Governing Public Affairs: From Binary Oppositions To Polycentricity

How to govern public affairs? It has always been one of the focuses of political and administrative science all through the ages. Since 1980s, accompanied with the advancement of globalization and development of society, social life has changed with each passing day and public affairs have rapidly expanded. The traditional binary oppositions of the governing pattern of public affairs has been impacted and challenged greatly. As the single-center subject of governing public affairs, the defect of the government gradually appears. The public crisis and efficiency crisis which the inner defect of traditional model of governing public affairs caused becomes more and more obvious. It made public crisis be omnipresent to a great extent. Additionally, because of the rapid globalization and information, the renaissance of civil society and the polycentrism on social power, the polycentric governing public affairs becomes a common standpoint.The polycentric governing public affairs means that manifold governing subjects of public affairs exert various modern governance thoughts and diversiform modes to manage public affairs. Compared to the traditional single-center subject of governing public affairs, polycentric governance emphasizes the multiformity of the governing subjects, that is, enterprises and NPO (None Profit Organization) also could be the governing subjects of public affairs besides the government. The polycentric governing mode of the public affairs surpassed binary oppositions and could advance the development of modern society and conform to the need of thepublic. Through analyzed the binary oppositions of the traditional governing mode, this thesis pointed out the binary oppositions of the traditional governing mode must change into polycentric one. Then, based on this conclusion, it analyzed Chinese traditional governing mode and the present status of public affairs and found out the apocalypse the polycentric governing mode offered the governance reform of Chinese government.The thesis consists with five parts:The first chapter, that is, the introduction of this thesis, analyzed the study field, thesis, ways, purpose and signification, logic frame and fruits of forth goers of this thesis.The second chapter clarified the conceptions and connotations of public affairs and governance. In addition, it compared and contrasted government and governance.The second chapter devoted to analyze the notion, connotation and defect of the traditional governing mode of public affairs as well as the real conditions and backgrounds from the binary oppositions of the traditional governing mode to the polycentric one.The fourth chapter pointed out the concrete embodiment of the polycentric governing mode (the multiformity of the governing subjects and the diversity of the governing theory), and bring forward the questions that should be pay more attention to in the polycentric governing process of the public affairs.The last chapter introduced Chinese traditional governing mode of the public affairs, analyzed the questions in Chinese present governing mode of the public affairs and found out the apocalypse the polycentric governing mode offered the governance reform of Chinese government.