Research On The Online Political Participation Of Contemporary Chinese Citizens

Citizen`s online political participation is the new trend of citizen`s political participation patterns of our country in the network information age. It is an important channel of Citizens information transmission, interest expression, emotional catharsis, thought collision and rational discussed. It is also a new platform of the government in governance and understands of public opinion. To expand citizens' online political participation contributes to advance the development and perfect of socialist democratic politics in our country.The first part, the paper takes citizen political participation pattern theory as analysis model, briefly comparative analysis the evolution process of the Chinese and western citizen political participation pattern in traditional social. The paper argues that We can differentiate the main political participation pattern of the traditional social according to the political participation of the diachronic and synchronic type. According to the diachronic type, it can be divided into western citizen political participation patterns and Chinese citizen political participation pattern; And according to the synchronic type, the western citizen political participation pattern can be divided into ancient Greece automatic direct political participation patterns, the political participation modes of feudal society (early the independent political participation patterns and the passive negative political modes later), modern western indirect active political participation patterns and the contemporary western multivariate active political participation patterns. After the founding of new China, the ture mearning of citizen`s online political participation begins to appear in China, that is mobilization as the main mode of political participation before the reform and automatically as the main mode of political participation after the reform and opening up. At the same time, the paper briefly analyzes the value and functions that virtual network technology on citizen's political participation, as well as the theoretical connotation and characteristics of the citizens' online political participation pattern that regarded as a new trend of the citizen` political participation modes. The paper also analyzes the participants and the main ways as basic elements of citizen`s online political participation.The second part, the paper analyses the concrete practice of contemporary Chinese citizen`s online political participation. Contemporary Chinese citizen`s practices political participation mainly through the citizens participates in government and political affairs through the network,online democratic supervision and online mass incidents. Online political participation and online democratic supervision is mainly the active, rational, and institutionalized political participation way; But the online mass incidents are mainly citizens passive, irrational, the non-institutionalized political participation ways.The third part, the paper analyses participant's dilemma faced by the contemporary Chinese citizens when they take part in online political affairs.Firstly, it is Participant's dilemmas of the concept of democratic participation, which embodied in the conflict of the concept of democratic participation and the competition of pursuit for the benefit. The former is the basic idea of citizen`s online political participation, but the latter is the ultimate appeal of citizen`s online political participation. The citizen`s online political participation should embody the democratic idea of equality, autonomy and interactiin, etc. However, due to the increasing differentiation of the social interest in temporary society, different interest structure and interest demands have different social demands, the finiteness of social resource decides the citizens must fight for and realize their interests only by express their interest demands. But the interest conflicts broughts the yearning for political participation, and the deficiency of the ways of the realistic interest expression prompts the citizens always achieve their benefit demands through the online political participation, thus it could give rise to the conflicts of different interests, and hard to reflect the idea of democracy.Secondly, it is participant's dilemmas of the ability of participation, which embodied in the conflict of the realization of network rights and the existence of the digital divide. Network rights are the essential condition of citizen`s online political participation, but the digital divide reflects the capacity gap of citizen`s online political participation. The current China's digital divide is mainly embodied in the regional gap and the gap between urban and rural areas. The emergence of the digital divide poses a major threat to citizens' political participation, causes the equilibrium of the political participation and irrational participation, make them hard to realize their network rights.Thirdly, it is participant's dilemmas of the ways of participation, which embodied in the conflict of the multivariate and interaction manners and the "group polarization" behavior. The former is the essential requirements of citizen`s political participation, but the group polarization behavior is the extreme ways to realize online political participation. Multivariate network political participation body have a plurality of interests, under the action of psychological resonance in the network, it can produce an "echo wall" interaction, which lead to the homogeneous polymerization of interest appeals. Participants often gathered together "homogenization within the group ", while "heterogeneous among the group", which causes too homogeneous sphere of public opinion, and leads to homogeneity development of interest demand.The fourth part, the paper analyses the present Chinese citizen dilemma of management of the political participation in network in detail.Firstly, it is the dilemma of the management of technology, which is reflected by the conflict between the free expression appeal and the maintenance of the network security. Freedom of expression is a necessary right of citizen`s online political participation, but the maintenance of the network security is a technology guarantee on it. Expressing opinions rationally is the premise of the positive role of network in democratic politics, and the government has the rights and responsibilities to the network management and the network security. In order to support the network security, they have to control necessarily the freedom of citizen`s online speech.Secondly, it is the dilemma of the management of participatory culture, which is reflected by the conflict between the rational and inclusive culture and the blind obedience to the participation. Rational and inclusive culture is a basic requirement of online political participation, but the blind obedience to the participation is an irrational state of mind. The following factors all can greatly reduce the masses'reason, lead to the blind follow and the enlargement of the irrational political participation: the operability of the network information, the asymmetry of citizens information, the malicious guide of the "network pusher" and "network navy", the influence of the "network opinion leader" and the deliberately amplified on certain information.Thirdly, it is the dilemma of the management of the participation environment, which is reflected by the conflicts between the political participation norms and virtual open space. The former is the orderly security of citizens'participation, but the latter is the booster of anomie achievements of participation. The communication of virtual community is easy to breed the illegal and immoral behavior. The network can weaken personal self constraint ideas, and make the breakthrough of social norms. The secretiveness of network participants and the manageability of the political network information all make the public opinion in the network space difficult to control, prevent the channel function of the network democratic political participation.The fifth part, according to the dilemmas faced by the citizens in the online political participation, the paper puts forward the outlet of expanding Chinese online political participation.Firstly, we need promote the construction of network democracy, update the concept of politics participation, increase the training force of education, and promote people's ability of online politics participation. Secondly, we need speed up the network infrastructure construction, strengthen the political foundation, eliminate the network "digital divide", and protect the rights and interests of citizen's online political participation. Thirdly, we need accelerate the construction of electronic government, expedite the citizen`s political participation channels, promote the interaction between the government and citizen, and perfect the ways of the citizen`s online political participation. Fourthly, we need improve the network laws and regulations systems, regulate the political order, perfect the network ethics system, and construct the rational network culture. Fifthly, we need strengthen the network virtual social management, purify the environment of citizen`s political participation, actively respond to the online mass incidents, and maintain the security of the participation.At present, citizen's online political participation in our country is still an initial stage, owing to the restrictions of the participants` difficulties and the governments` governance dilemmas, there are many difficulties on the way of it. In addition, citizens'online political participation is just a tool of democracy practice, which can never replace the traditional representative political participation modes completely. However, it is an inevitable trend that the citizens express their interests and supervise the government by citizen's online political participation. Then, in order to promote the development of our country's online political participation, the government should try to adapt to the new change of technology, try to explore the new modes according with the situation of China, encourage and guide the citizen's online political participation actively and reasonably.