A Case Study Of The Village Governance By The Able People

With the deepening of reform and opening up and the market economy development, social changes in rural areas as well as the differentiation of the farmers, the group of able people emerge in rural communities. By their advantages concerning economic and social resources, the able people may participate in the village governance, enter the village public power organization through democratic elections or appointment and become a "village governor", gradually forming a crucial force influencing and shaping the village governance and exerting a profound impact for rural development in governance and social harmony. China's contemporary studies on the village governance by the able people began in the 1980s after the implementation of village self-government system. The relevant studies in this area can be described as voluminous. From the perspective of institutional change, government action, social expectations and etc., these studies profoundly analyze the reasons for the emergence of the able people in rural communities, discuss the role of the village governance by the able people from the economic and political point of view and put forward relevant countermeasures. This paper attempts to analyze the characteristics of the able people's social networks, how to use social networks to govern the village and what are the pros and cons from a new perspective of the social network analysis, and on this basis, propose solutions to the problem.Based on the relevant theories of social network and adopting the empirical methods of investigation, this paper makes in-depth interviews on Village Secretary Chen of Village F, the villagers, non-management elite for a total of thirty times, doing a quantitative analysis combined with qualitative analysis, so as to further deepen the discussion of the issue.Firstly based on the four-dimensional analysis U.S. social scientists Michelle, the paper establishes a measure of five specific targets areas about the social networks of Village Secretary Chen: the interaction objects of the able people; the interacting will of the able people; the frequency of interaction of the able people; the interaction approaches of the able people; the interaction costs of the able people. Since just from those five aspects could not fully reflect the characteristics of the social networks of Village Secretary Chen, this study thus randomly selects eighty ordinary villagers, twenty non-management elite, uses contractive approach to show the distinct characteristics of Village Secretary Chen's social networks, and reflects the advantages of village governance by the able person.Next the paper gives a profound discussion on how the able person Village Secretary Chen uses his social networks to govern the village and finds out the five specific applications of the social network of the able people in the following areas: the application of public affairs; the application of the introduction of economic resources; the application of mediation of internal conflicts inside the community; the application of dealing with the affairs of government in higher levels; and the application of the interaction with the non-management elite. This paper is dialectical analysis on those five aspects of both positive and negative influences of the village governance by social networks.Then the paper proposes that it is a process of both the advantages and disadvantages for the able people to use social network for village governance. The advantages of this process should be strengthened and the disadvantages need to be abolished. It can be discussed from the perspectives of the establishing of a system of democratic participation, strengthening the construction of organizations, strengthening the human resources training, improving the assessment and evaluation system so that the reasonable portion of them can be guided and the irrational regulated.Finally the paper gives a summary of the village governance by the able people in rural communities using social networks, analyzes the innovation as well as the defects of this study.