On The Governance Of The Basic Contradiction From The Perspective Of Risk Social

The concept of social governance is a new way of thinking for human beings to pursue the progress of political civilization and social development. Because of its universality, social governance, as a kind of instrumental rationality, is the inevitable choice for the global modernization drive. Having entered a period of economic and social transformation, China has scored great achievements in its economic development, yet its social development, especially the social governance, lags far behind. At present, China is faced with many social problems:sharp social conflicts, diverse public order offences, substantial potential risks, and difficulties in community integration, the majority of which arise at the grassroots level. Accordingly, grassroots social governance in China should undertake the three basic tasks of resolving social conflicts, maintaining public order, and taking social risks. Therefore, in order to play a more decisive role in building a peaceful China under the rule of law, it's rather urgent to establish a comprehensive grassroots governance system under the rule of law.In 1986, Ulrich Beck argued for the first time that human beings had entered a completely new epoch of "Risk Society". Reform and opening-up brought unprecedented changes to China and turned it into a risk society featuring a symbiosis among premodernity, modernity, and postmodernity, a typical "Broken Society". According to the concept of risk society, the high incidence of multiple grassroots contradictions in current China mainly results from civil conflicts in terms of rights and interest concerning livelihood issues between social members and social organizations. To have a panoramic view and correct understanding of the risk types of social contradictions in China, the dissertation analyzes the basic types, the macroscopic manifestation, and the trend of development of the social contradictions and social risks in China under the context of risk society.It is no easy task exploring the origins cf the high incidence of social contradictions in China. With the basic contradiction unchanged between the growing material and cultural needs and the backward social productive forces, the contradictions between the growing demands for rights and interests and the backward social system become increasingly outstanding. Six origins are identified for the blowout of social contradictions in China, namely, the gap between the fast economic development and the unbalanced economic structure, the enormous social change and the structural differentiation, the overstaffed government offices and the inefficient management and law enforcement, the short of public trust in the judiciary and the lack of legal authority, the ineffective cultural education and the lack of spiritual beliefs, and the slack grassroots organizations and the lack of the vanguard, all of which are fundamental for China to improve the grassroots governance system in the period of social transformation.Faced with the different characteristics and multiple origins of the social contradictions and disputes, Guangdong Province made a positive and valuable exploration in risk control by probing into three possible routes for dispute settlement. In terms of the institutional route dominated by the government, they highlighted the importance of planning at the top, the specification of the subject of responsibility, the establishment of a joint mediation mechanism, and the reformation of the petitioning system. In terms of the socialized route based on people's mediation, they clarified the kind of thinking on sticking to the choice of people's mediation, expanding its functions, and renovating its system. For those hot spots in which social contradictions arise frequently, such as doctor-patient disputes, traffic disputes, and environment protection disputes, a new solution of resorting more to the third party of professional organizations should be encouraged. In terms of the legal route, they established a new system of joint mediation before litigation. Through a clarification of the subject, the characteristics, the positioning, and the route selection of dispute settlement, the dissertation makes a prospective and forward-thinking exploration of the future development and network structure of the diversified dispute settlement mechanism which is of Chinese characteristics.The Communist Party of China has been exploring the way of effective governance so as to ensure a long-term peace and stability. From the concept of comprehensive administration of public security put forward in the early stages of reform and opening up in the 1980s, to the decisions taken in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2013,2014, and 2015 respectively, which include promoting the modernization drive in the national governance system and governing capacity, promoting the rule of law in an all-around way, and realizing the new leap in the economic and social development under the guidance of the philosophy of "innovation, coordination, greenness, openness, and sharing", all these major decisions are undoubtedly of strategic and decisive significance to the realization of the Chinese Dream-the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.However, in spite of having experienced many reforms, the government-dominated national governance system has repeatedly fallen into a vicious cycle with an undesirable expansion of the administrative system in the process of reform and opening up. Worse is that, because of the blind emphasis on vertical management and direct connection of the individual functional departments with those at and above the county level, many problems arise in the grassroots social governance, for example, the segmentation of the administrative departments, the scattered resources, and the single-handed work which results in low efficiency.Resting on a case study of the establishment of a comprehensive grassroots governance platform in Guangdong Province, the last part of this dissertation evaluates the pioneering practice in Guangdong, whose governance system is led by counties, supported by towns, and based on villages. The author believes that the practice in Guangdong channels the positive energy of grassroots governance and produces the comprehensive governance effect of one plus one equals more than two through effectively integrating the grassroots resources about social governance, straightening out the grassroots governance mechanism, and improving the operating mechanism.Grounded in the experience drawn from the practice in Guangdong, this dissertation introduces five innovations in grassroots governance. In terms of the philosophy of governance, the grassroots government should give priority to the social governance rather than the economic development, with special emphasis on people-oriented values and services and rule of law. The other four innovations about governance include a compound pattern, a pyramid-shaped grassroots mechanism, a direct, fine and information-based approach, and a problem-oriented, efficiency-based grassroots system of management by objective. In a word, a new philosophy of modern social governance and development is well embodied in all these advices, which not only follow the trend of the times but also have an enlightening significance and a high reference value for guiding the reform in grassroots governance in all parts of China.