Twenty Years of Rural Political Studies: The Rise and Fall of a Public Academic Movement

Translation © 2008 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Chinese text: Wu Yi and Li Derui, “Ershi nian nongcun zhengzhi yanjiu de yanjin yu zhuanxiang: Jian lun yi duan gonggong xueshu yundong de xingqi yu zhongjie,” Open Times (Kaifang shidai) 2 (2007), pp. 90–105. Abridged translation by Matthew A. Hale. Wu Yi is a professor and Li Derui is a Ph.D. student in the sociology department and the Center for Research on Rural Governance at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. *“Socially engaged scholarship” (xianxue) is contrasted with “esoteric scholarship” (yinxue) in Han Fei’s third century b.c.e. classic of Legalism.—Trans. Wu Yi and Li derui