Authoritarian politics, in comparison with totalitarian politics, allows some space for
political studies, and various elements that range from social diversity and financial
abundance to intellectual consciousness and the limited market of ideas also help to
promote the study of political science in China. The Chinese academics disagree, however, over how to
develop political science in general and the study of Chinese domestic politics in
particular. Some emphasize the dominant and even guiding role of communist
ideology that should be further and better reflected in political studies, and this line
of reasoning aligns itself with the governmental programs of “Marxist political
science with Chinese characteristics.'
The other significant step which is equally decisive for the institutionalization of
professional autonomy, and especially for the promotion of political study
scholarship, concerns “internal institutional building,” by which I mean the norms,
principles, and procedures that govern qualifications and assessments of human
resources, research projects, scholarly publications, and educational offers in the
study of Chinese politics. A perhaps superficial issue in this regard is about the
format and professionalism of research articles: in China there are still numerous
articles published in leading political science journals like yanjiu that
lack any format for academic reference—in other words, no any footnotes.
![[削除済みユーザ]](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/695023b4efd563721d13716b1457bc73.png?d=identicon&mode=crop&r=PG&s=42)
Some others call for “sinonization” and “localization” of political science in China in the form of
resistance against Western influences in the study of Chinese politics. To provide
an alternative way to their ideas, here I would suggest “open-minded independence
of scholarship” as a major program to promote the development of political science
in China in general.
With this program of scholarship, independence means professional autonomy
resistant to non-academic interventions, firstly to the interventions from state power
and political authorities, and “open mind” refers to scholastic tolerance within the
discipline for a diversity of approaches, theories, and methodologies regardless their
cultural and ethnic.
この奨学金プログラムでは、独立とは、国家権力や政治権力をはじめとして学術分野以外からの干渉に耐える専門的自立性だ。「開放的」とは文化や民族にかかわらずアプローチ、理論、方法論の多様性に対する規律の中での学問的寛容を指している。
This attitude doesn't deny Marxism to political studies, nor does it refuse other nonMarxist Western theories for their applications; it calls for 'professionalization' of academic research, while it also urges localization of political science in China in its fundamental meaning of studying Chinese politics which is local to the nation of China. There will be a long way to
go for the Chinese students of political science to develop a discipline of political
studies containing a research agenda with that much attention given to the study of
politics . It will be equally challenging to build a tradition of research containing a rich diversity of theories and methodologies all independent from state ideology
2 steps, but, are the most urgent and decisive in order to march toward that direction, which will be briefly discussed. The 1st priority in building the discipline of political science, with the study of Chinese politics as one of the most important fields therein, is academic professionalization. Here “pro-” is understood as the professional autonomy and academic independence of scholarly activities from other nonacademic intervening factors, which may include populism, and, primarily, state power intervention. Further, such pro- should be institutionalized at various levels, rather than being merely reflected in individual
academics’ professional ethics though this individual factor is also important.
In the institutional meaning of “professionalization,” the program, I would argue,
concerns, first of all, how political scientists organize their research and educational
activities, and, at the same time, differentiate their identity as scholars of political
studies from other groups working on politics either at a practical or intellectual
level. The university system naturally stands at the center of this institutionalization
of divisions of labor between academics and other professions of a political nature, if
the scholars of political science regard themselves first as scholars similar to their
counterparts in, say, natural sciences, rather than first as someone simply in
proximity to politics.
InU.S and, generally, the Western industrial world, the university system provides the major institutional hub for political science
studies, while other kinds of political commentators are affiliated with nonuniversity
organizations. Although the growing prominence of universities is argued
as a cause of the declining number of great thinkers in the Western tradition , the
enormous contributions of the Western university system to human progress. What
is relevant here is that, as the almost exclusively leading organization of human
education, university system offers institutional guarantees to safeguard academic
autonomy, which is integral in an industrial society for academics’ accomplishments
of scholarship.
That partly explains why today in the Unites States, where contemporary political
science is prosperous, the overwhelming majority of political scientists are affiliated
with universities rather than other research organizations. Standing prominently in
the latter category are think tanks, but, as one of their major focuses is policies rather
than the scholarship of politics, their contributions to political science are
tremendously limited, and the size of such organizations as well as the number of
the political scientists affiliated with the organizations are much smaller than
universities and their faculty.
The current institutional infrastructure of political studies in China, as we have previously discussed, is greatly concentrated in the
hands of the Communist Party and government organizations, which has
institutionally reduced the autonomy and independence of the scholarship of
political science in general. The institutional
design in which studies are organized by research institutions of the ruling party and
government may empower political scientists in several aspects, such as the
convenience of getting access to research data and the ability to influence policymaking
through institutional connections, but it nurtures a culture that equates
political authorities to scholarly authorities of political studies.
In addition, one must be aware of the absence of party competitions for
governmental power when talking about the Party-state affiliated research
institutions in China. The Chinese university system is also affiliated to and run
by the government, as university presidents and party secretaries are, first of all,
party-state cadres.Despite this institutional similarity between non-university
research organizations and universities, this author still believes that greater space for
academic autonomy can exist in universities than in party-state sponsored policy
research institutes. For this article, it can be said that when the study of Chinese
politics in China is dominated by universities with academic independence.
「専門的技術についてです」を「専門的技術について見られます」と訂正いたします。