Study On China’s Historical Changes Of Rural Democratic Management

Nowadays the villagers’ autonomy is an important institution of the basic democratic management in China’s rural governance, which consists of four basic elements:democracies in elections, management, decision-making and supervision. Broadly speaking, democratic management includs all the contents of the villagers’ autonomy institution, that is the four democracies; narrowly speaking, democratic management refers only to one of the four democracies. This study is based on the connotation of democratic management in a broad way. It is true that before the Reform and Opending up, the democratic management of village society is either single, incomplete or only in written text or even --alienated, distorted in Cultural Revolution. None of them can compare with the current implementation of democratic management in villagers’ autonomy. Because of that, it is so important and necessary that we reviewed the historical changes of the democratic management of village society before and after China’s reform and opening up as well as research comparatively.The study starts from the Township regime institution period, during which the democratic management is uncomplete and preliminary explored. Its traits are mainly reflected in the mobilization, institutionalization, low level of the procession and limitition in elections and supervision. During the next people’s commune period, the democratic management appears the highly centralized power and the villagers’ virtual participation. After the Reform and Opening up, the villagers’ autonomy in the age of enlightenment is the beginning of the villagers’self-management and self-service. The period of development of villagers’ autonomy is a guarantee to the further development of village-level democratic management and then comprehensively promote the development and operation of the democratic management. In this period, although the management of rural democratic management achieved great results, there are still some inadequacies to resolve. After analysis of the historical changes before and after the Reform and Opening up of rural democratic management, we get three conclusions and enlightenment:Firstly, democratic management under the villagers’ self-government is different from before the Reform and Opening up. Secondly, government’s leading and active promotion is the key point of the development of rural democratic management. Thirdly, the strengthening of villagers’ self-awareness and spirits of institutional innovation is the endogenous motivation of development of democratic management.The purpose of this study is to reveal the villagers’ autonomy system is a totally new stage of development in the rural democratic management process, it represents and indicates the future direction of the development of China’s rural governance.