On Government Reformation In The Progressive Era Of America

Nowadays, the reform of government has become an importantly practical proposition in the field of our economy, society and polity. For the reform and develop of contemporary China, the government and reform are undoubtedly in the crucial and central position. Each step of success in the reform and develop of China accompanies the profound reform in the function, structure, operation mechanism and many other aspects of government. The prospect of the reform and develop of China also depends on the smooth pushing on the deeper reform of government. Since1978, our country has carried out several times of reform in large scale, and has strengthened the broadness, depth and efforts in them constantly. In spite of that, the relative lagging of governmental reform is still one of the institutional obstacles which impede the development of economic society in China and we did not carry out the governmental reform well in practice, even struggled in some fields. How can we push on the functional, structural and operation mechanistic reform of government effectively and build the governmental appearance suitable for the Socialist Market Economy and harmonious society? As the complexity of governmental reform itself, the train of reflecting it should be from multiple dimensions.To today’s world, only know about China, can talk about world’s issue; to today’s China, only have a good grip of the world, can move on smoothly. In China, the reform and development in the future not only need having a deep and clear understanding of the economic and social issues they are facing, but also need observing, analyzing and studying the experience and lessons of reform and development in foreign countries with the view of comparison. The progressivism age of America is an important period of American modernization, industrialization and urbanization. During this period, its economic growth made enormous progress, social structure experienced drastic changes, administrative efficiency was low, bureaucratic corruption was rampant, and national construction and sustainable development were both in crisis. In the respect of historic stage, development background, social issues and demands for reform, that period in America has a strong comparability with the reform of today’s Chinese government in the field of background, reality and problems. After the government reform in the progressivism age of America, America had successfully solved the severe and deep problems that national construction and sustainable development faced which laid a solid structure foundation for the American transition, even for the whole nation’s development in the20’th century. Understanding the spirit and temperament of that age and the modern meaning of government reform is always the important contents focused on by the American political and administrative scholars when they study the progressivism age. Today’s China is in the crucial period in which economic society is changing profoundly, national construction and public policy is transforming, so drawing and taking all the beneficially historic experience as reference has important reference meaning for the social and governmental reform during the transitional period.On purpose to provide some method or reference to the governmental reform of contemporary China, this paper chooses the governmental reform in progressivism age of America as its research object and takes efforts to explain its happening logic, possibilities and referred constraints on the basis of illuminating its source, content and consequences. In order to achieve this purpose, the whole paper is divided into five parts with eight chapters in the respect of content framework.The first part is the introduction. As the beginning chapter of this paper, the introduction will start from the strongly actual demands for the governmental reform in the transitional period of contemporary China, stating the contemporary significance of studying the governmental reform of America in progressivism age. All the historical research has the significance of history of thoughts, and the position and meaning of the research in the course of thoughts can not be found out without the understanding of the research topic’s history of thoughts. Therefore, this paper will study and analyze the literature at home and broad during the progressivism age of America to further define the emphasis, cut-in and starting point of it; and then it will review and scan the theory framework used when studying this theme in the existed research to further specify the logic process and thinking framework of it.The second part is the review of the background of the governmental reform during the progressivism age of America.19th century is not only the golden age of developing liberalism, but also the specific period of taking political reform actions in succession in the background of the simultaneous outbreaks of negative consequences and social contradictions after a certain stage of developing the economic policy of laissez faire and negative government mode by the main western industrialized countries. The reforms in the Western Europe are similar or in same trend-in that context, the governmental reforms in the progressivism time of America have universal trend to some extent. But it can not be denied that this reform in America must has its distinct meaning and logic which can only be found out from the profound reform, demand for reform and constraint and incentive conditions of governmental reform of American economic society during that time. Hence, the chapter three will discuss the present situation and the demand for reform caused by it in the area of American economic society during the period of progressivism thus to define the governmental reform of America during that time as the political respond to a serious crises of economic society, and will further make it clear that how the governmental reform became the fundamental focus of response to the social contradictions by analyzing the profound transformation in the area of economic society then.The third part includes chapter three and chapter four. During the progressivism age, the governmental reform was launched mainly along two lines:the first was that although then the laissez faire was in the dominant position in the long term, the government was in the trend of continued expansion in both scale and function, since the proposal for the government intervening into economy had become increasingly strong, and that trend was still conspicuous not only in federal government level, but also in state government level; the second was that although when the state government was expending its jurisdiction, the federal government was gradually taking over the power belongs to the state government formerly at the same time-it was an apparent trend that the power was centralized to central government. In this paper, chapter four will discuss the trend of expansion, content and characteristics of the power of American government laterally during the progressivism age, and chapter five will discuss the trend of centralization, content and characteristics of the power of American government lengthwise during the progressivism age.The forth part includes chapter five and chapter six. Policies, personnel matters and budget are the basic content of government. If we said that the third part is the macro-analysis of the function and structure of American government during progressivism age, the next study of the reform of civil services and budget system is the middle analysis of system and budget of American government during the progressivism age. Chapter five will discuss the reform of civil services and chapter six will discuss the reform of budget system-both of them are of American government during the progressivism age. On the basis of that, the concrete content and its cut-in point of the reform of American government will be further studied to help us summarize and analyze the trend, characteristics and the foundation of inspiration it provides for the contemporary reform of Chinese government theoretically of American government during the progressivism age. The fifth part is the theoretically summarization of the governmental reform in American during the progressivism age-analyzing the conditions and factors for its success and the possibilities, feasibilities and constraint factors of reference and inspiration it provides for the reform of Chinese government during the transformation period.In the end, the conclusion part will summarize the innovation of this paper’s studying, and will look forward to the main area in which this paper needs further promotion and research development.