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Multi-Level Housing Governance in Rural Settlement Lin & Jia

origins to strengthen the legitimacy of their lineage village was a natural “autonomy,” like
lineage. Thus, from this perspective, lineage a honeycomb-structure.
is a ‘cooperation’ type of organization There are three kinds of spaces with
grouped and operated spontaneously by the different hierarchies existing in the village’s-
villagers themselves in the local community. built environment, which are family space,
Under the home-country structure, the lineage space, and common space. Family
state power and family power are co- spaces are the spaces owned and used by the
dependent. This relationship determines the same family as an independent living unit,
scramble for the public power of the village which are referred to as the private dwellings.
by the big lineage group. Lineage spaces are the spaces owned by the
The rural intellectuals are the same lineage group as a cluster of families
representatives of effective implementation with the same surname and blood
of management by the lineage group. There is relationships, which always refer to the
another system working in parallel with the ancestral halls. Common spaces are the
lineage system, the rural intellectuals. The spaces shared by the public, which always
grass-roots society in the Qing dynasty refers to the bridges and temples.
consisted of mainly three parts: officials, rural Family spaces are built by the family
intellectuals, and the ordinary people. The members themselves, but the location of the
class of rural intellectuals is the intermediary spaces can be controlled by the lineage.
between the bureaucrats and the villagers. Lineage spaces are built by the lineage
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, members and is always initiated by the
“national power cannot go below the level of lineage representative. Common spaces are
county. The lineage group is the management built by the joint forces of the public, but the
class below the level of county. All the built activities are organized by the rural elites.
lineage groups are operated by themselves. In December 1978, the Communist Party
The self-governing system produces the local of China held the Third Plenary Session of the
ethic. Local ethic produces the rural Eleventh Central Committee. It signaled that
intellectual group [30] .” (国权不下县，县下惟 the Chinese society had entered a new era of
宗族，宗族皆自治，自治造伦理，伦理造 reform and opening up. The most direct
乡 绅 ; guoquanbuxiaxian, xianxiaweizongzu, manifestation and means of the state’s
zongzujiezizhi, zizhizaolunli, lunlizaoxiangshen) effective control over rural society was that
The rural intellectuals was the only group that the state power system was established in the
could legally represent local communities and rural society. In a traditional rural society, this
government officials to discuss local affairs kind of state power was expressed as imperial
regarding political issues of the group. Under power; in a modern society, it is directly
the rule of the empire, the management of the represented as political power, with the
administrative agencies had not yet highest authority being the national
penetrated the village, and the unique power administrative power. After the national
of the lineage had maintained the stability and administrative system was sunk to the
order of the countryside. township during the Republic of China, it was
According to Vivienne Shue’s research the township government that directly
[31] , in traditional central societies, there were represented the country in rural society. In the
in fact two kinds of order and power: one was new era, with the abolition of the people’s
the official order or national power; the other commune system and the establishment of the
was the local order or folk power. The former village governance system, the form and
was centered on the imperial power and scope of the state power have also undergone
formed a graded trapezoidal structure from great changes. The “township government”
the top to the bottom; the latter took the system has been established by certain
lineage family as the center and gathered in a administrative divisions: the country’s most
natural village of large or small groups. Each basic administrative power system. In other

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