Democratic Control Of Property Rights And Fiscal

Finance is the lifeblood of a government. Financial power is the key element to dominate the distribution of national financial resources and political powers. At present time, the western countries' purse powers have constituted as a set of comprehensive systems. Legislative body to control national purse for taxpayers in western countries have in fact become an important character of the western political culture. The democratization and openness of public finance represent the important foundations and driving forces of the development of western political democratization.By putting the financial power research into the framework of political science, this dissertation tries to give a thorough excavation in inner content and extensive meanings of the financial powers in the UK parliament and the U.S congress, and scrutinize various attributes and operating regularities of the power of the purse as a political power structure. The author also makes a preliminary judgment for the accurate position of purse power in the whole national mechanism of powers from political view, and gives preliminary explanation for the main reasons of its evolution and perfection of method. From the view of practical significance and in the area of political system research, it is a theme for political scholars throughout history to prevent governments from seizing and abusing the state's financial resources through its public power system. As a representative body, the parliament also regards financial power as one of its important missions to monitor, supervise the activities of the government. With the study of the power of the purse in UK and U.S., this dissertation further illustrate certain concrete ways and means adopted by the two western countries' legislative bodies to monitor and control the governmental financial activities, which in a way reflect the human's tireless efforts in history to prevent government from abusing social wealth and economic resources. The historical efforts also display how the western counties to build the checks and balances mechanism of controlling the community's financial resources between the parliament and the government. At the same time, by comparing different models and ways of evolution of the mechanism of purse power, the author wants to make a useful analysis for existing mechanisms of the purse power.Another important theme of this dissertation lies in the academic research for the theory origin of financial democracy. The concept of financial democracy is thecore of this article, and its logic covers the entire text. In the course of defining and explaining the meaning of financial democracy through the way of level progressively, the article wants to explore the academic research value and realistic meaning of it in the field of research of democratic institution. It is the author's opinion that the financial democracy is a powerful interactive process among government, parliament and society for rational financial resources allocations. This is a mixture of compound democratic institutions, values of political democracy and economic democracy which have links with public finance. No financial democratization, there is no political democratization; No financial openness, there is no political openness. If the power of the purse does not belong to parliament, governmental powers will be expanded without restriction. Supposing parliament and congress have lost the power of the purse, their political position in the state power system must be weakened as only being nominal, even submitting to the administration organizations. In a word, the development of one national financial democracy would depend on the positive interaction among government, parliament, and society. The key of realizing financial democracy will depend on the institutional constructions of the parliamentary financial power.The theoretical framework adopted by this paper is a newly-developed branch from the western political science area -financial politics. The logical arrangements of the contents derive from the theoretical framework of financial politics and new institutionalism. The growing path, the constructing rationality, the inner structure, the operating regularity, the reforming mechanism of the purse power and the theoretical logic of financial democracy are the main threads running through whole text.For research methods, this dissertation use new institutionalism and comparison research as the research paradigm in a whole. In the analyzing process, the author is trying to use historical and factual research methods.The article is organized by seven parts: introduction, the first chapter to the fifth chapter and conclusion. By a coherent process, the author tries to discuss relevant facts and theories related to the controlling power of the purse and the financial democracy.The Introduction illustrates the main issues raised, theoretical assumptions, theoretical synthesis, basic concepts, the theoretical framework, analysis of research methods, and also gives a brief introduction of the structural arrangements of this paper.By making comparison study with the theory of "path dependency" view of new institutionalism, Chapter one covers the historical origin and the growing paths of the parliamentary and congressional financial power. For this analysis, the author focuses on the origin and the slow process of historical developments of parliamentary and congressional financial powers in UK and U.S... Chapter one will also state the history and realistic basis of financial democracy.Chapter two introduces the constructing rationality about parliamentary financial power and the theoretical logic of financial democracy. The author tends to believe that the systems of property entitlements are the economic foundations of the power of the purse; institutional decentralization and the rule of law principle are the right political foundations of the power of the purse; civil society and the awareness of individual rights are the social and cultural roots of the power of the purse. In the absence of one of these important prerequisites to the establishment and development of financial power, financial democracy will encounter obstacle, the theoretical foundation of financial democracy will be undermined.Chapter three focus on the internal structures of the parliamentary financial power, which are taken as the specific institutional carrier of financial democracy. This chapter sets forth in detail about the structures and functions of income security systems, expenditure monitoring systems, account supervision and information support systems in parliament and congress. It tries to demonstrate that the realization of financial democracy needs triple protection mechanisms, i.e. the democratization systems of tax, expenditure and supervision.Chapter four discusses the operation of the financial power mechanism; articulate the laws governing the operation of financial democracy. By using comparative study method, the author in this Chapter points out the laws governing the operation of financial power. That was based on explanation and analysis of the methods to be used in parliament and congress for operating the financial power mechanism, the combined power system and the separated power system, which are two different models. Meanwhile, in the platform of the development of democratic system, this chapter discusses the basic trends and major characteristics in two different stages of development of democracy, i.e. representative democracy and administrative centralized democracy.Chapter five raises the reforming mechanisms of parliamentary financial power, explains financial democratic trends. This chapter reveals the deficiencies of thepower of the purse, identifies the underlying causes of the deficiencies and analyzes the various reforming methods of financial power in UK and U.S... By the above analysis, the article tends to think that self-improvement and self-renewal would be one of characteristics of the mechanism of the financial democracy.In Conclusion, the author re-expounds the main set of core concepts and the underlying logical links between purse power and financial democracy. Moreover, the factual and universal values of financial democracy are illustrated and analyzed.