On Civic Competence And Its Cultivation In China's Democratic Politics Process

The 17th national congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) points out,"The Party has been consistently pursuing the goal of developing socialist democracy", in which course, it is significant to analyze, foster, and improve the civic competence. Since civic competence is not only the achievement but also the necessary condition of democratic politics, its cultivation must be emphasized in constructing socialist democratic politics and promoting the harmonious development of political civilization, materialist civilization, and spiritual civilization.Civic competence is an abstract and complicated concept. To understand it should start with the understanding of the connotation of citizen. Chapter Two of this thesis first makes a clear analysis of the concept of citizen, and then introduces different experts'discussions on it. Based on these discussions, the thesis proposes the content and feature of civic competence and its classification. The thesis interprets the civic competence as participative competence, moral competence and rational competence; its feature embodies subjectivity, participation, activity, and interest. Civic competence can be divided into political participative competence and administrative participative competence, or civil subjective competence and objective competence according to different classification standard. The concept and definition of civic competence vary from person to person, but experts have the similar consideration in using the concept, i.e. to realize a sound interaction between civil development and democratic politics. The following of the thesis discusses the relationship between civic competence and democratic politics and holds that their close relationship exists in: on the one hand, democratic politics is the necessity and background of civic competence; on the other hand, the development of democratic politics needs the support and impetus of civic competence. Only there is the sound interaction of civic competence and democratic politics can be enhanced the civic competence and the democratic system.Civic competence can not be acquired easily following the development of our country's democracy but fostered actively. The third Chapter discusses the necessity and possibility of fostering civic competence. Since more than 30 years of reform and opening, fast development of China's economy, orderly promotion of democratic politics construction and increasing development of science, education and culture, civic competence has been provided fertile growth soil. Facts have proved that reform and opening policy has enhanced our nation's civic consciousness and civic competence continuously. Meanwhile, in the opening society with the faster pace of globalization, the other countries'democracy practice and civic education can be learned to foster our civic competence. All the above makes it realistically possible to further cultivate and promote civic competence.However, there are also many negative elements restricting the cultivation of civic competence. Civil education in China is not prevalent, so there is a long way to build a civil society. Negative traditional intellectual ideas such as"officer's standard","authority worship","upright official"complex, liege subjects consciousness, etc, have affected people's political concept and motivation till now. The citizens generally lack democratic consciousness and right consciousness, which leads to their lower participation passion and willingness and poor capability. In the aspect of mechanism, the civic participation is short of system protection and smooth access. The systems of people's congresses, the system of social consultative conversation, the system of decision testification, the system of letters and visits and the system of primary-level autonomy haven't fully brought their deserved functions into play. Even though citizens have participating enthusiasm and demand, they find no smooth legal access. While legal political participations are blocked, the illegal and informal civic participating emerge largely. Whether civic competence is to be mastered as political participating competence and administrative participating competence or to be acquired as rational competence and moral competence, it needs a long-term period and a range of active efforts.To foster and promote civic competence is a huge systematic project, involving government, society, school, citizens themselves, etc, each of which plays different roles and takes on different tasks. And the fostering ways and methods are various. It is not possible for this thesis to discuss the issues of fostering civic competence systematically, so it restricts the issue to socialist democratic politics. Chapter Four of this thesis puts forward the practical strategy of fostering civic competence: a. to develop the civic society which is the condition of the issue; b. to establish the sound mechanism to preset the system preconditions for fostering civic competence; c. to carry out civic education to build up a knowledge basis; d. to protect civil rights to create a practical environment for fostering civic competence.