社会保障资源安排中的逻辑与政治——以华北一个村庄为例

采用"质的研究"方式,对社会转型期华北一个村庄内各种保障或救济性质的资源安排进行了微观分析。相对于宏观政策层面的简单与明晰,正式的社会保障资源在农村社区的分配与利用过程中的功能、内容和形式都更为丰富,如作为消解其他政策和项目所带来的负面影响的工具,或演变为被争夺的竞争性经济资源,或将动态的保障制度异化为长期的养老保障,或作为维稳和社区治理的一种政策性工具等;这些变异一方面有悖政策初衷,使得政策目标发生偏离,另一方面也可能侵蚀社会公正。因此,社会保障政策制定与执行过程中需要充分考虑农村社区复杂而多元的现实,更具规范性、透明性和参与性,这也要求建立起更为健全的农村社会保障体系以及相应的监测与评估机制,厘清社会保障与社会治理的关系,尽可能避免进入政策资源异化与资源补偿型维稳的怪圈。与此同时,非正式的保障资源或社区内部的某些安排则在一定程度上弥补了正式的政策性资源的缺位或短缺,而如何将正式的保障政策资源与社区的、社会的力量有效结合起来是有待进一步研究的课题。

The Logic and Politics in the Arrangement of Rural Social Security Resources:A Case Study on a Village in Northern China

Based on a qualitative research, this paper analyzes different allocation strategies of social security and relief resources in a village of North China at the transition interim. It reveals that in the allocation and utilization of the available security resources from official or formal channels, the forms, functions and strategies vary widely at the local communities, although the policies in macroscopic view are concise and clearly stated. For instance, the resources could be diverted to offset the negative effects of other policies, scrambled as competitive economic resources, transformed to be a long-term endowment policy, or sometimes be used as a compensatory tool of maintaining social stability. In such cases, the original institutional intentions as well as social justices are deviated. Therefore, it is being argued that the complexity of rural reality should be taken into account in the policy-making processes; more accountability, transparency and participation are required to ensure efficient implementation of social policies; moreover, a robust social security system along with monitoring and evaluation mechanisms is strongly deserved; and the blur of social security and local governance should be clarified so that resources will serve social justice instead of social control. In addition, because the alternative resources and arrangements, either external or community-based, are also part of the safety net, further researches on the synergies of formal and informal social security resources are highly expected.