Institutional Costs Of System Of Petition By Letters And Visits

After the System of Petition by Letters and Visits set up, it has been an important institution in China society. In past nearly 60 years, this system has gradually been an important path in linking government and normal people, finding out people's wishes, safeguarding people's democracy rights. It is necessary to maintain social stabilization, and so this system to a certain extent plays the role of social relief valve. The system of petition by letters and visits began to be put into force in 1996, and this is a sign that petition by letters and visits has gradually been into pathway of legality and standard. Due to its own drawback and some social and political facts, there are quite a few problems in this system operation, which also give rise to some social problems. So this system has to shoulder considerable institutional costs in its operation while it helps us.Institution beginning and institution transition have been studied more and more in New Institutional Economics. Many people are now paying close attention to institution costs, which is a widespread social phenomenon. We apply the related theory of New Institutional Economics and Game Theory to study and explain the theory of Institutional Costs on the base of sorting out institutional research in sociology. We apply the theory of Institutional Costs to study the cost of the System of Petition by Letters and Visits. Institutional cost in society refers to all expenses in the total institutional circle, which is from institutional plan to institutional transition. This cost caused by the different subjects'interests gaming, has several forms, including economical cost, political cost and also social cost. Appropriate costs are needed in each period of institutional circle, so institutional cost can be divided into institution forming cost, operating cost, supervising cost and transiting cost.In this study, we integrate making use of existing research and information of petition by letters and visits with empirical research, and put forward the cost and index of petition by letters and visits. The costs of petition by letters and visits, including political costs, economical costs and social costs, form trinity institutional cost structure. The main index of political cost of the System of Petition by Letters and Visits, include the influence on the governmental credibility, democracy and legality, political culture and psychology which are caused by a large number of problems in the practice of petition by letters and visits. In the course of petition by letters and visits, there are cross game among the different department of petition by letters and visits, vertical game among different levels of government, and tripartite game among the department of petition by letters and visits, the administrative department and petitioners. One of the important political consequences of this phenomenon is to add the political cost of System of Petition by Letters and Visits.The economical costs of System of Petition by Letters and Visits consist of two aspects: economical expenditure of broadly department of petition by letters and visits and petitioners' money. The former includes human resource, administrative office expenses and informal expenses, and the later consists of traffic costs, board and loading costs, work delaying costs, material preparing and post, communication costs. Although petitioners spend little money at first, the initial cost is increasing quickly in the course of their petitioning. To some petitioners who persist in safeguard their rights and interests, the supposition of rationality is invalid. The institutional causes of high economical costs, generally speaking, consist of the shortage of System of Petition by Letters and Visits, the hindered structure and relative institutions' unperfected.The main index of social costs of System of Petition by Letters and Visits refer to social stability, public satisfaction and social psychology. Social ecology environment, which is consisted by formal institution, informal institution, government and Non-government organization and citizens, influences the social costs with double nature, namely increasing or decreasing institution cost, and its important expression including implement cost and supervision cost.On the base of constructing indicators of the System of Petition by Letters and Visits, we make further efforts in quantitative study, namely analyzing the political costs and social costs of System of Petition by Letters and Visits through fuzzy mathematics model, and we not only analyze the economical costs quantitatively, and also take deep study by using some conceptions such as elastic in the western economics.In conclusion, the System of Petition by Letters and Visits has played an important role in our society, but shoulder the high institutional costs at the same time, and it has become a topical social problem in China. In the period of society transformation, in one hand many social contradictions become more and more complicated, in the other hand, lots of interests conflicts are sharpening continuously and so System of Petition by Letters and Visits is confronted with many challenges. Looking forward to the future, System of Petition by Letters and Visits should play a big role in our society, so it is necessary to cut down the institutional costs effectively. We should reform this system all-direction, that is to say, not only to create the new path positively and adjust the system according to the social objective reality, but also to strengthen standardization and legalization so as to embody the spirit of law better.