The Political Relation of the Village to the State

Abstract

Almost everywhere in the world man lives in communities, and a vast majority of these communities are not independent political entities but are subject to political control from above. When village communities are under the control of a central authority, there necessarily arises the problem of working out a political relationship between the local communities and the central authority. This relationship is, of course, far from uniform. The modest state of the aboriginal Fiji, where the ruler has little more power than to demand tributes, is a far cry from the modern state of Communist China, which controls practically every sphere of peasant life. A question arises then as to what determines the variation in the political relationships between the village community and the central authority and within the village's internal political structure. The purpose of this article is to explore these determinants and examine their consequences for the village community as a political entity.