Election Form, Power Structure And The Vision Of Democracy At The Grassroots Level

Based on a summary of the electoral democracy theory,this paper mainly analyzes the process and consequences how the election form acts on the rural power structure,and its significance for the rural grassroots democracy construction. In the countryside,political elite,the non-political elite and the ordinary villagers compete around the power and its main field is village elections. The function of rural elections for village power structure mainly embodied in two aspects:the electoral system provides program constraints for the power competition;competitive elections provide conditions for the cadres of merit. Therefore, according to the differences o f degree of abiding by and election and competition, the election presents a variety of forms. Based on the survey data analysis,we found that there are three main kinds of situations in forms: manipulative rural elections,semi-competitive elections,and competitive election.The differences of election form and the resultant power structure reflect the different level and stage of the rural political development. Modeled power goes against the development of grassroots democracy,but the continuous refactoring power structure under the fully competitive elections is effective in constraints on power,corresponding to democratic values. Although the power structure of the overall stability and local un-stability under semi- competitive elections is a kind of weak democracy,it is of great significance for promoting voters' political participation level and the construction of political civilization.Therefore, improving the competitive election and promoting competitive transition to semi-competitive election are not only an important means to build rural power structure reasonable,but also a direction of future efforts to promote rural grassroots political transition to democracy.