传统乡约的现代性转换:杨开道的乡约—自治思想研究

Modern Transition of Traditional Township Covenants (“Xiang Yue”):A Study of Yang Kaidao’s Thoughts of “Xiang Yue” and Autonomy

民国年间中国部分社会学家所经历的“内在转向”使得当代社会学者在重新解读他们的研究文本时需要将学术史同其所处的社会史结合起来分析。本文即以杨开道的乡约研究为切入点,将乡约之“乡”和“约”拆分为“治理单位”与“治理规则”两个维度,一方面解析作为“治理单位”的“乡”与“治理规则”的“约”在历史进程中的演变,另一方面则探求杨开道对历史脉络中的乡约展开研究所指向的民国地方自治实践,分析杨开道对地方自治基本单位和自治规范的思考以及这些思考背后的思想基础与社会基础。本文试图通过将学术史的阐释与社会史的解析进行融通,探索一种理解学术观念生成过程的研究路径。

During the Republic of China,some Chinese sociologists began to shift to the“internal”perspective of history/tradition and internal structure after a period of studying Chinese society from the“external”perspective as its disciplinary approach.This“inward-turned”change makes it necessary for contemporary sociologists to reinterpret their research texts in conjunction with the social history in which these sociologists live.This paper takes Yang Kaidao’s study of“Xiang Yue”(乡约)as the starting point to explore how he transformed traditional Chinese“Xiang Yue”culture into modern governance resources in response to the democratic demands of China in a period of modern transition.It divides the concept of“Xiang Yue”into two parts of“Xiang”(township)and“Yue”(covenants).“Xiang”can be understood as a governance unit,and“Yue”as governance rules.The evolutionary process of“Xiang”and“Yue”in Chinese history was examined as well as the practice of local autonomy during the time of the Republic of China since Yang hoped his research would provide guidance to such autonomy.It also analyzes Yang’s thinking on the basic units and norms of local autonomy,and its ideological and social basis.Yang Kaidao advocated the spirit of democratic autonomy in the traditional“Xiang Yue”,but he did not blindly exclude the role of official rule,instead he argued for its power to be used as an institutional guarantee.Even though the spirit of enlightenment contained in the traditional“Xiang Yue”can be seen as somewhat interconnected with the imported spirit of democratic autonomy,it is quite difficult to bridge the two in actuality because of the discrepancies between the“group views”of China and the West.Governance units should also be coordinated with historical traditions,local folk customs and governance tasks.In addition to institutional norms,the guiding role of political leaders is also indispensable in grass-roots governance.Through the analysis of Yang Kaidao’s“Xiang Yue,”this paper has explored a research path that integrates interpretation of academic history with the analysis of social history as a way to understand how an academic concept comes into existence.