Studies Of Building Political Power At The Grassroots Level In China

Villages and towns not only play a fundamental role in Chinese society, but also come to the forefront of social reform. The building of political power at the grass-roots level is one of the key elements that aid in addressing the problems facing China's agriculture, rural areas and farmers and contribute to the development of politics in rural areas. Presently, the building of political power at the grass-roots level in villages and towns has entered a crucial moment, whereas a series of problems, such as the undersized administrative division, the imbalance between authority and responsibility and the inexplicitness of duties of township governments, are becoming more acute along with China's WTO entry and the rural taxation reform. One the one hand, farmers have increasing needs for self-governing after the Organic Law of Villagers Committees was enacted, while township governments' administrative control over rural areas still do not get removed. On the other hand, county-level and township governments continue to maintain their previous administrative relationship, which makes the village and town governments keep suffering pressure from the higher authorities. All these problems make township governments the main bundle of contradictions of the issue of agriculture, rural areas and peasants as well as expose and intensify their systematic contradiction. Furthermore, with the agricultural taxes being abolished, zero tax undoubtedly produces new system in villages and town. The author starts with the grass-roots political authority and analyzes the problems it is confronted with and the causes of them, which deepens the knowledge of the function of the grass-roots political authority. Also the discussion about the system reform of the township governments gives some advisable and practical advices on the building of the grass-roots political authority.Based on the relevant research results of in and out of our country, with the methods of questionnaire and record of investigation, the author divided the thesis into five parts. The first part introduces the meaning, significance and the methods of the research as well as the research status quo on domestic and overseas. The second part is a historical review of the building of grass-roots political authority in our country, which gives the information about how the grass-roots level political authority was formed and the changes it have undergone in different periods. The third part specifically introduce the problems of building political power at grass-roots level in seven aspects. As the socioeconomic situation changed, all these problems are exposed and intensified, becoming the obstacles to smooth progress or development of the new socialist countryside. The fourth part provides pertinent solutions as to the problems discussed in the third part. It points out that the reform of township organization should start with the aspects as follows:streamlining administration structure and reducing redundant employees, rationalizing their set-ups in a scientific manner, transforming their functions; while streamlining the administrative establishment of party and government organizations, township governments should take the reform of public institutions and agricultural tax into consideration in order to strengthen the social service function at the basic level; further straightening out the relationships between counties and rural areas, governments, enterprises and public institutions and perfecting the functions of governments in villages and towns, making greater efforts to select outstanding young cadres and enhancing the quality of cadres of all ranks; institutional reform should properly balance the relationship between job bidding and promotion work, the number of leadership positions and restaffing the team, downsizing the organizations and work demand, interests of the whole and certain departments. The final part comes to the conclusion that deepening the comprehensive rural reform is the necessary road of building the political power of at grass-roots level. Only if governments at grass-roots level switch their functions, straighten out the relationships between counties and rural areas, governments, enterprises and public institutions, compress the size of personnel force, establish new election standards, strengthen the training of cadres, can villages and towns meet the requirements of grass-roots social development and the construction of market economy and the new countryside so as to improve and consolidate government authority at the township level and ensure harmony in communities, villages and towns.The innovation of this text lies in two points:Firstly, combing theoretical and empirical research, such as the systematical use of the theory of financial pressure resulting in the administrative vicissitude for analyzing the motive power of building political power at grass-roots level; Secondly, associating the general and individual research, such as inspecting the process and effect of the comprehensive reform of towns in Suizhou and combining it with the national basic status.