A Study On Participant Pluralization In Ethnic Work From Polycentric Governance Perspective

It is well acknowledged that ethnic issues may have certain negative effectswhich sometimes could be influential not only in ethnic affairs per se, but in everyaspects of social life as well. Managed ineffectively, ethnic affairs will surely threateneconomic development and political stability.“Ethnic work” is a non-academicconcept unique to China’s practice, including ethnic relationships, ethnic rights,ethnic development and issues or problems involved within. Because of the existingproblems, ethnic work is indispensable and subject to change and transition.Ethnic work presently inherits basically the unitary factor administration formulaconducted in planned economy, which is a multi-layer network structure centered onthe State Nationalities Affairs Commission with Ethnic Affair Commission or Bureauof Ethnic and Religious Affairs set in lower levels of administration. The advantageof such structure is a wide range of coverage, while the disadvantage is an inclinationof the messy power distribution between ethnic departments and other administrativesections, the possible situation of ethnic departments’“accountability withoutauthority” or relative departments’“responsibility without liability”, for example.Meanwhile, such structure limits the participation from social groups, resulting their“concerned without obligated” in ethnic affairs.The unitary factor administration formula secured a long ethnic equality andnational unity. But along with the economic growth after the reform and opening-uppolicy, it cannot meet the demand in the new era and a method of multiple factors’participation is showing the future of ethnic works in China. The paper aims toanswer the following question: for such multiple factors, namely Chinese CommunistParty (CCP), National People’s Congress (NPC), government, Chinese People’sPolitical Consultative Committee (CPPCC), enterprises, public institutions, socialorganizations and ethnic minorities, what kind of roles should they play in the newera of rapid social and economic development? Based on the answer to that question,this study aims to find an alternative approach for unitary factor ethnic administration formula.The paper first attempts to interpret the concept of ethnic work from a academicperspective, defining as an administrative and service activity centered on ethicaffairs, which is jointly participated by such multiple factors as CCP, NPC,government, CPPCC, enterprises, public institutions, social organizations and averageethnic minority members, under coordination from ethnic administrative departmentsin government, Ethnic Affairs Commission, for example. Upon such definition, thepaper then adopts Civil Society, Polycentric Governance, Government Process andDeliberative Democracy as theoretic basis, in which Civil Society stresses theoreticalguidance in the political philosophy, Polycentric Governance stresses theoreticalapplication in the medium measure, while Government Process and DeliberativeDemocracy serves in the actual operation.In turn, the paper conducts analysis on public power departments, non publicpower organizations and individuals.Public power departments are core factors in ethnic work. Making a clearfunctional identification of the public power departments is the key to multiple factorparticipation in which CCP and its United Front Work Departments take theleadership, NPC and its Nationalities Committee assume supervisor, government andits Ethnic Affairs Commission conduct the concrete operation while CPPCC and itsEthnic and Religious Committee perform a benefit integrator.Non public power organizations participate in ethnic administration bynon-compulsory channels such as deliberative democracy. With their capital andtechnical advantage, enterprises provide a substantial material basis for multipleparticipations in ethnic work and increase supply for ethnic public facilities andservices. Public institutions promote employment of ethnic minorities, reasonablyallocate social resources, enhance the government legitimacy and innovate publicservice system. Social organizations perform their role restraining and supervising thegovernment power, cultivating democratic consciousness and behavior, creating andenriching the social capital under guidance and help from the government.The study of ethnic minorities in ethnic work basically equals analyzing theirpolitical participation. Political participation by ethnic minorities specifically refers to the involvement in political affairs in their ethnic group and society. Though presentlytardiness of ethnic political participation is epitomized in a low willingness, the mainreason is the lack of a necessary participation platform. Urban community andinternet can provide such a platform.The paper tries to establish a “three-in-one” framework for ethnic work in theconclusion part, in which “three” refers to public power departments, non publicpower organizations and individuals, while “one” stresses a joint participation in theethic work of multiple factors, playing different roles yet each being indispensable.The framework is the application of Polycentric Governance theory in the field ofethnic work, a tentative discussion of the future of ethnic work.This study also conducts certain field researches, upon which the paper edits partof the interview record and makes a brief statistical account of the questionnaire. Theresearch is not a case study whose field research is to provide supportive evidence todiscussions in the main body, and to set a basis for future research.