Bending and Fitting: Disciplinarized Institutionalization of Modern Science in China during the ‘Treaty Century’

• Main Author: Kai Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017-12-01
• Series: Social Sciences
• Subjects: disciplinarized institutionalization; modern science; scholar-bureaucratic virtue; utilitarian view
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/4/153

This article investigates how Western science established itself through disciplinarized institutionalization in China as the country entered the modern era, delineating China’s science and technology (S&T) enterprises evolving within the social settings primarily decided by Confucianism doctrines including Scholar-bureaucrat virtue. Although the perspective of this study is mainly historical, I also adopt a sociological approach to scientific knowledge production in order to argue that, the socialization of Western science during the ‘Treaty Century’ (1842–1943) has shaped and channeled the growth of modern S&T as well as its governance in contemporary China in a normative manner. It is this sociological interpretation of the history of modern science in China that sheds new light on our understanding of scientific knowledge as a component element of belief system that crosses countries, social structures, and civilizations. The main findings also include the premises on which the S&T governance issues are explored in China’s case, in particular, the increased social mobility at the intrusion of the Western.