准行政区划的理论框架与研究展望

行政区划有狭义与广义之分。狭义的行政区划指国家划定的正式的行政管理区域，广义的则指一切具有行政管理职能的区域，包括一些未被列入正式行政区划体系而有行政管理职能的准行政区划。准行政区划为中国统一的行政管理提供了因地制宜和灵活多变的政策工具，很多还逐步发展为正式的行政区划。然而，目前对准行政区划的研究较少、重视不够。为此，结合古今典型的准行政区划案例，对准行政区划概念和类型进行了科学界定和系统归纳，划分次行政区划、虚行政区划和半行政区划3种类型；基于政治地理学中的尺度和领域等理论，构建了理解准行政区划形成演变的理论框架；在此基础上，提出未来准行政区划研究的若干议题。

Theoretical Framework and Prospect on Quasi-administrative Division

According to the classical definitions given by Chinese leading scholars such as Junde Liu and Zhenhe Zhou, administrative division has narrow and broad connotations. While the narrow definition of administrative division is the administratively governed regions officially divided by the state, the broad definition of administrative division denotes all regions with administrative functions, including various informal administrative divisions which are usually out of the official administrative hierarchy system. The informal administrative divisions are termed quasi-administrative divisions in this paper. Quasi-administrative divisions provide various localized and flexible policy tools for the unified administrative management in China, many of them have developed into formal administrative division afterwards. However, existing studies have paid much less attention to quasi-administrative divisions than formal administrative divisions. Some scholars even hold that quasi-administrative divisions should not be a topic in administrative geography. This study points out the importance of quasi-administrative divisions in studies of political geography and provides a conceptual model to interpret the definition and typology of quasi-administrative divisions. Specifically, quasi-administrative division is categorized into the sub-administrative division, virtual administrative division and partial administrative division. Additionally, a theoretical framework is developed to analyze the formation and transformation of various quasi-administrative divisions based on the scale and territory theories in political geography. The important topics worth further exploration are also summarized in this paper.