National Governance Quotient: The Foundation of Big Data-based National Governance

A nation＇s rise or fall hinges, to some extent, upon its national governance quotient. National governance quotient, or NGQ, is a quantitative indicator measuring the governance level of a country in quotient form. Its value is the ratio of the national governance system and capacity to national governance costs, and its nature is that of an amalgam of national governance ideas and techniques quantified on the basis of the figures. It is advanced because its inner core lies in logic and computation, and it is scientific because it is guaranteed by technology platforms such as big data and cloud computing. The formulation of NGQ provides technical support and a basis for the transformation from experiential or experimental governance to quantitative, scientific governance, and it thus has great theoretical and practical significance for the modernization of national governance system and capacity. As well as being used to provide quantitative management of national governance modernization, NGQ can also be used as a measurement standard and key symbol for evaluating the modernization of China＇s national governance by 2020.Furthermore, it can be used to compile a World NGQ Report with the aim of taking hold of international governance discourse, as well as to compile China local NGQ reports to improve local governance in China.

A National Governance Perspective on the Transformation of Rural Property Rights： The Chinese Experience

Property rights have multiple attributes, and these are correlated with national governance. In the West, property rights have the economic function of maximizing efficiency and the political function of rights protection, but in China, they also have a strong social character. With the modernization of national governance, these functions interact with and transform each other. When the state＇s ability to supply public goods is relatively weak, property rights take on more of a social character, meeting public demand for welfare at the grassroots level. When the state is better able to provide public goods, the social function of property rights lessens as their economic function grows. The social character of property rights was the institutional foundation for China, as a huge agrarian state, to realize ＂governance through inaction,＂ and at the same time was the secret key that could break the code to the millennial continuity of Chinese agrarian civilization. Reforms including the collectivization of rural property rights after 1949, the ＂separation of two rights＂ （to collective ownership and household contracted land, with a focus on the latter）, and the ＂separation of three rights,＂ （to collective ownership, household contracts and revitalized land management）. These changes constitute a process in which the economic function of property rights has been growing while their social character has lessened under conditions of national governance modernization.