A Study On Chinese County-Level Administrative Division Reforms Since Reform And Opening In 1978

Administrative division is an important component of national governance system,and its transformations directly influence national and local governance capability.According to historic transitions of administrative division during more than two thousand years,administrative division had been showing the instrumentalism-oriented,such as consolidating political power,strengthening control and developing social production.Since reforms and opening up in 1978,with China’s national governance focus shifting from political construction to economic development,the Communist Party of China and governments had achieved the absolute consensus on the issue of economic construction priority.All the transformation of government functions,power configuration and relevant laws and regulations served for economic development.As one of policy instruments of governments,administrative division reform had been endowed with more and more economic roles.During the four decades,China’s administrative division reform mainly occurred on the county-level,whose types and quantities outweighed those of province-level and prefecture-level administrative area.Undeniably,county-level administrative division had played some positive roles in breaking the barriers between the urban and the rural,establishing local market unity and promoting space production and power expansion,but obviously it also caused some negative problems like pseudo urbanization,reverse transformation and abnormal space structure of the urban.In fact,administrative division is a reorganization process of the governance system.In the process,former regional structure,power space,policy coverage and interest distribution will confront some adjustments.Therefore,its influences have been beyond administrative border,and then deeply affected political development,economic construction,social integration,cultural mixture and military deploying.As a fundamental unit of political administration,economic development and public service supplying in basic level of China,county-level administrative division has been the foundation of national governance.From the perspective of governance participants,county-level governments interact more frequently with the citizens than its province-level and prefecture-level peers.Compared with township level governments,it is also a governance subject with complete power system.All the significant measures from senior governments need to be implemented by the county-level governments.Because of wide influences of administrative division and primary roles of county-level governments,the study demonstrates that local governments should combine value rationality with instrumental rationality,stick to public service supplying as a priority and engage in the scientific,legal and democratic principles.As a process with plural subjects participating,county-level administrative division is a systematic project,which not only refers to a variety of reform types,but also is influenced by lots of factors.Based on domestic and foreign research references,the paper adopts systematic analysis to divide this project into three subsystems,that is,orientation subsystem,execution subsystem and regulation safeguard subsystem,which solve the problems concerning guidance,action,rules and legal support respectively.Then it applies the systematic research to the practice of county-level administrative division and analyzes the future paths from the angle of new urbanization,flat design in structure and systematic regulation support.This is the fundamental logic for the study on county-level administrative division.Comprehensive reference collection and plural theories are the important bases of the paper.To some extent,administrative division is the product of historic changes with a series of functions.Chinese academic circles do the research mostly based on the functions perspective and use different technology methods.Above all,the paper makes relevant analysis and comments from aspects of transformation categories,local economic development,space system reconfiguration and major legislation.Unlike the domestic research,foreign peers pay more attention to urban governance on this issue,especially metropolitan areas governance and focus on operational mechanism adjustments and public service supplying.According to research opinions and technological methods,the paper divides them into four types,namely regionalism,local self-governance&public choice,new regionalism and rescaling&reterritorialisation,which provide useful lessons in the study perspectives and research methods for county-level administrative division.Besides,basic definitions,dimensional analysis,factors collection and other main theories form the theoretical frame of the research.On the basis of them,it sets up a systematic analysis model in order to give an integrated framework.The problems of county-level administrative division is the logic start.Since 1978,county-level administrative division reforms have been in close relation with local economic development and urbanization.Consequently,the paper describes its path changes and drivers so as to find potential problems by restoring the process and subsequently analyze its basic causes.During the forty years,county-level administrative division experienced“prefecture-governing-county","county transformed into district","county transformed into city(county-level)","province-directly governing-county" and "county-level administrative areas merger".Generally,local economic development,urban space expansion,land resources integration and power expansion are the main drivers of county-level administrative division.Based on the mentioned above,the paper summarizes five problems,that is,planning collision between economic area and administrative areas,conflict between prefecture-governing-county and separate installment,lack of clear identification on the county-level,absence of scientific research and shortage of legitimacy in decision-making process.They result from the deviation of value orientation,deficiency of structural system and regulation support.The analysis about three subsystems of county-level administrative division is the core component of this paper.Orientation subsystem mainly focuses on mutual relations between idea orientation of governments and functional positioning of administrative division.Wherever they stay,local governments are the primary initiator,driver and executor in the laws and practices.Its value orientation will directly influence the types and paths of county-level administrative division.The paper adopts value and instrumental rationality to illustrate governments’ idea orientation on the county-level administrative division.On the one hand,as a defender of public spirit,governments must protect public interest,ensure citizen participation and preserve social equality and democracy in order to pursue publicity on the value rationality.On the other hand,as an integrator with altruism and self-interest,governments also need to promote local economy development,urban space expansion and extensive power so as to achieve efficiency on the instrumental rationality.To some certain extent,the reform decision-making of county-level administrative division factually is the blending process of value rationality and instrumental rationality,which indicates the functional positioning of administrative division.Since China’s reform and opening up,its functional positioning experienced the remarkable shift from political priority to economic priority.The research shows that it should transit gradually to public service priority in the future to carry out the humanism concept of administrative divisionOperational subsystem primarily concentrates on government function focus and power space configuration,which both can influence the types and paths of administrative division.Meanwhile,its functional positioning also reflects the changes of government function focus that apparently couples with periodical targets of county-level administrative division reform.Hence,the paper chooses government function focus,power space configuration and intergovernmental relationship as premises,explores its inherent laws and then puts forward possible structure changes Correspondingly,regulation safeguard subsystem serves for establishing relatively complete rules framework for county-level administrative division from the laws and policies so that governments are able to possess firm regulations and rules foundation,administrate public affairs by laws and enhance the standardization,legislation and democratization of its decision-making process.In order to adapt to new urbanization and metropolitan area economy,construct flat design structure of administrative division and improve relevant regulation support,governments should engage in the optimization of three subsystems when they give impetus to county-level administrative division.For orientation subsystem,decision-makers should try their best to keep a suitable balance between value rationality and instrumental rationality,make them work together,and stick to the key orientation,public service supplying and the development of human being.For operation subsystem,they need to foster service-oriented governments,standardize power space configuration,set up new intergovernmental relations based on negotiation and cooperation.For regulation support subsystem,they should advocate pluralistic participation,build scientific,democratic and standard decision-making&appraisal policies and establish systematic rules and regulations.