Notaries and Basic-Level Society: A Study of the Itinerant Notary System during the Republican Period

Autor: Yulong Guo (郭玉龙)
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Rural China. 18:314-338
ISSN: 2213-6746
2213-6738
Popis: The itinerant notary system was an important measure taken by the Nationalist government in Nanjing to enhance its control of grassroots society in rural China. There was no intent to challenge the central government’s wishes of “enlarging government revenues for the benefit of the state treasury” and safeguarding the integrity of the central government’s jurisdiction, which made smooth implementation of the itinerant notary system possible. It was against this background that the court of Linxia, Gansu province, expanded its reach to local business centers, selected superintendents of public notaries from among local gentry elites, and offered awards for notary services. The itinerant notary system thus combined a “modern” legal institution transplanted from the West with endogenous resources, and turned out to be an experiment conducive to overcoming the either/or binary of Western vs. Chinese, exploring a pluralistic and less disruptive path of institutional development.
Databáze: OpenAIRE