Contemporary Chinese Middle Class's Political Participation

The depth, range and scope of political participation are the important standards of measuring the degree of democracy. In the contemporary Chinese society, the middle class are growing steadily. It is reasonable and inevitable for them to request that they can safeguard their interests by participating in politics. The special status of the middle class in the social structure determines their eclectic values. The middle class is a buffer layer in the structure of social interests. By analyzing the causes of development, the characteristics, the motivation, reasons, forms and ways of political participation of the middle class, the author in the present study probed into the significance of their political participation.In the first chapter, the author analyzed the four reasons for the development of Chinese contemporary social structure and the middle class. The author also identified the middle class from the perspectives of economic resources, cultural attainments, values and organizational resources.In the second chapter, the author analyzed the subjective and objective factors of the political participation of Chinese middle class. From the perspective of the participants' motivation mechanism, economic interest is the biggest driving force, looking for feelings of belonging is an important reason, while the change of political culture is an external motive. On the standpoint of the objects, the forms and ways of political participation can be categorized into systematic and non-systematic ways. The middle class participate in politics mainly through the systematic channels. At present, the constitution of Chinese middle class is diverse. According to the standards of generating time, resources possession andoccupation, the author divided the middle class into different groups and analyzed their characteristics of political participation.In the third chapter, the author thought that the characteristics of the middle class' s political participation at the present stage are as follows: political and economic tendencies coexist; political enthusiasm and indifference coexist; the participation is in order and is legal; the degrees and effects of internal participation are different.In the fourth chapter, through the analyses the author concluded that Chinese middle class' s political participation had the following significance: it is beneficial for uphold social stability; for consolidating the government' s legality; for molding socialist political civilization; and for promoting the law-ruling of political move. Finally, the author raised some rules which Chinese contemporary middle class must pay attention to when they participate in politics.