Governance Transformation, Government Innovation And Participatory Governance

The governance reform in China made great achievements, but the traditional model of governance has not fundamentally changed. The governance model of totalitarian government has brought a series of problems. In the context of China's modernization transformation, we need to look for a new model of governance, in order to cope with globalization and uncertain risks through governance performance and meet the requirement of political legitimacy.Participatory Governance (PG) is an interdisciplinary theory from politics and public administration, and the combination of democratic theory and governance theory. PG stresses the participatory process that ordinary citizens engage in the decision-making and implementation processes. Empowerment, participation, collaboration, and network structure are PG characteristics. PG is a new type of governance, which affords the performance and the channels of citizen participation to meet the growing demands of effectiveness and legitimacy.In Hangzhou, "Democracy promoting people's livelihood" pattern is a style PG. From the perspective of participatory governance, "Democracy promoting people's livelihood" empowers citizens, and brings a variety of stakeholders to participate in decision-making and co-management of public affairs. Therefore it changes the government decision-making mechanism, and optimizes the policy implementation process. It achieves management optimization and upgrades the quality of urban life.Hangzhou model of PG, including two aspects of governance:citizens participating in decision-making and collaboration governance processes. It forms "open decision-making", "public voting" and democratic participation on "significant project" construction. The experience of the model mainly includes:government domination, people's livelihood orientation, multiple subjects, and civil rights protection mechanism. Hangzhou model of PG should coordinate a few pairs of contradiction inherent in PG:"participation" and "domination", "local knowledge" and "professional knowledge" and "external forces" and "internal forces". At the same time, Hangzhou model has its own problem. The biggest problem is the role of government is too prominent. In addition, the lack of motivation of citizen participation and the limited areas and access of participation need to be improved.Hangzhou "Democracy promoting people's livelihood" PG model is based on the local government innovation and urban governance experience. Fortunately, the experience of Hangzhou could be an example for other cities, whose universal value is significant for China's political development and local governance in transition. PG fastens the transformation of government decision-making process, and optimizes the implementation of policies. It also improves relations between officials and the public, to foster civil society and shape citizens, so as to promote local governance restructuring and realize "good governance".