| The purpose of this paper is to study “civil governance” function of non-governmental organization and interactive responding mechanism of “state governance” and “civil governance” in the order reconstruction of Russian transformation process. Thus, the paper revealed the deep cause of independent exploration and practice of the law-ruled order and the special route and orientation of “civil governance”. On this basis, the paper raised the route and strategy about building China under the rule of law. This paper adopted several research methods, such as empirical analysis method, comparative analysis method and interdisciplinary study method. The main research contents and viewpoints are as followed: I. Rise of the global “association revolution” and governance orderIn western countries, law-ruled order was gradually formed in the process of continuous adjustment and evolution of the state and society relationship. Either market liberalism or state intervention theory is involved in the complex relationship between state and society and the deep problem of state power and social power boundaries. Based on the game of state and society or the game of right and power, state and society had ever become the dominant force of social control, in practice, western countries also experienced the predicament of “market failure” and “government failure” and order crisis at different stages. Market liberalism has ever made the western society in order dilemma, “market failure” proclaimed “laissez faire” in bankruptcy. While “Keynes doctrine” implemented in order to solve the market failure made the western countries in the situation of “government failure”. Thus, “government failure” means the disillusionment of state power.Nowadays, with the rapid development of science and technology, and with the complexity of the interest patterns and the values diversification, it is impossible to fulfill the order construction simply relying on society or simply relying on the country. It proved that state and society is no longer simple antagonistic relationship and zero-sum game Relationship. In order to corporately solve the complex economic, political and social affairs, we need the cooperative governance of state and society, and then fulfill the interactive balance development between power and rights or between rights and rights. “Global Association Revolution” reflects the deep causes and epoch symptoms of reconstructing relationships between the state and the society. A large number of non-governmental organizations rising with “Global Association Revolution” become the important subject of sharing state power and conducting “civil governance”, make up for not supporting of the government and the market, reconstruct the new pattern between power and rights, and become the important driving force for development of democracy and the rule of law.In 1980 s and 1990 s, western countries began to seek ”the third road” on the basis of dealing with the complicated social crisis, democracy crisis and the trust crisis, thus, the governance thought began to rise, and make a theoretical response to practice. Governance theory emphasizes interaction and cooperation of state and society, diversity of governance subject and top-down or bottom-up bidirectional changes.It has epoch-making significance from “domination” to “governance”. Firstly, it has relived the tension of state and society, and realized virtuous interaction and harmonious coexistence of relationship between state and society; Secondly, it has achieved changes of governance subject from unification to diversification, and corporate governance of diversified subject has been the most effective way to deal with the social complex and risks; Thirdly, It has rearranged and repositioned the power and rights relationship, and promoted the new generation mechanism of law-ruled order. In the era of globalization, western countries and countries in transition are both in the profound reform from “domination” to “governance”. They try to reach the changes from unified national autonomy order to diversified negotiation order, although they adopt the different specific paths and strategies. The reform implies heavy claims for democracy and legalization.Compared with the western developed countries, the exploration for governance order is more arduous and complex for the countries in transition. Its governance reforms include political system transformation from centralization to democracy, economic system transformation from planned economy to market economy, and ideology transformation from state authority to diversified authorities. Thus it can be seen that governance reform for the countries in transition are far more than reforms in western countries in depth, breadth and strength. Taken the West as a sample, Russia’s governance reform has started by the state adopting radical ways, and experienced a series of failure, frustration and pains, and finally embarked on its own characteristic independent development path. ”Russian Reform Path” reflects the accordance between universality of western experience and local features of Russia. It doesn’t help Russia out of trouble, but also provides a new way and opportunity for promoting the process of its democracy and rule of law. Furthermore, “Russian Reform Path” provides a new model for transformation of the post-socialist countries. II. NGO Rising and Governance Disruption in Yeltsin’s TimeAfter the October Revolution, Union of Soviet started socialism practice under the direction of intense nationalism. By the principle of all power to Soviet, the USSR formed party-government integration social system, centralism in politics and public ownership in economy was the base of this pattern. In this structure, the society was hold by national authority, the power and resource was allocated by one-dimensional vertical model. In 1936, the USSR declared the achievement of socialism, the centralism and planned economy got the protection from constitution, and that meant the rule model of universal state and population society. The combination of legislative and executive powers ensured that the USSR became a strong country in short term. Some countries, especially those from Eastern Europe, worshiped USSR’s development miracle, and followed the pattern to develop universal state and population society. However, the intense centralism depressed social vitality. Because of the absence of governance, the USSR fell into severe order crisis. In order to go out of political rigid and economy stagnation, Gorbachev attempted to democratic reforming, and he wanted to motivate the social vitality and transform the system to governance. Unfortunately, The USSR went to disintegration because of the policy malfunction. After the disintegration, Russia denied the USSR totally. For the dream of rebuilding Russia, Yeltsin pushed the reform of wholesale westernization, and hoped to shape a country under the rule of law, market economy and civil society. So Yeltsin carried out series of idealism system design. In politics, he abolished one-party system, built up multi-party system based on separation of powers. In terms of economy, Russia pursued privatization and market economy. In terms of social policy, Yeltsin developed non-government organization vigorously. After the idealism design, Yeltsin subverted the traditional system thoroughly in a radical way, but Yeltsin’s transformation of westernization showed a bold willingness to the spirit of law.What the Yeltsin did about the economy and politics led to the dual structure. For the aim of building limited government and strong civil society, Yeltsin held a stance of not interfere to NGOs. At the same time, there was power vacuum in society because of the national power left. So the demand of autonomous rose. Just under this background, a lot of NGOs came into being. These budding NGOs defended public or some stakeholders benefit. The multi governance took shape.The development of Russia NGOs based on the dual structure. The role of NGOs was to decompose national power, to build a limited government, to cooperate with government in the public service supplying, and to become the bridge between government and social group. Political participation and to promote the social integration was the mission of NGOs in the civil governance. In order to balance the country’s power, Russia confirmed the principle to the freedom of association in the constitution, then issued Russian Society Jointly Organized Method, Laws of Nonprofit Organizations, and Laws of Russian Charity; these laws gave the NGOs legitimacy. But Russia fell into trap for the immature in reforming. Russian NGOs had to bare more responsibility in the difficult time.Although Yeltsin’s reform brought multi-governance structure to Russia, but the system of democracy, market economy and civil society was deformed in varying degrees. The government by the principle of liberalism lost its effectiveness and authority. Many NGOs in transformation were controlled by tycoon or western political force, and they did not have the ability in the civil governance. Deformed national governance and weak civil governance caused severe order crisis, such as chaos in political life, market tumble from the law of the jungle. III. Civil Governance Rebuilding in Putin’s TimeIn Yeltsin’s time, the radical reforms “which just focuses the destroying rather than constructing” result in the order crisis. In front of the severe order crisis, President Putin adjusted the idea of governance and the managing system. He turned Yeltsin’s time “weak government, strong society” to the powerful national governance with powerful civil governance. Putin applied to Russia by involved patriotism, power awareness, national idea and social solidarity. Putin attempted to get generally accepted value, then to push the work of constructing powerful national governance and powerful civil governance. Firstly, Putin erected the authority of constitution, enhanced the construction of controllable democracy, built the vertical power system, and carried out economic development plan. Secondly, Putin’s government encourage NGOs participate in political life, with the fund support to NGOs, and promote the development of NGOs. The controllable democracy is the basis of rational social response. On the policy choice, Putin’s government changed the stance of not interfere, and turned to regulate NGOs, especially those abroad. As a counterweight to the alienation civil power, also for enhance the ability of civil governance, Putin’s government launched some moves, such as initiating new NGOs and waking up nationality.With the idea of powerful national governance and powerful civil governance, Putin endeavored to construct the interaction mechanism between country and civil level. In 2001, the Civil Forum held in Moscow, which indicated the communication platform involved president and high officers came into being. In 2006, the Russian Academy of Social was established, and this was the negotiation mechanism for the NGOs participate in national affairs. Moreover Russia let NGOs take part in legislation. Through the above mechanism and platform, Russia attained the interaction game between national governance and civil governance.By the adjustment in governance and building the social interaction mechanism, civil governance in Putin’s time played a great role in the social transformation.Firstly, the multi-democracy appeal from NGOs produced conditions for the legitimacy of public policy and governance order. With the diversification in social benefit and values, and the increase of civil right appealing, the society has created the concern expression mechanism with inherent demand.The NGOs with institutional features take responsibility of multi-democracy appeal; they went into the public policy making procedure by means of Putin’s social interaction mechanism, thus the policy decision possessed the justification and the legitimacy based on people’s opinions.Secondly, “civil governance” realized the decomposition of longitudinal power and the balance of paralleled power. The “all-mighty” country of the Soviet era makes it highly-centralized power. The state power which lacks social control constitutes very serious erosion to the society. While the civil governance constituted by non-governmental organizations decompose longitudinal power. It not only shared some power of the Soviet era but also limited the operation boundaries of state power by the autonomous space, building a dam which prevents the power invading rights. Furthermore, the non-governmental organization culture spirits are cultivated like mutual benefits, corporation and trust among members by autonomous rules and informal norms, and then achieve balance between horizontal rights by rational game.Thirdly, civil governance realized the citizen spirit and promoted the rational and democratic participation of citizens. In the Russian political culture, absolutism and nationalism have been the leading position. The subjects or the average people’s identity has led to the lack of the spirit of Russian citizens, and makes the non-rational action struggle which fight for rights throughout the history of Russia. While non-governmental organizations can cultivate the citizens’ rational tolerance and the spirit of compromise and sense of social responsibility by the integration of values and the balance of interests. The Russian can participate in the national democratic political life by the negotiation and consulting. Thus, it is an important embodiment of citizen’s rational democratic participation that non-governmental organizations in Russia participate in public decision making and formulating and modifying the lawFinally, “civil governance” promoted the value consensus, system identification and self-discipline in order. In Putin’s period, “civil governance” abilities of the Russian non-governmental organizations are obviously enhanced. On one hand, non-governmental organizations promote the formation informal norms to abide by shaping the citizen spirit and the integration of multiple values. On the other hand, based on the consideration of the public interest, non-governmental organization representing different benefit groups promote consensus through the formation of rational negotiation to make formal legal system in the legislative process. Therefore, both the informal norms and the formal legal system promote the formation of self-discipline order because they enhanced the sense of citizenship identity system on the basis of value consensus. IV. The Russian road of “Civil Governance”Two split pattern of the state and society and the order development mechanism of civil governance are generated in the western context. The change of order exploration on the Russian law is inevitably full of internal conflicts and tension between the western experience logic and the Russian “localization”. The civil governance of west is generated on the background of long-term game between the nation and the society. It has feature of spontaneity and discrete antagonism at the beginning of the formation.While the civil governance of Russian is generated for the realization of democracy and law by country, it has feature of artificial nature and dependence of country and improved the capability. “Civil Governance” depends on the national policy and legal orientation to a great extent.At the beginning of the Russian transition, Yeltsin adopted the strategy of “completely westernization”. It is based on the reasons as followed:Firstly, Yeltsin considered western experience as the only way to regain the dream of a great country for Russia. Power doctrine consolidates the determination of “completely westernization”. Secondly, the national character of antinomy is the subjective factors of Russia’s western experience. Russia’s national characters have some extremist tendency. When the Soviet model is denied, they seek the opposite way. Thirdly, that western countries’ promise to help Russia is the external power of Russia’s westernization. After Yeltsin built the national framework, he took a laissez-faire attitude to non-governmental organizations. However, in Russia which lacks of the autonomy tradition, the laissez faire to the society can’t build the strong civil society at all. What’s more, based on the influence of traditional despotism, three separated power system and the limited government power lead to the power struggles. The limited power government became the weak government, and lacked the governance ability. Transition dilemma makes Russia into governance practice confusion. Economy recession, political chaos and the weakness of civil governance proclaimed the termination of the Russian’s complete westernization.At the beginning of the Russian transition, valuing the western experience and approving the “universality” of western democracy are the main reason of trapping into the wrong reform ways. During the period of Yeltsin, transformation of social structure which took the west for the example determined the basic framework of state and society relationship for Russian self-governance road. But, due to the lack of historical tradition and of the focus on the local conditions of Russia, they failed. During the period of Putin, based on the reform on the framework of Yeltsin, Putin put more Russian elements into the reform strategy to search for the combination of the western experience and Russian “localization” then attempted and explored the self-governance road.Russia’s “civil governance” has the special path and trend. Firstly, the formation of governance order was promoted by the “double strong equilibrium” of state and society. Russian special historical tradition and political cultures decide that completely following the western road goes to nowhere. “The strong state” must assume the leading role in the formation of Russian governance order. Meanwhile, “the strong society” provided social foundation for Russian governance order. Secondly, Russia formed a combination of the preliminary experience rationality and construction experience rationality. The establishment of the state and the society of Russia relationship framework and the interactive governance and “civil governance” jointly promote the Russian formation of construction order and spontaneous order. Thirdly, “civil governance” of the Russian has deep path dependence on “oriental despotism”. In Russia’s civil governance, autocracy and authoritarianism are the traditional factors affecting Russia ”civil governance”, which makes Russia’s “civil governance” have strong “oriental despotism” trait. V. Russia and China: Theoretical Reflection and Reference to the Construction of Rule of LawChina is a state with a strong tradition of absolutism. In the traditional combined structure of family and state, rule of rites integrated state and society. After the founding of the P.R. China, the establishment of the “universal state” and the “overall society” which copied the practice of the Soviet Union made the state and the society the same structure to a high degree. The social autonomy was severely squeezed by the centralized system of government which in turn led to serious order crisis.Under the pressure of growth, China, driven by the government, began to implement the transformation of social structure. In the process of reform, China did not adopt the Russian-style radical reform, but a gradual one. The government put forward the strategy of “rule of law”, aiming at the construction of contemporary order of rule of law in China. However, because the government adopted the approach of “nationalism” in achieving its goal while ignoring the essential role of society through which the rule of law was generated, the construction of rule of law in China was in profound straits. As a result, such phenomena as the formalization and inefficiency of laws and rules, the legalization and “justification” of the expansion of power, the politicization and toolization of judicial ideas were emerged which brought about the difficulties of putting the power into the “cage of regulation”, and therefore the society lacked the vitality and the legality of public policies was met with incredulity.Russia’s reconstruction of transitional order and the adjustment strategies of the relationship between state and society provide China with significant theoretical reflection and reference. China and Russia have similar tradition and logic of order construction based on “oriental despotism”, and they all belonged to the “Soviet mode” socialist states. The homogenous historical genes and the identical starting point of transition determine the possibility of contemporary China to draw lessons from Russia in the methods and strategies of the order of governance. There is no doubt that the two states are different in national conditions, and China should determine the limits of borrowing the experience of Russia in governance and the way of implementing the rule of law, namely, China should not merely cope Russia’s methods. The reconstruction of order in Russia provides China with some two-way experience and lessons, including the issues of the approach of governance and the independent road of development, the ways of transition between radicalism and gradualism, the distinction between state and social circles and the formation of the relationship between them, the growth of non-governmental organizations, and the main body status of “social governance” in the construction of the order of rule of law.Throughout the process of Russia’s transition of governance,the construction of order of rule of law and the experience and lessons of social governance, in choosing its path, China must draw lessons from the experience of Russia in the transition of governance and the construction of the order rule of law and go on the track of independent development of “rule of law” through learning the experience of the West and insisting the bottom line principle of rule of law. China should effectively restrict powers and protect rights properly to promote a fair and just order of rule of law through interactive cooperation between national and social governance. In addition, China should face traditions squarely and obtain sustenance from its historical and cultural heritage. One of the dilemmas of Russia’s transition at the beginning of its reform was the ignorance of traditions. On this account, China, in the process of its contemporary construction of rule of law, must pay high attention to historical traditions and draw the essence from traditional culture to furnish China’s spirit of law and its legal system. Furthermore, China should pay attention to reality, which means we should focus on the characteristics of China’s rule of law. China’s construction of rule of law and order of governance must be set up within the existing political framework. China must insist on the following principles: stick to the leadership of Communist Party on the construction of rule of law, adhere to the People’s Congress system as the main body of the public opinion expression mechanism, adhere to the market economy with socialist characteristics.In the mode of governance, China must set up a “state-dominated and social participated” mode and adhere to the dominant position of the state in the governance and the construction of rule of law. Meanwhile, China should mobilize the participation potential and the sense of mission of the society in governance, and improve the ability of “social governance” to realize the interactive response of the state and the society.In respect of specific strategy, a dual-order mechanism should be established. The order of rule of law must be realized through interactive balances between powers and rights respectively. Therefore, the construction of the rule of law in contemporary China must carry out an interaction between the state and the society through the interconnection of order construction and spontaneous order. In the first place, such measures as establishing the supremacy of the Construction, realizing the administration by law and carrying out the top-level designs should be taken to enhance the authority of governance of the state. In the second place, the “social governance” function of non-government organizations should be exerted to enable these organizations to play an active role in participating in legislation, realizing social autonomy and bringing about social integration. In the third place, national governance and social governance should be pushed ahead in parallel and should response each other. On the one hand, social governance should promote the authority of national governance, on the other hand, national governance should enhance the effectiveness of social governance and ultimately the order of rule of law in contemporary China will be realized through the dual-order mechanism. |
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