The focus of national governance is at the grassroots level, and the shortcomings are also at the grassroots level. Promoting the shift of the focus of governance to the grassroots level is a basic project to realize the modernization of national governance, and it is also an important starting point for innovating grassroots governance and strengthening the construction of grassroots political power in the new era. It is of great theoretical significance and practical value to deeply understand the practical connotation, operation mechanism and promotion path of the downward shift of the center of gravity of governance.
1. Practical connotation: the guarantee of the effectiveness of grassroots governance for a better life for the people.
The proposal to shift the focus of governance to the grassroots level is not accidental, but has a very profound practical connotation. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the construction of nation-state power characterized by the centralization and integration of state power was immediately initiated. The building of political power at the grassroots level in urban and rural areas has played a fundamental supporting role in this. In the countryside, the people's commune, a special "unit organization", completely integrated the discrete rural society into the system of state power;In the cities, the establishment of the unit system has realized the integration and control of all urban residents, and it can be said that the unit system has become the focus of grassroots governance in China during this period.
Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the development of the market economy has not only fundamentally changed China's economic and social structure, but has also significantly reshaped the state's governance structure and mechanism for society. In the 90s of the 20th century, with the gradual disintegration of the unit system, grassroots streets, towns and communities quickly "filled" to fill the gap in grassroots governance after the withdrawal of the unit system. The focus of governance has gradually shifted from the focus of units to the focus of grassroots.
Since the new era, with the rapid advancement of urbanization and the steady implementation of rural revitalization, the "grassroots focus" has become more and more obvious in both theoretical consensus and policy practice. As of the end of 2022, China's urban population was about 9200 million, with a rural population of about 49.1 billion, a large number of people live mainly in urban and rural areas. Taking cities as an example, the average population of each urban community is more than 8,000, each sub-district office covers a population of 100,000, and the largest sub-district population (including the floating population) exceeds 1 million. It can be seen that the scale of urban and rural grassroots governance is on the large side, and management and services are facing tremendous pressure. Especially with the transformation of the main contradictions in society, urban and rural grassroots governance bears the historical responsibility of satisfying the people's yearning for a better life with good governance efficiency. As pointed out at the Third Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, "promote the downward shift of the focus of governance, and put resources, management, and services at the grassroots level as much as possible." The focus of social governance must be implemented at the grassroots level, and when the grassroots governance and service capacity are strong, the foundation of national governance will be solid.
Therefore, in a practical sense, the downward shift of the focus of governance is to conform to the basic trend of the transformation from the "unit center of gravity" to the "grassroots center of gravity" since the reform and opening up, and the implementation of the reform practice of improving the actual efficiency of grassroots governance by sinking resources, management and services.
2. Operational mechanism: the governance process of "resource-subject-structure-efficiency".
From the perspective of the governance process, promoting the focus of governance to the grassroots level is an operational process composed of "resources-subjects-structure-efficiency".
First of all, as far as governance resources are concerned, the decision-making level puts forward the concept of "resources" in the proposition of "promoting the downward shift of the focus of governance and putting resources, management and services at the grassroots level as much as possible", which in a broad sense, includes elements such as service, management, power, responsibility, capital, talent, and technology. Resources are the foundation and premise of governance. Shifting the focus of governance down to the grassroots level means moving more resources down to the grassroots level to implement effective governance and provide good services. Secondly, the governance subject is the participant in the grassroots governance field and the organizational carrier of governance resources, and the resources are the endowment and qualification of the subject to participate in governance. In addition to grassroots political power organizations, the main body of grassroots governance is diverse, including economic organizations, mass organizations, autonomous organizations, and social organizations. Under the guarantee and constraints of institutional rules, these multiple subjects form a relatively stable governance structure through strategic games and interactions between subjects, so that the relationship between governance subjects tends to be stable. Third, the governance structure reflects the relationship and position of multiple subjects in the field of governance. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in China's grassroots governance, a governance structure of "one core and plurality" with party committee leadership, responsibility, social coordination, and public participation has gradually been formed, which is a prerequisite for good governance effectiveness. Only by forming a reasonable and stable governance structure can we maximize the absorption of resources and optimize the allocation of resources, so as to improve the actual governance efficiency. As the general secretary pointed out, to promote the downward shift of the focus of governance, "we must focus on strengthening the construction of grassroots party organizations and comprehensively improve the cohesion and combat effectiveness of grassroots party organizations." It is necessary to pay close attention to the characteristics of the development and changes of grass-roots political power organizations, economic organizations, autonomous organizations, mass organizations, and social organizations, strengthen guidance and management, and ensure that all kinds of grass-roots organizations are set up according to their needs, perform their duties according to their duties, have people to handle affairs, and have directors according to regulations, so that they can not only do a good job of cultivating their own land and managing the fields of responsibility, but also sing well the group of heroes and play the joint force card." Fourth, governance efficiency is the goal of shifting the center of gravity of governance downward, and the advantages of China's grassroots governance system can be better transformed into governance efficiency through the downward shift of the center of gravity.
3. Promotion path: governance countermeasures in the three dimensions of "up and down", "left and right" and "front and back".
To promote the downward shift of the focus of governance, we can start from the "up and down" dimensions in the vertical relationship between the top and the bottom, the "left and right" dimensions in the horizontal relationship between grassroots governance subjects, and the "before and after" dimensions in the performance of grassroots governance.
First, a scientific and reasonable responsibility relationship should be formed in the "upper and lower" dimensions. A popular view is that China's ** has "isomorphic responsibilities" in the vertical relationship, that is, each level of ** manages roughly the same affairs;Correspondingly, it is expressed as "general thickness up and down" in the mechanism setting. Although this vertical responsibility allocation model is conducive to top-down overall control, it ignores the asymmetry of rights and responsibilities and blurred boundaries between various levels and between upper and lower levels in actual governance. If this kind of contradiction gathers at the grassroots level, it is manifested in an imbalance between the power and responsibility of the higher-level departments and the responsibility but not the power of the grass-roots departments. Taking financial resources as an example, in order to solve the problem of "suspension" at the grassroots level, the tax reform adopts the method of strengthening the transfer payment between the grassroots to promote the flow of financial resources to the grassroots level, so as to fill the lack of grassroots finance after the cancellation of taxes and fees, and then strengthen the grassroots governance and service capacity, and realize the transformation from "absorption" to "service". This idea of reform is correct, but it is not without problems in practice. The most striking contradiction is the asymmetry between authority and expenditure responsibility. The root cause is still the "chronic disease" of unequal rights and responsibilities and unclear responsibilities between the verticals. Only by straightening out the relationship and dredging obstructions in the "up and down" dimension can we smooth the channels for the downward movement of governance resources. Otherwise, even if resources flow downward to a certain extent, they cannot be optimized and rationally allocated in the actual governance process to maximize the governance efficiency.
Second, the role boundaries should be reasonably divided in the "left and right" dimensions. If the "up and down" dimension is mainly considered to straighten out the vertical responsibility relationship between the top and the bottom, so as to dredge the channel for the flow of resources in the system to the grassroots level, then the "left and right" dimension mainly refers to the construction of a governance pattern of benign interaction and cooperation between multiple subjects such as society, market, and citizens, so as to undertake and absorb social resources outside the system (mainly referring to public welfare resources), market resources and mass resources, and maximize governance efficiency. However, in practice, the imbalance of China's grassroots social governance structure is very common and obvious, which is mainly manifested in "effective administration and ineffective governance". This situation is mainly caused by the lack of reasonable demarcation of powers, responsibilities, functions and other roles among multiple subjects such as ** organizations, social organizations, and community autonomous organizations. Therefore, it is necessary to reasonably demarcate the boundaries of the responsibilities of multiple subjects, which is the key to the formation of a benign interaction between multiple subjects.
Third, in the "before and after" dimension, the setting up of grass-roots institutions and the allocation of manpower should be oriented to the people. In our country, the grassroots level is the "front desk" for governance and service deliveryAt the same time, it is also the "end" of the national governance system and the main body of implementation of the party's line, principles and national policies. This duality is determined by the role and nature of the grassroots regime. However, in practice, the establishment of grassroots political institutions and the allocation of human resources are faced with a dilemma. In the era of the planned economy, the grass-roots political institutions were often set up to correspond to the higher-level departments, which was "coarse from top to bottom" to facilitate the implementation and implementation of plans and tasks, and this institutional inertia still continues to this day. Practice has shown that under the market economy system, the setting up of grass-roots institutions and the allocation of manpower cannot simply copy the model of higher-level institutions, "higher-level organs should optimize the way of leadership over grass-roots units, and allow 'one-to-many' and one grass-roots organization to undertake the tasks of multiple higher-level institutions;It is also allowed to 'many-to-one', where different institutions at the grassroots level report to the same higher authority." Therefore, the setup of grassroots institutions and the allocation of human resources should conform to the characteristics of grassroots affairs and the actual needs of the masses.
Author: Li Zuopeng, Lecturer and Ph.D. of the Department of Public Administration Teaching and Research of the Party School of the Henan Provincial Party CommitteeLi Zhonghan, Professor, School of Politics and Public Administration, Zhengzhou University This paper is the interim result of the 2024 Humanities and Social Science Research General Project of Universities in Henan Province: Research on the Practical Dilemma of Downward Shift of Governance Focus and the Path of Digital Cracking (2024-zzjh-382).