Efficacy And Participation:a View Of The Grass-roots Democracy In China

Democracy is the inevitable choice of political development in modern countries, and China is no exception. In the process of the construction of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics, grassroots democracy plays a very important role. Reviewing the30years’development of grass-roots democracy after the reform and opening up in China, there appear a lot of valuable experience and modes around "villager autonomy" and "rural resident autonomy" at grass-roots,as well as many problems. In the academic discussion and research on China’s grass-roots democracy are in full swing, the angles of which are different. Starting from the personal experience of urban and rural residents in Chinese grass-roots democracy practice, the objective and scientific description and analysis on the urban and rural residents’political efficacy and political participation are made in this paper to reflect the Chinese grass-roots democracy situation, in order to provide some useful help and constructive thoughts for the actual development and theory perfection of democracy. Specifically, the paper’s significance is mainly reflected in three aspects:Firstly, it tries to examine the performance of the Chinese grass-roots democracy system by objective description and analysis of Chinese urban and rural residents’political efficacy and political participation and the relationship; secondly, it attempted to reveal influencing factors and reasons for the development of grass-roots democracy in China through comparative study of Chinese urban and rural residents’politics efficacy and political particapation; finally, it tries to validate many of the points on Western modernization and democray theory and the applicability through observing many problems relates to Chines grass-roots democracy.In this paper, starting from positivism, using the method of quantitative research qualitative research and comparative research, under the guidance of current theory on political efficacy and political participation, a questionnaire on urban and rural residents’political efficacy and political participation is designed under the Chinese grass-roots reality, which, adopting multi-stage stratified sampling, acquired real survey data by interviewing803villagers and427residents in7villages and4communities of SHANXI province. Through the SPSS15.0software analysis, the reliability, validity and availability of the two questionnaires and the representative of samples are confirmed to lay the scientific foundation for the next data analysis.The study found the following facts:First of all, the level of Chinese rural residents’ political efficacy is low, and the government political efficacy tends to moderate; the villages’external political efficacy is higher than the villages’internal political efficacy. Secondly, proportion of rural residents’participation in village elections is higher and participation content is also intent. Conversely, participation channels and scope are limited. At the same time, participation depth is not enough,and political participation standard at various level is not high. But between the initiative and passiveness towards the selection, the initiative takes the dominant place. The features include single breadth, limited scope and low level. Thirdly, the communities’political efficacy and the government’political efficacy of the urban residents tend to moderate in China, which shows a good trend. However, community external political efficacy of urban residents is higher than community internal political efficacy which reflects characteristics of subject culture. Fourth, political participation of urban residents shows a diffuse trend, no longer solely focusing on the participation of community’s neighborhood committee selection, and the scope of participation is increasing, but political participation initiative is limited and political participation level and depth are low. Fifth, the main factors of socio-demographic factors which affect Chinese urban and rural residents’political efficacy are level of education, income, political status, sex. For urban residents, the socio-demographic factors do not produce a significant difference. Material incentives and regional difference are the more obvious factors affecting rural residents’political efficacy, while regional difference is reflected for urban residents. Sixth, among the factors affecting urban and rural residents’political participation, the main factors affecting rural residents’political participation are political status, sex, level of education. Regional difference of non-demographic variables is the chief factor. And the material incentives and the relationship between cadres and the mass are diverse in different types of political participation; for urban residents, political status affects political participation,and other socio-demographic variables do not make significant impact. Seventh, the relationship between political efficacy and political participation of Chinese urban and rural residents shows a close relationship between village (community) internal political efficacy and political participation,and village (community) external political efficacy is relevant to the promoting political participation, conversely, the impact is not obvious to political participation.The conclusions of the paper are:Chinese grass-roots democracy has made some achievements. Rural residents’ political efficacy is being promoted from a low level to a high level in the rural democracy. The rural residents not only had a certain subjective perception of political knowledge, but also had a certain impact of subjective feeling of competence on the village committee and village cadres. The low impact of subjective feeling of competence will become the basis for the next higher level of political efficacy. Proportion of rural residents’participation in village elections is higher and participation initiative is enhanced. The political efficacy of urban residents tends to moderate in community democracy. The democracy required basic attitude has been formed, the breadth of participation is gradually expanding, and the scope of participation is also increasing. However, there are many shortcomings for30years of grass-roots democracy. On the political efficacy and political participation of urban and rural residents, the specific performance includes the following aspects:Firstly, the rural residents’ democratic attitude does not fully formed, the depth of political participation is not enough, and the rural democracy is ineffective. Secondly, the urban residents already have the appropriate attitude towards democracy, however, political participation is not seriously enough, Community democracy shall revert to the people. Thirdly, the relationship between political efficacy and political participation of Chinese urban and rural residents requires deepening grass-roots democracy. Fourthly, many western modern theory and democratic theory are infeasible for the political reality in China, and specific problems require specific analysis.