How to embody citizens' democratic participation in the activities of rural villagers' committees and urban neighborhood committees?

Significance of democratic political construction in grass-roots practice and development

Since the reform and opening up, with the reform of China's economic system and the subsequent changes in its economic and social structure, the government has made corresponding adjustments to its political power structure and management mode. This adjustment is first manifested at the grassroots level through the implementation of villagers' autonomy, and then further promoted in urban residents' autonomy. The concept of mobilized democracy mainly comes from the practice and development of villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy under the background of regime structure and management mode adjustment.

Rural villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy implemented in China in the early 1990s and199 were both promoted by the government through traditional political mobilization. During the revolutionary period, China's * * * production party successfully used the way of political mobilization, went deep into villages, families and individuals through strict party organizations, widely mobilized the masses, combined with military forces, established political power, and solved social and economic problems, thus winning the revolution. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the Party still adopted large-scale political mobilization. After the reform and opening up, the government still follows the model of political mobilization when implementing economic and social policies. Judging from the government's behavior in the implementation of villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy, as the main way of political mobilization, propaganda, organizational control and authoritative domination are still followed by the government. Under the action of government mobilization, the government is in a leading and active position, while the masses actually passively accept the policies formulated by the government (Xu Xianglin, 2004, P56-72).

The government's mobilization behavior in promoting villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy is reflected in two aspects, one is the mobilization within the government, and the other is the mobilization of the local government to the people. The mobilization within the government is as follows: at the central level, local party and government departments are required to cooperate with civil affairs departments to promote villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy by formulating laws, regulations and relevant implementation documents; Civil affairs departments are specifically responsible for the practice and promotion of villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy. In the process of implementation, the civil affairs departments encourage and promote local party and government departments to implement villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy by means of pilot demonstration, inspection and acceptance, model setting, experience exchange and promotion. The government's mobilization of the people shows that villagers' autonomy is promoted and implemented by provinces (autonomous regions), prefecture-level cities, counties and townships (towns), in which the provincial level is the premise, the county level is the key, and the township level is the level responsible for implementation. 1999 residents' autonomy was implemented, and it was also at the behest of the central government that the Ministry of Civil Affairs selected pilot projects throughout the country to sum up experience. Then the central government issued a document asking local party and government departments to cooperate with the Ministry of Civil Affairs to do a good job in community building, promote residents' autonomy, and carry out democratic elections, democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic supervision; 1 With the promotion of the civil affairs departments and local governments, the residents' community elections are gradually carried out from point to point, from big cities to small and medium-sized cities.

The mobilization of villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy is not only the mobilization of the government, but also the behavior of villagers and residents. Because this kind of democracy is implemented by the government from top to bottom and granted on its own initiative, both villagers and residents are skeptical and wait-and-see in their early behavior. In the early period of villagers' autonomy, villagers' participation behavior was passive participation behavior under the control of government propaganda, organization control, cash incentive and authority, and so was the voting behavior of most residents in community elections. Therefore, in this context, people's participation behavior is not as a participant who plays the role of interest expression and comprehensive interests in the political system, but more as a submissive role with symbolic participation (Gabriel Abraham Almond, G. Bingham Powell, Jr., 1987, P131-/kloc. Although with the advance of the election, the participation of the masses shows more and more initiative, but on the whole, the obedient role of the masses is still in the main position.

With the in-depth development of villagers' autonomy, democratic procedures and rules have gradually emerged in elections in some rural areas. In the process of implementing villagers' autonomy, the Ministry of Civil Affairs gradually regards the direct election of villagers' committee members as the primary condition to realize villagers' autonomy. In the process of good interaction between the government and the masses, on the basis of summing up local practices and innovations, the government has gradually established some main principles for villagers to directly elect village committees, including the election committee being elected by villagers' groups or villagers' representatives, the candidates being directly nominated by villagers, the list of candidates being announced in advance, the official candidates being pre-selected, the direct election by one person, one vote, differential election, democratic competition, secret ballot, secret ballot, announcement of election results on the spot, cancellation of mobile ballot boxes and voting on their behalf. The establishment of these procedures and rules embodies the spirit of freedom, openness and equality in the election process, effectively guarantees the democratic rights of villagers, stimulates the enthusiasm of villagers to participate, and makes this democracy promoted by the government from top to bottom have the meaning of democracy in the modern sense (Huntington, 1998, p4).

On the basis of democratic election, democratic decision-making, democratic management and democratic supervision have appeared one after another, which together with democratic election constitute the main content of villagers' democratic autonomy. On this basis, political structures and processes similar to those of western democratic countries have actually emerged. These are also the most important reasons why mobilized democracy can be established. 1998 "Organization Law of Village Committees" clearly stipulates a series of procedures for village committee elections, including the composition of the election committee, the nomination of candidates, the formation of formal candidates, the competitive debate of candidates, voting and the announcement of results, and also makes corresponding provisions on villagers' congresses, the openness of village affairs, village rules and regulations, so that these democratic procedures and rules are guaranteed by law. Influenced by villagers' autonomy, residents' autonomy, which was implemented in 1999, partially followed the procedures and rules established by villagers' autonomy in the election of community neighborhood committees. Moreover, because the overall educational and cultural level of urban residents is higher than that of rural areas, information is more developed, and some institutional and technological innovations have emerged.

However, we also notice that both villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy are mainly carried out under the background of economic and social changes, and the management mode is adjusted by promoting the content of democracy. In the process of implementing villagers' autonomy, with the active promotion and support of some relevant leaders and government officials, on the basis of people's active participation and innovation, and with the active participation of relevant experts and scholars at home and abroad, villagers' autonomy and later residents' autonomy gradually moved towards democratic autonomy, which constituted the beginning and starting point of China's democratization process. However, under the background of the government's top-down promotion and leading position, the people's role as submissive participants, and the specific economic and social environment in China, the democratic procedures and rules under mobilization are still controlled by the grass-roots government to a considerable extent, and the conflicts between the grass-roots government and the masses also appear and gradually increase. From this, we believe that the meaning of mobilizing democracy, on the one hand, means following the traditional mobilization method, but its content contains the main components of democracy in the modern sense. Popularizing the content of democracy through traditional mobilization methods should be a good summary of the meaning of mobilizing democracy. Although mobilizing democracy has many limitations, it has started the pace of free elections and effective participation at the grass-roots level throughout the country, and also played a very important role in further promoting the democratization process in China.

Second, the practice and development of grassroots mobilization democracy.

According to the development track of villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy, we divide the practice and development of grass-roots mobilized democracy into three stages: 1, the initial stage of mobilized democracy: in this stage, the government mobilization and mass participation mode in the initial stage of villagers' autonomy are the main contents; 2. The development stage of mobilized democracy: this stage is marked by the further development of villagers' autonomy and the emergence of government mobilization and mass participation in residents' autonomy; 3. The difficult stage of mobilizing democracy: This stage is marked by the conflict between the villagers' autonomous masses and the government with the help of organizational and political resources.

In the initial stage of mobilizing democracy, first of all, the central government formulates laws and relevant documents to promote local governments to implement villagers' autonomy on the basis of acquiring knowledge. The start of villagers' autonomy can not be separated from a certain degree of understanding of the central government and the vigorous promotion of some central leaders. To some extent, the understanding of the central government comes from the balance between actual effect and ideology. Ideologically, the implementation of villagers' autonomy is the continuation of China's mass line. The mass line here includes two aspects: first, the construction of grass-roots organizations should adhere to the mass line, because villagers' autonomy comes from the creation of the masses and is welcomed by farmers, so they should respect their wishes; On the other hand, the organizational model of grass-roots organizations should imply the mass line, and villagers' autonomy and direct election of village committees are themselves one kind.

From the practical point of view, the implementation of villagers' autonomy is the adjustment of political structure and management mode that the government should carry out under the double crisis of ruling efficiency and legitimacy of rural grassroots organizations. Through this adjustment, it is beneficial to change the work style of grassroots cadres and reduce the administrative and economic costs of grassroots organizations (Wang, 200 1, p5 1).

On the basis that the central government has reached a certain degree of understanding, the civil affairs department, as the government department specifically responsible for the implementation of villagers' autonomy, has jointly organized departments, local people's congresses, governments, discipline inspection departments and other departments to promote the implementation of villagers' autonomy on the basis of the approval of the central government. In the process of implementation, democratic election, democratic management, democratic decision-making and democratic supervision have become the main ideas of civil affairs departments to promote villagers' autonomy. In the early stage of the implementation of villagers' autonomy, when villagers' autonomy was resisted to a considerable extent by the local authorities, the leaders and civil affairs departments who advocated the implementation of villagers' autonomy took some strategic actions: for example, the organic law of village committees was first designated as a pilot; In the process of implementation, pilot projects are carried out first, and the demonstration effect is gradually produced through the pilot projects; In the process of trial implementation, we should first improve the quality and then improve the quality. In this process, the implementation of the provinces is quite unbalanced, among which Fujian Province is the outstanding area with smooth implementation, which is inseparable from the support attitude of local leaders and the strategic behavior of the provincial civil affairs department. At the same time, the civil affairs department has also promoted the gradual implementation of a relatively standardized election procedure in some areas by uniting some groundbreaking local officials, and gradually expanded this influence through demonstration effect and exchange learning.

With the active support of the central leadership and the strategic actions of the civil affairs departments, and with the active support of some local leaders, the enthusiasm of the masses has been gradually mobilized through the implementation of relatively standardized election procedures. The masses began to participate actively from the initial suspicion and wait-and-see, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs gradually used the power of the masses to urge local officials to hold high-quality villagers' elections. The result of high-quality elections is that "capable people" in rural areas are elected to village committees, which enhances the cohesion of village organizations, contributes to local stability and promotes local economic development (Xiao, Qiu, Tang Xiaoteng, etc. ，200 1，p6 1-63)。 It is precisely because of this result that the Ministry of Civil Affairs has more and more power to prove the feasibility and necessity of villagers' autonomy. This, in turn, has promoted the villagers' autonomy in a wider scope and presented a wave-like development trend.

With the economic and social changes in rural areas and the promotion of democratic elections, farmers' awareness of rights has been constantly awakened and their democratic quality has been continuously improved. They developed from suspicion and wait-and-see under the mobilization of the government at the beginning to temptation and active participation, and made positive innovations in the process. Some positive innovations of the villagers have been positively responded by the government. On the basis of villagers' active innovation, the government has continuously improved the election procedures and rules to ensure the fairness, openness and transparency of the election process. At the same time, some other innovations of villagers in democratic decision-making (villagers' congress), democratic supervision (village affairs publicity) and democratic management (village rules and regulations) have also been affirmed and advocated by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. On the basis of farmers' spontaneous creation, the Ministry of Civil Affairs supplemented and improved it, and promoted it throughout the country, which played a positive role in promoting the system construction of rural democratic autonomy. In particular, the promulgation of the Organic Law of Villagers' Committees in 1998 has guaranteed the summary of election procedures and rules and some institutional innovations since the pilot project of villagers' autonomy 10, which is also a positive result based on the benign interaction between the government and farmers. 200 1, Yunnan province abolished administrative village offices and implemented direct elections for village committees. As a result, the direct election of village committees has been realized throughout the country, and villagers' democratic autonomy has been promoted throughout the country in theory.

On the basis of some positive results of villagers' autonomy, with the implementation of community construction, residents' autonomy has also been advocated and popularized in some large and medium-sized cities. During the period of 1998, sifang district, Qingdao, Shandong Province, made an attempt to directly elect neighborhood committees. Starting from 1999, according to the deployment of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, pilot activities of urban residents' autonomy have been started in 26 places across the country. Shenyang took the lead in urban community election reform. Since 2000, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Hefei, Xi, Haikou, Weihai, Qingdao and other places have also tried to reform the election of community neighborhood committees. Among them, Shanghai, Nanjing and other places have tried direct elections, but they have all encountered a deadlock in which residents are not enthusiastic and concerned about the elections. From the end of 2000 to 200 1, 1 1, Guangxi conducted relatively large-scale community elections in Nanning, Liuzhou, Guilin and Wuming counties, among which there were more than 20 cases of direct elections, especially 200 1 in two towns and eight communities in Wuming county, Nanning, Guangxi. Thus, it broke the deadlock in the reform of direct election of urban community residents and opened up new development ideas for direct election of community residents. On this basis, in 2002, Guangxi continued to promote the expansion of election reform, and promoted the reform of direct elections throughout the autonomous region, expanding the election of community neighborhood committees from large central cities to small and medium-sized cities and even counties (Fan Li, 2003, p 13). In 2002, the direct election of Beijing Jiudaowan Community Neighborhood Committee was widely reported by the media, which had a great influence. In 2003, large and medium-sized cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Harbin, Jinan, Changsha, Yinchuan and Ningbo participated in the pilot project of community direct elections, and Haishu District of Ningbo became the first administrative region to fully implement direct elections for community residents. China community direct elections are gradually promoted from point to point, from big cities to small and medium-sized cities, and further promoted.

In the specific practice of community direct election, to sum up, different types of community residents have different participation consciousness and enthusiasm for community direct election. Generally speaking, residents in single-unit communities have low participation enthusiasm, while residents in mixed, urban-rural fringe retail, urban communities, blue-collar and township communities have high participation awareness and enthusiasm (Fan Li, 2003, p25-36). At the same time, due to the high level of education, strong sense of openness and developed information of urban residents, all kinds of campaign activities, canvassing and election debates in the election process exceeded the rural level. Compared with rural areas, urban community residents' autonomy also presents a new trend different from rural areas, that is, in addition to promoting the autonomy of grass-roots organizations through elections, they also actively try to innovate the management system in the internal management of the community and the relationship between the community and the government, such as the "separation of discussion and employment" in Haishu District of Ningbo; Shenyang community docking NPC system reform, Jianghan District community appraisal government. The innovation of these management systems is actually the local government's active adjustment of the government management system under the background of changes in the economic and social situation. The focus of this adjustment is the transformation of government functions, and the direction is to rebuild the relationship between the government and the community and promote community autonomy under the background of the transformation of government functions.

With the popularization and development of villagers' autonomy and residents' autonomy, some problems have gradually emerged. In villagers' autonomy, the conflict between autonomy and administrative power, and the handling of the relationship between villagers' autonomy and party leadership gradually emerged, and it was reflected in the relationship between the two committees and the village. In this regard, the government tried to partially solve these conflicts through institutional innovation, such as solving the relationship between village committees and village branches by means of two votes and one shoulder, and solving rural relations by promoting the openness of township government affairs and the reform of rural taxes and fees, but the actual effect was not obvious (Fan Li, 2002, p 105- 122). This is determined by the political and economic environment of rural society. China's pressure-oriented grass-roots government operation system, top-down personnel appointment system and the tax-sharing reform of 1993 make the township finance with underdeveloped industrial economy largely rely on collecting various taxes and fees from farmers or selling collectively owned land, which drives the township level to strengthen the control of villagers' autonomy. Through control, the village committee acts as the leg of the government, carries out the intention of the township government, or at least cannot act as the spokesman for the interests of farmers, forming autonomy. This control is mainly achieved through two ways: First, through the control of the election of village committees, which is led by the government, it provides convenience for some local grass-roots governments to manipulate elections and realize their own intentions. Township governments and party committees exert direct or indirect influence on the nomination, election and voting of village Committee candidates; The other way is through the leadership of township party committees to village branches and the leadership of village branches to village committees, so in some villages, village committees and village branches are in parallel confrontation. What's more, some towns and villages directly violate the relevant provisions of the Organic Law of Village Committees, deny the results of villagers' elections, change village committee members at will, or cancel villagers' direct elections, directly appoint or appoint village committee directors and other village committee cadres, and implement village accounts and township management.