农村民主选举制度的正负效能分析

民主选举是村民自治的开始,在实践中,不少人认为村民自治就只是搞民主选举,从而过分夸大村委会选举的民主成就,因此,有必要对农村自治中的民主选举制度进行理性评价。事实上,农村民主选举对村民、候选人、村庄以及国家治理既能产生正效能,也会产生负效能。客观认识其在村民自治中的地位和作用,对于推动农村基层民主的真正实现具有重要意义。     

Village Election and Governance: do villagers care?

Village elections at the grassroots level have been regularly conducted for more than a decade in the context of the Chinese political system. Both negative and positive views have been expressed and written on village elections. How does one evaluate Chinese village elections? Free and fair elections require conformity to international election principles, rules, and procedures. This study develops a minimum procedural criterion to assess if village elections have followed internationally-accepted rules and procedures of free and fair elections. We also measure the meaningfulness of village elections by examining the effects of elections on village governance and villagers' life. We find that elections have been conducted in a manner consistent with proscribed rules and procedures and are generally free and fair, and there is a considerable convergence of views of villagers and cadres who see that elections are meaningful in producing positive changes in village governance and life. The data also confirm that elected villagers' committees are still in the long shadow of township governments and village Party branches.     

Sociopolitical Attitudes of the Masses and Leaders in the Chinese Village: attitude congruence and constraint

Do ordinary villagers and cadres in the Chinese village share similar attitudes toward major sociopolitical issues? Do these two groups construct their respective attitudes in a similar way? This article addresses these two crucial questions based on the data collected from both villager and cadre surveys in a rural setting. The findings indicate that (1) villagers and cadres had quite different views of the village socioeconomic conditions, the legitimacy of CCP rule, democratic principles, and the effects of post-Mao reforms as a whole, although they did have similar opinions on the role of the individual; (2) these two groups constructed their views on some issues similarly but on others differently; and (3) the relevance and salience of issues were positively associated with the levels of attitude consistency among both cadres and villagers. These findings have strong implications not only for the ongoing interaction between these two sets of political players, but also for sociopolitical stability in rural China.     

试论我国农村新型治理结构的重构

改革开放以来,农村所发生的经济、社会变迁推动着我国乡村治理结构的转型,也催生了村民自治这一新型的基层民主制度。在村民自治这一制度架构下,一种基于治理理念的新型农村社会治理模式成为可能,即以村民委员会民主选举制度为核心,以村务公开为制度保障,通过培育具有自主治理性质的乡村社团组织,发掘传统乡村社会的文化资源,将制度创新与本土资源的发掘结合起来。     

Representation without Taxation: political changes in Chinese authoritarian regimes

The question of why some authoritarian regimes choose to incorporate institutions of democracy such as village elections into their governing systems remains largely unanswered. As a typical case of a resilient authoritarian state that implements democracy in its villages, China has provided an invaluable case for researchers to study. Current theories focus on the influence of political elites and rural forces separately. Insightful as they are, these theories are invalid as an explanation of the variation of local governance in China across time and thus are incomplete. It should be recognized that central fiscal strategies have great effects on local governance. Specifically, if the central government largely relies upon fiscal revenue from rural areas, it has to expand its bureaucracy to the countryside to extract revenue. In contrast, if it does not rely on the rural areas for revenue, the central government will establish local democracy in the countryside. This hypothesis is historically reflected in the authoritarian regimes led by the Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China. As opposed to the familiar story about representation through taxation, the logic of representation without taxation seems to be the case in China.     

Democratization in turmoil? Elections in Hong Kong

The first SAR Chief Executive, Tung Chee‐hwa, in his speech at the SAR Establishment Ceremony, said: ‘Democracy is the hallmark of a new era for Hong Kong. The SAR Government will resolutely move forward to a more democratic form of government in accordance with the provisions in the Basic Law’. Butler, Penniman and Ranney, however, cautioned that ‘the critical difference between democratic and nondemocratic regimes is to be found in whether or not they hold elections, and if they do, what kind’. Indeed, electoral changes made to the 1998 LegCo elections are found to be anti‐democratic and retrogressive, as well as unnecessary. The authors conclude that electoral systems matter because they are one of the central mechanisms in modern democracies to give substance and content to democratic governance. If electoral systems are designed in such a manner that they obstruct the exercise of popular sovereignty, ride rough‐shod over the principle of political equality, undermine the extent of representation, complicate relationships of accountability as well as delimit opportunities for participation, then such systems should have little place in genuine democratic reform. To bring Hong Kong's democratization forward, a hard look at the electoral system, which should be more informed by the principles and practices of democracy will be mandatory.     

政治文化视野下的农村基层民主--以云南为例

20世纪末,我国部分农村地区开始了村民自治的实践,而云南是全国最后一个推行村民自治的省份。在实践中,村民自治对于维护农村社区治安,合理利用社区资源,促进乡村精神文明,增强农民的民主意识和民主能力都起到了很好的作用。但是村民自治工作在云南来说还是新事物,在工作中难免存在一些问题,要实现真正的"村民自治",还需积极创造民主的政治文化条件。     

The Legitimacy Problem and Democratic Reform in Hong Kong

On 1 July 2003, over half a million Hong Kong people staged a mass protest against the poor governance of the post-handover Hong Kong government. The grievances of the marchers quickly snowballed into a widely backed movement for democracy. The subsequent record-breaking support for pro-democratic candidates during the local elections held on 23 November 2003 unnerved Beijing over its possible loss of control over Hong Kong. Beijing swiftly shifted to a hard-line approach, attempting to dampen the local democracy movement. This paper will expound the five fundamental causes of Hong Kong's broad-based demand for full democracy, analyse its type of democratic transition to illuminate its political dynamics, and highlight the parameters impacting its democratic development.     

Power to the People? Villagers' self-rule in a North China village from the locals' point of view

This article examines ethnographically the implementation of the Organic Law and practice of ‘villagers’ self-rule' in a North China village from 2003 to 2004. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, it recounts the election of a villagers' committee and the functioning of a ‘democratic supervisory small group’. It shows that critical disparities exist between what Chinese policymakers and many scholars argue for on the one hand (for instance, enhancing cadre accountability, empowering ordinary villagers, and promoting grassroots democracy), and how most villagers view the actual practices on the other. It concludes that the locals' negative views are not idiosyncratic, the vision of ‘rule by the people’ remains difficult to take root, and that local metaphors are resourcefully used to make sense of newly-introduced practices.     

村民自治的视角:少数民族政治社会化分析

村民自治的过程,就是实现少数民族政治社会化的过程。它不仅逐步改变着少数民族的传统政治文化,而且在逐渐形成一种民主的文化氛围,正在对广大少数民族村民进行民主观念的传播与政治参与技能的训练。但是,在少数民族地区,与村民自治相适应的政治社会化还存在许多问题:村干部政治社会化的弱化,少数民族村民政治参与的主渠道不通畅,大众传媒的有限性。因此,必须加强国家政权在政治社会化中的主导作用;拓宽少数民族村民参与村民自治的渠道和途径;充分发挥农村基层党组织在思想政治工作方面的作用;加强大众传媒的政治社会化功能。     

乡镇党委领导成员直接差额选举的实践与探索

乡镇党委成员直接差额选举解决了权力与民主脱节和权力来源问题,体现了党管干部和群众公认原则,体现了党内对人民民主的示范和带动作用;同时,有利于扩大群众基础,扩大了选人用人视野;转变了干部监督方式;实现了对上负责和对下负责的统一。目前,乡镇党委成员直接差额选举还处在试点探索阶段,应注意处理好报名资格条件、民主推荐、党管干部原则、因乡镇制宜等问题。     

南方民族地区山村的村民自治与宗族意识——以湖北西部少数民族地区农村为例

1996～2000年作者四次率课题组在鄂西少数民族地区农村对当地宗族文化和村民自治的情况进行了较深入的调查，认为该地区农村1999年进行的第四届村民委员会选举工作是卓有成效的，但仅是实施村民自治工作的第一步。当地宗族意识一定程度上的复苏既是对80年代实行家庭联产承包责任制以来小家庭式的较落后的生产和耕作方式的一种回应，也是对当前农村社区管理和社区服务中存在缺陷的一种自发弥补，在当地农村的社会生活中产生了一定的影响。由于少数民族地区农村的经济和文化相对较落后，村委会干部的群体素质不高，村民委员会在当地农村社会生活中多数只发挥了部分职能。要使其应有的政治组织、经济组织、文化教育组织和社会控制的职能得到全面有效地发挥，还有很长的路要走。     

Partisanship,Ethnic Identification,and Citizen Attitudes toward Regime and Government on Taiwan

While Taiwan continues to enjoy a liberal, consolidated democratic regime, citizen discontent continues to be directed at regime, government, and the governing. Identifying the scope and degree of dissatisfaction is an initial step in ascertaining whether discontented citizens might be more or less amenable to destabilizing change at the regime level or more procedural changes at the government levels. Taiwan's 2004 elections topped off four years of mud slinging, legislative gridlock, and a number of serious battles over constitutional jurisdictions and powers. This research note compares survey items from the Taiwan Election and Democratization Study (TEDS) surveys taken in 2001 and 2003 to measure levels of support for a democratic regime and governance within this environment. As party and ethnic identification are key cleavages on Taiwan, this study seeks to establish the relative strengths of the association between partisan and ethnic identification and attitudes towards regime and government. The main findings are: (1) dissatisfaction with regime and governance are more strongly associated with partisan identification than ethnic identification; (2) there exists a surprisingly low satisfaction and commitment to democracy; and (3) alienation from government exists at a moderate level.     

民族地区的村民自治存在的问题及对策--以湖南西部永顺司城村为例

村民自治是我国在农村正在推行的一种最基层的新型社区管理制度.自推行以来,使中国农村的基层民主建设取得了实质性的进步.笔者通过调查认为,西部民族地区的村民自治建设才刚刚起步,存在许多问题.为不断完善村民自治制度,加快农村民主化建设,笔者提出了一些对策.     

Survival Strategies of Township Governments in Rural China: from predatory taxation to land trade

Based on my fieldwork in rural China in 2004–2005, where I conducted semi-structured interviews with 108 local cadres and villagers, this article explores the survival strategies of township governments as the most recent tax reforms (i.e. the tax-for-fee reform and the abolition of the agricultural tax) have been implemented since 2000. It argues that township governments have taken adaptive strategies to maintain over-quota personnel even under pressure to reduce it. It finds that the strategies have changed from predatory taxation in the 1990s to land trade in the last decade, while the implementation of the rural tax reforms has brought fiscal crises in agricultural villages. Local officials have a limited incentive to respond to collective resistance on taxation but do not have the same incentive on land disputes.     

新型政党制度的政治功能及其治理优势——基于中国民主政治内在规定性的分析

国家权力来自人民是现代民主政治的核心理念。如何实现人民的选择,保障人民权利成为民主政治发展的重大关切。中国民主政治类属于人民民主,其价值理念与历史实践内在赋予了执政党以领导核心地位,并要求以民主集中制为组织原则,实现广泛、真实的民主。中国新型政党制度作为中国民主政治的一项基本制度安排,在利益代表、政治参与和民主监督等政治功能方面与民主政治的规定性要素相契合,并在实践过程中体现出政治平衡、政治稳定、政治整合的显著治理优势,为社会主义民主政治发展与国家治理体系和治理能力现代化建设奠定稳固基础。     

社会转型与中国乡村权力结构研究--传统文化、乡镇企业和乡政村治

党的十一届三中全会以来,我国农村的改革促进了乡村社会的转型,传统文化的复兴、乡镇企业的崛起、乡政村治的建立等等导致了乡村权力结构中包含的具有各自利益需求和交换关系的主体--国家、基层政府、社区组织、乡镇企业、村民等等--不同身份特征的获得,并决定了他们有可能占有的资源及其相互的利益关联.对11省14个村庄的调查和比较,再现了转型期乡村权力结构的调整和重构.     

草根民主：本质、价值与困境

草根民主是一种具有中国特色的社会形态的民主,从政府角度看它的本质是一种社会治理方式与手段,从村庄与村民角度看它的本质是村庄治理的根本指导原则.草根民主的产生发展不仅因为有着特定的时代背景,更重要的是因为它内含的政治学、经济学、社会学和文化学价值.草根民主困境的存在导致其发展困难重重,全面的深刻的认识草根民主的本质、价值与困境将会有利于草根民主的建设.     

论建国以来人民民主思想的变迁

建国以来,人民民主的发展历程经历了四个阶段.从人民民主专政到社会主义民主的重新确立,从经济民主到政治民主,从党内民主到民主执政以及从国家民主到社会和谐民主.这四个阶段的发展给了我们许多重要启示.     

近年来党内民主与人民民主关系的研究综述

党内民主和人民民主是社会主义民主政治的基本内容,如何处理二者的关系是近年来学者讨论的热点问题。有的学者强调要发挥党内民主对人民民主的示范和带动作用;有的则提倡发挥人民民主对党内民主的推动作用和辐射效应;还有的学者突出二者的交互作用,认为二者要协同发展,不可偏废其一。其中,在党内民主与人民民主结合点的问题上,不同的学者也提出了不同的看法。