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The Institutional Design of Cooperative Groups and Public Knowledge
Village pacts in a broad sense provide not only the behavioral norms of rural everyday life, but also a system of discourse that decides the meaning of particular community relations.It is the communication of interpreting the related norms and values that make the continuous growth of autogenous order possible.In traditional China, the center of discussion had been customary rules passed on from generation to generation and enjoying orthodoxy.But in contemporary China, legality, teleological rationalization, political mobilization, and democratic participation have been attached importance.Especially since the 1980s, the basic purpose of public opinion in the rural area has been to promote free communication among the people and to resume face-to-face situation in decision- making processes.It may even be considered that this kind of discourse field is pregnant with a new political paradigm of a democratic system based on cooperative groups instead of pressure groups.Here the people are fond of not antagonistic discussion but harmonious discussion, and not zero-sum game but plus-sum game.
According to Organic Law of Village Committee, the village assembly is drawn from all villagers 18 years old and over, and consists of a majority of all adult villagers or representatives of more than two-thirds of households (Article 17).It is the supreme decision-making body at the village level, voting on all major public affairs of the village.The village committee generally convenes the village assembly, but a petition signed by more than one-tenth of the villages’ households can also call a village assembly (Article 18).The following topics must be put to a public discussion by the village assembly, namely: (1) deliberation on the annual report of the village committee and appraisal of the village committee members (Article 18); (2) subjects related to personal interests of villagers and public interests of the community, e.g., the acquisition of supplies, subsidy for work losses, utilization of collective gains, contracted management of land, distribution of residential land, birth control, disaster relief, and so on (Article 19, Article 22); (3) making and revising the charter of self-government, village pacts, and regulations (Article 20), and so on.Therefore, public discussion at the village assembly must be opened at least once every year.In addition, by the principle of making village affairs known to the public, villagers may interrogate the village committee whenever necessary (Article 22).
Attempts at Constructing a Free Discursive Field
In the institutionalized public sphere at the village level, many different and original means of communication have been created in different local communities.For example, a township in Henan Province has established the feedback system of “The Echo Wall: Your Voice and its Repercussions” bulletin board in all its villages on which any villager may put up signed or anonymous opinions on the board to express his or her demands, suggestions, and criticism.The village committee must make a public reply within five days.In other words, the proclamation board as one-way channel for transmitting orders has thus been changed into the board of public opinion as a two-way channel for free dialogue.
Most villages in China have already set up a “Board of Open Village Affairs (cunwu gongkai lan)” and a “Box of Supervisory Suggestion (jiandu jianyi xiang)”.It was reported that this “One Board, One Box” system could play an important role in making public affairs truly known to the public and forming an atmosphere in which “all villagers participate in discussion, determination and management of village affairs.”
Furthermore, “the institution of debate at village representative assemblies” was introduced in some localities.The representatives are normally elected by all the villagers or by the traditional method of choosing one from every ten families.The village representative assemblies are called, in principle, once every two months or quarterly, and have the right to decide important village affairs and participate in their management through democratic dialogue with the village heads in face-to-face situations.In some villages, even the right of refusing to execute the decision made by the village committee without public discussion at a representative assembly or a villagers’ assembly has been recognized.While the ideal is wonderful, as shown by the example of Ancun, there is still a great gap between the ideal and the reality, and practice clearly varies from place to place.
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