Local Strongmen Research Articles

Temple Fairs and the Republican State in North China

TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA TEMPLE FAIRS AND THE REPUBLICAN STATE IN NORTH CHINA JAMES FLATH, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO 39 Early in the fourth lunar month of 1928, the west-Shandong temple known as Shaodaishan (Little Mount Tai) awoke from a state of quiet retreat and opened its doors to a throng of people eager to join in worship and watch the theatricals of its annual fair. I The daily arrival of as many as ten thousand people also gave rise to an extensive market radiating out from the temple where farmers, householders , and merchants from as far away as Jining, over one hundred kilometers to the south, came to trade in livestock, tools, agricultural produce, and household wares. Later that year, however, the future of this event was called into doubt as local political activists entered the premises and destroyed the sacred images in the name of the anti-superstition policies that followed in the wake of the Guomindang's (GMD) Northern Expedition. The fair went into decline, but in 1931 the local government permitted the restoration of the images, and by 1932, Shaodaishan began to recover some of its former glory (SMD, 1933: 31). Shaodaishan's experience with ambiguous reform was symptomatic of the political uncertainties that emerged in North China in the wake of the tentative establishment of the GMD and its regional affiliates. The worst excesses of warlordism had been eliminated by military force, but the struggle for political legitimacy continued in the townships and villages of North China as local strongmen, government agents and administrative authorities maneuvered for control over whatever resources their localities had to offer, including temples and temple assets. GMD efforts to eradicate local belief systems through antisuperstition campaigns have been demonstrated by Prasenjit Duara (1995) and Roxann Prazniak (1999). Roger Thompson (1988) and Paul Bailey (1990) have I The term "temple fair" may appear as problematic for several reasons, but I have nonetheless retained it in this discussion for the following reasons. First, as Susan Naquin points out (2000: 20), Chinese religious institutions held a wide variety of designations including miao (temple), and si (monastery), but these did not necessarily indicate the function of the institution. In light of this I adopt Naquin's practice of referring to all such institutions collectively as "temples." Second, "fair" may misrepresent the religious function of the event, and consequently has in some recent discussions been abandoned in favor of 'festival' (i.e. Johnson, 1997). This debate is certainly justified in certain cases, but given that the present discussion focuses on commercial and other secular aspects of "these events, "fair" better describes the spirit of the occasion. -© Twentieth-Century China, Vol. 30, NO.1 (November 2004): 39-63. 40 JAMES FLATH also considered the late-Qing- and Republican-era efforts to expropriate temple property, ostensibly for purposes of funding education. But when it came to temple fairs, the principal conflicts that emerged between the locality and the expanding Republican state had less to do with real estate and religious principles than they did with determining who would control the economic and political assets that the fairs so conspicuously exhibited. The state approached the temple not merely as a bastion of objectionable religious practices, but as a center of a non-governmental (or locally self-governed) public sphere that defied the interests of a government seeking to expand its administrative hold below the county level. Historical research on temple fairs has increased dramatically in recent years, including book-length studies by Gao Zhanxiang (1992), Gao Youpeng (1997, 1999), Zhang Shuanglin, editor (1995), Wang Zhaoxiang and Liu Wenzhi (1997), and Zhao Xinghua (1999). Relying largely on county annals (xianzhi) and records of folklore, these researchers have been able to reconstruct the historical background of many better known fairs and to address questions of customs , frequency, timing, and spatial distribution. County annals and folklore, however, seldom provide the type of detail necessary to explain the socioeconomic and political character of the events. The connection between local power and religious institutions has received greater attention in Western language studies of temple organizations. James Watson's 1985 study of the Tianhou cult in southern China, for example, argued that temples and...

Putting state‐formation first: some recommendations for reconstruction and peace‐making in Afghanistan

AbstractThe authors suggest a revision of the current strategy of reconstruction and peace‐building in Afghanistan with reference to four points. (i) The programme of reconstruction should have a clear strategic focus and be designed as a state‐building project. The main problem Afghanistan faces is the absence of a monopoly of power and of other basic state functions, without which no sustainable economic development is to be expected. Fostering ‘civil society’—the standard pre‐occupation of many current development co‐operation programmes—may have a negative impact in the cases of countries suffering from state failure. (ii) A monopoly of power cannot be established only by building up a central army and disarming or integrating local armed forces. Rather, the loyalty of the country's citizens must be won through a long‐term process of providing them with equality before the law and protection from arbitrary violence in such a way as to make them independent of the ‘protection’ of local strong men or regional warlords. (iii) It is too early to achieve democracy in Afghanistan through elections. A democracy can only release the potential for political integration following successful political stabilization and institutional consolidation. And the institutional framework should be designed in such a way as to avoid an escalation of conflicts along ethno‐religious lines. An ethno‐religious quota system of the sort that many have in mind at the moment would tend rather to increase such conflict than to reduce it. (iv) A programme of reconstruction and peace‐making must necessarily take a long‐term perspective. Spending the resources that have now been approved over the next four years and hoping for a continuation of aid approvals in the future is too risky, given the dependence of these approvals on the future political climate. © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Vitality of Local Political Institutions in the Middle Atlas, Morocco

In the Middle Atlas, Morocco, growing government bureaucracy has not undermined the informal village council and the legitimacy of local functionaries such as shaykh or muqaddam. Although official or elected bodies may formally have de facto power, in practice the village council still controls access to local resources. Instead of being manipulated by the regional government bureaucracy, the village council continues to represent the common people. However, newcomers and educated folk hold different attitudes toward local institutions and functionaries which weaken them, giving government officials opportunity to intervene. (Village council, district council, regional government, herders, farmers, Middle Atlas, Morocco) ********** This article discusses the changes that have taken place in the local political institutions of the Ait Abdi Berbers of the Middle Atlas as a result of encroaching government bureaucracy. It addresses the Ait Abdi of the rural district (commune rurale) Oued Ifrane, which has a population of 14,500. The population's main source of livelihood is sheep farming. Formerly, sheep farmers practiced transhumance between summer and winter pastures, but now they are generally settled in the winter pastures: mountain valleys with a climate permitting the development of agriculture and arboriculture. This sedentarization has resulted in the growth of rural centers in the Middle Atlas, among them Souk el Had, the main center of Oued Ifrane, with about 4,350 inhabitants. Several researchers have argued that growing government bureaucracy and extension of the powers of government courts in Morocco have undermined local political institutions in administration and in settling disputes (Geertz, Geertz, and Rosen 1979:53-57; Chiapuris 1980:232-36). With reference to the Central Atlas, Ilahiane (1999:41) concludes that the government now has a presence in every domain, curtailing the influence of local and collective institutions, and constituting an extension of government bureaucracy. Hammoudi (1997) agrees that contemporary elective institutions have increased the power of the state in the rural areas of Morocco, and claims that the central government collaborated with the rural notables, the sons of those who, as caid (district officer; pl. cuwwad) or shaykh (subdistrict officer; pl. shuyukh) during the era of the French Protectorate, acquired large parcels of land and became local strongmen. These notables now participate in the patronage network of the monarchy and state. They came to be cuwwad or shuyukh or members of the district council in return for collaborating with state authorities. This point of view does insufficient justice to the value attached to autonomy by the Berber population, however. In the Middle Atlas, the sultan and his army hardly ever succeeded in levying tribute on the trading routes between Fez, Meknes, and Tafilalt, which was considered the prerogative of the Berber leaders themselves. Only by sending troops did the sultan obtain a share of the tribute, and then often for only a limited period and only if the Berber leaders were allowed to continue their practices (Venema 1993:165). In 1912, Sultan Moulay Hafid signed a treaty with the French authorities under which Morocco became a French protectorate. In an attempt to nullify the treaty, the Berbers of the Middle Atlas, among other tribes, besieged Fez. The liberation of Fez by the French army marked the start of the military campaign in Morocco under the leadership of Marshal Lyautey, which continued until 1934 (Julien 1978:88, 89). Following independence, the Berbers continued their search for autonomy. In the Middle Atlas and several other regions there was an uprising against the provincial governors and judges appointed by the new government. Generally from an urban and Arabic background, these officials largely ignored the problems of the rural population, their customary law, and the ambitions of their leaders (Gellner 1981:194-206; Coram 1973:271). …

Revolutionary Specialists, Strongmen, and the State: Post-Movement Careers of CPP—NPA Cadres in a Philippine Province, 1990s–2001

Across the Philippines, many thousands of former cadres of the nationwide guerrilla movement CPP–NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines–New People's Army) are leaving their mark on provincial society and politics long after they left the underground movement. Tracing the careers of ex-cadres in the province of Negros Occidental, this paper explores how they are changing the provincial power configuration by passing on their skills and networks to strongmen, non-violent social movements, and the state. Concerning those who are still active in the political arena, it suggests the following trends. (1) A significant number of former specialists in violence are employed by provincial strongmen and the military. (2) Former political cadres, in turn, contest the power of local strongmen through progressive NGOs, social movements, and cooperatives, and push for poor people's direct access to state resources independent of strongmen control. (3) The rule of local strongmen (related to the district-based, winner-take-all electoral system) is still the pivot around which former cadres position themselves – as contestants, allies, or dependants. (4) However, as former cadres fuel this non-revolutionary power contest on opposite sides, they contribute to a marked change in the configuration of state, strongmen, and citizens.