Study Of Network Political Participation In Contemporary China

Democracy depends on participation. Political participation is not only the main content ofpolitical democracy but also a core variable which profoundly influences political democracy.Therefore, it is an important path of promoting healthy and orderly development of politicaldemocracy to expand citizens’ orderly political participation.Network political participation is a new type of political participation expedited by networktechnology and a new development of political participation in the information age. Takingnetwork political participation as the research target and influence of network politicalparticipation on the development of China’s democratic politics as the clue, this dissertationsystematically and comprehensively deals with the positive effects of network politicalparticipation on China’s democratic politics, the plight during its development and the way out ofthe development of network political participation.This dissertation consists of three parts: the introduction section, body and conclusion.The introduction section of this dissertation mainly discusses the origin and significance ofthe topic, document review and research thinking, methods, emphases and difficulties,innovations and shortcomings.The body of the dissertation is made up of five chapters.Chapter One discusses the related concepts, including the concept of political democracy andnetwork political participation, and theoretic basis of political participation network, including thetheory of political participation, the relationship between technology and democracy and therelationship between media and democracy.Chapter Two discusses the rise of network political participation in China. The rise ofnetwork political participation in China results from three factors: the support of networktechnology, the crush of the plight of realistic political participation and the attraction of theadvantage of network political participation. The rise of China’s network political participationhas undergone three periods: the initial period (from1994to2002), the onset period (from2003to2007) and the period of in-depth development (since2008). The realization mechanism ofnetwork political participation is taking information as the base, cyberspace as the carrier, interaction as the accelerator and interaction of virtuality and reality as the operationalmechanism.Chapter Three deals with the positive effects of network political participation. The rise ofnetwork political participation has broken through the plight of traditional political participationin a large part and brought a series of positive effects to China’s democracy, such as theenhancement of political expression, optimization of political decision-making, strengthening ofpolitical supervision, and cultivation of civic culture. Network political participation has changedthe political environment to a large extent and promoted the development of China’s politicaldemocracy.Chapter Four discusses the plight of network political participation during its development.Network political participation has brought a series of positive effects. However, it is undeniablethat network political participation also has some restrictive factors, such as unequal, irrationaland manipulable participation and etc. Inevitably, these restrictive factors will bring somenegative effects to the development of Chinese political democracy, for example, the breadth anddepth of democracy will be influenced, social harmony and stability will be endangered, thesociety will be implicitly controlled.Chapter Five deals with the prospects of network political participation. To promote thehealthy development of China’s network political participation, it is of utmost importance to havea utopia vision and make scientific plan of it. The principle of taking man as the end, rule of lawand ordering should be adhered to. The relationship between virtuality and reality, freedom andorder, independent development and learning from others should be correctly dealt with. On theconcrete way of developing network political participation, emphasis should be put on threerespects: eliminating digital divide to promote equal development of network politicalparticipation, strengthening the construction of electronic government to improve the institutionallevel of network political participation and improving the network environment to safeguard thenormal order of network political participation.The conclusion of the dissertation forecasts the future of network political participation.After all, network political participation is a new type of political participation expedited bynetwork technology. Therefore, the future of it is closely related with the relationship betweennetwork technology and democracy. In the short term, the development of network politicalparticipation depends on the optional absorption of realistic political system. In the long run, the network technology, as a revolutionary technology, will greatly promote the development ofChina’s political democracy. Therefore, we must have enough confidence and patience on it andtake various effective measures to promote it. Only in this way, can we make the network politicalparticipation benefit China’s political democracy and Chinese people.