Domestic Violence Intervention In The Process Of Policy Analysis And Social Organizations In Which The Role

Social policy is general term of a series of guideline and provisions developed by government to promote social welfare and solve social problems. Since 2003, with the Party's governance philosophy turning to scientific and harmonious direction, as well as the continuous highlight of social issues, "social policy" is changing from concept of policy research to focus of the whole society. Social policy is essential and urgent for China's development, but taking current situation into account, the success of social policy development and effective implementation is still faced with lots of problems such as balance of interests and choice of the way for decision-making. In view of this, through a specific case of domestic violence intervention in Guangxi, this study analyzes the factors which affect the process of social policy development and implementation in China from the perspective of three-in-one of environment, process and participant, and explores the special actor—social organization's role and function in the process of social policy.Domestic violence policy in Guangxi experienced a progressive development within the country's macroeconomic environment and policy, from individual projects to social action for protection of women's right to formal legislation. The degree of domestic violence developed continuously with the enhancement of common sense.When it comes to policy environment, the development of anti-domestic violence policy was promoted by domestic and abroad policy background. The commitment of Chinese government for protection of women's rights in the international community is the external driving force of domestic violence intervention, and new government's policy direction of the people's livelihood and harmonious society also provides opportunity for development of anti-domestic violence policy. At the same time, increase of domestic violence cases as well as the serious social consequences of those cases also brought great political pressure on decision-makers and made them develop specific policies. However, from the point of view of macroscopic social background, under the development mode of economic growth as main goal, the protection of women's rights is not at the forefront of the Government's priority order which made domestic violence policy in the government agenda is on a marginal position.When it comes to policy process, the setting up of policy agenda reflected the key policy participant—Women's Federation grasped the timing of policy and opened "window of the policy" successfully under the condition of mature environment. However, on the aspect of policy implantation, the effect of intervention is not very ideal. The main reason is the lack of specialized human resources, effective coordination mechanisms, financial support as well as generalization of policy and regulations, and the most important reason of these difficulties is that government departments still put not enough attention on domestic violence intervention.When it comes to policy participants, during the process of anti-domestic violence policy, led by policy objective of prevention and prohibition of domestic violence, through a variety of formal and informal mechanisms, the relative government departments is made up of a community which can be seen as policy system. In this system, by various of formal and informal relationships, different participants who have their own goals and interests made all kinds of forms of interaction including collaboration, sharing message and resources etc. These actions push forward domestic violence intervention together.As the social organization between government and the people, Women's Federation played a crucial role on policy development and implementation. As a social organization, Women's Federation has neither power of law enforcement nor adequate resources, but it has advantage of relatively closeness with government and it can make use of relationship in the system to push forward other departments to take actions such as agenda of the National People's Congress and advocacy which is the social organization—Women's Federation's logic of action on intervening domestic violence.In a word, the process of anti-domestic violence policy in Guangxi reflects the obvious contrast of "smooth" development and hugely difficult implementation. As a local laws and regulations with involvement of different departments, with the promotion of domestic and abroad environment and under the relatively formal legislation process, the process of policy about domestic violence intervention is relatively "smooth" which didn't arouse too much conflict and controversy of interests.However, during process of implementation, the interveners encountered great difficulties. First of all, deficiency in the design of domestic violence intervention mechanism caused difficulties of implementation. Anti-domestic violence resolution has no implementation programs and assessment mechanism in detail which affects efficiency and effectiveness of intervention. Secondly, fragmentation of administrative system makes the system of domestic violence intervention very loose, without coordination of a higher level department; the phenomenon that different departments neglect domestic violence intervention or take actions in their own ways is very common.Thirdly, domestic violence intervention is not listed in the general assessment plans of government, so government departments are lack of pressure and driving force on intervention. Finally, as a quasi-government department, power and status of Women's Federation is still relatively weak, it has a lot of difficulties to co-ordinate multi-sectoral participation.To sum up, the ways of improving domestic violence intervention as well as similar social policies are: first of all, attempt to gain concern of dominant politics by strengthening legislation, enhancing social awareness and grasping timing of policy effectively. Secondly, mobilize all kinds of organization including international organizations, government departments and non-governmental organizations etc. and improve multi-sectoral participation and co-ordination mechanism. Finally, pay more attention on unification of policy development and implementation, make policy specific and operable. Such as make clear rules on personnel ration, financial support and intervention program, set up incentive mechanism of intervention service, safeguard mechanism of resources of implementation and multi-sectoral co-ordination mechanism in order to achieve policy goals effectively and avoid formalization of policy.