From Clan to Clientelism and Beyond. Changing Elitist Social Networks and Discourses in Premodern China

Abstract

Abstract Ideals about clan (zu 族) have been an essential ingredient in Chinese conceptions of social order since antiquity. It was grounded on a feudal familybased model. However, the change from an ancient feudal to a bureaucratic system implied major changes. In this article I provide a historical overview with a focus on the Northern Song dynasty (960–1126 AD), showing that strong ideas of familialism or clanism were in fact never skipped in pre-modern China but inherited and continuously propagated by Confucianism – including such well-known elements as common ancestor worship. Rather complementing than replacing this family-based model, the later introduction of the civil service system on the political level led to a new clientelism. Furthermore, Confucianism as the hegemonic ideology of imperial China not only extended family-based ideas to a new universalism but also strongly propagated ideas of a common good and impartiality as a corrective to career and family-oriented egoism. In summary, I argue that as a result of a long process of negotiations, Chinese familialism (clanism) as an ideal of basic social structure, the ideal of impartiality and concern for the common good (gong 公) as well as clientelism in the bureaucratic system have coexisted in imperial China for a long time and have produced a particular (path-dependent) blend (and ‘division of labor’) of socio-cultural patterns.