Mechanism For Citizen Participating In Grass-Roots Public Decision-Making

Undoubtedly, with the development of situation and the enhancement of citizens’quality, citizen participating in public decision-making has been the product of the times, which is a key requirement to ensure the reasonableness and fairness of public decision-making. While Zhejiang province as an economically strong province, its practice of democratic politics has also always been the forefront of our country. Especially the grass-roots democratic practice in the city of Wenling has achieved great success, which has become a good reference in our country.However, due to many factors in the real environment, citizens in the process of participation in public policy often encounter lots of challenges. So in this paper, the key to solve the core problem include:how to build effective communication mechanism, linking the bridge of communication between citizens and government; how to smooth the channels for expression opinion when citizens participate in public decision-making, achieving positive interaction between government and citizens; which standardized rules and regulations can be established, to implement the effect of citizen participation, etc. This article puts democratic consultation in the town of Zeguo, as a case to analysis. Then combine with citizen participation theory and Habermas communicative action theory, to detail the behavior and revelation which citizens participate in the grassroots public decision-making. This paper presents two theoretical assumptions:Firstly, the citizens of participation in grass-roots public decision-making is limited rational actors; secondly, the environment of grass-roots public decision-making has the possibility of improvement and follow-up. From the both theoretical assumptions, first of all, the article sort out the theory on citizen participation in grass-roots public decision-making, including to define and clarify the core concepts of citizen participation, grass-roots social public decision-making, etc; and elaborate two theoretical basis of citizens participation (the theory of deliberative democracy and public governance theory); then, discussed this paper’s theoretical research tool "Theory of Communicative Action", and extract the related argument that the theory can be used herein. Secondly, chose the democratic consultation in Wenling City conducts an empirical study. Elaborate and summarize the rising, development, reason about democratic consultation, especially detail the development of democratic consultation in town of Zeguo, including background and features. Then expatiate and analysis the practical operation of2012participatory budgeting democratic consultation in town of Zeguo. The perspective of the analysis mainly involves the selection mechanism of participants, the generation mechanism of decision-making information, regulatory mechanisms for citizens to participate in decision-making, procedures mechanisms of the decision-making process, and feedback and oversight mechanisms in decision-making, etc. I put the case of Zeguo town as an entry point, and then analyze the status quo and reasons for citizens to participate in grass-roots decision-making from the above point. Finally, think about the mechanism on citizen participation in grassroots public policy decisions, which from the aspects, including understanding, mutual subjectivity and communicative rationality. It applies the theory of communicative action as analytical framework, and combines the theoretical knowledge on democratic consultation and effective decision model.