Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2013

History of State Form as a Concept: Transnational Transplants and Evolution

(Abstract)

Lin Laifan

Etymologically, the term “state form” can be traced up to a number of ancient Chinese classics. However, as a legal-political concept, it witnessed several “rounds of transnational overlaps and transplants” from the pre-modern Germany to the Meiji Japan, and then from Japan to the late-Qing China. As an important conceptual apparatus, it exercised three functions during this period: building the state form, justifying a specific political authority and formulating state corporatism. As such, it promoted the evolution of its connotation at different stages in different countries, and eventually became a substantial concept from a formal one. The state-form article in the existing Chinese Constitution implies the specific content of state corporatism, and its normative connotation itself also entails the inherent mechanism of ongoing formation and self-evolution, which suggests the inherent drive for Chinese legal development and predicts the due direction of its future development.