Abstract
As an enormous agricultural country, China attaches great importance to the governance of rural society. Much scholarly attention has been devoted to rural society governance, especially to the new deals at the late Qing Dynasty and the modern people-state development in the early stage of the Republic of China. Students of rural society governance employ mainly two perspective in studying this topic. One perspective is the institutional perspective, which examines the state’s governance from top down, especially how the state power expands and controls rural community. The other perspective focuses on the rural society and its internal mechanism, examining from bottom up how rural society strives to maintain its independence. Both perspectives have certain shortcomings: the latter illustrates the conflicts between the modern legal system and the rural culture, but often fails to see the profound changes in the process of modernization of rural society, which is closely related to the development of a modern state. Studies in this field thus tend to overestimate the contradictions between rule of law and rural traditions. The former perspective regards all government organs, including the judiciary, as a unity, and is not aware of the complex relationships between various government entities, the relationship between the judicial power and the administrative powers, and the influences of such relationship on rural society governance.This dissertation studies the issue of rural society governance by examining the judicial coordination practices of trial Court Y. It illustrates how the trial court and the judges, the township government, and the liaison men coordinate with each other. Through analyzing the cooperation, conflicts, and balance of the above institutions and individuals, it helps understand the state governance of rural community with legal measures.
The data of this research are collected mainly through anthropological methods, such as field surveys and process-event measures. The research is framed in a unit, through which the author can shift from static studying to dynamic studying of process-event, in order to present in details the complicated procedures. Based on the author’s four years’ own practice of judicial coordination and her interviews with the judges and the liaison men, this dissertation unveils the different and mutually influenced roles of the trial court and the judges, the township government, and the liaison men. The analysis thus provides new insights into the state governance of rural community with legal measures.
The methodology of this dissertation also employs extensive case studies. This research understands the judicial coordination practice of Court Y as an aspect of the state governance with legal measures on rural community. Through examining the occurrence and development of this aspect, it reveals the important characteristics of the state governance of rural community with legal measures. In showing the normative referents and conflicts in the daily judicial coordination practices of Court Y, the author not only considers the conflicts themselves, but also put these conflicts under the background of the state governance of rural community with legal measures, so to understand how minor conflicts are shaped by the institutional framework. The author also uses concrete examples to demonstrate theoretically the macro framework of the state governance of rural community and to grasp the reciprocal influences between the state power and the rural community.
This dissertation is consisted of seven chapters.
Chapter 1 explains the research background. It also reviews relevant literatures, introduces research methodology, and clarifies the structure of this dissertation.
Chapter 2 presents the judicial coordination practices of Court Y, which illustrates two characteristics of the Chinese mode of “active adjudication”: out-of-court activeness and in-court passiveness. Firstly, this chapter explains the out-of-court activeness by analyzing the judges’ work objectives, work methods, responsibilities, and relevant policies and judicial interpretations issued by the Supreme People’s Court. Secondly, it analyzes how the judges handle cases involving rights of women married to non-locals, and reveals the passiveness of Chinese adjudication. Thirdly, through comparison with the activism of American judicial practices, it argues that the Chinese mode of “active adjudication” is formalistic. Finally, by comparing the subjects, measures, contents, and backgrounds of the contemporary practices of judicial activism with those of the Ma Xiwu style adjudication in the past, this chapter concludes that the contemporary practices are the revival of the Ma Xiwu style adjudication.
Chapter 3 focuses on the motivation of Court Y in its practices of judicial coordination, and defines active adjudication as a means to establish new power structures. After the reform of the court system, trial courts are gradually moved away from the rural community. Modern judicial reforms have further increased the distance not only physically but also mentally, leaving trial courts in a dilemma. The judicial authority is thus undermined. Court Y’s judicial coordination practices are attempts to rebuild the power structure at grassroots level, which connects the judiciary and the rural society, enhances judicial authority, and eventually improves the state governance of rural community.
Chapter 4 discusses the motivation of the local government in their participation of judicial coordination practices. Firstly, this chapter illustrates the lack of effective governance at grassroots level. Secondly, it points out the status quo that the trial court, which is legally and financially supported by the state, is detached from local government. Thirdly, it shows how the local government reconciles the tension caused by the detachment of the trial court. Through the practices of judicial coordination, the local government redefines its relationship with the trial court. The relationship gradually develops from the trial court’ unilateral reliance on the local government to mutual reliance.
Chapter 5 discusses the dual roles of the judges in judicial coordination, particularly their struggling and decision-making in the process, so to illustrate the persistence and compromises of the trial court in the legal governance of rural society. Firstly, this chapter explains the judges’ dual roles, and analyzes the substantial extension of the judges’ roles from the judicial to the administrative domain. Secondly, it describes how the judges make choices between their dual roles, in order to achieve balance under the two sets of power structures. Thirdly, it depicts the activities of the judges who are responsible for specific villages. Finally, it argues that the disputes and problems encountered by the judges responsible for specific villages represent the conflicts between the modern ideal of rule of law and the traditions of rural society.
Chapter 6 talks about the role and status quo of the liaison men in judicial coordination. Firstly, this chapter introduces how the liaison men are selected, how their duties confirmed, and how their works oversighted by the trial court, so to demonstrate the administrate embeddedness of the liaison men. Secondly, it presents the daily work of the liaison men and their activeness and passiveness due to various interests, which reflect their utilitarianism. Thirdly, it shows the common features of the liaison men under the administrative power structure and the judicial power structure. It argues that the weakness of the judicial power is the main cause that the liaison men perform their duties passively in judicial coordination, and such passiveness in turn impedes the judicial power from intervening rural society.
Chapter 7 is the epilogue, which summarizes the arguments of this dissertation, reflects the limitations of this study, and prospects further steps of research.
This dissertation examines the judicial coordination activities of Court Y. It illustrates respectively the behavior patterns and functions of Court Y, the local township government, the judges, and the liaison men in judicial coordination, and reveals the process of legal governance of rural society carried out by the court. Existing literatures on rural governance mostly choose rural community, which is the object of state governance, as the research object. They focus on the responses of the rural community to the state governance, i.e. resistance, elusion, or “receiving the law to the countryside.” Focusing on the local court, which is one of the state’s governing institutions, and its activities and effects of governance, this dissertation introduces a new perspective and research object. It innovatively regards the trial court as an independent institution with its own interest and capacity in state governance. In this dissertation, the state governance power is divided into the administrative power and the judicial power, and the state governance institutions are categorized into local governments and courts. From the perspective of a local trial court, this dissertation studies the conflicts and coordination among the local government, the court, and the local cadres in the process of promoting state governance. In particular, the dissertation discusses three aspects of conflicts and coordination, namely the reciprocal influences between the local court and the government, various roles of the local cadres under the administrative and judicial power structures, and the legal governance practices of the judges who are responsible for specific towns or villages. This dissertation presents in details the influences the local court undertakes in the process of legal governance, including support and prevarication of the local government and embracement, resistance, and elusion of rural community. These findings shall illustrate how the local court, the government and the rural community interact with each other under the mixed relationship of reliance, conflicts, contradictions, balance, and competence. The dissertation thus helps understand the functions of grassroots institutions in the state governance of rural society.
Further, the dissertation provides insights into judicial coordination of the trial court in two respects. On the one hand, it documents, from an internal perspective of state power, the conflicts, cooperation, assistance, and balance of the administrative and judicial power. On the other hand, it examines the state governance of rural society at the roots of judicial organs not from top down or bottom up, but at the joint point of power and force. By analyzing the behavior patterns of the court, the local government, and the rural community in judicial coordination, this dissertation tries to portrait how administrative power, judicial power, and rural society interact with, influence, and shape each other. Thus it enriches our understandings of how the state manages resistance, compromises, and makes progress in the promotion of legal governance in rural society.
| Date of Award | 13 Feb 2017 |
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| Original language | Chinese (Traditional) |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Xin Frank HE (Supervisor) |
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