The Political Participation Of Farmers And Herdsmen In The Northwestern Ethnic Minority Regions

Much attention paid to the northwestern ethnic minority regions and fanners and herdsmen living there has great significance for politics and scholars in politics. Northwestern ethnic minority regions are typical problem regions with major issues in poverty, environment, ethic group, religion, agriculture, rural areas and farmers, education, population, security and so on. All of the above problems have made these areas lag far behind the rest part of China in the process of Chinese modernization and made the problems need to be solved to realize modernization more complicated and diverse. The political participation of farmers and herdsmen residing here plays a significant role in speeding up the development of socialist democracy at the local level, accelerating coordinated development of social programs and the economy, protecting and realizing the legitimate rights of citizens and is of special value to national security, political stability and ethnic harmony.In order to make an in-depth research on the political participation of farmers and herdsmen in the Northwestern ethnic minority regions, a full analysis on the existing literature and material concerned has been made and on-the-spot research on sample villages and towns in Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xingjiang has been conducted. Based on the above efforts, the dissertation summarizes the overall characteristics of political participation of farmers and herdsmen, analyzes the factors holding back political participation. Considering that the social space used for the political participation mainly focuses on villages, towns, and civil organizations, the dissertation describes and analyzes the current situation of farmers and herdsmen's political participation via three fields including villages, towns and civil organizations in order to fully understand and study farmers and herdsmen's political participation in the Northwestern ethnic minority regions. At the same time, the study of the political participation can't be separated from the strategic background of country's modernization. As a result, pondering upon expanding the orderly political participation of fanners and herdsmen from the perspective of modernization is also one important issue discussed in the dissertation.The dissertation is divided into 8 parts in a logic system.The first chapter is the introduction covering the significance of topic choosing, literature review home and abroad, definition of the key concept, line of thinking and the research methods. The second chapter summarizes the overall characteristics of political participation of farmers and herdsmen from the following eight aspects of participation: participant, awareness, field, attitude, purpose, means, level and effect. The third chapter systematically analyzes the factors holding back political participation including physical geography environment, economic condition, educational level, national and religious factors, traditional cultural factors.The fourth chapter generalizes the general features and differences of farmers and herdsmen's political participation in villages of different ethnic groups based on the samples analysis of villages of Han nationality, ethnic minority groups and multi-national minority group in the Northwestern ethnic minority regions. The fifth chapter analyzes the strategies, the causes of political participation via the field of village adopted by different participants and their effect on village governance followed by measures to improve political participation. The sixth chapter reveals the current situation, the existing problems and the line of thinking for improvement of farmers and herdsmen's political participation via the field of township. The seventh chapter analyzes the forms of the political participation of farmers and herdsmen via the field of civil organizations, illustrates many functions of civil organizations conducive to fanners and herdsmen's political participation and its negative impact, puts forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions to solve the problems existing in the development of civil organizations. The eighth chapter inspects the political participation of farmers and herdsmen in the Northwestern ethnic minority regions from the perspective of Chinese modernization, esp. political modernization, puts forward orientation and principles of studying the political participation of farmers and herdsmen and the modernization of the northwestern ethnic minority regions, illustrates the value of the political participation of farmers and herdsmen in this areas and comes up with some basic means for expanding fanners and herdsmen's orderly political participation.Fanners and herdsmen's political participation in the Northwestern ethnic minority regions is still at the primary stage, presenting lots of features of primary stage which result from the joint influence of nature, humanity environment, history and reality. Considering that the social space used for the political participation mainly focuses on towns, villages and civil organizations like the rest part of China, the observation and analysis from the above three fields can fully reflect the current situation of farmers and herdsmen's political participation. Villages are the major field of political participation of farmers and herdsmen and more guidance, standard and help are necessary. The political participation via the field of towns should be fully integrated with the reforms in township systems which can be realized at the same time in the process of establishing kind of cooperative town and township governments. Civil organization becomes an increasingly important field for political participation and should be developed in a healthy way. The political participation of fanners and herdsmen in the Northwestern ethnic minority regions should be compatible with the national modernization drive and fully incorporated into the whole framework of national modernization, esp. political modernization, keeping modernization synchronized with the process of expanding orderly political participation of farmers and herdsmen.