What are the difficulties in rural social governance? Analysis of the main challenges

Rural social governance, as a component of overall national governance, is an important factor in the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. At present, the continuous advancement of urbanization has completely broken the previously relatively isolated state between China's urban and rural areas. A large rural population has flooded into cities, bringing closer exchanges between urban and rural areas. This has not only bridged the development gap between urban and rural areas to a certain extent, but also effectively promoted a shared understanding of modern social governance concepts, providing an important prerequisite for the integrated governance of urban and rural areas. At the same time, it has also placed current rural social governance in an unprecedented predicament.

The net outflow of population has weakened the main body of rural social governance. Before the founding of New China, China's rural areas were basically relatively stable and closed regions in terms of population, that is, what is often called a society of acquaintances. In a society of acquaintances, with the clan system as the main body, supplemented by religion, ethics and morality, and village rules and conventions, the governance mechanism played an important role in the effective governance of rural society. After reform and opening up, the emergence of large-scale urbanization intensified the net outflow of China's rural population, including a large number of rural elites. Some scholars have calculated that the reduction in population size reached 60%-70% of the total village population in some villages, and was generally above 40%. The urbanization-driven mobility of rural economic and political elites has led to a shortage of capable governance personnel in rural areas; non-elite rural residents were originally important participants in rural social governance and the foundational support for rural elites to carry out social governance work. Their massive influx into cities has given rural residents the characteristics of "386199," generally intensifying the weakening of the governance capacity of the main body of rural social governance.

The weakness of the collective economy has brought about a scarcity of rural social governance resources. There are mainly three ways to supply the resources necessary for rural social governance: first, national fiscal and tax investment. Although the state has increased investment in rural governance resources year by year, constrained by financial capacity, such investment is still difficult to become the main source in most areas at present. Second, collective economic input. In most areas of China today, collective economic input is still the main channel for obtaining social governance resources. Third, donations. Donations may come from rural elites who have left, social organizations, and related enterprises and public institutions. At present, they are not yet widespread, and the share of resources obtained through this channel is relatively small among all channels.

Large-scale urbanization has enabled China's urban economy and society to develop rapidly, but due to the constraints of the dual system, the rural collective economy has not developed ideally. The main reasons are as follows: large-scale population migration has left rural collective economic development lacking the necessary human resources and concentrated consumer groups; based on efficiency, the collective economy usually encounters elimination by the urban economy; and the policy orientation toward economies of scale. In most areas of China today, rural collective economic development remains weak, and may even be nonexistent. Taking Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province as an example, among the city's 1,536 villages, the total village collective economic income in 2006 was 151 million yuan, averaging 98,700 yuan per village, and 335 villages had zero collective economic income and were heavily in debt. It was not until 2011 that all 1,536 villages in the city achieved a breakthrough from zero in collective economic income, and there were still quite a few villages with collective economic income below 100,000 yuan. Based on the current reality that China's overall rural collective economy is relatively weak, most rural communities still find it difficult to obtain an ample supply of social governance resources relying only on state investment, resulting in the "resource deficiency" fatigue in rural social governance.

The transitional cultural rupture has brought about conflicts in rural social governance concepts. Under the deep impact of the market economy and the acceleration of urbanization, the new rural generation has been more exposed to modern social culture, including political culture. This has brought about an intergenerational split in rural cultural traditions that have been passed down for thousands of years. The rural cultural tradition centered on Confucian ethics has been impacted by the concept of market equality, causing conflicts in social governance concepts between the old and new generations. Traditional rural cultural conservatives adhere to the authority of "clan" and "Confucian ethics" and traditional customs in rural social governance, and hold a negative attitude toward democratic politics and economic concepts; the new generation, which accepts political democracy and the concept of equality in the market economy, is seriously dissatisfied with the repeated emphasis on traditional concepts such as "ethics," "patriarchal clan law," and "order between senior and junior," and advocates governing rural society in a more democratic and economically efficient rational manner. The conflict between these two concepts of social governance is still relatively common, especially in economically underdeveloped areas, and has become an important factor constraining the performance of rural social governance, as well as a value-choice issue that the construction of China's modern governance system has to face.

Frequent corruption has weakened the legitimacy of rural social governance. Large-scale urbanization has led to the continuous expansion of urban scale and the emergence of a large number of urban villages and suburban villages. Under the radiation of cities, these villages have absorbed more economic resources, which has also provided the original motivation for corruption among grassroots social governance bodies such as township governments, village-level grassroots Party organizations, and villagers' committees. In villages relatively far from towns, due to the hollowing out of the population and the weakening of supervision by grassroots governments, they are also often plagued by corruption. Data from the Supreme People's Procuratorate show that in 2009, procuratorial organs nationwide filed and investigated 8,032 cases involving agricultural embezzlement and bribery, involving 10,935 people, with more than 1.34 billion yuan involved; and filed and investigated 2,097 cases involving agricultural dereliction of duty and infringement, involving 2,692 people. In recent years, whether in terms of the number of cases, the amount of money involved, or the number of personnel, all have shown an upward trend. The surge in corruption at the grassroots level during urbanization has weakened the legitimacy of the main body and conduct of rural governance.

In response to the new problems currently facing China's rural social governance, multiple measures must be taken to attract population return and talent introduction, and strengthen the governance capacity of rural entities; expand the village collective economy and increase fiscal support simultaneously to enhance the supply of rural governance resources; ensure the continuity of the transition between traditional and modern culture to eliminate conflicts in rural governance concepts; and effectively eliminate the frequent corruption of various types at the grassroots level to strengthen the legitimacy of rural governance, among other approaches, so as to strengthen rural social governance capacity and advance the modernization of rural social governance, overall social governance, and even the national governance system and governance capacity.