Citizen Participation In American Community From The Perspective Of Civil Society

Civil society refers to the sum of all non-governmental organizations or civilrelations outside of state or government. Its constituent elements are variousnon-government-owned civic organizations, including non-governmentalorganizations and public authorities, voluntary associations of citizens, civicassociations, community organizations, interest groups and citizens spontaneouslyorganized events. The functions of civil society are to advance the expression ofinterest, improve the ability of citizens to participate, and will be conducive topolitical communication, political supervision and self-education of citizens, enhancesocial trust.American community is based on the establishment of liberal idea, adhere to thedemocratic autonomy, and public participation is the main theoretical value. Civilsociety is the study of citizen political participation and its impaction in a maturesociety. American community is a form of civil society organizations, civiccommunity involvement is an important form of civil society participation, and civilsociety function fully reflected in American communities. Community governancemodel has a great influence on citizens’ participation. American communitygovernance model can be divided into the elite control, the democratic period,occupational doctrine period and citizen governance period.Through the theory of civil society, it focuses on the ways of citizen participation incommunity and its functions. There are six ways of citizen participation in community,including townspeople meetings, community councils and community elections,community boards and community hearings, community organizations, communitymedia and community participation questionnaire. And citizen participation incommunity promotes the expression of interest, improve political supervision andadvance self-education of citizens.