Political Authority And Its Consolidation In Modern China

This article is a study on one of the concrete aspects of the contemporary development of politics in China. It takes dialectical and historical materialism as its guide, discusses the reconstruction of the contemporary political authority of China during the transitional period from the standard point of view.Authority is a common phenomenon that is rooted in the social behavior of human being. It is an organic part and a necessary mechanism of maintaining social order. Political authority is a kind of public authority, i.e., the legalization of the political power. Legalization is the fundamental basis of political authority. Its scale of the resource of legalization rather than its scale and form decides the strength of the political authority. Generally speaking, the resource of legalization of the political system derives from three parts: ideology, normative institution and political achievements and efficiency. Among which, ideology is the most basic part which provides moral explanation for the legalization of the political system by way of cultivating the members of the society's sense of identification toward the legalization of the political system. Normative institution that reflects the pursuance of value in ideology, illustrates the legalization of the political system by way of regulating social relations, and distributing social resources by using experiential facts, the political system also provides political output to identify its legalization.Modern politics is party politics and parties are backbones of the political authority. Since 1840,the fundamental task that must be carried on is the great cause of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on the base of modern civilization: During the practice, the Communist Party of China got the leading position. The ideology of the communism provided powerful political belief and legalization. The newly established political order was supported uniquely by the people; The Party realized the great unification of the politics, economics, and the society, achieved great solidarity of the people of all ethnic groups, and spread its political power to every corner of the society; The Party called on the people to participate the building ofthe political system, and aroused great initiative and creativity of the people. Thus, the political authority centered by the Communist Party of China has been established.After the reform and opening up, with the introduction of market institution and the strategic of ruling the country by law, China has stepped into a period of the transition of the society. The transition of the society, on the one hand, has speeded up the political and economic development of the society, promoted the process of modernization of the whole nation. But on the other hand, it also brought about some turbulent factors which have challenged the political authority centered by the CPC. However, the value oriented of modernization and the choice of the way of development need effective and powerful political authority. This is not only general law of the development of the developing countries, but also a fundamental issue brought forward to the political system by the special reality of the Chinese society.The building of China's socialist modernization needs political authority. The solidarity of contemporary Chinese political authority can be realized by political construction. That is to say, by considering the construction of the ruling party's authority as the starting point, restricting the public power as the center point, the innovation of ideology as the guide, and the achievement and efficiency of the government as the goal, the value oriented of the people's interest as a main clue which joins up the four factors. It not only indicates the value pursuance of the construction of the political authority in the political system, but also suits the law of the political development of China and the developing path of the human society.