Problems and Purpose

The direct reason for promoting the Linhai Municipal Party Committee to promote the construction of the grassroots consultation and discussion system is that grassroots cadres often encounter such confusion and emotion: "Why do some of our decisions are for the good of the people, but they don't understand it?" Good government units are often misunderstood repeatedly by the people, which makes it difficult to advance projects and make progress in work. After analysis, they believe that opaque decision-making, inadequate propaganda, undemocratic consultation, and irregular implementation are the four major factors, and they believe that deliberative democracy is a good mechanism to remove misunderstandings from the public and promote government policies. In this context, the Linhai Municipal Party Committee actively explored the establishment of a grassroots consultation mechanism led by the party organization, and introduced consultation democracy into grassroots social governance.

Background History and Funding

The report of the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (November 8, 2012) put forward new requirements for "actively carrying out grassroots democratic consultations." The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee once again proposed to "carry out various forms of grassroots democratic consultations and promote grassroots consultations." Institutionalization," General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized in his speech at the meeting celebrating the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference that "the people are the focus of socialist consultative democracy. A large number of decisions and work involving the interests of the people mainly take place at the grassroots level. In accordance with the requirements of consultation for the people and consultation for the people, vigorously develop grass-roots consultative democracy, focusing on consultations among the grass-roots people.” For this reason, in April 2014, the Linhai Municipal Party Committee of Zhejiang Province issued the "Linhai City Establishing a Basic-level Democratic Consultation System Work" Plan", and chose to conduct pilot projects in Baishuiyang Town, Yanjiang Town, and Kuocang Town.

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

Linhai City Government

Participant Recruitment and Selection

Take the "Town Democratic Consultative Council" as an example:

The grassroots party organization will uniformly deploy, coordinate and implement consultative democracy work.

The town democratic consultation council is composed of representatives of village organizations, grassroots knowledge unions, grassroots chambers of commerce and other organizations, local representatives and representatives of all classes and sectors of society, as well as some party representatives, people's congress representatives, and CPPCC within the jurisdiction It is composed of committee members, representatives of enterprises and institutions, and representatives of veteran cadres. The number is rated at 30-60 people, and the committee work system is implemented.

Methods and Tools Used

Three platforms:

The first platform, the basic-level democratic consultation meeting in towns and villages.

The village democratic consultation council is under the leadership of the village party organization, and the committee work system is implemented. The chairman of the committee is the secretary of the village party organization. There is an office and a supervision group. The office is mainly responsible for the organization of village consultation and discussion activities and platform operation and maintenance. In daily work, the supervision team is mainly responsible for the supervision of the whole process. Correspondingly, the town affairs democracy day system and the village affairs democracy day system were established at the town and village levels, and each pilot town determined one day as the town affairs democracy day. The village level determines one day every month as the village affairs democracy day.

The second platform, Tongxin Meeting Room (Wai-table-consulting platform).

The "Tongxin Meeting Room" is taken as an extension of the convenience service center. It adopts three major forms: festive gatherings, democratic day meeting, and topical treats. It regularly and irregularly listens to appeals, eases emotions, and resolves problems, so as to make negotiation objects "There are places to say things, and there are places to complain, but it is difficult to have someone help." Festive gathering is to invite representatives to the Tongxin meeting room to discuss and exchange on the annual festival day, to regularly understand their demands, and to further unblock the appeal channels; the Democracy Day meeting means to raise issues or make suggestions on the hot and difficult issues in the town and village on the Democracy Day. Negotiations are conducted on the identified topics to build consensus and solve problems; topic-style invitations are to invite representatives from all walks of life to communicate and negotiate with the town party committee or the village on a specific topic to reach a consensus and solve the problem.

The third platform, network interactive platform.

Establish platforms and carriers for online political inquiry, online discussion interaction, etc., through the online public solicitation of opinions, open a column for suggestions and suggestions, open a blog space, set up an online e-government hall, establish a QQ group, set up a special mailbox for social conditions and public opinion, and establish an online discussion The interactive day system and other measures have broadened the channels for the public to participate in democratic politics.

Deliberation, Decisions, and Public Interaction

In order to broaden the channels for villagers to participate in democratic consultation and to collect relevant consultation topics, three platforms have been built.

The first platform is the basic-level democratic consultation meeting in towns and villages. The number of the town’s democratic consultation council is rated at 30-60 people, and the committee work system is implemented. The chairman of the committee is the deputy secretary of the town’s party committee, with an office and several groups under it. The office is mainly responsible for the organization of the town’s consultation and discussion activities and daily work such as platform operation and maintenance. The village democratic consultation committee is composed of 20-50 members of the village party branch, village committee, village supervisory committee, village comprehensive governance organization, village women’s committee, youth league organization, senior citizens’ association, etc., as well as representatives of the village outside and old cadres. . The village democratic consultation council is under the leadership of the village party organization, and the committee work system is implemented. The chairman of the committee is the secretary of the village party organization. There is an office and a supervision group under it. The office is mainly responsible for the organization of village consultation and discussion activities and the daily work of platform operation and maintenance. The supervision group is mainly responsible for the supervision of the whole process. No less than 50% of the members of the committees of democratic consultations in towns and villages are non-party persons. Correspondingly, the town affairs democracy day system and the village affairs democracy day system were established at the town and village levels, and each pilot town determined one day as the town affairs democracy day. The village level determines one day every month as the village affairs democracy day.

The second platform, Tongxin Meeting Room (Wai-table-consulting platform). Regarding the "Tongxin Meeting Room" as an extension of the convenience service center, it adopts three major forms: festive gatherings, democratic day meeting, and topic-based entertaining. It regularly and irregularly listens to appeals, eases emotions, and resolves problems, so that the negotiating objects are "satisfied." Everywhere is said, there is nowhere to complain, and it is difficult to be helped." Festive gathering is to invite representatives to the Tongxin meeting room to discuss and exchange on the annual festival day, to regularly understand their demands, and to further unblock the appeal channels; the Democracy Day meeting means to raise issues or make suggestions on the hot and difficult issues in the town and village on the Democracy Day. Negotiations are conducted on the identified topics to build consensus and solve problems; topic-style invitations are to invite representatives from all walks of life to communicate and negotiate with the town party committee or the village on a specific topic to reach a consensus and solve the problem.  

The third platform, network interactive platform. Conform to the development trend of the Internet, establish platforms and carriers for online political inquiry, online discussion interaction, etc., open online soliciting opinions, open up a column for suggestions and suggestions, open a blog space, set up a network e-government hall, establish a QQ group, set up a special mailbox for social conditions and public opinion and establish Measures such as the Internet Discussion Interaction Day system to broaden the channels for the public to participate in democratic politics. Up to now, the city has collected more than 1,200 opinions and suggestions of various types through the Internet.

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

Through the development of grassroots consultation and democratic deliberation, four changes have been brought about. One is to promote the transformation of government decision-making from closed to open; the second is to promote the transformation of social governance from blocking to decentralized; third, Promote the realization of the transition from the government initiative to the mass initiative and government promotion in the cause of people's livelihood. The fourth is to facilitate the transition from "making the masters for the people" to "making the people the masters" in democratic politics.

Analysis and Lessons Learned

From the current short-term practice, what we can say is that the grassroots deliberative democracy in Linhai City is a kind of promotion of "democratic talks", and it is reproducible and learning. For example, in April 2016, the Tonglu County Party Committee of Zhejiang Province issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Construction of Grassroots Deliberative Democracy (Trial)" (County Committee (2016) No. 15), which required the establishment of a "344" model to promote grassroots deliberative democracy, which is almost a result of coastal experience. Pirated. This does not mean that Tonglu, Zhejiang Province’s approach to promote grassroots deliberative democracy completely replicates Linhai’s approach, but people can be sure from this that Linhai’s experience can be spread and replicated, and has universal significance.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the basic-level consultative democracy in Linhai City is led by the United Front Work Department of the Municipal Party Committee from the perspective of the party and government division of labor system. Rural affairs are dominated by the united front system, which has never been done before. Originally, the united front has no direct relationship with the countryside and peasants. When it comes to the united front, people usually don't think of the countryside and peasants first. The consultative democracy work of the united front department is not for the countryside and peasants. Now, the Linhai Municipal Party Committee puts the consultation democracy of grassroots villages and peasants in the first place of consultation democracy, and the United Front Work Department is responsible for this matter.

See Also 

References 

External Links 

https://wikitravel.org/en/Linhai

Notes

The first version of this case entry was submitted by Qin Xuan on behalf of Lang Youxing, Professor, Zhejiang University. 

Lead image: "Linhai, China, Ancient Streets (2010)" Jeffrey Scott Lonstaff https://goo.gl/AHP6mX