Civil Society Organizations In Rural Areas And Rural Governance Research

In the transformation process from the planned economy to the socialist market economy, a lot of rural non-governmental organizations have sprung up and developed rapidly in China. These rural non-governmental organizations play an important role in the governance in countryside. Among these rural NGOs, some are traditional organizations based on relative relations, blood relations and locality relations. Some are rural specialized co-operations linked with economy. There are also some social organizations that provide public service for community. This paper takes these rural organizations as the object of study, the author tries to investigate and analyze historical background, functions and ways of working of these rural NGOs in participating in countryside governance in China. Document-study, case-discussion and comparison research, all these ways of study are applied in this paper.In history, there existed a good many self-governing rural non-governmental organizations in China. These organizations played a positive role in uniting villagers and providing public service in countryside. In the period between1912～1949, the state power went down to rural areas. Establishing farmers' associations were encouraged by the government and a farmers' association system was set up in countryside at that time. With the founding of the PRC, especially after setting up of People's Commune system in countryside in1950's, the rural non-governmental organizations lost the soil for existence. Only after1978, the rural non-governmental organizations in our country turned over a new leaf.The rural non-governmental organizations in our country have the following characteristics:The economical background of spring up of the rural NGOs is to meet the need of the development of rural economy. The change of our Party's rural policy has brought about the institutional space for rural NGOs. The important foundation for their development is the social capital based on relative relations, blood relations and locality relations. International competition and domestic and overseas aid provide outside impetus for rural NGOs. The main types of rural NGOs of our country are of political administration, of economical co-operation, of social service and of cultural community benefit. These organizations demonstrate the characteristics of dominant by state, voluntary, self governance, non-profit and unbalance in development.At present the main problems for the development of rural NGOs in China are as following:Some rural non-governmental organizations cannot get the legal status granted by the government and the institutional-building within the organizations is lag-behind. Some rural NGOs cannot get necessary both talents and funds, which limits the development of rural organizations. Independency and standardization of some organizations are still at a low level. The causes of these problems lie in Politically, the government has an ambiguous attitude to rural NGOs, which results in an institutional environment which is not good for the growth of organizations. Socially, the nurturing degree of rural society is rather low and villagers don't take part in NGOs' activities very often. Besides, the credibility of rural NGOs is not good enough to attract villagers to join the organizations. As for the rural NGOs themselves, shortage of resources and dependent on the government are the obstacles in their development.Nevertheless the rural NGOs play a big part in rural governance: Politically, they advocate villagers' self-administrating and help to promote democracy in countryside. Economically, they try to change the modes of agricultural management and advance the rural economy. Socially, they provide public goods for the villagers and do good to social management in countryside. Culturally, the rural NGOs do something to meet the villagers' spiritual needs and help to improve social morality in countryside.We may research the routes and ways the rural NGOs participating in rural governance from two different dimensions:active participation&passive participation, institutional participation&non-institutional participation. When we take into account the ways in which the rural NGOs participating in rural governance, active participation is a kind of non-compulsory participation while passive participation is a kind of compulsory one. When we consider the source of authority and the operating ways of the rural NGOs, non-institutional participation follows more traditional rules while institutional participation abides by contemporary rules. On the bases of these two dimensions there are four different participating strategies:Active&non-institutional participation is that the rural NGOs take part in the rural governance initiatively. At the same time they abide by non-institutional participating way. The representatives of this participation are voluntary groups and patriarchal clans in countryside. Active&institutional participation is that the rural NGOs take part in the rural governance initiatively. But they abide by institutional participating way. The commonest type of this participation is the rural co-operations. Passive&non-institutional participation is that the rural NGOs participate in the rural governance passively and follow the non-institutional participating way. The typical form of this participation is the family power that monopolizes the governance in countryside. Passive&institutional participation is that the rural NGOs participate in the rural governance passively and follow the institutional participating way and the most obvious form of this participation is villagers' self-administrating system nowadays.The points of future development of the rural NGOs in China lie in: Firstly, the government should change traditional ideas, transform its functions and establish closer co-operation relationship with the rural NGOs. In this way the rural NGOs will play a more active role in rural economical development and social management. Secondly, we have to set up a good institutional environment in law making and policy formulation for the rural NGOs. Thirdly, in order to upgrade the institutional capacity of the rural NGOs, we have to support these organizations in many ways such as funds, policy, talents and personnel training. Fourthly, a supervision and standard administration to the rural NGOs should be tightened. Only by both self-discipline and outside supervision, can the rural NGOs in China operate smoothly and develop rapidly.