Transformation Of China's Township Democratic Governance Research

As a basic element of the structure of political power, township politics plays an extremely important role in the political structure of the whole country. Over the recent past, a lot of scholars who were devoted to the Chinese politics tried to analyse the gain and the loss of China's political transition. The selecting topic of this dissertation is based on two consideritions: one is to review the dilemma of Chinese rural political development and systemically summarize problems of Chinese rural politics. According to the studies above and some typical cases, the author tries to decipher the context, progress, difficulties and effects of rural politics through empirical methods, especially to clarify the significance of democracy to governance on theoretical perspective, and therefore builds an ideal model of Chinese township politics. The other one is trying to discuss the course and progress of democratic practices in rural governance which are on the logical basis of election and deliberation, for which, the author tries to explore the path of Chinese democratic transition which begins with the concept of governance. On the base of theoretical study and analyse of typical cases, this dissertation tries to answer: how to accomplish the consolidation between the rural and state through an effective township governance?This dissertation consists two parts: the introduction and the text.The introduction focuses on the reasoning of the selecting topic, the meaning, currently research state, and methods and approach of this research.The first chapter discusses the historical changes of China's township politics. According to periods, the writer analyzes different rural goverance models, from the Feudal autocratic period, modern history, people's commune period to the reform and opening up. The purpose of that study is trying to explore the logic and structural element of Chinese rural governance. This chapter is the historical basis of this dissertation.In the second chapter, the task is to explore the gap between regulation and actual operation mode after the rural tax and fee reform, by which the author tries to point out problems exisiting in the current township governance and valuate reform practices and plans on processing. Based on the calculus of the state, the society and the relation between the state and the society, the author firstly evaluates those reform practices through the comparison of the regulation and operation of people's congress in town, township government and township party committee. Secondly, the author concentrates on the game playing between township politics and village governance and the tension and dilemma result from this game. At last, the author views the role changes of peasant since China implemented its reform and opening up policies.The third chapter is a case study of direct election of Xindu District. With the development of the democracy in village, the reform of township election took place in the end of 1990s has achieved a new level. However, direct election of the township directors severely shocked the legitimacy of basic-level party organization. For this reason, this kind of direct election ended up. After that, the reform which is marked by the election of leaders of township party organization begins to burgeon and becomes hot topics of inner-party democracy and reform of township governance. Based on the case of Xindu Mode, this dissertation descripts the context and the forming process of this practice, gives an explanation of its performance and dilemma, and furthermore offers some probable advices.The fourth chapter is the case study of Wenling "Democratic Talkfest". Especially, the author gives an explanation for the participatory budget reform. As a new form of democratic governance systerm, "Democratic Talkfest" provides an opportunity for the mass to participate in the public social issues. It is an effective approach to expansing grassroots democracy, boosting the improvement of democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic supervision. Theoretically, a deep research and analysis of this case has significance to the construction of democracy and grass-roots governance. From the perceptive of deliberative democracy theory, this chapter inspects the system occurrence, institutional arrangement, practice progress, function, meaning, dilemmas, etc, based on which are some countermeasures and suggestions.On studing the above two cases, the fifth chapter puts forth a theoretical model of township governance mode. What this chapter tries to explore is meanings of election and deliberation to democracy, the relation between these two concepts, their significances to democratic practice, as well as the value of direct election and "Democratic Talkfest" to township governance. According to practical achievements and the summary of the relation between electoral democracy and deliberative democracy, the purpose of this chapter is to develop an ideal model for township democratic governance.The conclusion part is an summarization of this dissertation, which illustrates three points of views and the logical process of township democratic governance. In the final part, the article points out deficiencies and problems that need further discussing.