The Chinese Communist Party's Ability To Govern: Structure - Function Interaction Analysis Perspective

Communist Party of China (CPC) explicitly claimed that it was committed to strengthening its ruling capacity in 2004. By analyzing its reign since then in the perspective of structure-function interaction, this research provides a general picture of CPC's ruling. How did it form in the history? What is its current state? Where will it head to?It is argued that various schools of structure- function theory are commensurable, although they show some diversity in different theorists' studies. This theory presents a common thinking way shared by the whole human society, which transcends ideological barrier. It is not only enshrined in Marxist theories on human society, but also accepted by other theories of social science. The structure- function study of CPC could be generalized as two sets of interactions: the interaction between Chinese society and CPC; the interaction between the structure of this party and its functions. In the former set of interaction, modern Chinese society is viewed as a social organism in Marxist sense, while CPC is one of its structural elements among others. CPC came to power in response to the demands resulting from the transformation and reconstruction of Chinese society. In the latter set of interaction, CPC is regarded as a relatively independent organism possessing its organization, institution and party members, which fulfills its functions as leading power and ruling party, and therefore meets the demands of social organism. The structure and functions prompt each other, and co-work as the internal impetus to CPC's commitment to strengthening its ruling status.This research concludes with three points. First, the current state is the necessary historical result of the profound interaction between the transformative Chinese Society and Communist Party of China. Second, in the perspective of structure-function analysis, the structures and functions of CPC exhibit a series of particularities. Party structure of CPC is mainly composed of three elements, organization, institution and party member. It is of a variety of characteristics such as full organizational coverage, conformity of high extent, more and more rigid institutional constraint, leading power gradually assembling to the party nucleus, and the system operation tending to be more and more administrative. Leadership and ruling are two different general functions of CPC, which can not replace each other. They could be concretized as many specific functions. Third, it is argued that the undertaking of strengthening CPC's ruling capacity should be redefined by intensifying its functions. Therefore CPC has to reply to two major challenges namely globalization and building a harmonious society, and comprehensively improve its ruling capacity by adjusting its function list, giving attention to both general coverage and specific points, and optimizing its structure.