Villagers’ Self-governance:Predicaments and Counter Measurements〔*〕

Dong Hong,Wang Youqiang

(College of Humanities and Social Development of Northwest A & F University,Yangling　Shaan’xi　712100)



Villagers’ Self-governance:Predicaments and Counter Measurements〔*〕

Dong Hong,Wang Youqiang

(College of Humanities and Social Development of Northwest A & F University,YanglingShaan’xi712100)

With the reform and opening up of the rural economy and society,the villagers’ self-governance has been in a dilemma in the process.The difficulties are mainly in the insufficient functions of the village committee,the lack of financial resources and inadequate human resources.On the analysis of the situations,the paper gives some practical solutions for the villagers’ self-governance to get out of the dilemma by strengthening the construction of rural communities,cultivating diversified village self-government organizations,broadening the village’s financial sources and developing rural human resources to promote the formation of the rural civil society.

villagers’ self-governance;villagers;rural society

Ⅰ.Difficulties of villagers’ self-governance

1.Insufficient functions of village committee

The village committee is the operating mechanism of villagers’ self-governance,and it is responsible for the daily management of the village affairs.In the core position of the organization,it has played an important role in the rural social management,and has effectively promoted the development of various undertakings in rural areas at the early stage.However,due to the impact of various factors,some deficiencies emerge in the performance of its functions,such as inadequate staff and too many tasks,large management scope and difficulties in taking activities and single service content.

2.Lack of financial resources of the villagers

With the exemption of agricultural tax,the burden of farmers is further reduced,but there still exist great financial difficulties in the village.Village debt makes the villagers’ self-governance trapped into a new dilemma.First,the village committee itself has difficulty in operating and playing its functions,which weakens the authority of the village-level organizations.Secondly,the remuneration of village cadres is poor,and it is difficult to fulfill a lot of commitments,leading to the villagers losing interests in the election of the village cadres and influencing village-level democratic development.Finally,the reduced number of village cadres makes the village-level work difficult to carry out,which is not conducive to the healthy development of the villagers’ self-governance.In addition,the serious shortage of village-level finance strengthens the dependent relationship between the village-level organization and the township government.〔1〕

3.Lack of human resources for villagers’ self-governance

It is reported that more than 60% of migrant workers are not interested in serving as the village cadres according to the investigation of the situation of political participation of migrant workers from the Wuhan city.〔2〕It is sometimes difficult to elect capable persons as the village cadres,so some tyrants and spalpeens will control the village.Moreover,most of the people in the village are women,the elderly and children.These people generally do not care about the public affairs of village,do not actively participate in the election of village committee and other villagers’ self-governance affairs,and it is also difficult for them to effectively supervise and restrict village cadres.

Visibly,the villagers’ self-governance has not really been implemented in rural areas and has not fundamentally become the system arrangement of the village society and the life.Especially in the background of the great changes of rural society in recent years,the villagers’ self-governance has not played the role of cohesion in the process of village community construction,and there is still a great distance from the original intention of the system design.

Ⅱ.Solutions of villagers’ self-governance

The reconstruction of village communities is suggested to get out of the dilemma according to the sharp change of the rural society,in order to foster the formation of civil society and provide a good social environment for the implementation of villagers’ self-governance.

1.Cultivating diversified village-level self-governance organizations

(1)Rural professional economic cooperation organizations

Under the condition of market economy,the rural professional economic cooperation organization is an economic organization which provides the farmers with the necessary services to protect their own economic interests.〔3〕It mainly includes a variety of professional associations and farmers’ professional cooperatives.The rural professional economic cooperation organization not only is beneficial to improving the organization degree of farmers entering the market and the ability to resist market risk,but also can promote the information sharing,improve the income of farmers and protects the interests of farmers.The rural professional economic cooperation organization is very beneficial to supplementing the adequate functions of the village committee,and can provide more quality services for farmers and rural society.

(2)Rural cultural and recreational organizations

The rural cultural and recreational organizations are very essential to enrich the amateur life of the villagers,meet the needs of the villagers in the spiritual level and maintain social harmony.The villagers can be voluntarily organized to form different cultural and recreational organizations in accordance with the different interests,hobbies and strengths.This kind of organization is purely for spiritual life,which does not involve other areas.It can break the boundaries of the villages.The villagers in this village can participate in,as well as the neighboring villagers.By taking part in the cultural and recreational organizations,the villagers are familiar with each other,learn from each other and entertain each other,in order to meet the needs of their spiritual life.In the future,we shall further develop the rural culture and recreational organizations such as dance team,yangko dance team as well as literature and art team.The establishment of these cultural and recreational organizations greatly enriches the amateur life of the villagers,meeting the needs of the villagers in the spiritual level.

(3)Rural commonweal organizations

The rural commonweal organizations play a very important role in the development of agricultural production,the convenience of farmers’life,the improvement of the rural environment,and the promotion of the rural civilization and democratic management.At present,some commonweal organizations have appeared in the rural areas.For example,for the inharmony of rural families and neighborhoods,some villagers spontaneously organize Dispute-settling Group and Mediation Group,to mediate contradictions in the village,solve the disputes among the villagers and effectively protect the order,stability and peace of rural society.Some villages do not have a separate commonweal organization,but the organization overlaps the professional economic cooperation organization or cultural and recreational organizations.For example,some professional economic cooperation organizations are involved in funding for the study,the establishment of the elderly welfare facilities and other activities,reflecting the public welfare.In addition,some villages set up the Red and White Council,security patrol team and other commonweal organizations,which play an important role in the development of the rural communities.In the future,we shall further develop the rural commonweal organizations,so that these commonweal organizations play a greater role in the construction of rural communities.

(4)Rural coadjutant organizations

The rural coadjutant organization is a non-governmental organization,which is organized by the villagers to provide labor assistance for each other.Such organizations play a very important role in the rural communities,which is conducive to the development of the production of rural communities.After the implementation of the household contract responsibility system in rural areas,farmers with a household as a unit independently carry out agricultural production and business activities.In recent years,with the development of the rural economy,many rural young labor forces go out for work,while women,children and the elderly stay in the village,so women have become the main force of agricultural production and labor.Some agricultural production activities need to be completed in a short time,but the lack of male labor makes it impossible to achieve.In this case,women in some rural areas are spontaneously organized and set up a coadjutant team to solve the problem.In the future,according to the actual situation,this kind of coadjutant organizations can be developed.

2.Broadening the source of village-level financial capacity

In order to solve the problem of insufficient financial capacity,it is necessary to reform and improve the rural financial system and further broaden the source of village-level finance.

(1)Improving the rural financial system

First,it is necessary to establish a rural public financial system.To establish a unified urban and rural public financial system includes the rural areas into the scope of the public financial system.Country should make the rural infrastructure construction,the five guarantees family raising,compulsory education included into the national unified financial system.This is not only conducive to the increase of village-level financial income,but also conducive to promoting the process of building a harmonious society in rural areas.The other is establishing a village-level debt resolution system.The key is to resolve the old debt.On the basis of cleaning up and checking the existing debt,the debt should be classified for resolution.For the illegal debt,it can not be repaid,due to not being protected by the law.For the policy debt,it can be solved by the financial transfer funds of government.

(2)Broadening the source of village-level finance

To make the village-level finance out of the dilemma,it is critical to expand the source of village-level finance as well as to carry out institutional innovation.First,an appropriate restoration of the village-level charging system should be created.The system can be operated to collect a number of reasonable fees from the villagers for an appropriate restoration by the village-level organizations,such as the “public management fees”.The village committee,as the villagers’ self-governance organization,bears the responsibility of providing public service for the villagers.According to the principle of public burden equilibrium,the villagers who accept the service of the village committee have the obligation to bear the cost of public services.Second,the village collective economy should be developed.Speeding up the development of rural economy is the fundamental way to solve the village-level financial difficulties.Villages should give full play to their own advantages to promote the development of the village collective economy.Proceeding from the local actual situation,we shall adjust the industrial structure,develop characteristic agriculture,moderate achieve agricultural scale and industrialization,develop some characteristic private enterprises engaged in the deep processing of agricultural products and the business of agricultural products,and appropriately attract investment.Third,the management of collective assets cannot be ignored.〔4〕The existing resources under the ownership of the village collective that can bring about the benefits should be managed well.The income after management shall be taken as a source of the village-level financial income.It is suggested that village collectives manage a part of collective resources according to domestic policy or law,and the income is a sufficient,stable and sustainable source of financial income for the villagers’ self-governance.

(3)Developing rural human resources

In order to solve the problem of lacking human resources,it is necessary to develop a variety of social resources in rural areas to absorb a variety of elites into the mechanism of the villagers’ self-governance.To this end,we shall not only develop existing human resources in rural areas,but also actively absorb borrowed resources and attract the elite to go back to the village.

a.Developing and utilizing the existing human resources in rural areas

The development of human resources for villagers’ self-governance should be based on the existing human resources in rural areas.An important force of the human resources that has not yet been developed and used in rural areas will play an important role in the villagers’ self-governance.

Women are worthy of the name of “half the sky”,accounting for more than half of the rural population.They play a very important role in rural governance,rural development and rural social stability.However,for a long time,due to the impact of the traditional concept,many rural women did not enter the field of political life in the village.Most of them raise children and do housework at home,instead of getting involved in the village politics.This not only affects women’s own development,but also seriously restricts the development of rural areas.Therefore,in the villagers’ self-governance,women’s participation and the role they play should be emphasized.Women are encouraged to participate in village political activities against traditional prejudice;what’s more,favorable conditions for women’s participation in the villagers’ self-governance should be actively created.

Secondly,the elderly have their own strengths,though they are old with conservative values and in slow response.They have a wealth of experience and practice,they have a high prestige in the village,and they can think more thoroughly.Moreover,they have a certain time on village affairs management,and they have a strong emotion for the village of their whole life,with a high sense of responsibility and enthusiasm in participating in the activities of villagers’ self-governance.Therefore,in the process of villagers’ self-governance,the elderly can be organized by the elderly association to achieve their worthiness and play their due role in the rural community development.

In addition to women,the elderly and children,rural left-behind personnel also include some young and strong males,who have certain cultural knowledge or just in the stage of unemployment.Some of them are still undecided about whether to go out for work,and some are in the stage of confusion.Compared with other left-behind people,they are young,ambitious,enthusiastic and daring.Wherein,there are also some people who are willing to stay home to change the current rural situation.The only thing they lack is the actual experience of the rural work.If they are cultivated,they will become talent resources that the villagers’ self-governance can make use of.For this part of left-behind young intellectuals,they can be chosen to the relevant universities as a “ready college-graduate village official” for training,making them grasp the knowledge and skills of agriculture and rural work.After graduation,they can return to the domicile village to serve as village cadres.They will become the backbone of the development of the village and will effectively promote the further development of the villagers’ self-governance.

b.Absorbing borrowed resources and attracting rural elites to return

Cultivating rural elites requires not only the development and utilization of rural existing human resources,but also actively absorption of the borrowed resources outside the village and attraction of the elites to go back to the village.

The “external force introduction” approach can be taken to select those outstanding college graduates who have the will to support the rural construction from the higher education institutions to work in rural grassroots.In the future,with the increase of publicity of public opinion,the guidance work of college graduates employment will be carried out to promote college students to change the concept of employment and encourage them to work in the rural grassroots with relatively backward economy.This not only,to a certain extent,solves the problem of the lack of human resources in the villagers’ self-governance,but also broadens the channels of employment of college students.To this end,the central and local governments at all levels should create favorable conditions for college graduates working in rural areas,establish a corresponding system of security mechanisms,and develop a good social atmosphere for this.The current national implementation of the “college-graduate village officials’ project” is a useful attempt.It is proposed to establish a stable incentive mechanism that the college-graduate village officials who work in the village for a certain time and the assessment shall be included into the civil service establishment after the election of villagers.

Rural interior and external drive are conducted to promote the elites back to the village.From the perspective of interior,we shall increase the attractiveness of the village itself,create a good entrepreneurial environment for the elites returning to the village,and provide economic incentives.From the perspective of external,we shall carry out system innovation to establish and perfect the corresponding incentive mechanism.The issues of the village cadres’ remuneration and social security are critical,such as the level of labor income per capita in the village,the proper arrangements and appropriate subsidies for the retired village cadres.A retirement system and an endowment insurance system should be established to solve any menace from the “rear” of village cadres.Only in this way,can the higher social status of rural elites be reflected,to attract them to serve as village cadres and serve and work for the villagers wholeheartedly.

〔1〕Xiao Lihui,Villager autonomy and political development in China,Beijing:Peking university press,2006,p.123.

〔2〕Xu Zengyang,Huang Xianghui,Survey on status of political participation of farmer workers in Wuhan City,strategy and management,2002(06),pp.110,112,113.

〔3〕Yin Huansan,Discuss on new social focus problem in operation of villagers autonomy,Theoretical discussion,2011(01),p.74.

〔4〕Wang Yazhen,Research on difficulties and Countermeasures of villager autonomy,Journal of political science and law,2013(03),p.86.

About the authors：Dong Hong (1972—),associate professor in college of humanities and social development of Northwest A & F University,research direction:villager autonomy;Wang Youqiang(1971—),associate professor in college of humanities and social development of Northwest A & F University,research direction:villager autonomy.

〔*〕This paper is supported by Rural Social Research Center Project of Northwest A& F University (No.201612).