A Study On The Reform Of Township Government: Path Selection

With the acceleration of modernization and the globalization process, especially the Chinese three-dimensional rural issues (concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers) has becoming more and more serious, grassroots township governmental reform has become a hot issue both in practice and theory since the 1990s. Among these, the path of township governmental reform is a highly controversial focus. The clue of this paper is to bring forward a problem, to analyze it, and then to solve it. With State Building theory and Governance theory as the theoretical perspective, with the combination of normative research and empirical research as the research methods, this paper is divided into five chapters to discuss the issue mentioned above. Through full analysis, a theoretical anticipation will be made.Chapter one, through looking back to the process of the reform of township government, it aims to point out the four serious problems, which are not only the impetus of the reform of township government, but also the nuts in the process of modernization and globalization.Chapter two, two typical cases are comparatively analyzed. One case is the Direct Election of the Head of Buyun Village in Sichuan Province. And the other case is the Comprehensive Reform of HengGouqiao Town in Hubei Province. By making a comparative analysis, it can be found that it is the Pressure System and the lack of institutional innovation on the reform of the relationship between party and government that the reform of township government fails in.Chapter three, by analyzing the reason, content and problem of the four theoretical models on the present reform of township government, it is found that the four theoretical models haven't profoundly realized the character and function of the township government, so that they can't provide effective guidance for the reform.Chapter four, through the theoretical perspective of state building theory, governance theory and the third-sector theory, the profound reason of the township governmental reform will be analyzed from the following aspects: the path of its historical development, the effects of modern governance and its own characteristics. To sum up, the reason is that the structure and function of the town government haven't adapted to the demands of social transition in the modernization.Chapter five, according to the above analyses, it can be found that the path selection of the township governmental reform lies on making the structure and function of the township government adapt to the demands of social transition in the modernization. So it aims to construct the township government of a cooperative public service type. The township government of a cooperative public service type contains three aspects: in governmental relationship aspect, transforming from a pressure system to a democratic-cooperative system; in governmental structure aspect, readjusting the power relationship among the township party committee, the township people's Congress and the township government to make the power structure of the township more reasonable; in governmental function aspect, turning the township governmental function to public service to realize the separation of government and civil society, the separation of government and public service unit, the separation of government and enterprise.In conclusion, the township government becomes a bridge between a from-bottom-to-top derivational transformation from local groups and individuals and a from-above-to-below coercive transformation from the central government. This function determines that the reform of township government can never take the way of withdrawing it. According to the path-dependence theory which is contained in institutional transition theory, it can be found that once the township government of a cooperative public service type is founded, the path of the reform of township government will go ahead by the drive of the self- intensify inertia, then achieve self-government of the township community.