How to Advance Rural Governance in the Context of Urbanization
The relationship between urban and rural areas is not a zero-sum relationship, but a mutually beneficial, symbiotic one that is closely intertwined. If, in the process of urbanization, the system of villagers' self-governance and the social environment on which it depends are not improved, rural development will be difficult to sustain, the urban-rural gap will further widen, and the disharmony between rural governance methods and the social foundation of governance will lead to ever-increasing costs for the state in governing rural areas.
At present, the current state of the urban-rural gap has not yet been fundamentally reversed. Driven by the new urbanization policy, the large-scale migration of migrant workers and the gradual urbanization of part of the rural population has led to a "suspended" state in rural governance. There is a lack of successors in the building of the rural cadre ranks, and rural political development and public welfare development lack the effective participation of farmers, especially the young and middle-aged farmer groups. This poses new challenges to advancing the modernization of the national rural grassroots governance system and governance capacity.
The social foundation of rural areas has already undergone profound changes
At the current rate of urbanization of 1%, by 2030 China's total population will exceed 1.5 billion, China's urbanization level will reach 70%, and by then the population living in cities and towns will exceed 1 billion. This shows that the next nearly 20 years will be the period of the most intense flow of rural population to cities, the rural population will decrease by more than 1/3, and 300 million people will move from rural areas to cities, equivalent to the current total population of the United States.
It has become a consensus that the key to urbanization lies in the urbanization of people. Over the past nearly 30 years, rural economic development and the building of the villagers' self-governance system have complemented each other and made certain progress. Villagers' self-governance relies on the ethics and morals of traditional rural society, the acquaintance society, and a relatively stable population, and has given play to its institutional advantages. However, with the deep influence of rural marketization, agricultural modernization, industrialization, urbanization and globalization, hundreds of millions of people have flowed out of rural areas and into cities and towns, posing a severe challenge to the current villagers' self-governance system. The rural social foundation on which the villagers' self-governance system was established and operates has undergone profound changes, and a contradiction has emerged between an open and mobile rural society and a relatively stable villagers' self-governance system, with rural grassroots organizations showing a "suspended" normal state. In the context of new urbanization, faced with this dilemma, the villagers' self-governance system, as an important part of the current grassroots social governance system, needs to be re-examined.
Rural governance faces difficulties in the context of urbanization
Since the trial implementation of the Organic Law of the Villagers' Committees, the academic community has had differing evaluations of villagers' self-governance. Among them, a representative view is that the rural "two committees" have a fairly strong semi-administrative character, with tasks from higher-level Party committees and governments being pressed down layer by layer, and even the collection of commercial insurance being listed as a hard indicator for assessing village cadres. In the coming decade or so, with the further advancement of urbanization, the hollowing-out of rural areas will become more pronounced in the central and western regions. Because the urban-rural gap in the central and western regions is relatively large, traditional agricultural income is low, the secondary and tertiary industries are relatively backward, and rural education, medical care and other infrastructure are gradually decreasing, the result is 269 million floating population, 58 million left-behind children, as well as the serious facts of an aging agricultural population and the hollowing-out of rural areas. The content of villagers' self-governance is becoming increasingly complex, and the goal of building a new countryside with "production development, prosperous life, civilized rural customs, tidy village appearance, and democratic management" lacks both relatively high-quality village cadres and high-quality new-type farmers who are "cultured, understand technology, and know how to run businesses" as a guarantee.
After a large number of young and middle-aged people flow out of rural areas, it is also difficult for village committee elections to meet legal requirements in terms of relatively high-quality candidates and a certain number of voters participating in elections. And the operation of public power exercised by the ultimately elected village cadres lacks procedural justice and legitimacy. Some scholars believe that election is an interest-based behavior, and the internal incentive mechanism of election neither stems from interest in politics and understanding of democracy, nor depends on the level of political awareness and the strength of democratic consciousness, but is ultimately determined by interests. For a large number of farmers, especially migrant workers, needs such as living consumption, economic income, culture and entertainment have already gone beyond the rural scope, and their interest connection with the village has been greatly weakened. According to the author's observation, during village committee elections, farmers who have left the land but not their hometown rarely ask for leave to return to the village to vote, and even fewer farmers who have left their hometown temporarily give up their current income to return to the village to vote. Even entrusted voting lacks the authenticity of opinion expression and the authority of the election, resulting in villagers' weak identification with the power of village cadres. Influenced by both urbanization and farmers' own choices, after a large number of rural young and middle-aged people go out for long-term work or settle in cities, the remaining villagers also rarely have the ability or motivation to participate in village collective public affairs or supervise village cadres. If village cadres engage in illegal acts, villagers, considering that it will not harm their vital interests or that opposing village cadres will bring greater costs and less benefit, would rather choose silence. In some places in the central and western regions, village cadres can privately contract village collective land to others, while the contract fees disappear without a trace. They precisely take advantage of the current population situation in rural areas and the vacuum in supervision to erode collective assets, breeding corruption.
Over many years of practice, the villagers' self-governance system has to a certain extent shouldered the important task of villagers' self-education, self-supervision and self-service, and has advanced China's grassroots democratic process. However, under the influence of urbanization policy, the production and living space of hundreds of millions of farmers will shift, and rural traditional culture, farmers' ways of interaction, objects of interaction, and living habits will also be reconstructed. The rural social public space that was originally "without privacy" among people of the same roots and clan will undergo profound changes. Traditional ethics and morals and cultural carriers such as old streets, old houses and ancestral halls may also be destroyed or overturned. The traditional rural community characterized by the "differential mode of association" faces a crisis of disintegration, and the villagers' self-governance system built on traditional rural ethics and the acquaintance society is severely challenged. The current overall quality of the rural left-behind population is incompatible with the development trends of modernization of agricultural production and operation and the marketization of rural commodity circulation.
Actively respond to the challenges of urbanization to rural governance
Even if China's urbanization rate reaches 70% by 2030, there will still be 500 million people living in rural areas. Against the background of massive population mobility and great rural transformation, in order to achieve sustainable rural development, it is necessary to take the path of a composite model of new rural construction and new urbanization as the guide, further optimize the national grassroots governance system, and enhance the capacity of grassroots governance.
As far as possible, realize in-situ urbanization of farmers and improve the level of public goods and services. Cities are not the only direction of rural social change. Driven by a distorted view of political achievements, some local governments, disregarding the original ecology, culture and social public space of rural areas, tend to completely negate and start over, using forced demolition and forced requisition of farmers' land to "force farmers upstairs." These practices violate both the will of farmers and the scientific outlook on development. In areas where traditional distinctive culture cannot be replicated, as well as in plain areas with relatively high population density and relatively convenient transportation, where farmers' original markets for production and living still exist, local potential and existing advantageous resources should be tapped and utilized, infrastructure construction such as medical care, education, roads and bridges, and water conservancy should be increased, the pace of agricultural modernization and industrialization should be accelerated, farmers' production and living functional areas should be improved, close-distance employment for farmers should be realized, and farmers should be guided to voluntarily gather by improving the level of rural public goods and services.
Do a good job in overall planning, focusing on the overall relocation of villages. For villages in remote and impoverished mountainous areas that need to be re-planned because of major public project works or harsh local living conditions, when scientifically demonstrating and planning farmers' new residential areas, the population of the original villages should be relocated as a whole in accordance with the principles of intensive land use, complete functions and sustainable development. Ensure that supporting facilities such as education, medical care and roads are complete, forming a virtuous cycle system integrating farmers' production, distribution and consumption. Although farmers' living space has shifted, their neighbors are still the same old neighbors, and their friendships are still the same old friendships. The original rural living rules and the acquaintance society will still continue, and the social foundation of villagers' self-governance still exists, which can effectively reduce the management and service costs of local Party committees and governments.
Realize the professionalization of village cadres and increase the intensity of building national grassroots political power. After the merging of villages and groups in the eastern region, a village of seven or eight thousand people has only seven or eight village cadres, with a large scope of management and a relatively small number of personnel. In the central and western regions, the village collective economy is underdeveloped, and few rural elites are willing to serve as village cadres. Overall, the remuneration of village cadres is relatively low, and the work of managing and serving villagers has thus become a sideline. On the basis of continuing to implement and improve the policy of college student village officials, it is necessary to take the reform of grassroots administrative institutions as an opportunity to promote county and town cadres to take up posts in villages, with their salaries still borne by the finance department, while villagers still have the right to elect or recall dispatched village cadres and other village cadres, so that they can do a good job in full-time service to the masses. This is conducive not only to consolidating the national grassroots political power, but also to expanding the source channels for village cadres and enhancing their enthusiasm for performing their duties. At the same time, the rural homestead use rights of native-born personnel working elsewhere can be retained, guiding them to voluntarily return to their hometowns, giving play to their role in participating in rural management and services, and adding traditional strength to rural governance.
Actively use media means in the new era to maintain close ties with the rural floating population. At present, there are about 269 million farmers working elsewhere in rural areas across the country. Among them, the new-generation migrant workers born in 1980 and later are mainly concentrated in the eastern region and large and medium-sized cities, accounting for 46.6% of the total number of migrant workers. Compared with their parents' generation, they have received a certain education, quickly accept new things, and the vast majority can skillfully use new communication means such as QQ and WeChat. Their local consciousness is relatively weak, and their feelings for rural areas are relatively indifferent. In fact, such a huge population cannot fully integrate into cities either, but they may become important participants in major events in places such as Weng'an, Wukan and Shifang. Party committees, governments and social mass organizations in the places where migrant workers flow out should change traditional conservative and passive practices, actively use modern media to establish an interactive mechanism between localities and outgoing migrant workers, promptly understand their living and working dynamics, feed back the construction situation of their hometowns, proactively disclose local development policies and measures and grassroots affairs, seek their suggestions, understanding and support for hometown governance, enhance their attachment to their native land, and lay the institutional and emotional foundation for the return of human and talent resources as early as possible for sound grassroots governance in rural areas.