Voter Participation In The Current Situation In The General Election Of County And Township People's Congresses And Improve Countermeasures

Regular election of the people's congress of county and township levels is an important content of Chinese democracy construction,and a key factor for realization of electorates' right to keep control over national affairs is that representatives of the People's Congress of county and township levels are elected directly by electorates,and meanwhile an important standard for measuring democracy degree of regular election of the people's congress of county and township levels is extention and deepness of electorates' participance.For the last 30 years as of the reformation and openness,either in theory or in practice,Chinese regular election of the people's congress of county and township levels has developed greatly.However,as the society develops,Chinese political and economic situation has changed enormously,and problems in activities of the foresaid kind have also been more and more severe,e.g.,such problems as apathy to election,efficiency of participance,shortage of right to know and loosing control over voting activities have been reflected in elections.This has attracted academe's extensive attention.However, previous studying has paid more attention to some specific issues of election,and less attention has been paid to an overall and systematic analysis from the aspect of electorates' participance in regular election of the people's congress of county and township levels,and the foresaid problems have hardly been studied on.Thus a separate status has occurred to the studying.As a MPA major,I try to make a study on these problems to improve our regular election of the people's congress of county and township levels.From July 1,2006 to December 31,2007,Qingdao has carried out the regular election of the people's congress of county and township levels.The paper will take Jiaonan for example,and make an investigation on electorates' participance at Jiaonan's 32 townships and street offices through such investigation methods as questionnaire, observation and interview,which has contributed to the collection of some firsthand materials.Starting from a brief introduction of general theories of regular election of the people's congress of county and township levels,the paper first introduces classification of electorates,political effects of electorates' participance and some basic concepts related to electorates' participance.Then,the paper makes an analysis of electorates' participance condition in regular elections of the people's congress of county and township levels (taking Jiaonan for example) through studying and referring to western scholars' and domestical contemporary scholars' theories in the field.And the analysis has been placed emphasis on reasons of such matters as "high participance rate","apathy to election" and "shortage of right to know".Following the analysis,the paper makes a cost-benefit analysis of economic benefit - a main factor influencing electorates' participance enthusiasm with Downs' function model for voting.Finally,the paper puts forth some pertinent countermeasures and improvement measures for Jiaonan's regular election work through using the forsiad analyses,which include but not limited to change of regular election publicity modes,ways improving communication between candidates and electorates,and utilization of interest control means in regular elections.The paper's real aim is to solve those problems in electorates' participance at their sources,maintain benefit relationship in election and optimize democracy environment at the basic level so as to help our the system of people's congress to be more improved and developed.