Rural Governance faces the Challenge of Transformation

In the process of urbanization, the original situation that urban and rural areas are isolated from each other and closed to each other has been broken, and rural governance is facing new challenges of urbanization development.

Our rural governance is facing four basic transformations: first, the transformation from a closed society to an open society. The second is the transformation from urban-rural dual structure to urban-rural integration. The third is the transformation from a rural collective economy with unclear traditional property rights to a new type of collective economy with clear modern property rights. The fourth is the transformation from traditional rural control type to modern rural governance type.

The No. 1 document of the Central Committee this year proposes to innovate and improve the rural governance mechanism. This is indeed a major practical issue. In the process of urbanization, the original situation that urban and rural areas are isolated from each other and closed to each other has been broken, and rural governance is facing new challenges of urbanization development.

First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between self-governance at the rural level and rural governance at the national level. The meaning of the two rural governance is different, simple rural governance is difficult to achieve the goal. Because any of our villages are in the basic institutional structure of the country. Although we have implemented villager autonomy for 20 or 30 years, the actual effect is not very ideal. In many places, there has been a phenomenon of "failure of villager autonomy"-villagers are unable to solve their own problems through autonomy. This is because the governance at the village level is restricted by the higher-level government, including township, county, provincial and national government. at the same time, the current villagers' autonomy is also difficult to give full play to the main role of the villagers. villager autonomy is also powerless in safeguarding villagers' interests and village collective interests and even goes to the opposite side. Therefore, we can not simply promote self-governance at the rural level, while ignoring the state's governance of the countryside, otherwise it will be difficult to reflect the actual effect.

Secondly, it is necessary to analyze the two basic types of rural governance. In the process of urbanization, there are two most basic rural types, and their requirements for rural governance are different. One is the villages in the population-exporting areas. This is the area where the population flows out in the process of urbanization, such as the rural areas in the central and western regions, where a large number of young and middle-aged workers have gone to coastal areas and big cities. What are left behind in such villages are the elderly, women, and children left behind? how to govern such left-behind villages or even "hollow villages"? This is the challenge posed by urbanization under the dual structure of urban and rural areas. The other type belongs to the villages where the population flows into the area in the process of urbanization. In the process of urbanization, a large number of non-local population flows into the area, and its rural governance is mainly faced with the challenge of "population upside down" caused by the entry of foreign population. These two types of rural governance should be analyzed concretely and treated differently.

Thirdly, what is the goal of rural governance? There must be many such goals. In the past, people may have paid more attention to maintaining stability, maintaining social stability, maintaining social order, and so on. I think the core and basic goal of improving and innovating rural governance is to safeguard the rights and basic rights of villagers or residents and social fairness and justice. Only by safeguarding rights can we truly maintain stability. If the basic rights of villagers are not guaranteed and social justice is lacking in the countryside, it is not the rule of law and modernization of rural governance.

Finally, it is necessary to grasp the transformation challenges faced by rural governance. Over the past 30 years of reform, our rural governance has been faced with four basic transformations: first, from a closed society to an open society. In the past, our rural governance system was established on the basis of a closed society. In the process of urbanization and marketization, the closed society became open, which posed a great challenge to the traditional rural governance. The second is the transformation from urban-rural dual structure to urban-rural integration. In the past, our rural governance is to establish and improve the policy system in the basic structural framework of urban-rural dual system, but now we want to crack the urban-rural dual structure and promote urban-rural integration. Then our rural governance should adapt to the major transformation from urban-rural dual structure to urban-rural integration. The third is the transformation from a rural collective economy with unclear traditional property rights to a new type of collective economy with clear modern property rights. The modernization of rural governance should be based on clear property rights. The fourth is the transformation from traditional rural control type to modern rural governance type. For a long time, we are used to controlling people and managers, constantly strengthening management rather than strengthening services. However, modern society requires a governance model of pluralistic coexistence, pluralistic governance and flattening. Moving from management to governance poses a major challenge to all of us, not only to farmers, but also to our cadres.

Due to lack of understanding, work style, reform, system and accountability, rural governance presents a lot of chaos. In the process of urbanization, two very prominent problems are seriously challenging our governance ability. the first is the protection of property rights. In the process of urbanization, property rights disputes and conflicts caused by compulsory land expropriation and demolition in some places have become a prominent focus of social contradictions. The second is that farmers' rights of letters and visits have been greatly infringed. In the process of urbanization, farmers whose property rights have been infringed originally hoped to protect their legitimate rights and interests through letters and visits. However, instead of sincerely solving the practical problems reflected by the peasants, some local and departmental cadres are keen on reeducation through labor, hijacking and visits, and violent crackdowns, and in some places even lock up a normal petitioner in a mental hospital. This is a very serious social problem we face in governance. If this problem is not solved, whether it is national governance or rural governance, it is difficult for us to say that we have realized the legalization and modernization of governance.

In the process of urbanization, the most prominent problem facing rural governance is to maintain and develop the basic rights of rural residents. At present, the most urgent thing is to build a governance system and mechanism that is conducive to the protection of the three most basic rights of rural residents. First, property rights. If the property rights of rural residents are not well protected, the rural governance will not be successful. Especially in the process of urbanization, the problem of people's property rights has become increasingly prominent, and the weak protection of property rights has become an important factor affecting social harmony and stability. The second is the right of social security. This belongs to basic public services, which is a major problem in urbanization. There are more than 200 million migrant workers across the country, and their basic public services are still very lacking. To solve the basic public services of migrant workers is not only the requirement of new urbanization, but also the requirement of the modernization of rural governance. Third, the right of public participation. In modern society and modern countries, public affairs are related to everyone's vital interests, and everyone should have an equal right of participation and equal right of expression. If any part of the people are deprived of the right of participation and expression, this rural governance is not modern rural governance.

To promote rural governance in urbanization, on the one hand, in the self-governance at the rural level, we should focus on building autonomous villages, properly handle the relationship between autonomy and other governance, return power to the people, cultivate and protect the autonomy ability of rural society, and ensure and realize the democratic autonomy of villagers. On the other hand, in the rural governance at the national level, we should focus on building China under the rule of law, properly handle the relationship between the government and society, and establish a unified and open system of fairness and justice throughout the country. to ensure that villagers generally enjoy the basic civil rights, freedom and dignity guaranteed by modern countries under the rule of law.