中国村民自治的制度起源、发展及内在逻辑

Institutional Origin,Development and Inner Logic of the Chinese Villager Autonomy

本文从村民自治的历史切入,探寻其根植于历史之中的路径依赖与内在逻辑。人民公社体制的根本失败是村民自治的实践起点,但实践往往并不必然带有原理性和体系性,这最终导致了村民自治的"组织法"特征。在"组织法"时代,村民自治遵循"为了国家"的民主试验目的和为了稳定的"消极目的观"。"组织法"的逻辑最终将村民自治引向了一种以间接民主为原则的"代议民主论",使得村民自治包含的共和民主逻辑与直接民主原则日益边缘化。

This paper investigates the path dependence and inner logic of the Chinese villager autonomy from a historical perspective. This autonomy is stimulated in light of the failure of People’s Community. In practice,however,villager autonomy does not follow any strict or systematic doctrines and,as a result,bears the characters of "organization law". In this "organization law" era,the villager autonomy has to meet both the purpose of state democratic development and the "passive purpose" aiming at stability. This "organization law" logic eventually leads villager autonomy into a kind of "representative democracy",which is based upon the principle of indirect democracy. Therefore,the logic of republican democracy and the principle of direct democracy,which were originally embodied in the villager autonomy,are now gradually marginalized.