从当代中国研究反观国家与社会的关系

Reflecting the Relation of State and Society from Contemporary Study of China

西方的国家与市民社会理论用于分析中国现实时 ,争论主要集中在三个方面 :市民社会概念的标准、界定及其效用 ;国家与社会的关系 ;是否可能以及如何建构中国的市民社会。在避开理论纷争 ,把国家与社会关系作为研究框架和分析中国社会的工具时 ,当代中国研究在如何理解和评判中国的乡土社会、国家与社会关系的多样性与复杂性、对传统与现代的反思方面取得了一定的突破。由此 ,我们从国家与社会有关视野研究当代中国时 ,应该将市民社会作为一个价值概念 ,拓宽研究在特定的时空场域中 ,突破理论限制达到实践创新 ,重视实践对理论的反哺功能。

When analyzing the Chinese society with the Western theories on state and civil society, three main disagreements exist: the standard of the concept of civil society, the relationship of state and society, how to establish a civil society in China and its possibility. Regardless of these theoretical controversies, taking the relation of the state and society as an analyzing tool and study framework, contemporary Chinese study obtained certain advance in three aspects: how to understand the Chinese traditional society, the complexity and diversity of the relation of state and society, the reflection between tradition and modernity. Therefore, in Chinese study we must take civil society as the concept of value, enlarge viewpoints and methods of research, break through the barriers of theory and concentrate the feedback from the practice.