbanization refers to a historical process in which rural populations gradually migrate to cities and towns, and secondary and tertiary industries gradually gather here, resulting in an increase in the number and scale of cities and towns. On the one hand, farmers have poor adaptability in urbanization construction, and the long-term mechanism for adapting to urbanization urgently needs to be improved. At the same time, they face severe local financial difficulties.[5] On the other hand, urbanization has led to significant changes in rural governance in terms of governance subjects, operational mechanisms, and governance space. In fact, rural governance in the process of urbanization is no longer a simple rural issue, and it makes the urbanization significance of rural issues increasingly strong. Therefore, rural governance must shift from blindly pursuing urban spatial expansion and scale expansion in the past to focusing on improving the
inherent quality of urban culture, public services, and other aspects, so that cities and towns can truly become livable places with high taste [7]. It focuses on achieving rural revitalization from the perspective of overall urban-rural development that transcends urban-rural segmentation and urban centrism [8].
Secondly, the representative vocabulary at the meso institutional level includes tax reform, social management, village governance by the rich, and land transfer. The burst strength of tax reform was relatively strong and this keyword appeared more frequently and had a significant impact from 2003 to 2008, which was also the focus of academic discussion during this period. From the perspective of the rural governance paradigm characterized by "collectivization" led by tax collection, tax reform clearly has the consideration of transforming the functions of township governments. However, in terms of the rural governance form after the tax reform, this reform policy is vastly different from the existing changes. In the situation where the authority of rural organizations has gradually faded, the "clerks in charge of money" have become the protagonists of rural organizations [9]. In addition, in order to achieve good results in tax reform, this article believes that it must rely on a comprehensive and balanced operation of political logic, governance logic, and market logic [10].
The research object of social management involves the changes of rural land system, the institutionalization of political participation, and the reform of grassroots administrative system. From the perspective of rural social management practices in China during the transitional period, exploring the logical starting point of the operation of social management mechanisms, consolidating the organizational and social foundation of social management, and innovating social management mechanisms on this basis can effectively respond to the value demands of rural development during the transitional period [11]. With the changes in the rural land system, especially the intensification of population mobility and land transfer, rural society is becoming increasingly open and diverse. It is urgent to establish a new type of rural governance mechanism and gradually push villagers' autonomy towards a new type of rural community autonomy [12]. The construction of an effective rural social management system can't be separated from the intervention of the government. However, the government's social management in rural areas is not always positive and effective, and its intervention can easily evolve into a role of social erosion. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the role of the government into a force to promote social progress through institutional arrangements and mechanism innovation [13].
Village governance by the rich has been a widely mentioned rural governance model and system in recent years and existing research results have analyzed the problems and innovative mechanisms in its governance process. From the perspective of the rise mechanism and governance effectiveness of village governance by the rich, it can be seen that the rise of village governance by the rich in central rural areas was due to the weakening of resource going-to-the-countryside policies and township governance capabilities in the post tax era. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the cultivation and active guidance of rich village cadres [14]. From an empirical perspective, some scholars have demonstrated that rich individuals who serve as village cadres can strive for more project resources, reduce the proportion of administrative expenses in village level finance, and expand public investment expenditures to promote the growth of farmers' income. However, the mechanism for fulfilling the responsibilities of village cadres in the "village governance by the rich" needs to be further strengthened [15].
The specific impact of land transfer policies shows heterogeneity in different regions, but overall it is an important path to achieve high-quality development of agriculture in the new era, which can effectively promote appropriate scale management of agriculture and protect arable land [16]. The problems caused by land transfer are equally obvious. In terms of economic effects, large-scale labor operations based on grain cultivation are not as cost-effective as medium-sized ones. In terms of social effects, it has eliminated the backbone of rural society, cut off the spontaneous circulation of farmers, and is not conducive to the harmony and stability of rural society [17].
Thirdly, at the micro governance subject and surrounding level, research on the subject and surrounding in rural governance focuses on farmers, new rural sages, and rural relations. As the main body of rural governance, farmers should be the focus of research. The academic community has discussed the rights and obligations of farmers in rural governance from various aspects such as their organization, subject consciousness, rights protection, and institutionalized political participation, as well as the impact of their individual consciousness on governance strategies. For areas with underdeveloped economic conditions and farmers still relying on agriculture as the main source of household income, it is necessary to increase investment in public goods related to agricultural production and farmers' livelihoods [18].
New rural sages evolved from the "old rural sages". Its "newness" mainly manifests as a new moral authority and to some extent plays the role of a new cultural carrier. In recent years, the field of rural governance in China has qui-
etly undergone changes. On the surface, this change only leads to the phenomenon of rural desolation, marginalization, and hollowing out. One can hardly imagine the underlying problems — the loss of rural elites, the failure of autonomous system, and the breakage of public spirit, which are the essence that should be highly valued by people [19]. Based on the above issues, some scholars have found through case comparison that new rural sages have a higher level of credibility among villagers. Introducing this group into rural governance can fully reduce communication costs and effectively solve the challenges of rural governance [20]. At the same time, it is necessary to transform and innovate rural governance models by shaping the culture of "new rural sages", establishing a "new rural sages" discourse platform, and cultivating the habit of division of labor and cooperation, in order to fully leverage the active role of new rural sages as the governance subject [21].
Rural relations refer to the state of mutual influence and interaction between township governments and villagers' autonomous organizations. Rural relations can be attributed to a loop, which is an implicit and ever-changing loop. Their types include strong township and weak village, weak township and strong village, and weak township and weak village, and these three types of rural relations are usually closely related to the village's ability to independently produce order [22]. At the practical level, there are mainly three types of conflicts caused by the administrative power of township governments and the autonomy power of villagers: firstly, the transformation of township governments and village committee organizations from guidance to leadership has made it impossible to implement autonomous power; secondly, measures such as "the village's finances are managed by the township" infringe on farmers' autonomy; thirdly, it is to restrict villagers' autonomy in the form of county and township finance's issuing wages [23]. The academic community has also conducted research on this issue from various aspects.
2. The Evolution of Rural Governance Research
Based on comprehensive literature research, it can be seen that the focus of rural governance research has been continuously expanded and extended. Overall, rural governance has gone through focusing on villagers, rural self-research, research on the issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, and gradually shifted to emphasizing institutional construction. Especially since the 18th CPC National Congress, the research direction has gradually shifted to common prosperity and rural modernization, which is consistent with the continuous adjustment of the country's rural governance policies.
From 2000 to 2004, research hotspots focused on villagers themselves and
rural finance. The research hotspots ranged from discussions on rural research and villagers' autonomy before 2000 to keywords such as population mobility, democratic political construction, village level debt after 2000, as well as tax reform and performance evaluation in 2004. The main body of "rural governance" within this period was concentrated in the broad sense of villagers and rural economic conditions. On the one hand, as the main body of governance, villagers were the first link that the village itself needed to solve, so the research object was mainly ordinary villagers and village level cadres. On the other hand, research hotspots during this period also included village level debt, tax reform, etc. The research methods at this stage were mainly based on theoretical speculation and supplemented by empirical research, which was closely related to the material conditions and social environment at that time.
From 2005 to 2007, the focus of rural governance research shifted to issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, as well as the construction of new rural areas. With the proposal of the policy of "abolishing agricultural taxes" to benefit farmers and the "issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers", rural governance issues have risen to the height of national policies and laws, and the research object of rural governance has also achieved a comprehensive shift from rural economic issues to agricultural taxes, new rural construction, and other aspects. The main focus of research during this period was the discussion and commentary on the cancellation of agricultural taxes and the issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. Emerging vocabulary such as "new rural construction", "harmonious rural areas", and "post tax era" have emerged with high frequency. Moreover, there have been studies comparing foreign rural governance models with China. During this period, empirical research gradually increased, such as individual rural cases and survey questionnaires, which also had a strong policy orientation color.
From 2008 to 2014, the focus of rural governance research was on institutional reform and innovation. The system of "college-graduate village officials" has been comprehensively promoted nationwide; in order to increase farmers' income and fully utilize the effectiveness of rural land, the government has proposed a policy of "land transfer" in the form of documents; to drive the development of rural economy and increase farmers' economic income, the governance model of "village governance by the rich" has rapidly developed; in order to accelerate the construction of urban-rural integration and increase the proportion of urbanization, the concept of "new urbanization" has emerged, and so on. Meanwhile, the academic community has also expanded its research perspective from sociology to the field of political science, aiming to protect
the rights and interests of farmers through the proposal and improvement of political systems. In addition, research specifically targeting the spiritual beliefs of farmers has begun to emerge during this period.
After 2015, the focus of academic research has shifted more to combine with common prosperity and rural modernization, also paying more attention to the leadership of the political party in rural governance. Especially since the 18th CPC National Congress, through the joint efforts of all the people, absolute poverty has disappeared historically in China, and promoting the common prosperity of all the people and achieving a modern socialist power have become the main goals of the future. In terms of rural governance, the leading role of the party organization network of party members and cadres in assisting rural areas is mainly used to leverage the reform of the rural governance system, thereby achieving a movement of political power from top to bottom and from urban to rural areas.[24] Some places are exploring the system of joint village cadres, forming a three-level connection structure between grassroots political power, joint village cadres, and grassroots society within the countryside, using institutional arrangements to support and connect towns and villages, and achieve town-village cooperation [25].
3. Reflections and Prospects on Chinese Rural Governance
The fruitful achievements of current Chinese research on rural governance not only elucidate and interpret the relevant policies and practical conditions of rural governance in China, but also provide reference for grassroots dynamics and specific directions for the development and practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics to a certain extent. However, there are still some shortcomings that require people to deeply reflect on and explore the future development direction of rural governance research through reflection on the issues.
(1) Reflections on Research Achievements
Looking at the relevant academic achievements of rural governance research in China over the past two decades, it can be found that scholars have elaborated on issues related to rural governance from different perspectives, especially in recent years, against the background of "precision poverty alleviation" and "rural revitalization strategy", rural governance research has been pushed deeper. Although these research results have achieved widespread social effects, it is undeniable that there are still weak links that need to be further deepened.
Firstly, the perspective of rural governance research is relatively single and needs to be further expanded. At present, the theoretical perspective and
analysis process of research are too concentrated and single, which has had a certain impact on the comprehensive analysis and evaluation of rural governance, causing relevant academic research to encounter a "bottleneck period". In terms of disciplinary connections, the research on rural governance in China is mostly concentrated in the fields of sociology, economics, law, and other disciplines. However, academic achievements from multi-disciplinary perspectives such as politics, psychology, environmental science, public management, and public administration are relatively rare. Especially, there are few interdisciplinary or comprehensive interdisciplinary perspectives on rural governance research. In fact, rural governance involves social, political, economic, cultural, ecological and other aspects, and it is increasingly necessary to conduct in-depth studies from multi-perspectives, multi-dimensions and multi-disciplines such as politics, ecology and culture.
Secondly, there is significant room for improvement in the quantification and refinement of rural governance research. From the existing research results, although there have been a large number of field investigations and studies using counties, towns, villages, etc. as case studies, there are few confirmatory, retrospective, and follow-up studies, and there is a lack of sustained and "retrospective" research results on individual cases. However, in today's era with high-speed developed network information, there is a lack of research on the use of the Internet, big data mining of original data, reconstruction of management process, transformation of governance model and other aspects of rural governance. Foreign countries are more proficient in this field of technology and China can appropriately draw on advanced experience from abroad to solve the problem of disconnection between rural governance and modern technology in China.
Thirdly, the Chinese experience, wisdom, and discourse of rural governance research still need to be condensed and innovated. Currently, scholars in China have studied and summarized the practical experience of rural governance abroad, such as the United States, Japan, Germany, Hungary, etc. There have also been inspections and refinements of ancient Chinese rural governance concepts and experiences, but there is relatively limited literature available. At the same time, in the practical field of rural governance, on the one hand, grassroots practitioners have launched many beneficial attempts and explorations, but their practical discourse has not been converted into academic discourse, lacking experience and models that can be promoted.
(2) Research Trends and Prospects
In response to the aforementioned shortcomings in current Chinese re-
search on rural governance, it is necessary to follow the timeline of research hotspots in the field of rural governance in China, and combine it with the spiritual essence of the "rural revitalization strategy" proposed by the 19th CPC National Congress. Therefore, this paper believes that the development trends of rural governance research in the future are as follows:
The first is to strengthen empirical and quantitative research and broaden the perspective of rural governance research. After 20 years of development, the normative research and qualitative research in China's rural governance have become mature, which requires that, on this basis, the research on rural governance should be advanced by combining empirical and quantitative research methods. On the one hand, researchers should give full play to the advantages of normative and qualitative research, and focus on exploring the laws and values of rural governance. On the other hand, they should reasonably use empirical and quantitative research methods to test and evaluate the effectiveness, quality, rights and responsibilities of rural governance. Admittedly, strengthening empirical research doesn't mean weakening theoretical research. Researchers should absorb the essence of different disciplines and elaborate on the development of rural governance in a multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional way. The prosperity and development of rural governance research must always adhere to the policy of "letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend". It is necessary to encourage innovation in academic viewpoints, promote exchanges between different academic schools, create a positive and active, pragmatic and realistic academic atmosphere, collide academic sparks in discussions, and provide a broader perspective for rural governance research.
The second is to promote the development of rural governance research towards in-depth refinement, systematization, and modernization. From the perspective of development trends, researchers should not only attach importance to the theoretical research of rural governance, but also pay attention to the interpretation and analysis of specific problems in rural governance practice, especially summarizing the practical experience of individual cases. At the same time, researchers' research on rural governance can learn from relativity and spatiotemporal perspectives, supplement and construct a new analytical framework based on immediate relative time and combined with rural spatiotemporal fields, which is conducive to selecting more suitable logical time concepts in analyzing the real world, breaking through the traditional static analysis paradigm, and shifting from only focusing on equilibrium time points to truly focusing on the process of rural governance. In addition, research-
ers should strengthen the use of mathematical models and advanced technical means for empirical research, and combine rural governance with modern development trends, such as "Internet plus plus agriculture", "big data embedded in rural governance", and "agricultural supply side structural reform", which may become a new hotspot in rural governance research.
The third is to build an academic system and a discourse system for rural governance with Chinese characteristics, truly well telling the story of rural governance in China The theory and practice of rural governance in China should be based on China's own reality, draw on the wisdom of rural governance from other countries around the world, adhere to the value orientation of originality, development, and subjectivity based on a systematic summary of China's past experience in rural governance, refine and enrich the theoretical viewpoints and practical resources of rural governance, and then construct an academic system and a discourse system of rural governance with Chinese characteristics. At the same time, the academic system and discourse system with Chinese characteristics must fully consider the thinking and speaking habits of the masses, transform abstract logical thinking into concrete expressions of life, and transform stagnant and obscure academic theories into easy to understand discourse of life. Only in this way can they be accepted and loved by the masses, truly well telling the story of rural governance in China, and safeguarding the diversified "rural revitalization strategy" landscape in the new era.
Conclusion
As the world's largest developing agricultural country, the methods and effectiveness of rural governance in China are directly related to social stability and the support or opposition from people. In 2022, the Party Central Committee proposed to strengthen and innovate rural governance, establish and improve a modern rural social governance system with Party committee leadership, government responsibility, social coordination, public participation, and rule of law protection, pointing out the direction for rural governance. In the future, researchers should focus on the difficulties, pain spots, and obstacles of rural governance in the new era based on the summary of over 20 years of experience in rural governance, keep a foothold in the strategic overall situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and gradually explore and improve the rural governance system, model, and institution, so as to promote rural revitalization work and strive to achieve socialist modernization of agriculture.
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