Ideologically-oriented models for the study of social management in the People's Republic of China

The article analyses the influence of the party and state ideology of the People's Republic of China, the core of which is the Chinese communist ideology, on the formation of modern research models for social management studies. The article aims to identify patterns of conjunction between ideologised and pragmatic scientific knowledge specific to regions in China. The study analyses Chinese social management dissertations selected through a continuous sampling method using a systemic modelling approach and factor analysis. The findings suggest that the process of studying social management in China is influenced by three basic factors: modern party and state ideology, traditionalism, and pragmatism. Chineseised Marxism is supported by traditionalism, while pragmatism enables the achievement of sound and socially useful solutions to current problems. The article describes the stages of formation of state ideology in China, its relationship at different stages of development with tradition and the current correlation of these three phenomena within the scientific research process. Three types of research models are identified: pragmatically-, traditionally-, and ideologically-oriented models. Pragmatically-oriented models are characterised by a rational scientific approach aimed at solving real problems of social management. Ideologically-oriented models aim to justify party and state ideologemes in the scholarly text. Traditionally-oriented models, acting as auxiliary to ideologically-oriented models, meet the social and political demand for the recultivation of Chinese ethnocentrism, which manifests itself in scholarship through the justification of the uniqueness of the Chinese way of development and the self-sufficiency of Chinese culture. The combination of the three factors (pragmatism, ideology, and traditionalism) makes it possible to achieve a balance between scientific and imposed social and political tasks: some studies focus on scientifically grounded methods for solving social management problems (pragmatism), some are aimed at satisfying the requirements of political course (ideology), while the others are created to justify the emphasis on traditional values as a basic component of managerial concepts in order to form and maintain conservatism (tradition). The combination of all three factors generates submodels with varying degrees of influence of each of them. At the same time, nowadays the ideologically-oriented type of models begins to play a significant role in the presentation of scientific research due to the increasing influence of the party and state ideology on all spheres of social life. It has been noted that among the analyzed models of this type, the most in demand is the ideologically-oriented submodel with an active pragmatic factor, which allows directing the efforts of researchers towards solving real social problems. The continued viability of ideologically-oriented models will depend on maintaining the influence of this factor.

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