Authority Of The Party In The Changing Society And Social Integration

Distinguishing the concepts of party authority and social integration and their theoretical link, the paper argues that the formation and spread of party authority that is benefit for realizing social integration is a party-centered social integration process; meanwhile, the realization of social integration is a process during which party absorbs sources on the social level and authority is constantly promoted. At the same time, the establishment of party authority does not mean resolving the problem of party authority forever, and party must concern the changes on social levels and the erosion of party, since party authority is the unity of empirical legitimacy and normative legitimacy, and with the changes on political, economic, and social level, the foundation of party authority changes. When party authority operating, it is mainly embedded into certain power relation and social structure, while the concrete social structure and power network provide a stage for party authority and its social integration to play a role.In the revolutionary and planning economy ages, the formation and operation system of party authority and social integration constitutes "the path-dependence" in changing societies. Therefore, party authority and social integration in changing societies must be examined in the context of Chinese history. In modern China, the crisis of Chinese social integration, that is independence of sovereignty, partitioned political regime, lack of political organization, and lost of cultural identity, gave birth to the Communist Party of China (CPC). CPC combined the utilitarian request for pursuing national liberty with its own political ideal, showed its power of authority through ideas-guiding, institutions designing, social mobilization, and political revolution, and realized effective social integration. After the revolution the party authority and social integration were sustained by "unified" ruling system, personalized factors, establish of ideology, and political mobilization. And the construction of the ruling system of People's Republic of China was obviously promoted by the party. The design of political relation and the institutionalization were mainly oriented by the party in power.In changing societies, because of the difficult position of political achievements, the influence of political modernization, and other problems in political and social fields, which charge the basis of legality and influence the effect of social integration,the party in power must seek for sources of institution, policy, ideology and organization to increase the legality and make effective social integration.In order to response the challenges in changing societies, the party in power, which is central to modern ruling system, must rebuild authority of itself, and promote to establish the institutional authority. If a party in power wants to establish institutional authority, it should not only make efforts to institutionalize itself, but also make efforts to institutionalize the state building under the lead of the party. The former mainly promotes the construction of democratic system in the party, and the latter is to institutionalize the relation between the party and other political actors, such as the relation between the party and administration, especially to institutionalize the relation between the party and people's congress for the purpose of giving play to lawful function of people's congress. Meanwhile, if the party in power wants to increase the effect of social integration, it should also give full play to the positive function of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, especially its function of democratic supervision.In essence, the rebuilding of party authority and the social integration in ruling system is a process of state building in modern times. This process does not accomplish in one move. It should follow the step-by-step principle.