评公民参与和地方治理理论的创新

公民参与作为公共参与的一种重要表现形式,体现出公共治理的基本价值;公民参与是治理理论针对西方民主制度的缺失进行反思后的一种回应;公民参与充分体现治理理论倚重的社群主义和合作主义的思想;新公民参与运动在实践上进一步丰富和推进了在公共决策中公民参与形式的创新,公民参与的可操作性在公共治理理论中也得到了丰富和发展;公民治理是更高层次的地方治理中的公民参与.     

当代西方公民参与理论的发展进路与现实困境

基于对精英代议制民主纠偏和改革传统公共行政弊端而兴起的当代西方公民参与理论,从理论上批判代议民主制和效率至上的公共行政排斥公民参与的传统,积极倡导公民参与,并在实践中构建出公民参与的具体模型。在理论上厘清当代西方公民参与的发展进路,并分析其在现实中遭遇的多重困境。我们可以发现当代西方公民参与理论本身还存在诸多分歧,但不同理论派别都在努力地从不同角度寻求突破困境的可能出路,为解决西方社会诸多现实问题提供可行路径。     

国家治理、合作网络与公民参与

治理理念的提出是为了解决代议制民主的异化与政府公共责任的蜕化,其实现有赖于公民参与。公民参与不仅能够证成国家治理的正当性,实现特定利益的调和,也是建构治理合作网络、强化国家治理效果的必要条件。公民参与国家治理必须以公民美德为条件,以法治和有序为限度,以正式治理和非正式治理的全方位参与为途径。     

浅论政府治理下的公民参与问题

随着国家政治体制的不断进步,公民参与问题已经逐渐被广大人民群众所关注。公众参与是实现民主政治良好运行的重要保障,也是衡量政府善治的重要依据。我国受新公共管理运动的影响,取之精华去之糟粕,吸收了有利于中国政治体制的部分,这不仅有助于我国民主化进程的顺利推进,而且也有助于我国公民的民主意识的觉醒。本篇论文将从公民参与的主体、途径、特点以及如何建立健全公民参与机制等方面剖析公民政治参与问题。     

公民参与的诸模式:公共行政理论的观点

20世纪60年代以来,公民参与与公共行政之间的关系开始成为公共行政理论研究的重要主题。20世纪60年代以前,公民参与具体表现为以投票、选举等形式的政治参与,而无行政之公民参与。而20世纪60年代以来,特别近几十年来,公民更多地直接参与公共行政过程。在公共行政理论发展的不同历史阶段,公民参与具有不同的模式,具体包括传统公共行政时期的无公民参与模式、新公共行政学派的作为“公民”的民主参与模式、新公共管理理论中的作为“顾客”的回应型公民参与模式、新公共服务时期中的作为“公民”的强势公民参与模式和治理与善治理论中的合作式公民参与模式。     

参与民主视角下我国社区治理中的公民参与

参与民主理论主张公民进行积极有序的政治参与,通过对公共事务的共同协商与讨论,协力解决社会生活中的公共问题。参与民主强调扩大而高度的公民参与、参与的教育功能、探寻公民参与的新途径、弥补代议制缺陷等。研究参与民主理论对我国公民参与社区治理具有理论和实践价值,具有一定启示意义。     

乡村治理现代化视域下公民精神培塑论析

乡村治理是基层社会治理的重要组成部分,乡村治理现代化目标的实现归因于人的现代化。公民精神源自人们对公民身份的心理认同和价值塑造,是公民公共价值理念和行为自觉的凝练与升华,也是衡量当代公民素养的重要标识。在农民群体中积极培塑公民精神,对于改善乡村治理现状具有十分重要的作用。在乡村治理现代化进程中,公民精神成长需要在尊重和提升农民主体性作用的基础上,不断培植和强化公民精神的内在价值理念。     

全球公民社会理论与全球治理

全球公民社会（GCS）是“西方中心论”影响下的一种全球治理政治主张,指相对于主权国家和政府组织之外的国际社会领域。它建立于社会运动基础之上、以非政府组织和跨国移民为核心,将国家间的互动视为给定的不变因素,推崇超国家的政治认同,旨在将公民身份认同或群体政治认同的视域延伸到区域或全球。在国际关系中侵蚀着国家的主权和安全。     

论城市社区治理中的公民自治

实现治理的过程是国家权力向社会回归的过程，是社会公共权力重新配置的过程，也是政府与公民关系再调整的过程。而社区治理则是让社区成为公民自治的空间。目前中国城市社区治理中公民自治存在着一些问题：包括强行政与弱社区的错位，社区选举制度的不完善，公民参与不足，社区治理制度缺乏，以及公民自治组织发展不充分等。本文针对以上问题提出对策性思考。     

和谐治理:政府与公民社会组织互动机制诉求论析

和谐治理是一个上下互动的管理过程,它主要通过合作、协商、互动关系、确立认同和共同目标等方式实施对公共事务的管理.和谐治理是政府依法行政与公民依法自治的有机统一.政府与公民社会组织的良性互动是形成新型合作治理模式的重要标志.构建政府与公民社会组织的合作互动机制,既是推进政府改革的逻辑起点,又是实施政府改革的内在动因.加快政府体制改革和构建政府与公民社会合作互动机制是当前完善民主法制建设与和谐治理的关键所在.     

The Effectiveness of Citizen Participation in Public Hearing of Current China

Public hearing system is regarded as the soul and core of modem administrative procedure; it plays a more and more important part in modem administrative affairs. Public hearing is an important way to listen to the voice of the public, and the main method to gauge public opinion before making public policies, laws, and regulations. In recent years, with the growing awareness of civic participation, public hearing system has played a big role in public policy-making process in contemporary China, but there is also a phenomenon that citizen participation is largely symbolic in most of the hearing, citizen participation cannot play its due role, and the effectiveness of citizen participation in public hearing is limited. Based on this background, the analyses about how to strengthen public hearing system construction, improve the representativeness of the representative and information disclosure system, are all very important to improve the validity of citizen participation in public hearings now to China.     

公民政策参与的功能分析

公民政策参与是指公民参与和影响公共政策过程的行为和活动。公民政策参与对于实现民主价值、保障公民权利,维护和增强政府合法性,保证政策的科学制定和顺利执行,保证政策的公共价值和提高公共服务的品质和效能等方面都有重要的积极意义。但公民政策参与并不必然对所有方面的政策问题解决都带来积极的效果,它也可能会使政策的质量、成本、利益取向以及政府效率和权威方面产生问题。重要的是要把握好“度”,尽可能地因势利导,使其扬长避短。     

街政治理中的公民参与:现实意义与建设途径

本文以街政流程为线索,具体分析了街政治理中公民参与的现实意义。在此基础上,提出了加强新公民资格培育、拓殖社区参与公共领域等五条加强公民参与机制建设的对策建议。     

Analysis on the major obstacles of public participation in public policy-making

Participation in public policy-making is one of the important approaches for citizens to affect public policy, and also the guarantee of the scientific and democratic paths of the public policy. To enhance the cognitive level and ability of the citizen who participate in public policy-making, ensure the institutionalization and procedures of the public policy-making, make the information about the public policy-making open and transparent, this paper points out the main obstacles of citizens＇ participation in public policy-making mostly at present and enhance the quality of public policy.     

Citizen Participation Models in the Local Government

This research pretends to propose and test a new explanatory model relating to citizen participation, which will help us to implement participatory public policies in the local government scheme, comparing with the models of citizen participation derivatives of structural theories and choice theories. The author refers to the case of Spain and he tests five hypotheses derived from these theories, using structural equations. This study used an open and cross-sectional design. He uses ＂Citizenship, Participation and Democracy Survey＂ from Sociological Research Center of Spain. The model proposed in this study has taken into account both structural variables from the macro context of participation （political opportunity structure） and individual variables （individual resources）, thus considering that the most recent literature on citizen participation tells us that it is necessary to overcome the reductionist perspectives limited to individual factors. Based on the above, we saw the importance of structural variables and individual variables for the participation of people. In line with that, we find that a citizen is involved in participatory policy when they have individual resources such as education, interest in politics, non-political disaffection, civic social norms, personal effectiveness, and community pride. Another find from this research, according to the empirical results, is that structural variables are predictive of citizen participation： resources, mobilization, membership of deprived group, economic deprivation, interpersonal trust, membership of associations, ties to the local community, and membership of an informal network.     

FIGHTING CORRUPTION WITH SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS' POTENTIAL TO REDUCE CORRUPTION IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Given the poor track record of traditional anti‐corruption initiatives, donors and governments are increasingly looking at how civil society can fight corruption in public administration. Social accountability mechanisms intend to perform this role by holding officials directly accountable through citizen engagement. However, this article argues that social accountability mechanisms are only capable of reducing corruption systemically if they activate horizontal accountability and sustain it through the sanctioning mechanisms of electoral accountability. A comparative case study analysis using the cases of the Ugandan Public Expenditure Tracking Survey and the Bangalore Citizen Report Card is applied to test this hypothesis. The Tanzanian Public Expenditure Tracking Survey and an example of citizen engagement in Mumbai are employed as shadow cases to provide additional evidence for the hypothesis. The results indicate that social accountability mechanisms must be inclusive, broad, with public effect and embedded in other accountability relationships to fight corruption effectively. Electoral accountability is key, and support to social accountability mechanisms should therefore always be well placed within a broader agenda aimed at strengthening democratic governance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The dilemmas of pursuing ‘throughput legitimacy’ through participatory mechanisms

Under pressure to open up the ‘black box’ of governance, technocratic bodies are increasingly seeking to include civil society participation in the policy process. This article draws on empirical cases from the European Commission and NHS England to assess the extent to which the participatory mechanisms pursued by these institutions have been successful in eliciting ‘throughput legitimacy’. It is shown that though these mechanisms have taken very different forms – the former a classic instance of ‘window dressing’ participation, the latter closer to ‘best practice’ in this field – they nevertheless share a number of ongoing vulnerabilities. The article outlines the shared organisational, operational and existential dilemmas that technocratic bodies face when eliciting civil society participation, and highlight their reliance on backstage negotiation to sustain stakeholder buy-in. It concludes by highlighting the prospect that the pursuit of throughput legitimacy for technocratic bodies entails inherent limitations and contradictions.     

The Reform of the Local Administration in Spain in Terms of Population

Spanish Local Corporations are playing an increasingly important role in the provision of public services without reducing their function of consolidation and structuring of the current sociopolitical system. This reality implies an increase in their need of financial funds without new compensation resources. Also, there is a certain tendency to loose population in many counties along with a greater organic and territorial dispersion that accelerates their financial weakening. This makes necessary to find management alternatives ensuring the appropriate provision of local public services and thus the Local Corporation reform becomes an alternative. In this context, the present paper approaches the analysis and the results based upon a territorial balance criterion on the population and its distribution, aiming ultimately to design an indicator able to measure the need of the Spanish local government structure according to its population and the size of its municipalities. This indicator might measure the regional impact to any variation both in the distribution of its population and in the number of municipalities.     

Governance Disclosure on the Internet: The Case of Australian State Government Departments

This paper examines corporate governance disclosures on the websites of Australian state government departments. The study focuses on the nature and extent of governance information and the ease of finding this information directly on department websites and also in annual reports which are downloadable from websites. Our sample comprises six departments from each of the six states in Australia, giving a sample size of 36 departments. Our findings indicate considerable variability in both the level of disclosure and the accessibility of the information disclosed. The study also highlights a lack of consensus regarding the meaning of governance and what governance comprises, together with the need for a more structured approach to communicating governance information to stakeholders.