Culture, Power and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942
Summary to Prasenjit Duara's Culture, Power and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942
In his book, Prasenjit Duara seeks to explore the dynamic of state society relations in China. Through studying the surveys of six villages conducted by the research bureau of the South Manchurian Railway Company from 1940 to 1942, Duara examines the impact of state strengthening - the ability for the state to penetrate and absorb the resources of local society - on the organization of power in rural North China from late Qing to the early modern state. He points out that the Chinese pattern of state strengthening was closely interwoven with modernizing and nation building goals (2). Under these two goals, the Republican state destroyed the old political legitimation developed in late Qing, without being able to create new working alternatives. Duara points to a conclusion that it is precisely the loss of legitimacy that led to the fall of the Nationalist regime and the rise of the Communists. Therefore, Duara’s study can be divided into two parts: the development of the old political legitimation in the late Qing, as represented by the coalition between the state and the local gentry; and the replacement of the old by the modernizing legitimation of the Republican state, as represented by the state’s alliance with the entrepreneurial brokers.
Duara coins the phrase “cultural nexus of power” to refer to the affiliation of symbolic values to hierarchical organizations and networks of informal relations (5). It serves as the framework that structures access to power and resources in the local society (24). Duara argues that the Qing state had relied significantly on the cultural nexus of power to establish their authority among the rural communities of North China in late 19th century, through the successful conversion of much of the nexus into a sprawling infrastructure of popular orthodoxy that legitimate the imperial order. This was made possible with the help of upwardly mobile rural elites for whom this conversion process reinforced the role of the nexus in legitimating their leadership. Following his teacher Philip Kuhn, Duara asserts the influence of gentry in local authorities and their important roles in the state-society relationship.
However, the state expansion and penetration in the 20th century profoundly eroded these local sources of political authority. Under the ideology of modernization, the Republican state simply ignored the resources in the “backward” cultural nexus and sought to build a political system outside it, such as transforming the religious properties and institutions into components of a purely political public sphere (248). Duara criticizes that the new ideology of the modernizing state did not succeed in providing a viable alternative to the cultural nexus that had generated legitimacy both for local leaders and for the state (248).
To extract resources from local society (an important task of state strengthening), the state charged a host of new taxes such as the tankuan. However, local gentry refused to work for the state as tax collectors and withdrew themselves from the political arena. The budding alliance between the modernizing state and the rural elite failed to flower. As such, traditional leaders were increasingly replaced by political entrepreneurs who were “local bullies” pursued office for entrepreneurial gains and did so at the expense of the interests of the community he supposedly led (251). The Republican state ended up creating a stratum of political entrepreneurs who became a dominant form of predatory power in rural society before the Communist Revolution. Duara proclaims that the replication and extension of entrepreneurial brokerage that accompanied state penetration cost the state dearly in terms of legitimacy. It led to what Duara have called state involution, meaning that growth in certain spheres (the state penetration and extraction of local resources) could unleash a process of self-destruction and revolutionary transformation (249 & 253).
Duara concludes that the new communist state marked a radical departure from the involutionary pattern of state expansion. The elimination of entrepreneurial state brokers during the early years of communist rule was an important factor behind the Communists’ ability to generate a critical increase in revenue. Through tax evasion and engrossment, Duara claims that the early communist regime was in fact fulfilling the state-making goals of the Republican regimes (254).
In his book, Prasenjit Duara seeks to explore the dynamic of state society relations in China. Through studying the surveys of six villages conducted by the research bureau of the South Manchurian Railway Company from 1940 to 1942, Duara examines the impact of state strengthening - the ability for the state to penetrate and absorb the resources of local society - on the organization of power in rural North China from late Qing to the early modern state. He points out that the Chinese pattern of state strengthening was closely interwoven with modernizing and nation building goals (2). Under these two goals, the Republican state destroyed the old political legitimation developed in late Qing, without being able to create new working alternatives. Duara points to a conclusion that it is precisely the loss of legitimacy that led to the fall of the Nationalist regime and the rise of the Communists. Therefore, Duara’s study can be divided into two parts: the development of the old political legitimation in the late Qing, as represented by the coalition between the state and the local gentry; and the replacement of the old by the modernizing legitimation of the Republican state, as represented by the state’s alliance with the entrepreneurial brokers.
Duara coins the phrase “cultural nexus of power” to refer to the affiliation of symbolic values to hierarchical organizations and networks of informal relations (5). It serves as the framework that structures access to power and resources in the local society (24). Duara argues that the Qing state had relied significantly on the cultural nexus of power to establish their authority among the rural communities of North China in late 19th century, through the successful conversion of much of the nexus into a sprawling infrastructure of popular orthodoxy that legitimate the imperial order. This was made possible with the help of upwardly mobile rural elites for whom this conversion process reinforced the role of the nexus in legitimating their leadership. Following his teacher Philip Kuhn, Duara asserts the influence of gentry in local authorities and their important roles in the state-society relationship.
However, the state expansion and penetration in the 20th century profoundly eroded these local sources of political authority. Under the ideology of modernization, the Republican state simply ignored the resources in the “backward” cultural nexus and sought to build a political system outside it, such as transforming the religious properties and institutions into components of a purely political public sphere (248). Duara criticizes that the new ideology of the modernizing state did not succeed in providing a viable alternative to the cultural nexus that had generated legitimacy both for local leaders and for the state (248).
To extract resources from local society (an important task of state strengthening), the state charged a host of new taxes such as the tankuan. However, local gentry refused to work for the state as tax collectors and withdrew themselves from the political arena. The budding alliance between the modernizing state and the rural elite failed to flower. As such, traditional leaders were increasingly replaced by political entrepreneurs who were “local bullies” pursued office for entrepreneurial gains and did so at the expense of the interests of the community he supposedly led (251). The Republican state ended up creating a stratum of political entrepreneurs who became a dominant form of predatory power in rural society before the Communist Revolution. Duara proclaims that the replication and extension of entrepreneurial brokerage that accompanied state penetration cost the state dearly in terms of legitimacy. It led to what Duara have called state involution, meaning that growth in certain spheres (the state penetration and extraction of local resources) could unleash a process of self-destruction and revolutionary transformation (249 & 253).
Duara concludes that the new communist state marked a radical departure from the involutionary pattern of state expansion. The elimination of entrepreneurial state brokers during the early years of communist rule was an important factor behind the Communists’ ability to generate a critical increase in revenue. Through tax evasion and engrossment, Duara claims that the early communist regime was in fact fulfilling the state-making goals of the Republican regimes (254).
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