理解“国家自主性”:基于概念的考察

Understanding State Autonomy:A Reinterpretation Based on Conceptual Analysis

国家自主性作为社会科学研究的重要概念已经被广泛运用，但是对于概念本身的理解还是停留于字面，缺少深入的分析。一条可取的路径是，利用国家能力和国家偏好两个次级概念发展出理解国家自主性的分阶段类型；国家能力的水平决定了国家偏好的层次，而战略性的政策选择又会影响到国家能力的长远积累。当国家自主性作为核心自变量用于解释制度变迁或制度绩效的时候．必须将其放置在一定的时空条件、政策议题和组织形式下展开，同时要说明次级概念的结构和测量指标的选择依据；反之，笼统谈论国家自主性的高低则只能作为一种分析视角或者补充性的解释。

State autonomy, as an important concept of but the understanding of the concept itself still stays on social science research, has been widely used, the surface and lacks in-depth analysis. After a fine-grained literature review of typical studies, we clarify the differences between ＂relative autonomy＂, ＂potential autonomy＂ and ＂bounded autonomy＂, and illustrate the conceptual boundaries of state subjectivity in various studies; that is to say, how it would be possible to treat the state as an organization or a field of power. We then construct a phased model of state autonomy with the use of two secondary concepts, which are state capacity and state preference. The level of state capacity determines the level of state preference, while some strategic policy decisions would considerably influence the long-term accumulation of state capacity. When state autonomy acts as a principal variable to explain institutional changes or performance, it must be placed under a certain temporal and spatial condition, along with specific policy issues and organizational forms. In addition, the secondary conceptual structures and choice of measurement indexes need to be clarified. On the contrary, a general comment on the degree of state capacity should be only treated as a perspective of analysis or a supplementary explanation.