Abstract: In recent years, the researches on Chinese legal history shows that although “no litigation” phenomenon and efforts relatively existed to reduce litigation in ancient China, there was a “litigious society” scenario in many areas, in which lawsuit abuse, fraud litigation, and malicious action even became serious social problems.In addition to the profound economic, social, and cultural reasons, the developed judicial system under centralization and relatively weak civil society autonomy are the key to the litigious society. When the amount of lawsuits is beyond social and judicial tolerance, government would try to limit or even prohibit litigation. The vicious inter-weaving cycle of lawsuit abuse and difficulty to litigate inevitably destroyed the judicial authority, and lead to social management confusion and moral anomie. Historical experience shows since neither the ideal type of “litigious society” nor “no-litigation society” can be a reasonable model of social governance, and the realistic choice is to carry out the diversified dispute solution mechanism to respond to various social needs and crisis, and then to approach good governance gradually by forming the coordination of national legal system with social autonomy.

Key words: Dispute Resolution, Litigious Society, No Litigation, Justice, Social Autonomy

摘要： 中国法律史的最新研究成果表明，古代中国尽管确实存在着相对“无讼”的现象和“息讼” 的努力，但实际上有不少区域呈现出“诉讼社会”的景象，诉讼滥用、欺诈诉讼、恶意诉讼等甚至成为一些地方严重的社会问题。除了深刻的经济、社会和文化原因外，中央集权下发达的司法体制与民间社会自治的相对弱势，是形成诉讼社会的关键要因。当诉讼超出社会和司法的承受力之时，官府对诉讼的限制乃至打压，就成为不可避免的潜规则。滥讼与讼难交织的恶性循环，既破坏了司法的公信力，也必然导致社会治理的混乱和道德失范。历史经验表明，“诉讼社会”和“无讼社会”这两种理想类型，都不能独立成为社会治理的合理模式，现实的选择只能是通过多元化纠纷解决机制来应对各种社会需求和危机，从而形成国家法律机制与社会自治的协调，逐步接近善治。

关键词: 纠纷解决, 诉讼社会, 无讼, 司法, 社会自治