Soft Law In The Horizon Of Public Governance

This thesis includes five sections.The Introduction presents the context of the issue of soft law and concludes the domestic and foreign research on soft law.The first chapter "The Property of Soft Law" discusses the definition of soft law and how the concept can stand. It also analyzes the characteristics of soft law.The second chapter "The Rise of Governance:the Western Context of Soft Law" discusses several types of the model of state management and the transformation from state management to governance, analyzes the functions of soft law in the model of governance and put forward the idea of mixture of hard law and soft law.The third chapter "Social Transformation and Rule through Soft Law:Reflection on Soft Law in China" analyzes the differences of the context between western countries and China in the path of the peculiar pattern of social transformation of China. It also discusses the opportunities and challenges which soft law faces in contemporary China and the aspects which should be emphasized in the development of soft law.The Conclusion concludes the previous discussion and emphasizes that rule of law doesn't mean a closure of state hard law but a mixture of hard law and soft law.