Research On Citizen Participation In Late Qing Dynasty's Constitutional Reform

As a governing entity, the Qing government was running in difficult in its last ten years, which was specially showed in the process of constitutional reform. During those times, Chinese citizens were participating in the political reform much more actively than before. They really affected the Qing Dynasty's constitutional reform. In this consideration, the dissertation was just to find out how the citizens participated in the constitutional reform, and what kind of role the Citizen Participation played. Through that work, the author tried to summarize some experiences and lessons in the issue of Citizen Participation, and give some discipline which the present Chinese government should follows. In this dissertation, the author used four parts to illustrate the key issues as follows:In Part One, the author analyzed the basic relevant concepts to build framework of the essay. On constitution, I confirmed its object to build a limit government and protect citizens' right. The citizens in late Qing Dynasty contain intellectuals, gentlemen, businessmen, workmen and peasants, etc. Then I bring the Participatory Democracy Theory to explain the value that the Citizen Participation gives to constitutional construct.In Part Two, the essay described the historical circumstances in late Qing Dynasty, which would help to understand the economy, politics, social theory and culture in that time. As the result, the readers would get the answer why so many citizens were involved in that series of political activities.Part Three was the most important part in this dissertation. It showed many ways how citizens affected constitutional reform, such as election, assembly, expression, and so on.The last part expressed the significance of Citizen Participation in late Qing Dynasty. It considered that those activities cultivated the thought of democracy, strengthened the ability to govern the country, and then rebuilt the country's power structure quickly. While, in the present China, Citizen Participation also has huge value to constitutional construct. So, the author suggested that the Chinese government should pay much more attention to Citizen Participation, so that it would make the social political civilization and the socialism rule of law come true.