From Authoritarian Control To The System To Absorb: The State And Neighborhood Space ,1949-2008

The grass-roots of Shanghai society include two parts,one is"the regionally",and theother"non-geographic one".The most typical of the former is neighborhood.ModernShanghai society has provided a wealth of resource for academic research,however,few of them is on neighborhood;there have no comprehensive studies on the changesof Shanghai neighborhood since the liberation of Shanghai.How the Shanghai neighborhood changed during the sixty years since theliberation? And what's the reason of it? It reflects what kind of relationship betweenstate and society?In order to answer these questions,with the perspective of"state and society"theory,on basis of the existing theory and literature,this dissertation set forth aproposition of"the relationship between the state and neighborhood since theliberation of Shanghai is from'authoritarian control'to'institution to absorb'"aswell as the following four sub-proposition,namely:(1) Just after Shanghai liberation,in order to build the political foundation of"authoritarian control"in the urbangrass-roots,the state reconstruct the urban neighborhood,establish the neighborhoodcommittees which is"the administrative agent"of the state power.(2)In the period ofcollectivization,with the ideology of"authoritarian control",the state schemed a theambitious blueprint of"leaping to communism"for the urban neighborhood,andinitiated a large-scale"Yue-jin"campaign in linong,which go against the inherentlogic of neighborhood development.(3)In the period of"Si-qing"and the CulturalRevolution,on the impact of the state's non-rational politics,the urban neighborhoodalso got out of control and was disordered under the"authoritarian control".(4)Sincethe social transition,the relationship between the state and urban neighborhoodshifted to"institution to absorb"strategically,on the discourse of"communityconstruction",although the state have created development space for the community,with agents in the grass-roots"neighborhood",the state always bring the initial socialforces into the institutional orbit of controllable.With the method of Case studies and literature research,the dissertationexplored urban neighborhood development in three stages (the initial regime,neighborhood collectivization and the Cultural Revolution period of non-rational)before the social transformation and in the"community construction"stage after thetransformation,and tested the proposition aforementioned.The general conclusion is:since the liberation in 1949,the relationship between the state and urbanneighborhood has always been the basic pattern as"state-led society",its specificform has changed from"authoritarian control"to"institution to absorb"before andafter the social transformation.This dissertation holds that the power of the state in the relationship should betrace back to the beginning of liberation.The new regime built grass-roots level of"authoritarian control"at the beginning through reconstructing neighborhood inShanghai,the strong power of the state continued after the transition,from"authoritarian control"to"institution to absorb",what's changed is the specific form. Five chapters constitute the main dissertation.In first chapter,the social characteristic of the modern city of Shanghai wasstudied.Combination of historical data and research results of others,it found inmodern times since the late imperial city of Shanghai has a highly developed networkof associations,which formed a relatively independent social space in grass-roots.Until the Nationalist government entered the stage,through the restructuring ofsociety grass-roots network and the establishment of the neighborhood Bao-jia system,only the initial realization of administerial control and penetration in the urbanneighborhood.The next four chapters of this study were four sub-propositions for the proof.First,through the case of a typical neighborhood of Shanghai"Baoxing li",theprocess of liberation and establishment of grass-roots political organization in theneighborhood was studied;it found that the state's political strategies of rehabilitationand reconstruction of urban neighborhoods in early liberation.Through theelimination of the old neighborhood organizations,purifing neighborhood space,andthe use of"class purification mechanism"to keep the screening of political"dirtyelements",the government achieved the purpose of transforming the massesneighborhood,on base of it the new regime set up the agent of the state administrativeauthority in urban neighborhood.Thus,the state established the political foundationof"authority control"in Shanghai grass-roots.The second,with a comprehensive investigation on the institutionalization ofresidents committee and real-life in neighborhood during linong Yue-jin period,itfound that the logic of"authority control"goes against the neighborhood social realitywas the reason why the defeat of neighborhood collectivization.The authoritarianstate was trying to organize the neighborhood life and production to the greatestdegree,and bring the entire city into the country's"planning system",which wentagainst the life rhythm and labor characteristics of the very basic neighborhoodgroups,disturbed the normal operation of the city.Third,the dissertation observe the defeat of"urban people's commune"utopian,the followed"Si-qing"and the urban neighborhood cultural revolution in 60s of lastcentury,found that with"authoritarian control",the irrational struggle of politicalideology,reach to the grass-roots society through political channels.It turned into apolitical weapon of neighborhood people to resolve personal matters of,as well asinto the masses of cadres and neighborhood political struggle,resulting in the disorderof neighborhood space.The fourth,through the study of the change of urban neighborhood,as well asthe country's role in the period after social transformation,it found that along with thedisintegration of"danwei"system,urban neighborhood played a more importantsocial function in the management of urban society,in the discourse of"communityconstruction",the relationship between state and urban neighborhood transferred fromthe original"authoritarian control"to"institution to absorb",on the discourse of"community construction",although the state created development space for thecommunity,with agents in the grass-roots"neighborhood",the state always bring theinitial social forces into the institutional orbit of controllable.. Through these four appraisal process,this dissertation demonstrated theproposition of"the relationship between the state and neighborhood since theliberation of Shanghai is from'authoritarian control'to'institution to absorb'",andcame to the conclusion of"the state and urban neighborhood has always been thebasic pattern of relations as'state-led society'".