Research On The Practical Logic Of China's Political System Reform (1978-2007)

The reform of China's political structure is a key to understand socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.The direction of the reform of China's political structure and how to push forward the reform have always been the focus of attention.The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 1978 heralded the beginning of the reform and opening up,and also marked the beginning of China's political structure reform.In the process of industrialization and modernization,the reform of China's political structure has its own practical logic.The study about the internal mechanism of the occurrence and continuity can provide useful theoretical guidance for China's political structure reform and the development of socialist democracy in the future.It is divided into six stages from the beginning of the reform and opening up to the 17 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,namely,the initial stage,the stage of blueprint planning,the stage of comprehensive deployment,the stage of reflection and adjustment,the stage of exploring the thought of“Three-unification” and the stage of the political model formation of“Three-unification”.Starting from the exploration and practice in different periods of China's political structure reform,this paper tries to analyze the evolution process of China's political structure reform from the objective conditions of economic and social development,and also analyzes and understands the internal rules of the political structure reform with the method of empirical observation,so as to reveal the internal logic of China's political structure reform since the reform and opening up.It is based on historical institutionalism theory as the analytical framework,and analyzes the evolution at different stages,the critical junctures and the internal logic.This paper also analyzes the conditions for the development of the political structure reform and its internal causality,and clarifies the correlation between the key events and the specific measures of the political structure reform.It regards different stages of China's political structure reform as macro-narrative structure,and regards the key events as micro-structure.According to the time series of events,it analyzes the diachronic and synchronic process of the different stages of the political structure reform,so as to determine the influence of the sequence of events,and then analyzes the self-strengthening or reaction change of the political structure reform.Finally,it summarizes the internal logic of China's political structure reform.Specifically,first of all,in terms of the causal mechanism of the historical process,this paper makes a structural analysis of the evolution process of the political structure reform.The evolution mechanism is divided into the pressure and challenge caused by the change of environmental conditions,the target orientation generated by the renewal of concepts and cognition,and the action strategy or namely the policy selection determined by the actors based on the realistic needs.Secondly,in terms of the critical junctures,the different evolution mechanisms in each period will promote the development of political structure reform,and the key events in each period will have a profound impact on the trend of China's political structure reform.The selection of the critical junctures is mainly the major events that affect the reform and the previous party congresses since the reform and opening up.The reform has always been accompanied by the interference,influence and destruction of the wrong view of reform,that is,“the old road” and “the evil road”,and thus the tortuous line of the political system reform is formed.Thirdly,in terms of the feedback mechanism,the specific practice of China's political structure reform is the result of political development promoted by the evolutionary mechanism,which will give positive feedback or negative feedback due to key political events,and then it will prompt leaders to strengthen or change the original policy selection.On the basis of the diachronic causality analysis of the reform process of political structure reform,it takes the historical institutionalism theory as the analytical framework and analyzes the causal chain composed of various political events according to the time sequence.From the perspective of evolution mechanism,it studies the internal relations of how the political structure reform takes place and why it continues in different periods,and also it looks through the internal logic of the political structure reform in different stages.This study discusses the key political events and the future trends of the reform,and shows the practical process of the political structure reform and the formation process of the“Three-unification” political model.During the period of the reform and opening up,the practical logic of China'spolitical structure reform lies in taking “looking forward in unity” and “adhering to the four basic principles” as the starting point.It follows the internal logic of“adhering to the party's leadership”,“risk control” and “adhering to the correct concept of reform” to promote the reform.Starting from this logic,it has formed some basic experience on the reform of China's political structure,and finally evolved endogenously into the “Three-unification” political model.The basic feature of “Three-unification” political model is to uphold the unity of Party leadership,the running of the country by the people,and law-based governance.It is the empirical summary for China's political structure reform and the practice of China's democracy.The three elements of this model correspond to the corresponding political structure,including the exercise of people's power,the protection of people's rights and their implementation strategies.