MONOGRAPHIC STUDY

　　Xi Jinping’s Speech at the Symposium on Social Sciences and Humanities and the Development of Sociology

　　The Historical Responsibility of the Chinese Sociology

　　Li Peilin

　　Abstract：President Xi Jinping’s speech at the symposium on social sciences and humanities stresses the historical responsibility of social sciences in contemporary China. The speech holds great significance for the development of Chinese sociology. This article outlines the unique “problem-oriented” feature of the Chinese sociology, and analyzes in details five key social issues among a series of challenging problems faced by China against the backdrop of the economy entering the “New Normal” phase. These five key social issues include the “middle-income trap”, transformation of social structures, the innovation drive, social justice and social governance. The author stresses that the Chinese sociology should pay attention to these key issues. Based on China’s experience, it should strive to formulate China’s theories to explain and resolve China’s issues.　

　　Enhancing Chinese Characteristics of the Sociology Discourse

　　Song Linfei

　　Enhancing Chinese characteristics of the sociology discourse is an important task for strengthening and improving the theoretical research in China. The sociology discourse with Chinese characteristics in the new era should be constructed with a deep understanding of the realities in China. The sociologists need to capture the characteristics of China’s contemporary development. Moreover, original sociological theories should be formed with a future-oriented approach.

　　Reflections on Constructing the Academic Discourse for Sociology with Chinese Characteristics

　　Li Youmei

　　The important speech of President Xi Jinping on May 17, 2016 has set higher standards for the development of China’s social sciences, and pointed out a clearer direction for future development. Sociology in China is at its golden time in history. Hence, we need to ponder carefully over constructing and developing the subject, academic and discourse system of sociology from a more strategic and broader vision. We also need to learn from the fine tradition of Sinicization and theorization by our predecessors and continue to raise our cultural self-consciousness and subject level in investigating the practical reality of China, drawing lessons from the Chinese experiences and answering questions about China. Furthermore, we need to enhance the uniting force and promoting a sense of responsibility among sociologists, and play an active role in introducing the Chinese sociology to the world and facilitating the recognition and understanding of China by the international community.

　　PAPER

　　The Level of Decentralization and Property Rights Protection: Evidence from the industry of coal mining in China

　　Cao zhenghan & Feng guoqiang

　　To tackle the relationship between decentralization and protection for property rights, the economists propose the theory of regional competition and try to explain its underpinning mechanism. The theory of regional competition, however, fails to account for a critical question: whether the extension of decentralization from the provincial level to prefectural(or county) level will promote the protection for private enterprises. This paper argues that the social perspective on property rights can contribute to the enquiry of this issue. We find that other than inter-jurisdiction competition, the investors can take advantage of the vertical constraints to protect their property rights under the decentralization system of China. Specifically, the effectiveness of vertical constraints depends on the resistance cost of the discontent investors. Compared with decentralization at the provincial level, decentralizing to the prefectural(or county) level significantly decreases the resistance cost of investors, which strengthens the vertical constraints and benefits the investors.

　　The Social Context of Capital Going to the Countryside：A case study of agriculture enterprise in northern China

　　Xu zongyang

　　Against the backdrop of rural labor emigration, the aging rural population, and the “hollowing-out” of villages, agricultural modernization is practically necessary. On the one hand, the phenomenon of “capital going to the countryside” is growing rapidly. On the other hand, the urban corporations investing in agriculture are encountered with various problems. This study analyzes the phenomenon of “capital going to the countryside” in the context of China’s rural society, and finds out that the managerial problems of these corporations “from outside” can be partially solved by mobilizing social resources in the rural society. However, the “unsolvable” problem is the mis-match between the rural society and the business culture of these corporations, who are considered outsiders. This dilemma will likely to exist for a long time, during which the capital “from outside” and the rural society will continue to interact with and shape each other.

　　Policy Attributes and Social Policy Diffusion in China

　　Zhu yapeng & Ding shujuan

　　Literature on policy innovation and diffusion largely focuses on exploring the patterns and mechanisms of policy diffusion while neglecting the actual attributes of the policy being diffused and how the policy evolves after its adoption and during diffusion. Drawing on the case of “Shantytown Upgrading” policy in China, this paper explores how policy attributes affect policy adoption and diffusion. It finds out that decision-makers considered the different attributes of the policy when they made decision to adopt “Shantytown Upgrading” and the specific policy attributes affected the speed and the mechanism of policy diffusion. The scope, range and nature of the policy were also transformed and redefined during the policy diffusion and implementation process. By highlighting how policy attributes affect policy adoption and diffusion, and what happens at the implementation stage in the political, economic and social context of the transitional China, this paper contributes both to the diffusion studies and China studies.

　　The Dual Track Intergenerational Reproduction of State and Market Elites in China: 1978-2010

　　Lv peng & Fan xiaoguang

　　This article aims to explore during China’s market transformation, how parents-advantaged occupations have been influencing the hazard rate of their children’s status attainment in certain elite positions, and whether these patterns show varieties during three different historical periods of 1978-1992, 1993-2002, and 2003-2010. Based on merged data from CSS2011, by using event history analysis, we find that although parent’s advantaged position has a persistent effect on children’s status attainment, its function in general does not break the “dual trajectory reproduction model”, which means that state elite and market elite tend to reproduce itself without revolving access. It is only after 2003 individuals whose parents are state elites are more likely to become market elites. We try to explain these findings, and reveal that the mechanisms underpinning this ongoing structural reproduction have been constantly changing at different historical periods, especially for the increasingly diversified market elites. These changing mechanisms reflect the macro transformation of China’s sociopolitical and economic environment in the past thirty years.

　　Migrating Together or Staying Behind? An Empirical Research on Household Arrangement during Rural-urban Migration

　　Li dai & Zhang cunni

　　It is an emerging trend for China’s rural-urban migration that rural laborers migrate with their spouse and children rather than migrating alone. Due to the lack of representative national samples for the migrant population, previous studies fail to estimate the prevalence of different types of household arrangements during migration. Based on data collected by the China Family Panel Studies, this paper describes the distribution of various types of family migration, including the husband migrating alone, the wife migrating alone, the couple migrating to different destinations, and the couple migrating to the same destination. This study also explores how different decisions on migration made between the couples are associated with their social-demographic characteristics and the structure of their original families in the rural area under three hypothesized decision-making scenarios.

　　Research on the Earning Effect of Migrant Workers’ Self-Selection, Career Development and Enclave Participation

　　Wei wanqing

　　Based on the data from a 2010 survey on migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, this paper analyzes the effects of different types of enclave participation on earnings of migrant workers and examines the “enclave thesis” by using the endogenous switching regression model to overcome self-selection bias. This paper draws the following conclusions. Firstly, enclave participation in general has a significant positive influence on migrant workers’ earning. Secondly, from the perspective of self-selection effect, it presents a character of bi-strengthening which means that both the enclave participators and non-enclave participators choose the type of jobs that they think will benefit more. To the non-enclave participators, changing their present situation to participating in enclave will not bring them a positive selection effect but works against their income prospects. Thirdly, by comparing the phases of the first job and present job, this paper finds that different types of enclave would have different earning effect according to different phases of occupational development.

　　A Genealogy of the Concept of Chaxu Geju

　　Yan ming

　　This paper examines the concept of chaxu geju as conceived by Fei Xiaotong, a leading Chinese sociologist and social anthropologist in the late 1940s.Despite its application in empirical studies as a key theoretical framework by Chinese sociologists during the last two decades, little research has been done on the intellectual context of this concept. Through extensive historical research, this paper reveals the complexities surrounding Fei’s concept, which drew upon diverse intellectual currents of the era in both China and the West. Among other ideas, the concept of “Folk Society” of Robert Redfield, reinterpretations of Confucianism and Daoism, as well as studies of kinship system in anthropology were all influential in forming Fei’s concept. Such work should clarify misunderstandings in recent scholarly circles, demonstrating that Fei’s failure to adequately interpret and integrate his sources has led to logical contradictions in his work, and hence difficulties in further theorization.

　　REVIEW

　　Twenty Years after the Tax Sharing Reform: History of its development and the way forward

　　Fu minjie

　　This paper provides a development-oriented comprehensive understanding of the intergovernmental distributional relationships as well as the relationship between government and market since the Tax Sharing Reform(TSR).Particular attention is paid to the tradeoff between efficiency and fairness of the current taxation system and its effect on economic and social development. The TSR establishes the intergovernmental distribution on the boundaries of the government and the market, and builds the governance incentive frameworks based on the sharing of the main taxes. The effort to enforce taxation brings the steady and fast growth of government revenue, providing necessary financial resources for public-finance transformation and economic development of the market. The transfer system narrows the regional inequality but causes the entire fiscal spending to rely excessively on projects. The Value-added tax enhances fiscal capacity but fails to control the income distribution. Acknowledging the local interests promotes investment but makes the government spending favour infrastructure over social development. Public finance is supposed to play a stricter role in allocation between individuals, enterprises and government as well as intergovernmental transfers. Reallocating the administrative and financial rights between the central and local government, and establishing intergovernmental boundaries, as well as government-market boundaries on the spending side through fiscal reform are effective measures to promote good governance and build an all-round moderately prosperous society.