The Interest Conflicts And Their Integration In Public Policy-making In China During The Transition Period

Interest is the rudimental motivation for human activities, and it is the nature of men to pursue interest. Hence it is the fundamental issue for the survival and development of human societies. The contradiction between the subjective interest-pursuit activity and the social character of the realization of it causes the establishment of the interest relations among people, which makes it necessary the management over human societies. Public policy-making is an important means of social management. Public policy-making, as a process of the government'performing its public obligations in managing public affairs and solving public problems, is in essence the authoritative distribution of the public interests and is closely related with the interest. Public policy-making is like a game of chess, with the interest orientation as its deep reason, interest conflicts as the motivation for the development of it, and the integration of different interests as the fundamental way to realize the public interest.The social transition is a transition from the traditional society to modern one and a conversion in social structure and operating system from one pattern to another. It is essentially redistribution and adjustment in interest. The transitional period in society is a time when the old system would be abolished with a new one established, a time when components of the society would be parted or integrated as time requires, and a time when the social interests are redistributed. Therefore, it is of great significance, both in theories and practices, to analyze the public policy in the transitional society from the perspective of interest. It can help perfect the methodological system of public policy studies, improve its efficiency and reliability, and promote the construction of harmonious socialism society.Since the opening-up, Chinese society has entered into the transitional historical period drastically quickly. An obvious split appears in the social interests structure due to the fact that the old social interest distribution has not been broken and the new one hasn't established, hence the social interests have kept being disunited and being integrated and the conflicts among the interest groups are on a rise. The growing conflicts among the social interest groups are a notable problem confronting the public policy in Chinese transitional society, manifesting in the following aspects: changes in the interest distribution, separation among the interest groups, multiplicity in the interest orientation, and diversification in interest pursuit; in nature, the conflicts have a character of atypicality, non-confronting, and controllability. The conflicts are the result of various factors as the malfunction of the government, the adjustment to the industry structure, the change in the ideology of interest,...