村民自治的成长:行政放权与社会发育——1990年代后期以来中国村民自治发展进程的反思

On the Growth of Villagers' Self-Governance: AdministrationalDecentralization and Social Development──Rethinking on Villagers' Self-Governance Developmental Progress Since 1990

本文通过对1 990年代以来村民自治发展困境的反思,认为中国村民自治的成长从上看需要体制性的行政放权,从下看则需要现代社会组织的发育。村民自治是现代民主-国家建构中产生的,其制度设计中蕴含着现代民主理念。但中国的村民自治具有国家赋权的特点,民主自治的立法精神能否落实取决于行政放权所提供的体制空间。村民委员会为村民自治提供了制度性的自治平台,需要农民组织化参与。传统的家族组织不可能为村民自治提供所需要的组织资源,反而会扭曲村民自治的精神。只有市场化过程中形成的理性化社会和农民的自我组织,以及在民主自治实践中培育的农村公民社会,才能为村民自治的成长提供必要的社会条件。

Through the rethinking of the development of villagers' self-governance, this essay indicates that its development needs systemically administrational decentralization and modern organization, as it drives from the establishment of the modern democratic state, whose institution design contains modern democratic ideas. However, in China, its implementation depends on the systematic space supplied by administrational decentralization. Villagers committee provides systematic self-governance platform for the villagers, and it needs villagers' organizational participation. While the traditional clan organization can not provide necessary organizational resources, the reasonable society and peasants' NGO formed from marketalized process?rural civil society in practice can supply the necessary social conditions.