Xiao Ying

　　School of Sociology and Political Science, Shanghai University

　　Abstract:The term “institutions and life” is proposed as an alternative perspective to “state and society.” Here, “institutions” refers to formal institutions set up in the name of the state and supporting its agents at various levels and in different departments in the exercise of their functions. “Life” refers to the everyday activities of social beings, involving not only the interests, powers and rights-based claims of expedient production and life strategies and techniques, but also relatively routine popular mores and informal institutions. The purpose of constructing and applying this perspective is to probe the complex mechanism of the interaction between living subjects and the agents of formal institutions in institutional practice and thereby analyze the actual logic and changing direction of China’s formal institutions and explore the mechanisms behind changes in mores so as to grasp the main thread running through China’s modern nation building.

　　Keywords: state and society, institutions and life, social change in China, mores