The political capacity of China's farmers is at a medium level overall
Today, Central China Normal University released China's first “farmers' political capacity index”. Based on data calculations, the national farmers' political capacity index is 0.5867, indicating that the overall political capacity of China's farmers is at a medium level.
The study started from aspects such as political knowledge, political concepts, political attitudes, political evaluation and political participation, and used factor analysis to conduct a quantitative analysis of 36 subjective and objective indicators reflecting the level of political capacity.
⟦NL> The study shows that middle-aged male farmers have relatively prominent political capacity. In terms of gender, the political capacity index of male farmers is higher than that of female farmers; in terms of age groups, farmers under 30 and those aged 50 to 60 reach the highest level.
Farmers with higher education and higher income have greater political capacity than farmers with lower education and lower income. As educational level rises, the farmers' political capacity index continues to increase, and the upward trend is relatively obvious; similarly, the political capacity index also increases with income growth. The study believes that this reflects that farmers with higher education and higher income belong to the elite within the village, pay attention to current politics, have a clear awareness of participation, and also have the motivation to participate in public affairs.
The study also shows that, in terms of identity, rural administrators have the highest political capacity index, followed by rural teachers, self-employed individuals and private business owners, and finally farmers engaged in farming.
The study relied on the “Hundred Village Observation” platform of the China Rural Research Institute at Central China Normal University, covered more than 200 villages in 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) across the country, and its data came from follow-up surveys conducted over several consecutive years.
The “farmers' political capacity index” comes from the “Report on the Political Development of Chinese Farmers” released today. The report points out that there are four major bottlenecks constraining the construction of the rule of law in rural areas: the rule-of-law system is incomplete, facing the dilemma of “no law to rely on”; the operation of the rule of law is not standardized, with the problem of “unfair law enforcement”; rule-of-law services are inadequate, leading to the predicament of “laws are hard to use”; and the foundation of the rule of law is weak, facing the difficulty of “laws are not used”.