Governance Through Consultation

With the acceleration of the nation’s democratic and legal construction, rightsgradually become one of the dominant values in the market economy; at the sametime, in order to adapt to the achievements of the reform in economic structure,government functions are also going through corresponding transformation, forwhich administrative factor is continuously diminishing and the introduction ofconsultation mechanism is more acceptable, which will lead to more specific anddistinctive objectives for the governance of government and promote the completionof these objectives in a more efficient way.China has a vast territory, and all areas are different in types and characteristics.The traditional type of administration model, namely the top-bottom pattern, causesa state of rigid implementation, and there will be some obstacles during theimplementation of policies and the results in practice are not good. Under the currentstructure of governance in China, especially after the electoral system is put intopractice in countryside, it is more realistic to implement policies and realizeself-governance in countryside through the way of consultation, which will enhancethe motivation, initiative and creativity for the implementation of policy objectivesas well as the adaptation to the needs for the step forward from a highly centralizedsystem to a diversified market economy. Administrative contract has a uniqueadvantage, namely consultation, in the political “transformation” of grass-rootsmanagement objectives. The uniqueness of administrative contract is that theconsultation is embedded into administrative governance in the way of contract,making consultation within the relevant frameworks of rights a way ofadministrative governance and making the objectives for grass-roots management tobe realized in a better way which fits the development of the times better.In this thesis, explanation is made particularly in two aspects: on the one hand,it is the realization of “new cognition”. The key point is implementation after theformulation of grass-roots management objectives. In this thesis, effort is made in finding an effective legal approach for the implementation and exploring a neweffective way of cognition. On the other hand, it is the implementation of “newpractice”. This model has gone through some useful attempts in practice, but theywere sporadic, elementary and immethodical, and advantages and disadvantages ofadministrative contract can be found out in practice, which effectively promotes therealization of objectives of grass-roots management and defines the values informulating a complete, standard and widely-used practice pattern.This thesis can be divided into three parts. Through the transformation ofadministrative functions of the central government, the establishment of aservice-oriented government, the analysis on the predicaments in the traditionalmanagement system of Chinese government and the observation of the practice inJilin Province and other regions, the possibility of governance through consultationin the way of administrative contract is introduced. In the first part, a concreteanalysis on the feasibility of administrative contract which will be used in theprocess of grass-roots governance is made; through explaining the unique advantageof administrative contract in dealing with problems that are very difficult to solve incurrent government management system, structural advantages of administrativecontract are analyzed and then consultation, as the core of administrative contractwhich can realize the objectives of grass-roots management, is revealed. In thesecond part, experience from France, Germany, England and America is learnt forestablishing a consultation procedure for the application of administrative contract ingrass-roots governance, which may lead to the government paying more attention toconsultation with a safeguard mechanism as supplement in realizing consultation. Inthe third part, the current situation of remedy for conflicts related to administrativecontract is analyzed; channels for remedy will be more completed through theimprovement in system of administrative remedy and legal remedy.The realization of grass-roots management objectives in an effective way hasdrawn increasing attention from all sectors of society and various methods have beenexplored in practice. As for governance through the way of administrative contract, ithasn’t been investigated much in theoretical circle, but it has been used in practice. Itis proved in history that many theories promoting social development to a large degree originate from practice; it is hoped that such exploration and attempt, throughthe development and application from bottom to top and then from top to bottom,can provide a creative and beneficial exploration, which enables the implementationof various good public policies, and the purpose of improving economic and socialdevelopment as well as the people’s life can be realized.