Table of Content

15 March 2023, Volume 39 Issue 2

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From Economic Development to Social Governance: An Analysis of Social Stability in China through a Demand-Response Framework

Yan Jirong

2023, 39(2):  4-19. 

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It is commonly believed that economic development inevitably leads to social instability during modernization. However, China's experience demonstrates that sustained economic development and long-term social stability can complement and strengthen one another. This article examines the long-term evidence of China's economic development since the reform and opening-up, using the lens of “social governance” advocated by the Chinese government to explore how long-term social stability can be achieved in China. The article argues that the Chinese government's continuous promotion of social administration innovation and social governance reform has significantly contributed to maintaining social stability. These measures have not only resolved social conflicts and reduced social instability, but also pressured the government to reform and improve its responsiveness. China's experience suggests that an analysis of social stability based on the demand-response framework holds explanatory power.

Mass Organizations in Primary-level Governance: Embedded Bridging of Social Organizing

Chu Songyan

2023, 39(2):  20-32. 

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Organizing and motivating the people to follow the Partyis important for mass organization reform. Mass organizations have become prominent in primary-level governance over the more than seven years’ reform. This was accomplished by activating local public spaces with social services, weaving self-governing mass organizations and social organizations, and offering sharing and thinking nodes for local people. Mass organizations are comfortably path-dependent, lack systematic strategic planning, not professionalized, etc., but they still organize effectively because they aretightly embedded in the grass-root society and reinforce social capital. They also explore the equilibrium between the political and the social by enabling the transformation of society and thereby reinforce the resilience of state governance and inject activity into a stable society.

Service Activates Society——The Operation Mode of Social Construction Driven by the Coordination of Five Social Forces

Xu Jialiang, Cheng Lijiao

2023, 39(2):  33-45. 

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For many years, research on social construction was divided between the academic theories of state centrism and social centrism. These theories reveal the research results of social construction and the logic of power production in China’s past. But they cannot provide a new direction for social construction in the new era, which takes party leadership as the core and the people as the center. This is represented by the development path of the four communities in Suzhou’s Taicang City. As this study shows, under the guidance of the community party organization, those communities were introduced to social organizations through the government’s procurement of public service projects in which professional social workers, charitable resources, and other diverse elements, were used to create volunteer teams. The result was achieving the “same goal by different routes”. Put another way, the party and the government introduced service projects to society and thereby realized the goal of multi subject interactions that activated social vitality and internal order. Different from the social construction logic characterized by restrictions and cooperation from the perspective of state-centrism, the service-activated social model emphasizes that the party and the government should always respect the laws of social operations. This can be done comprehensively through methods such as the transfer of public service functions, the cultivation of social organizations, the restriction of the rule of law, and incentivizing values so as to activate social vitality on an orderly basis. In the end, these efforts have led to the formation of a new era of co-construction, co-governance, and sharing. The slogan—Service Activates Society—reveals the operational mode of social construction driven by the coordination of five social forces. It provides a new way of thinking about the intertwined social construction pattern of the party, government, society, and other subjects.

Common Prosperity and the Universality of Sinicism modernization—— Study and implementation of the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

2023, 39(2):  46-66. 

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The Chinese path to modernization shares characteristics with modernization in all countries, but it also has the characteristics based on its own national conditions. Common prosperity is an important feature and essential requirement of the Chinese path to modernization. This journal presents a series of written discussions on the major issues in this area such as the universality of common prosperity, the Chinese path to modernization, and the provincial first exploration of practice pathways. People-centered modernization leads to common prosperity. The fundamental pathway for human modernization is to improve the allocation of rights and opportunities to achieve the general equality of capabilities. The team of private entrepreneurs in Zhejiang is a valuable resource and bearer of high-quality development and common prosperity in Zhejiang. The high-quality development of the private economy is related to the Chinese path to modernization. Common prosperity and provincial modernization in advance conform to the general law of socialist development and evolving modernization, laying a Chinese path to universal modernization. The innovation discourse of the Chinese path to modernization, which combines particularity with universality, has universal enlightenment for human modernization. The Chinese path to modernization is a new type and it is constantly enriched. The coupling of modernization and common prosperity creates universality in human modernization. The academic community will discuss these issues further.

SinicismChina’s modernization has characteristics in common with the modernizations of other countries, but it has unique characteristics based on its own national conditions. Common prosperity is an important feature and essential requirement of Chinese modernization. This journal will publish aa series of discussions on the major issues on this topic such as the universality of common prosperity through, Chinese modernization and the practice pathway of province-led exploration. People-centered modernization leads to common prosperity. Human modernization must improve the allocation of rights and opportunities to achieve the general equality of capabilities. The group of non-state sector entrepreneurs in Zhejiang is a valuable resource and bearer of high-quality development and common prosperity in Zhejiang. The high-quality development of the non-state economy is related to the Chinese path of modernization. Common prosperity and provincial modernization both conform to the general law of socialist development and evolving modernization. This gives Chinese modernization a universalist perspective. The innovation discourse around Chinese modernization, which combines particularity with universality, has universal lessons for human modernization. Chinese modernization should be regarded as a new type, which isconstantly enriched. The coupling of modernization and common prosperity presents a universal form of human modernization. The academic community will engage with this topic as further issues reveal themselves.

The Scientific Logic and Time Value of Xi Jinping's Important Discourse on Common Prosperity in the New Era

Xu Guang, Wang Xiaoyan

2023, 39(2):  67-79. 

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The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) pointed out that the Chinese path to modernization is the modernization of achieving common prosperity for all people. Achieving common prosperity for all people is the essential requirement of the Chinese path to modernization. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the core has put forward a series of new ideas and assertions around the strategic goal, key tasks and realization path of common prosperity. This has gradually formed a scientific logic with profound connotations and views. Xi Jinping's important exposition of common prosperity in the new era is the dialectical unity of the theoretical logic of the common prosperity thought of Marxism’s classical writers, the historical logic of the common prosperity thought elements in China's excellent traditional culture, and the practical logic of the CPC's pursuit of common prosperity for a hundred years. Through the mutual unity of the connotation, characteristics, and strategic objectives of common prosperity, promotion principles and implementation measures, and key tasks and institutional arrangements, Xi Jinping's important statement on common prosperity effectively responds to the theoretical disputes about common prosperity in the new era, clarifies the goal of common prosperity in the new development stage, and provides practical methodological guidance for the solid promotion of common prosperity. It has important theoretical innovation value and practical guiding significance.

The Functions and Mechanisms of Charitable Trusts to Promote Common Prosperity

Tong Zhifeng, Yan Miping

2023, 39(2):  80-93. 

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As an important form of the Third Distribution, the charitable trust has unique advantages such as property independence, flexibility, and the ability to preserve property for appreciation. In the process of promoting common prosperity, charitable trusts can help solve the problem of poverty, reduce the income gap, and improve social governance. Many challenges remain, however, such as weak and uneven regional development, unreasonable trust structures, and trust purposes that are too specific. Therefore, the Charity Law should be revised to establish and improve the institutional mechanisms of charitable trusts to promote common prosperity. First, we should bypass the policy bottleneck of charitable trusts and promote their rapid development. Second, we should explore new trust forms and accelerate the construction of a charitable trust environment. Third, we should establish and improve incentive mechanisms and expand the scope of charitable trust purposes.

Between “Attention” and “Coping”: The Logic of Grassroots Government Response from the Perspective of Attention Allocation

Ma Xuesong, Xiao Chuanlong

2023, 39(2):  94-108. 

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Responsiveness is a fundamental attribute of democratic politics. Analyzing the operational logic of government response is a key step in improving responsiveness and enhancing efficiency. The responsiveness behavior of grassroots governments often lies between “attention” and “coping”. The perspective of attention allocation provides a powerful explanation for this. Grassroots governments follow the attention allocation logic of combining authority, interests, and avoidance of responsibility, and interact with the attention of superiors, officials, media, and the public, forming an attention allocation co-shaping mechanism. Under the influence of this logic and mechanism, grassroots governments exhibit four distinct response modes with varying governance effects: movement-type, coping-type, autonomy-type, and routine-type. Grassroots governments should take people’s real needs as the benchmark for response, use the logic and mechanism of attention allocation reasonably, and pay more attention to the consistency of response intensity, the effectiveness of response content, and the timeliness of response speed.

Digital Technologies promote equalization of public services between urban and rural areas: mechanism and practical logic

Shi Xinjie, Cui Liu, Fu Changluan

2023, 39(2):  109-123. 

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Equalization of public services between urban and rural areas is one of the important pathways to realize rural revitalization and common prosperity. At present, the equalization of public services in China faces many challenges, including big differences in the supply of public services between urban and rural areas, insufficient endogenous supply of rural public services, and low efficiency of public service provision. As an emerging technology, digital technologies provide a new way to solve urban and rural public service equalization issues. After defining the relevant concepts and interpreting several theories, this paper constructs a theoretical framework about how digital technologies promote the equalization of public services between urban and rural areas. According to this framework, we analyze the cases of practice related to the digital empowerment of urban and rural public services equalization in Zhejiang province. We propose three optimization routes: first, reinforcing the top-level design and breaking the barrier of the development of digital technologies; second, using local features to drive the endogenous supply of public services through industry digitization; and facilitating factor mobility and enhancing the universality and inclusiveness of public services with digital technology.

Mass Supervision and Government Response Driven by Digital Platforms——A Supervision Information Platform in the Field of People's Livelihood in Province A

Wang Rui, Ni Xing

2023, 39(2):  124-138. 

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The concept of technology empowerment has promoted the transformation of digital government. The interaction between the government and the people relying on digital platforms has gradually become the main field of political communication and dialogue. With the perspective of system theory and the help of structural topic model (STM), 20,660 items of complaints and reports and government responses on an information platform that monitors people's livelihoods in province A were analyzed tostudy the role of digital platforms on the interaction between the government and the people. The study’s findings show the digital platform relied on high-efficiency data collection, information transmission, and data processing. In doing so, it provided an opportunity for change in the convenience of mass supervision and the effectiveness of the government’s response. At the management level, the platform was the hub, enabling the content and the mode of the government’s response to be dynamically adjusted according to the categories of complaints. Institutionally, the full-process supervision model was deeply integrated with the interactions between the government and the people to promote and guarantee the public's right to supervision. Through the processing of large-scale unstructured texts, this study provides a new perspective for understanding public supervision and government response.

The Institutional Construction of Digital Property Rights in the Metaverse——Based on Several NFT Scientific Experiments

Yang Yanchao

2023, 39(2):  139-156. 

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The metaverse allows a dual social pattern where real society and virtual society coexist. The metaverse also generatesmany virtual objects in the virtual society. These objects can be used, thereby showing their characteristics of virtuality, intelligence, and decentralization. Different from the property right system in the real society, the system that creates the Non Fungile Token (NFT) relies on scarce but still tradable virtual goods which include property rights. The ownership of virtual things is different from the existing concept of property rights. Compared with the existing virtual property, virtual objects are based on the decentralized technical architecture of a blockchain, which realizes the direct and absolute dominance of users over virtual objects. Compared with works covered by traditional intellectual property rights, the concept of virtual object ownership protects specific virtual objects in the metaverse. Therefore, it is necessary to independently design the ownership rights of virtual property, including coin casting right, key control right, use right, transfer right, permanent income right, destruction right, and other rights. The ownership of virtual objects extends the ownership system in the real world into the virtual world but also departs from it. At the same time, the metaverse’s innovations have been a breakthrough in the traditional ownership system. The key mechanism of the blockchain allows users to authenticate, and trade in, virtual objects. At the same time, the decentralized credit construction of the system provides relief from the infringement of virtual objects in the metaverse. Different from the presumption of possession in the real world, virtual object rights are determinedthrough possession as determined by the virtual object and the form of relief for violations is built accordingly. At the same time, in the process of institutional construction, we also need to deal with the relationship between the ownership of virtual things and their intellectual property rights in the metaverse. We should also explore the interaction between them. At present, the institutional construction of the property rights of virtual things in the metaverse is still in its infancy. With the development of the metaverse industry, the research will be further deepened.