The Research On Public Inactive Participation In The Process Of Public Policy-Making In China

The fast development of science and technology has driven human society to transform from tradition agricultural society to modern industry society, and has greatly changed both internal and external environments of the government. If the government wants to handle all those numerous and complicated social problems under the new circumstance, apart from the law's insurance, the active interference of government administrative power is also a must. Public policy is just an important means of governmental administrative intervention, so its role in current political life is becoming more obvious. Some common civilians begin to care about public policies, and participating in public policy making has become a means to realize and maintain their interest. Meanwhile, this also improves the quality of public policies and helps insure the realization of public interest. The process of public policy making relates to a series of function procedures, including the public policy problem ascertaining, the establishment of agenda, planning and the choosing of scheme, so only the participation and supervision of common civilians can ensure the democracy and legitimacy of public policies. However, our country is still in the primary stage of socialism, the undeveloped economy and the lagging state of political system restructuring have both blocked the extent and depth of the participation of civilians in public policy making. So analyzing the deep reasons of inactive participation and how to turn inactive participation into active one is a significant problem confronting how to perfect the democracy and legitimacy of public policies. Based on this, this article tries to do some immature investigation and discussion. Hopefully, it could be of some value.The article set off from the theoretical level, expounded about the general theoretical knowledge regarding public policy making and public participation, explained the"characteristic of publicity"of public policies, including the value and target orientation and the process of public policy making. This part guided the necessity of public participation in public policy making, described the relevant theories of public participation, the multiple body in public policy making, and the leading role of government in public policy making, then introduced the theme of this article, that is why is there the public participation is so inactive in our country doing the society-transforming period? Finally, from the angle of development, the author pointed out that we should take the new characteristics of policy making into consideration, and establish a policy making model where the government leads and the public actively participates. The author put forward his own suggestions and viewpoints.Secondly, the article starts from the realistic level, talked about the inactive public participation in our country. As the political system reform of our country goes deeper, and the public administration function of our government gets stronger, all these require the public products and policies provided by the government to meet the public's needs. However, the current level of both economy and politics cannot satisfy the public's needs, which needs help from the public participation. However, the reality is that the consciousness of public participation is far from enough, which is severely affecting the quality of our country's public policies and their public value orientation.Thirdly, during the society-transforming period of our country, the social interest gradually diversifies. The government, it employees and the public all tend to pursue their own interest. During its participation in public policy making, the public needs to rationally analyze the cost and expected gain. They just want to get the maximum gain with the minimum cost. Only when this can be done, the public actively participates in the making of public policies. Therefore, the process of public policy making is also an interest game between government and the public, which makes the deeper reason for inactive public participation. In reality, the high cost of public information for the public, the internal model of policy making and the traditional"status orientation"culture all exerted influences on the inactive pubic participation. From the angle of government, during the current society-transforming period, how to perfect public policy making, improve the public participation and sooth the social conflicts all have become the prior problems to be solved by our government.In the last part, the article talked about the countermeasures to take to make inactive public participation active. The analysis went on from angles of the government and the public at the same time. In the aspect of the government, the main measures to take are making the governmental affairs public, improve the transparency of public information, widen the tunnel of public participation, nurture and develop Non Governmental Organizations and educate the governmental administrative staff. In the aspect of the public, we should mainly improve the quality of the public by training and education, making the public more conscious of the importance of public participation, and make the public a significantly leading power in the process of public policy making.