弱选举竞争的形成机制与乡镇干预——基于鄂西Z村的个案考察

The Formation Mechanism of the Weak Election Competition and the Intervention of Town——Based on the Village of Z in West Hubei

民主选举制度并不必然带来村庄选举的强竞争。实地调研发现,村庄选举的弱竞争构成了中国绝大部分村庄选举的主导样态。城市化背景下,村庄的去精英化、村庄社会结构的碎片化、村庄公共利益与村民个体利益的弱关联化,是形成村庄选举弱竞争状态的主要原因。村庄选举的弱竞争可能造成村庄有效治理主体无法生成。为了保证村庄治理队伍的有序更替,乡镇往往通过构建制度化的后备干部遴选机制、非正式的村干部退休机制、村干部待遇提高与晋升机制对村庄选举进行干预。但这些机制又带来了村民自治消解、村级治理行政化的意外后果。因此,如何平衡乡镇干预与村民自治之间的关系,是当前农村基层治理面临的一大难题,还有待进一步探索。

Democratic election system does not necessarily bring out strong competition in village elections.The field research finds that weak competition in village elections constitutes the dominant form of elections in most villages in China.Under the urbanized background,lack of elite,fragmentation of the social structure of the village,and weak correlation between village public interests and individual interests of villagers are the main reasons for the weak competition of village elections.Weak competition in village elections may lead to the failure of emergence of effective governance bodies in villages.In order to ensure the orderly replacement of the village management team,the towns often intervene in village elections through the construction of institutionalized selection mechanism for reserve cadres,informal village cadre retirement mechanism,and improvement and promotion mechanism of village cadres treatment.But it leads to the unexpected consequences of elimination of villagers autonomy and administration of village governance.Therefore,how to balance the relationship between township intervention and villager autonomy is a major problem facing the rural grassroots governance.