Abstract
The aim of this paper is to analyze one aspect of the relationship between state and rural society in comtemporary China. This paper argues how state power has reorganized rural society and reconstructed the control structure of it since decollectivization.
The character of the new rural organization is to establish a village committee(cunmin weiyuanhui) which is an organization for the autonomy of each village. I will focus on the implementation of the state’s new way of governing rural society, and examine the state’s reach to society in the reform era.
Relying on both secondary literature and my own field research data conducted in Hebei province, this paper makes note of the comtemporary state-society relationship as follows. (1) The function of the village as a governing unit for the state has been unchanged. (2) Though the state power seems to have retreated from the rural society as the reform policy proceeds, it continues to deeply intervene in it in another form by diffusing a standardized model of village autonomy. (3) While keeping the same connecting agents between state and rural society as before, the state tries to alter the relationship structure of state oraganization and rural society to promote market reform. These two directions are essentially imcompatible and may lead to problems both in the state’s control over rural society and in establishing institutions for a market economy.
