The Development Of Soft Science In China (1978-2010)

This article is a research paper that shows the three decades development panorama of China soft science. "Soft science", which is first used as a phrase by Japanese scholar, is introduced and developed rapidly after China's reform and opening. Mr. Cheng Siwei summarized the characteristics of Soft science: There are three main characteristics in Soft Science research. One, the research objects are society, economy and other open complex giant system which contain artificial things; Two, its research method is qualitative and quantitative integrated method; Three, its research results support of all kinds of decisions." Besides, Chinese scholars made many definitions, which have not been unified so far, for soft science. Even so, China's soft science research practice has accomplished remarkable achievements and far-reaching influence in 30 years development process .At present, the Soft Science has become an academic term with Chinese characteristics. It's 30 years of development history need urgently collating and summarizing.In this paper, Firstly, we use bibliometrics to process the collection of soft science literature, and then, combine historical event with literature content analysis, China soft science is divided into four stages, and the development and characteristics of each stage is reviewed and summarized as the basis of this paper. Then,In the theory of soft science, the sources of soft science concept, process of gradually deepening understanding of the concept and academic position of soft science is analyzed, the subject's cognitive processes and the change of research methods is summarized , the development of organizational construction , talents training and industrialized development of soft science is analyzed. In the Practice field of soft science, we discuss the role of soft science research in several national level and regional level decision making process. On this basis, the paper tries to summarize the contributions of soft science in regional level, national level decision-making.Based on the analysis of this paper,comparing with Soft Science has made significant achievements in the practice ,the theory is far behind. The lagging of soft science connotation study is the major obstacle of the development of soft science.