Rule Governance:the Practice Of Formal Institutions In Rural Governance Of Large Cities

In the rural areas of the large cities, most of the agricultural land has been transferred. The traditional agriculture-based economic structure has changed. A large number of villagers no longer farm, and have started doing different jobs, so the social mobility starts to rise. A lot of young people go out to make a living, so the separation of living place and registered place is common, making the rate of aging population living in rural areas much higher than the actual average level of that in Shanghai. This draws questions for rural pension services and sustainable rural development. At the same time, a large influx of floating population in rural areas put up stress on rural environmental protection, social security and public services. These changes have made the traditional means of governance less effective, requiring rural governance to promote innovation in grassroots governance.This research was based on the practice of an innovation of grass-roots governance. Taking two pilot villages in District A as an example, under the guide of governance theory and institutional change theory, using research methods like literature, participant observation and interviews, this research explored the process of establishing a formal system of rural society and how the rural community participate in the practice of rural governance and villagers’ autonomy under the formal system. It also paid attention to the formal system and other laws and regulations about how they run in the rural area, including the interaction between people and various governance rules in the rural governance practice.The study found that the function of formal institutions of governance in the country is to provide a new governance resource. Under the current village governance, formal institution cannot break through the existing system of rules, and become the dominant form of rule in rural society. Instead, all the rules together work under the guide of interests. The formation process and the specific content of formal institution show modern features, embody the characteristics of democracy and the spirit of ruling by law. National will is evidently displayed. But compared to the previous villager autonomy statutes, the views of the villagers are better reflected and the interests of the villagers are further guaranteed. Meanwhile, the whole process of institution building strengthen the contact between village cadres and villagers, exercise and cultivate the ability and sense of democratic participation of villagers. The process do increased communications inside the rural village, thus consolidated the foundation of village governance. However, there are limits in formal institutions governance under the current system, since many problems are still unresolved in rural governance. On one hand the formal system needs to be improved in content, to be cleared on the nature of the villager autonomy. On the other hand, the system is still a limited pluralism. The immigrant population and social organizations have failed to participate within the system.