An Comparative Study Of The Social Governance In The Perspective Of Soft Law: A Case Study Of China And Eu

China is being in the key period of transformation of society, so the innovation ofsocial governance is granted much more importance. The increasing social problemsand intense social disputes need diverse solutions. Besides the statute law, someonetakes the opinion that soft law is also a useful method, and EU has got a lot ofexperience of using soft law in its social model field, so China should follow EU tolearn how to use this tool. The authenticity and accessibility of this idea has to betested. Under the circumstance of China and EU, the meaning of social governanceand social model is different, the previous one has boarder meaning which containssocial construction and keeping social stability, but the latter one just equals to socialpolicy, especially the employment and social exclusion.As a new legal phenomenon, the lawyers haven't got consensus on the theory of softlaw, different opinions expressed by different researchers. In this thesis, the soft law isjust taken as kind of rules that does not have legal binding force but have actual effect.The former of EU was established from1952and the period of EU social model can becounted from then. These60years can be divided into3different stages according tothe content of the foundation treaties. It can be concluded that EU has only got limitedcapacities related to the social model and then restrict its ability to governance in theform of hard law. And from the1990s in light of democracy red and identity crisis, EUmoved forward reforming its governance. Because of these two factors, soft lawbecame the most important method in EU social model. The typical one is the openmethod of coordination, which works well in the European Employment Strategy andEurope Social Inclusion. Under the influence of economic crisis, EU may get morepower in social model in the future but soft law would still be the important tool which,however, may be harder.Chinese social governance also experience more than60years from1959, and theperiod can also be divided into three stages according to the principal and governancemethods. After the previous two stages, the present social governance stressed that itmust be legitimated. When analyzing the legal system of Chinese character it can befound that there are still some laws and regulations taking social governance as apower or orders, which reflect the thinking of nationalism. Social construction is themain content of social governance, and the social law department is the core of legalsystem of social governance. But because social law has been ignored for a long time, there are still many problems in this field. The old legislation idea and incomplete legalsystem are the main problem of Chinese social governance hard law. Soft law isintended to make up this but the modern social governance stresses more partsparticipation, so the soft law should also meet this requirement. This kind of soft law iscalled substantial soft law, which corresponding to the formal soft law. The substantialsoft law can fix the deficiencies of modern social governance and improve theefficiency of governance in theory but there is no mechanism and conditions to formthe kind of soft law and this situation will not be changed in the short time. TheChinese social governance still has to improve the structure of hard law and realize thelegislation of social governance. The social community is an ideal circumstance toraise citizen sense and improve consultative democracy, the function of communityshould be used for the training of consultative democracy and citizen sense, and spreadthem in boarder sphere.So all in all, the soft law is important in EU social model, but its function in Chinesesocial governance is limited because of the short of resources. The Chinese modernsocial governance still has to rely on the hard law and perfect the legalization of socialgovernance, and also China has to create chances for the development of substantialsoft law.Because of the encapsulation and conservatism, there are much more difference thancommon things, so China has to find resources from its inside. But it also can use EU'sexperience as the future goal and target. Besides that, China should concludeexperience of Chinese character in order to affect the global governance.