Social Contract Theory Research Under The Perspective Of Government Power

Government is the bureau for one nation to make policies, to issue orders, to deal withvarious affairs as well as to execute its power. It is the obligations for it to ensure the basichuman rights as the safety, the equality, the freedom, and to create a better condition which isbeneficial to fellow citizen’s self-improvement. The power of one government is the powerthat should be maintained to fulfill the obligations that are mentioned above, and theefficiently execution of this power or not will directly influence whether the interest of thecitizens and the nation could be fulfilled. Therefore government power has become the veryissue that special attentions have always been paid to.This paper intends to discuss the issue involved with the power that Chinese governmenthas owned from the perspective of the social contract theory with the combination of Chinesetraditional political culture and current state. Social contract theory has become a set ofcomplete and systematic political philosophical theory of judging if the institutions, laws ofthe nation and operation of government power are legal and reasonable from a simple oneabout how a country starts originally. Viewed from the social contract theory, a natural state issupposed, in which individuals enter the political society through signing a social contract.Then they set up a nation and government to whom they deliver part of the natural rightssignificant to public affairs for the purpose of protecting their rights not guaranteed well in thenatural state. Government should take civilian’s rights as the object, for its power stems frompeople’s rights essentially. It means the government owns limited power, must operateaccording to the Constitution and laws, and should be supervised by the civilians. The socialcontract theory sets an ideal form of government power which is exactly the direction weshould work forward to. Therefore it is meaningful, from both sides of theory and reality, tostudy the power of Chinese government from the perspective of social contract theory.Our country is on the road of social transformation. Although we have made greatprogress in political system reform and anti-corruption works, some problems still remain,such as government power is concentrated excessively, power doesn’t match well withresponsibility, power is exercised casually, and lack of efficient measures of supervising government power. There are too many possible reasons, including disposing power andresponsibility improperly, short of effective supervision and restriction mechanism, ignoringhuman nature, paying little attention to civilian’s rights and democracy, and tradition ofbureaucracy and ruling of man. Hence, we need continue to build limited government, toconsummate law-based government, and to perfect supervision and restriction mechanism.what’s more important is to change the conception of government involving the source andaim of government power. Meanwhile, we would also pay more attention to develop civilsociety and democracy, which play a vital role in restraint government power.This paper will consist of six chapters. The first part is introduction, involving with themeaning and background of this study, as well as recent achievement of this subject. In thesecond one, the social background, the history as well as the evolution of the social contracttheory will be briefly introduced, in which the content and value orientation of this theory willbe covered. The third chapter will concentrate on the specific analysis of the government andits power to elaborate the rights orientation, the scope, the structure of decentralization, therule-by-law principle and supervisor mechanism and so on. In the forth chapter, we will focuson necessity and feasibility of studying government power from the perspective of socialcontract theory. Then in the fifth one, the current condition and the possible factors that haveinfluenced it, such as the defects in human nature, the rule of man by a virtuous leader, theunder-constructed system and so on will be discussed based on traditional political culture andcontemporary political environment. In the last chapter, the means and measures forregulating government power in China will be given at the perspectives of transforming theconcept of the government, reasonably deploying the function and power structure ofgovernments, strengthening the effort on law, improving supervising mechanism and so on.Through these analysis, the author hope to provide an approach for considering thepower of governments and the rights of fellow citizens with reason instead of discovering aframework or pattern to regulate the power of the government.