中国政治传统研究与历史政治学的可能性

The research on Chinese Political Tradition and the Possibility of Historical Politics

相对于晚近的新启蒙主义政治学,历史政治学的兴起蕴含了一个范式转移的契机,使得我们能够以自身实践经验而非外来教条为本位来重构中国政治学的学科资源。长期以来,中国政治思想史和制度史的研究在政治学领域成为智识创新的洼地,无法与整个学科的知识更新之间形成良性循环。如果要真正发展解释中国、评价中国和反思中国的政治学,这两个研究分支应当在正本清源中激发生机,积极推进范式转型。以黄宗羲《明夷待访录》和监察权传统为例,历史政治学意义上的探讨揭示出传统内生的治体视角更具相关性和参照价值。这启发我们反思对于民主政体和分权制衡等现代西方理论未经检验的倚赖,把历史找回来,充分尊重第一手经验事实以发展具有原创性的理论和方法。历史政治学并非单纯提倡对于历史的再解释,而是强调面对历史与现实之间的传统变迁,对于塑造行为实践的政治社会结构做出辩证性和启发性的理论阐释。历史政治学的未来有赖于一系列代表性研究作品的验证和激发。

Comparing with the neo-enlightenment politics since 1980 s, the arising historical politics involves a chance of paradigm transition which enables us to reconstruct the subject resource of Chinese politics with our own practice rather than the foreign dogma. In the past years, there exists low-lying land on the research of the history of Chinese political thought and institutions, so that it could not promote a virtuous recycle with the upgrade of the whole subject knowledge system. In order to truly develop, assess and reflect on the Chinese politics, the two research branches should be motivated from the deep root and actively pushed to the paradigm transition. Taking the example of Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu(Waiting for the Dawn) by Huang Zongxi and the tradition of supervision institutions, it is more valuable and relevant of the perspective of traditional, endogenous Zhiti("治体" Fundamentals of politics) revealed by the discussion of historical politics, which inspires us to reevaluate our former sloppy reliance on the theory of democratic polity, separation of powers and checks and balances, and give full respect to the first-hand empirical material to develop original theories and methods. Bringing history back to political science means the awakening self-consciousness of the importance of the long-term historical experience in Chinese civilization for political thinking in contemporary praxis. In the context of the traditional transition between history and reality, historical politics doesn’t merely advocate the reinterpretation of history, but give full consideration to make dialectic and enlightening theoretic explanation for the structure of social-political relations shaping behavior and practice. So there still exists the need of verification and inspiration based on series of representative research.