Study On The Quality Of Rural Democracy And Its Influence Factors In China

Born in the early 1980s, village democratic autonomy is a great achievement of grassroots democracy in China. It makes more than 600 million farmers come and participate to the democratic practices, leading to a democratic habits. The rural grassroots democracy has made tremendous progress during the three decades. The proportion of direct election has risen steadily, and regulatory and competitive elections have gradually improved as well. Meanwhile, rural democracy still exist many problems in China at present. For example, democratic consciousness of the villagers need to be improved, intervention in the elections occurred sometimes, and problems also exists after the election regarding the oversight and accountability of the village committees.Faced with the great achievements and reality problems of rural democracy, to measure and evaluate our rural democracy has become a very important and urgent issue. Western democratic quality theory enlighten us how to effectively measure the quality of rural democracy. This study based on the analyzing framework of the quality of democracy theory. We explore the main dimensions of in China and build the theoretical model of the rural democracy quality and its impact factors. Subsequently, we designed and carried out research questionnaires according to the standards. Based on the national coverage survey data of 305 rural in 25 provinces, we analyze and discuss performances with various dimensions of the rural democracy quality and the differences between eastern and western rural areas in China. With multiple linear regression models, we examine the economic, ethnic, political and social capital factors that impact the rural democracy quality with various dimensions and reach the following findings1. The quality of rural democracy survey indicates:the quality of rural democracy in eastern China is higher than that in the central and western China at all dimensions. In five dimensions of rural democracy quality regarding rule of law, participation, competition, vertical accountability and responsiveness, competition has the highest score, responsiveness takes the second place and vertical accountability is the worst of all. This suggests that rural democracy in China already has a certain degree of competition, but there is still a big problem in the democratic supervision of rural democracy. The supervision and restraint of the village committees after the election remains to be strengthened.2. Impact factors of rural democracy quality survey indicates:regarding economic, ethnic origin, political, social capital factors, rural areas in eastern China are more developed in economy, and also have powerful ethnic influence. Social capital also has a relatively better performance in eastern China. While in rural areas in the central and western China, political interference by towns are more likely to occur.3. Impact factors affecting the quality of rural democracy are verified, and the analysis shows:Economic factor that impacts the rural democracy quality in various dimensions has not been verified; ethnic factor has be verified to have a negative impact on competition and responsiveness dimensions; political factor are confirmed to have a negative impact on the rural democracy quality in every dimensions expect participation dimension; social capital has been verified to have a strong positive impact on the on the rural democracy quality in every dimensions. The reason why the influence of economic factor has not been verified may attribute to intermediate variable "economic inequality" which will be studied further in the future. Ethnic factor has not be verified on rule of law, participation and vertical accountability dimensions indicates that the influence of rural clans generally and gradually becomes weaker and weaker.