中国乡村协商民主:个案研究

Deliberative Democracy in Rural China:A case study

村民自治建设已进行了近20年,有关规则、程序都比较具体详细,标准化程度也比较高了,但是,村民的基本权益还是没有得到有效的保护,一些侵权、侵利事件不断发生,这说明村民自治没有为村民建立起有效的制度性权益保障机制。我们认为,在中国农村推进协商民主建设,赋予村民更多的民主决策权、民主管理权和监督权,将会更好地保障村民的基本权益,大大提高农村的民主水平。如何做到这一点呢?我们在浙江省温岭县泽国镇扁屿村进行了协商民主试验并取得了成功。从这次成功的试验中我们发现,建立独立无涉的会议主持人制度、随机抽样选出代表的制度、信息先行公开制度、问卷调查表决的决策制度对推进中国协商民主建设具有至关重要的价值。搞协商民主,建立这些制度,看似比较繁琐,但是能有效地屏蔽社会不平等的影响,赋予每个人平等的协商、讨论机会和权力,提高决策的合法性。

Villagers' self-government has been carried out in rural China for almost 20 years,and laws and policy regulations relating to it have become more detailed,concrete and standardised in recent years.However,villagers' basic rights and interests cannot be guaranteed,and villagers' self-government has not built firm institutional protective barriers for villagers' basic rights and interests.To improve village democracy and give villagers access to basic rights,going further with democratic decision-making,management and supervision is as important as holding democratic elections.Based on a successful democracy experiment in a small village in Zhejiang Province,the paper argues that in order to advance development of Chinese deliberative democracy,it is necessary to establish several institutions or procedures such as chairing meetings by independent moderators,random selection of participants,issuing information in advance,survey-based decision-making,and democratic consultation on significant affairs.