“To Take the Law as the Public”: The Diversification of Society and Legal Discourse in Contemporary China

Abstract

According to a Durkheimian perspective of sociology, traditional China was a segmented society. In order to maintain the coherence of the country as a whole, it was therefore necessary to define a single set of dominant values and reify these values in the state’s unified bureaucratic organization. However, often, symbolic interactions that were founded on webs of meaning and personal ties played a much more important role than bureaucratic organization in China’s social ordering. This resulted in another kind of “organic solidarity”—one based on sustained relationships and mutual help shaped by long-term networking.