Chinese Social Sciences Review (Volume 1)

Author: Zhang Shuguang / Deng Zhenglai (Editor-in-Chief)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: The three articles published in this issue's "Theme Symposium," although differing in research subjects and content, are all empirical studies. To conduct such articles well, one must not only have theoretical hypotheses and frameworks but also empirical data and analytical tools. The key lies in finding measurement indicators that meet theoretical requirements while being supported by data. In this regard, all three articles are quite well done.
Yue Ximing and Li Shi's article discusses the targetting issue of China's rural poverty alleviation projects based on county-level and household-level data from 592 national poverty-stricken counties. The results show that the identification of national poverty-stricken counties in 2001 improved significantly in terms of targetting compared to 1993. When the central government allocates poverty alleviation funds to provinces, the targetting accuracy is high, but when provinces allocate these funds to counties, the targetting accuracy is less precise. This suggests that improving targetting within provinces can enhance the overall accuracy of poverty alleviation fund allocation.
Fan Jianyong's article shifts from the traditional perspective of examining regional disparities through neoclassical growth theory and comparative advantage theory. Instead, it adopts the analytical framework and theoretical assumptions of new international trade theory and new economic geography to explain regional disparities through industrial agglomeration and factor mobility. It empirically demonstrates how the migration of rural labor from eastern China to cities, as well as the concentration of this labor in the eastern coastal regions and the movement of labor from central and western regions to coastal areas, have led to the agglomeration of manufacturing in the eastern coastal regions, thereby widening the economic gap between the coastal and inland areas.
Chen Zhao and colleagues argue that the decline in women's labor participation rates since the reforms has been difficult to explain using neoclassical economics. Based on Chinese data, they discover a positive correlation between divorce rates and women's employment rates. Using dynamic strategic household division of labor theory, they explain how the rise in divorce rates reduces household division of labor efficiency, leading to a decline in women's labor participation rates.
This issue introduces a new column, "Political Philosophy and Legal Philosophy." Given that research in this field in China is either a blank or lacks high-level works, we publish Mr. Deng Zhenglai's translation of Roscoe Pound's "The Purpose of Law: Its Development in Legal Thought." The article, written in precise language and rigorous logic, provides an incisive analysis of how the idea of social control purposes evolved from ancient Greek legal thought through Roman and medieval legal thought, as well as the debates between Protestant legal theologians and Spanish legal theologians, to become modern legal thought. It also offers a comparative examination of its development in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Reading it is like experiencing the evolution of thousands of years of legal thought firsthand and listening to the profound and insightful theories of the sages—it is indeed a great pleasure and enjoyment, truly a classic work of legal philosophy that deserves serious study by domestic scholars.
The five articles published in this issue's "Academic Monographs" and the two reviews in "Academic Book Reviews" are all highly worthwhile reads. Here, only a few can be briefly commented on. For example, Liu Ye's article explores modern Chinese nation-building through the lenses of faith reconstruction and organizational restructuring, highlighting the role of intellectuals in the process. Qian Xuemei's article differs from the two major mainstream theories on Islamic revival—Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" and Giddens's rejection of modernization and globalization—by explaining Islamic revival from the perspective of the inherent self-reform and regulatory mechanisms within Islam. Chen Hongcai's article reviews Simmel's "Philosophy of Money" from two aspects: first, it reveals how money has transformed from a pure means into an ultimate end, becoming the "secular god" of the world; second, it points out that while money grants people freedom, this freedom is merely formal and and hollow, thereby illustrating the metaphysical, ahistorical, and tragic nature of Simmel's philosophy of money. Ma Yongxiang's article reviews Mach's "Analysis of Sensations" and Hayek's "The Order of Sensations," explaining how Hayek's reflections on human intelligence stem from his inspiration and transcendence of Mach's work. By commenting on previous reviews, it points out that Hayek abandoned Mach's reductionist monism of sensation elements and inherited his "relation" concept, while also clarifying that discussing Hayek's fundamental issues within the framework of (anti)positivism and ontology is inappropriate.