The Change Of Village Public Space And Its Impact On Village Governance

In the rural community, firstly, the public space is a geographical concept, whichcovers large or small geographic space in the village society and it is the interactionphysical space of the villagers’ daily life. Secondly, the village social politicaleconomic and cultural features of virtual space are also carried by the public space inwhich all the ordinary villagers, elite groups and grassroots power body can be free toenter and leave for exchanging of ideas, mutual economic assistance and culturalentertainment events. Following this definition, the public space is a comprehensiveconcept, which is an integral part of the village community and existence, includingregional space, social space and cultural space.Since the founding of the Chinese villages, social structure, mode of production,social relations, and ideology also undergone a profound and wide-ranging socialchange in villages, accompanied by the country’s political system, economic systemof fundamental changing. As an important carrier of the village social order, publicspace showing different characteristics in different historical stages. In this paper,south area of Jiangsu province is selected for study. According to the humanitiesbackground of the southern Jiangsu region-specific social-economic and politics, thesouthern Jiangsu village social change and the evolution of public space is dividedinto two stages. Since the founding of before the reform and opening up, the villagepublic space showing the characteristics of the highly politicized under the strictcontrol of the national executive power is generalized as the first stage. Since thereform and opening, functional recovery of the economy and culture of the publicspace of the village, facing the transformation of society and the reconstruction, isdeclining which presents “Interest-oriented” situation, which is generalized as thesecond stage. However, in these two different stages, the main factor leading to thechange of public space is the result of mingle, struggle and effect between thetraditional power in the village and external forces from the country and market.The most important significance of studying course change of public space insouthern of Jiangsu is how to correspond with the current village governance. That isto say, we should make a universal function of village public space impact on villagesexisting governance. There are four aspects discussed in this article. The first one isthe role of the village public space actors supervising and restraining the main body of the village powers. The second one is making the village public space functioning,such as cultural transmission, mutual assistance in the economic, social control andintegration. The third one is integral role in the public affairs of the villagegovernance, such as the supply of public good, public dispute resolution. The last oneis that village public space is contributed to nurture democratic soil of villagegovernance and promoting the political process of democratization of the village. Inthe new era of the southern Jiangsu rural constructing, it is the village public spaceplays a unique role in village governance that the public space reconstruction isimperative, concerning the current situation of declining of the southern Jiangsuvillage public space, private space expanding and public space shrinking.