村民自治:我国民主政治建设的特殊路径

Autonomy by Villagers :A Special Way for the Construction of Democracy in China

民主政治建设是一种国家主导的民主制度建设与社会主义主导的社会民主培育的双向互动过程。80年代以来农村基层民主———村民自治的建设与发展不失为我国当代民主政治建设的一条特殊路径。经过二十多年的努力,村民自治在我国农村地区普及率不断上升,村民自治的内容得到进一步的丰富和发展,村民自治的规范化程度有了很大提高。村民自治在实践过程中仍然存在一些问题,只有解决了这些问题,村民自治才能进一步健康发展,能够使政治民主化在农村先行一步。

The construction of democracy should be an interactive process between the construction of democratic system dominated by the national government and the fostering of social democracy led by socialism. Since the 1980s, encouraged by the government, the basic level democracy in villages—autonomy by villagers has been prevailing with a large number of villager participants. The establishment and development of the autonomy by villagers can be considered as a special way to construct contemporary democracy in China. With the efforts in the past two decades, autonomy by villagers has gained great progress: its popularization rate in the rural area has been improved; its contents have been enriched and its standardization has been upgraded. On the whole, the construction of democracy has made great achievements. Meanwhile, it should be noted that in the practice of autonomy by villagers there still exist some problems. Unless we solve them, the autonomy will not develop further healthily. Along with the exploration and improvement of autonomy by villagers, political democracy is able to develop first in the countries, being a start and breakthrough point of Chinese democracy construction at present stage.