Re-observation of "Ten years of Harmony Village"

After the reform of taxes and fees, due to the great impact on village-level income, the government immediately started the work of merging villages, which means to reduce expenditure and maintain the normal operation of village-level organizations by reducing the number of village cadres. In fact, with the state's increased investment in rural areas in the next few years, the wages of village cadres have been guaranteed, and they have been greatly increased year by year, and the expenditure of village cadres has not been reduced, but only increased the per capita wage level of village cadres.

The per capita wage level of village cadres has increased, and the work enthusiasm of village cadres has increased, especially for those village cadres who cannot go out or do not want to go out to work. A better salary level is still very attractive to them. However as village cadres have been gradually replaced by the rich in recent years the current salary level of village cadres is too low relative to their income and its attractiveness has declined significantly. From this point of view, the positive potential of the village merger group in that year has been exhausted.

However, many troubles of village merging in rural governance have been left behind. The S town we investigated was 19 administrative villages before 2003, but it has been reduced to 12 villages after the combination of villages. After the merger of villages, the number of village cadres in each village has been reduced, especially in those merged villages with relatively small population, they have even fewer village cadres. In this way, the sudden and sharp reduction in the number of village cadres has become a contradiction in village politics.

For example, New Beimiao Village is formed by the merger of the original Beimiao Village, which has a population of more than 2000, and Nanmiao Village, which has a population of more than 1000. At that time, the government stipulated that only five cadres should be given a quota of three in the North Temple and two in the South Temple. But later, the cadres of Beimiao Village thought that they should increase the quota by one more, and the town government was forced to agree after repeatedly reflecting upward. Similarly, Xinhe Village is formed by the merger of the original three villages, and at the beginning, the government only gave a quota of five cadres. since the original three villages had a similar population, there must be only one cadre in one village. For this reason, village cadres reported to the town government that the quota was increased to six.

The problems in these two villages are relatively peaceful, and the town government has handled them more flexibly, but there are also village problems with great contradictions that have not been solved so far. The population of Xuancun in S town is about 800, which belongs to a small village in the whole town. at the end of 2003, the government merged it with two other villages into Shuangcun. Since the population of Shuangcun is larger than that of the other three villages, there are two cadres in Shuangcun. The veteran cadres of Xuancun are very dissatisfied. Coupled with the fact that the villagers of Xuancun and Shuangcun are not compatible in history, they mobilize the villagers to demand independence and even petition to the province for this. Later, when he saw that there was no hope of independence, he asked to merge with Swertia Village, which had a smaller population than his own. This request was not allowed, so he asked to merge with the farther fork village. The matter dragged on for a long time, and the town had no choice but to agree. At present, the size of Xuancun belongs to the forked village, but it is still in Shuangcun in terms of administrative planning.

From the above cases, we find that the reduction of the number of village cadres has caused the dissatisfaction of the village political elites. From the perspective of individual village cadres, they should all be based on the consideration of personal interests. However, from the point of view of the power structure of the village, it is not so simple. It is the reduction of the number of village cadres that breaks the balance of the original power structure. This balance gradually formed during the collectivization period, when there were a large number of large and small cadres in the village, and a large number of cadres could take care of all groups and factions in the village. from this point of view, it happened to be a democratic era in which villagers were highly involved. This balance lasted until the 1990s, and in the middle and late 1990s, under the background of reducing the burden on farmers and streamlining state organizations, the number of village cadres gradually decreased. For example, each village in S Town was reduced to four formal village cadres after 1998. This balance was gradually broken. After the large-scale village integration movement in 2003, some villages reduced to only one village cadre, and this balance was completely broken. Of course, the town government has also made some adjustments and adaptations to this kind of "struggle" at the grass-roots level, and most of the contradictions are digested internally.

The distribution of the number of village cadres is determined according to the size of the population, which is somewhat similar to the so-called "district election system." the advantages of this election model can be seen very clearly by grass-roots cadres. The chairman of the people's Congress of S Town believes that "nominally, there is a combined election. In the process of actual operation, it is divided into several constituencies, and each constituency is given several indices, so that villages with few guarantors have cadres." In fact, the "elective district system" was put forward at the initial stage of villagers' autonomy, but it was not implemented until after the village was merged, and this effect was greatly reduced. At the same time, another problem after the closure of the village is that it is very difficult to produce regular cadres in the small village. "originally, there were cadres in the two villages, and the small village also had secretaries and directors, but now it is very difficult for the small village to have its own secretary and director, and most of them are occupied by the big village, because it is to distribute the index first. And then come together to elect secretaries and directors." The small village can only produce deputy cadres, and it is easy to have contradictions among the village cadres, which increases the difficulty of village governance after the village is closed.

In the actual operation of village-level organizations, most of them implement "one country, two systems". Generally speaking, "one country" is only reflected in formal administrative planning and election period, while "two systems" is reflected in many core aspects. The first is village affairs. Jiang Jun, the head of Xuancun Village, said, "We are a merged village, which is actually a small independent village. We do not participate in anything they have, and we do not participate in anything they have." The second is finance. There is a local saying that "one village has two accounts" or even "one village has three accounts", that is, each old village has its own accounts, as well as unified accounts to meet the requirements of the government. Third, in terms of collective property, the largest piece of local collective property is Linzi, which is still owned by the old village, and the village-level organizations and villagers of the new village cannot share it. From these core levels, the new village can not achieve effective integration, the village is basically superficial, only to meet the reform requirements of the higher government.

The fundamental reason for the implementation of "one country, two systems" is that villages formed in decades of history have formed certain habits and traditions, internal governance has also formed a certain model, and this model has the support of resources. As outsiders, the cadres of the big village are not familiar with the internal discourse and various relations of the village, which is also a potential threat to the resources of the village, so there is no possibility of intervention.

From the perspective of the governance of the old village, one or two village cadres could not cope with many things, so the village cadres thought of some flexible methods. One is the so-called "employment system." for example, Xuancun now has only one village committee member, which is actually the director of Xuancun. Because someone else has to be responsible for the finance, he hired Liu Xijie, a veteran party member and a member of the branch committee of the village, as an accountant. In addition, from the perspective of the common people, Hechun has increased the cost of doing things for the common people. For example, if Zhujia Village, where Shuangcun is merged, is too far away from the village department, it is not very convenient for the people of the Zhu family to handle affairs. When a first-level government becomes a clerk, some village heads cannot do things.

It has been nearly ten years since the merger of villages and villages, and when we look at the original reform, we can see more and more clearly the disadvantages. As grass-roots cadres who personally experienced this reform also reflected on this, the chairman of the National people's Congress of S Town sighed: "the above should be reduced in accordance with the geographical and demographic requirements, and even if some villages and towns fail to do so, we will strictly follow them. I think this is a failure." In our view, this reflection is far from enough, it only stays at the level of the policy itself, and it has not yet touched the logic of the government after this kind of reform, that is, a kind of bureaucratic reform thinking. Legally speaking, villagers have the right to autonomy; culturally speaking, villages have formed their own traditions. Therefore, there is no realistic basis for the government to merge villages in a mode of streamlining government institutions.