Springer Regeneration of Peasants

This book focuses on analyzing the inter-relationship between Chinese peasants and the reform and it tries to understand the conditions of peasants during the course of the Chinese social transition. This book argues that Chinese peasants are the most important force that keeps the reform going. More importantly, this book argues that this force comes from the peasants’ pursuit of their own social, political and economic interest, not some spontaneous demand for “reform” itself. This inherent relationship between the peasants and the reform is summarized into five major relationships: the inter-relationship between peasants and the central government; between peasants and local government; between peasants and rural democratization; between peasants and social constructions; and between peasants and local officials. These five inter-relationships are the prime mechanism for the interaction between Chinese peasants and the reform, and these forms the basis for understanding and analyzing the inter-relationship between the state and peasants. From the Back Cover This book focuses on analyzing the inter-relationship between Chinese peasants and the reform and it tries to understand the conditions of peasants during the course of the Chinese social transition. This book argues that Chinese peasants are the most important force that keeps the reform going. More importantly, this book argues that this force comes from the peasants’ pursuit of their own social, political and economic interest, not some spontaneous demand for “reform” itself. This inherent relationship between the peasants and the reform is summarized into five major relationships: the inter-relationship between peasants and the central government; between peasants and local government; between peasants and rural democratization; between peasants and social constructions; and between peasants and local officials. These five inter-relationships are the prime mechanism for the interaction between Chinese peasants and the reform, and these forms the basis for understanding and analyzing the inter-relationship between the state and peasants. About the Author Zhao Shukai, born in November 1959 in Laixi of Shangdong Province, is a law PhD, a researcher and an expert who enjoys special government allowance from the State Council. He worked in the Rural Policy Research Office of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee from August 1982 to July 1990 and has been working in the Development Research Center of the State Council since August 1990, during which he worked at local level for two years (the Party Committee of Zhuolu County and Zhang Jiakou Municipal Government) and studied abroad for three years (Australian National University, Duke University and Harvard University of America); he used to be China’s Rural Development Project Consultant for UNDP, World Bank and UK Department for International Development). In November 2006, he served as the chief lecturer for the 36 th Collective Study of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau. His main works include Township Governance and Government Institutionalization (The Commercial Press, 2010), Peasant Politics (The Commercial Press, 2011), New Destiny of Peasants (The Commercial Press, 2012), etc.