街政治理创新的公民参与机制——以北京市为例

随着社会转型和经济转轨速度的加快,我国城市街道事务管理的任务量和复杂性急剧增加,街政治理变革与创新势在必行。本文以公民参与和街道行政之间的生态互动关系为主线,依据"决策—实施—监督"的街政流程,对2007年北京市委社会工委成立以来街政治理的公民参与机制进行了案例分析。本研究发现,社区的公民参与及其组织形式塑造了街道公共决策的民主化机制,扮演着社区居民自组织服务或为其增能的角色,开辟了街政监督的公民社会路径,其在推动街政由低分权、封闭性、单向度管理,向开放式、参与型的公民治理转变的过程中,发挥着重要的作用。     

公民参与政策制定的过程分析——一个机制加因素的分析方法

公民参与越来越多地见于政府行为的诸多领域,公民参与的各方面设施都在逐步建立与完善,但公民对政府行为的影响力仍然有限。采用机制加因素的分析方法,分析公民在参与政府政策制定过程中的实际影响力,并从中观察我国的政民关系。     

新媒体时代政府与公民关系探析

新媒体时代政府与公民关系应是以公众需求为导向的被授权与授权的关系、以公民意识觉醒为基础的治理与自治的关系、以政民良性沟通为特征的合作性伙伴关系以及以网络监督常态化为特征的被监督与监督的关系.但在实践中出现了一些问题,政府忽视公众需求,过度干预社会;公民意识薄弱,公共利益代表缺位;政民缺乏良好的沟通,政府公信力缺失等.因此,需要从社会、公民与政府三个层面改善政府与公民关系:公民要培育自身的公共精神、理性参与政治生活;社会要大力培育建立社会激励机制、加强对新媒体的监管;政府要大力推进公民社会的发展、完善网上信息公开制度、健全社会安全阀制度.     

公民参与公共决策的创新实践——以芜湖市的探索为例

为了吸引和扩大公民参与公共决策,各地政府进行了诸多有益尝试,但其水平有待进一步提升。芜湖市的做法是:通过开办"市民心声",完善公民参与公共决策机制,建立公民参与公共决策的监督机制,搭建公民参与公共决策的平台,持续加大对公民参与公共决策的专项投入,有效提升了公民参与公共决策的水平。其经验告诉我们,提升公民参与公共决策水平,要加强公民参与公共决策的制度建设,推动公民教育与公民参与公共决策的融合,加大政府投入。     

公民参与社会管理创新的机制与对策研究

社会管理创新不仅需要政府发挥其应有作用,更需要最大限度地整合社会资源,激发社会活力,使广大公民有序参与到社会管理创新的过程当中。文章分析了公民参与社会管理创新的含义,探讨了公民参与社会管理创新的动力机制、利益诉求表达机制、政府回应机制、监督机制及存在的问题,提出了强化服务型政府意识,创新社会管理理念;明确政府角色定位,构建社会管理的多元化主体;加强宣传教育,强化公民参与意识,提高公民参与能力;加强公民参与社会管理创新的制度化建设等建立健全公民参与社会管理创新的对策建议。     

公民参与公共政策制定的困境及对策

公民参与公共政策制定有利于确保政策的公共性、科学性和有效性。目前,公民参与面临制度保障缺失、政治文化制约、公民组织局限等困境。对此,必须完善公民参与相关制度,畅通利益表达渠道;转变行政理念,培育先进的政治文化;加强公民组织建设,提高公民参与能力。     

当前公民政治参与问题探讨

构建社会主义和谐社会要求扩大公民参与,当前公民参与的社会环境已趋成熟,要塑造参与型政治文化,提高政府民主执政意识,加强制度化建设,设计科学规范的公民参与路径。     

论我国社会资本积累与公民政策参与的良性互动

社会资本与公民政策参与之间存在着结构性依赖和制约的关系,因而为我国公民政策参与的研究提供了新思路.目前,我国的社会资本存在诸多缺陷,制约着公民参与.从社会资本的视角分析我国政策参与存在的问题,要求我们通过培育公民的公共精神,加快发展公民参与的载体--民问组织,加强制度的有效供给等,从而形成构建社会资本积累与公民政策参与优化的良性互动关系.     

试析公务员对于公民政治参与的态度——基于六个地级市问卷结果的结构方程模型研究

本文以实证研究方法,分析了公务员对于公民政治参与的相关看法与态度。在此基础上,文章分析了可能影响这些看法和态度的诸多因素。文章采用结构方程模型分析方法,利用初始模型、包含中介变量的模型以及包含调节变量的模型,对相关调查数据进行分析,由此得出结论认为,公务员对公民政治参与的能力认知与其对公民政治参与的态度显著正相关,而公务员对于公民政治参与的情感认知与其对公民政治参与的态度无显著相关。此外,公务员的公共服务动机1作为调节变量,影响着组织环境因素与公务员对公民政治参与的态度之间的关系。因此,需要通过制度化建设,加强公务员与公民的互动,以改善公务员对公民政治参与能力的认知;需要加强组织环境的建设,并通过多方面教育提高公务员的公共服务动机,培育和激励公务员对于公民政治参与的积极态度。     

我国公民网络政治参与的发展、困境及有效引导

以互联网和移动终端为代表的新媒体为公民政治参与创造了新的发展机遇,重塑了公民政治参与的格局。在经历了萌芽起步、快速发展、整合发展、规范发展四个阶段之后,网络政治参与已成为我国公民一种全新的政治参与形式。实践中,网络战略相对滞后、网络内容良莠不齐、网络舆论引导不足、网络法治亟待加强等严重制约我国公民网络政治参与有序发展。在推进国家治理体系和治理能力现代化进程中,网络政治参与具有重要作用。当前,需要强化顶层设计,提供网络政治参与战略保障;加强内容建设,掌握网络政治参与话语主导权;强化舆论引导,优化网络政治参与环境;健全网络法治,规范网络政治参与秩序。     

A theoretical basis for participatory planning

Arguments are presented for the reconsideration of models which guide planning behavior and structure planning organizations. Hierarchical organizations are contrasted with reticular organizations and the latter are presented as necessary for effective citizen participation. Legitimacy is presented as a fundamental basis of justifying planning action and historical shifts in forms of legitimacy are noted. Participation, as a form of legitimacy, and several aspects of participatory planning are discussed in terms of recent systems thinking. It is argued that participatory planning increases the effectiveness and adaptivity of the planning process and contributes adaptivity and stability to the societal system. Further, it is argued that citizen participation is an essential element in making the planning process a learning system. This leads to a strengthening of the definition and role of communities in the urban system, and to an unexpected requirement of planners who would adopt a participatory planning process.     

Democratizing the Administrative State: Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies

Citizen participation in government decision making, especially at the local level, has received heightened attention with regard to its promise for improved governance. The overarching administrative ethos of the administrative state creates barriers to citizen participation in governance. Developing and nurturing citizen participation in the presence of the administrative state is a significant challenge. Drawing on the literary tradition of public engagement and learning, this article models a developmental strategy of participation that offers one avenue for achieving meaningful partnerships between city agencies and neighborhood councils in a metropolitan environment. We present a model of citizen participation that brings neighborhood councils and city agencies together in a collaborative partnership. This model is based on the literature on citizen participation, which focuses on the significance of interactive processes in building trust among participants and creating mutual understanding and agreement.     

Public Service Motivation (PSM) and Support for Citizen Participation: A Test of Perry and Vandenabeele’s Reformulation of PSM Theory

This article examines how public service motivation (PSM) relates to public managers’ attitudes toward citizen participation. Perry and Vandenabeele suggest that PSM effects are moderated and/or mediated by self‐regulation and by the salience of an activity to self‐identity. Using data from Phase IV of the National Administrative Studies Project, latent model results suggest a direct, positive relationship between PSM and citizen participation evaluation. The relationship is not mediated by value congruence but rather is moderated by the perceived importance of the organization’s citizen participation efforts. The moderating effect has three interpretations: (1) PSM has a stronger relationship to evaluation as citizen participation becomes more important in the agency; (2) at low and medium PSM levels, the greater the importance of citizen participation, the lower its evaluation; or (3) at high PSM levels, the greater the importance of citizen participation, the higher its evaluation. This suggests that PSM is more germane for activities such as citizen participation, invoking relevant values as perceived organizational commitment increases.     

The Virtuous,the Critical and the Trustworthy: Citizen Ideals and Forms of Democratic Participation

A vibrant democratic society requires continuous innovation to actualize and encourage democratic ideals through participation, but no universal answers exist as to which kinds of participation are best suited to achieve this. This article demonstrates that different types of participation correlate with different citizen ideals, implying that the remedies to democratic deficits depend on which ideals need to be strengthened. Citizen survey data is used to examine the relationships between two types of citizen participation – in voluntary associations and workplaces – and three empirical citizen ideals: the virtuous citizen, the critical citizen and the trustworthy citizen. The results suggest that voluntary associations make space for all three ideals, while workplace participation tends to be characterized specifically by the critical citizen's ideal of reason‐giving and critical reflection. The article ends by discussing the implications of these results: new democratic designs should be more effective if tailored to address context‐dependent weaknesses in democratic practices.     

Putting the Public Back into Governance: The Challenges of Citizen Participation and Its Future

The past two decades have seen a proliferation of large‐ and small‐scale experiments in participatory governance. This article takes stock of claims about the potential of citizen participation to advance three values of democratic governance: effectiveness, legitimacy, and social justice. Increasing constraints on the public sector in many societies, combined with increasing demand for individual engagement and the affordances of digital technology, have paved the way for participatory innovations aimed at effective governance. Deepening legitimation deficits of representative government create opportunities for legitimacy‐enhancing forms of citizen participation, but so far, the effect of participation on legitimacy is unclear. Efforts to increase social justice through citizen participation face the greatest obstacles. The article concludes by highlighting three challenges to creating successful participatory governance: the absence of systematic leadership, the lack of popular or elite consensus on the place of direct citizen participation, and the limited scope and powers of participatory innovations.     

Ordering Stakeholder Relationships and Citizen Participation: Evidence from the Community Development Block Grant Program

Local administrative professionals typically are accountable to multiple stakeholders, including other governmental units, special interests in the business and nonprofit sectors, and citizens. How are these accountability relationships ordered? What is the position of citizens in that hierarchy, particularly the influence of citizen participation? Focusing on patterns of hearing participation and citizen impact on budgeting decisions for the Community Development Block Grant program, this statistical analysis employs ordered probit regression. The authors find that communities in which grant administrators feel most accountable to citizens for grant performance have higher degrees of citizen participation in hearings and higher levels of perceived citizen impact on budgetary processes. This relationship holds even in the presence of simultaneity between bureaucratic accountability to citizens and citizen participation. The findings point to the importance of instilling a public service ethic among government employees that places a high value on engaging as well as listening to citizens.     

The policy science of democracy: The issues of methodology and citizen participation

There are continuing debates on methodological issues of policy science. On the one hand, the unprecedented advancement in research methods and technology has made it possible to formulate more precise, empirically driven models of scientific inquiries and thus has added credibility on positivist approach of policy science. On the other hand, social systems and subjective values have increasingly been emphasized in policy analyses and have served as impetus to postpositivist approach of policy science. In this essay, I discuss the role of democratization and citizen participation in policy science. While citizen participation is important to ensure democratization of the process of policymaking and to improve the quality of information provided to make appropriate policy decisions, how such citizen participation can be acquired has become another pressing issue. I explore community participation in light of assessing its effectiveness in policymaking and its coherence with the role of policy experts.     

Enhancing citizen participation: Panel designs,perspectives, and policy formation

Even though a citizen participation component is included in nearly every major local government planning and policy initiative, most citizen participation techniques have been judged to be less than adequate tools for informing policy makers about the people's will. Recently, having planners or policy analysts work closely with long-standing citizen panels composed of a randomly selected sample of community members has been proposed as one appropriate response to many of the inadequacies of traditional techniques. In this article, staff from a municipal government policy analysis unit describe and critique a yearlong citizen panel project focused on developing a transportation master plan in a university community. They argue that panels can overcome many of the limitations to effective citizen participation. The authors also suggest that panels can work well, but only if policy analysts assume more pro-active and advocacy roles than those routinely found in local government.