Democratic Working System:
Research and Thinking on Hangzhou’s Practice
Abstract: The government has always been a dominant organization in advancing
China’s social development; while democracy is the basic problem faced by Chinese
society in the course of development at present. Hangzhou’s practice of using public
involvement to evaluate government performance and solve livelihood issues not only
effectively restrains government behaviors but also forces the government to give
feedbacks to the needs of the public, it also helps to solve the problems and wins the
support and approval of the public. Hangzhou’s democratic working system is based on
public involvement and formed in practice, the effect it has on deepening democracy
construction is worth attention and thinking.
Key words: democracy, public participation, performance evaluation, democratic
development
Author: Xunda Yu, College of Public Administration ，Zhejiang University, Hangzhou,
310027, PRC.
Professor Cohen once said, “Democracy is determined by participation, that is to say, it
depends on the participation of the social members influenced by the policies”.
1Participation means that the public participate in the management and decision of state
and social public affairs in various ways according to law. Therefore, the advancing of
public participation is to implement democratic politics. During the recent 10 years,
Hangzhou has tried a lot to advance public involvement in various ways. What needs to
be particularly pointed out is that it gradually forms a democratic working system based on
extensive public participation in government administration of public affairs. Democratic
working system, which I define is the norms、rules、 methods 、institutions and
mechanism with a democratic style in local government , is different from the
representative system and voting system favored in western democracy. It provides a new
pattern for democratic political development which worth further research and thinking.2
This paper is divided into 6 parts: part 1provides a brief introduction to the research
background; part 2 discusses the major practices of performance evaluation in Hangzhou;
part 3 talks about Hangzhou’s other practices in public involvement; part 4 introduces
Hangzhou’s achievement in solving livelihood issues by democratic working system; Part
5 explores the major issues in running the democratic working system and the final part
reveals some conclusion from the research.
1
Carl Cohen: Democracy. Beijing: The Commercial Press. 1988. P.12.
2
See Daniel A. Bell’s book Beyond Liberal Democracy. Shanghai: SDX Joint Publishing Company. 2009)
1
Research Background
Democracy is the only system that can decide whether political ruling is endowed with
political legitimacy. China enjoys a long history but didn’t generate democracy in ancient
times, instead, democracy is introduced from foreign countries when the notion of human
rights hasn’t been universally accepted and the middle class hasn’t become the major part
of the population. China took in the western democratic theories in the time of national
peril and accepted the democratic system as a way to save the world. But in the May
Fourth Movement which symbolizes the start of Chinese contemporary history in 1919,
Chinese hold high two banners: democracy and science. Saving China by democracy and
science was the consensus of the intellectuals at that time which becomes the great
driving force of introducing western democratic theories. Saving China means triumphing
over the war of aggression to win the independence and overturning the ruling of warlords
to change the backward society and establish a prosperous country. We need to establish
a powerful government if we want to realize the independence of our nations or change
the backward society. Thus, democracy pursuers always associate the realization of
democracy with the establishment of a new country since May Fourth Movement. When
the new country is established, they also associate the realization and enhancement of
democracy with promoting governments’ ruling ability, and it gradually grows into a unique
political culture characterized by emphasizing the democratic politics’ effect on
governance with Chinese features. Under the influence of this political culture, the
democratic system will not be accepted by the public if it can’t help people to solve the
problems they faced and safeguard the political stability and government efficiency.
It is known to all that China practices the one-party rule after revolution. The ruling position
is formed in the process of revolution rather than by democratic voting. Though the party’s
leadership is not chosen by voting, the party always upholds democracy and sets it as the
administration target. Now with the gone of the generation of the revolutionary leaders, the
implementation of opening-up policy, the establishment of rule of law, the enhancement of
economic independence and sense of rights, especially when coordination and resolution
of the interest conflicts have become the major challenges for the party, the practice of
democracy is becoming the foundation to maintain political justice of the ruling position.
The party itself also considers democracy as the life of the party and the country. Under
such circumstance, is it possible for the government to choose a pattern of democracy
that will not damage its ruling position to advance the reform of political system, improve
its ability and performance, thus in answer to the challenges? If the party does so, what
effect will it bring to the national reform of political system?
According to the literature review, since the establishment of the first democratic regime in
USA, the effectiveness of democratic system on administration has been a focus. As
Alexander Hamilton stated in Federalist Papers, “I believe it may be laid down as a
general rule, that (people’s) confidence in and obedience to a government, will commonly
be proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration. ”1 After that, democracy
being a effective system in public governance has become a consensus among
1
Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison.
ShangWu Press, 1980
Federalist Papers.
2
P133. Chinese Edition.
democratic thinkers. But, after Schumpeter considers democracy as a voting approach to
select leaders to decide for the public,1 democracy equals to voting in the works of
various scholars, and the function of democracy is considered to provide political
legitimacy. In 1960, Lipset published Political Man, in which Lipset emphasized the
relationship between legitimacy of democracy and governance performance. It believes
that if it performances poor in governance, then there is no guarantee of the validity of
democratic system2. Based on the fact that there’s a democracy recession in some
democratic countries in the later period of third wave of democratization, Larry Diamond
further proves Lipset’s idea that relying solely on democratic voting can’t solidifying the
democratic regime, instead, the democratic system should effectively govern the public
affairs.3
Generally speaking, though there’s difference in substantial contents between the
democratic governance performance stated in western literatures and the effectiveness of
democracy Chinese people pay attention to, western scholars’ emphasis of the
effectiveness of democratic system’s governance still agrees with the modern Chinese
political cultures’ emphasis on the effectiveness of democracy. However, in order to
improve democratic performance, we need to enhance the public involvement in
administration of public affairs and public decision makings. The political legitimacy is
beyond question when democracy has become the axiom of politics. But, from the aspect
of practical experience, to advance the democratic politics, I think we should discuss the
following questions seriously: what kind of public involvement can truly help the solution
and improvement of governance performance in advancing the public administration and
implementing public decisions? Are there any alternative ways to participate which is
universal and effective besides voting in a country like China where it has long been
dominated by the bureaucratic administration? Can we find something that can help to
further deepen democratic politics and help to solve the problems in the accumulated
resources and the self-constructed governance framework? And, should the democratic
reform starts from the central government or the local government? If it starts from the
local government, will the system environment influences the local reform’s progress and
effectiveness?
With the above questions, I’d like to take Hangzhou- the city where I live as an example to
seek an answer. Of course, I choose Hangzhou not primarily because I live here, but
because: first, Hangzhou, as the provincial capital, used to be the capital of Southern
Song Dynasty in history. It enjoys a long history and developed cultures with a permanent
resident population of 8,100,000. Its Per Capita GDP has exceeded 10,000 US dollars. It
is one of the richest districts in China and one of the most developed areas regarding the
private economy. China is undergoing massive urbanization at present. Hangzhou is a
developed city, its development and governance serves as a typical case for the future
1
Joseph A. Schumpeter. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Pp312-354. Chinese Edition. Shangwu
Press, 1979
2
Seymour Martin Lipset. Political Men: The Social Basis for Politics. Pp55-66. Chinese Edition.
Shanghai People’s Press. 1997
3
Larry Diamond: The democratic Rollback, foreign affairs , March—April, 2008
3
development and governance in China. Secondly, In China today, the government is
faced with three main tasks: boosting the economic development, improving livelihood
and living quality; preventing corruption and safeguarding judicial justice. And in the
present phase of development in China, improving livelihood has become the most
important task. Hangzhou municipal government is the only government who proposes to
advance the livelihood with democracy and set it as the government’s developing strategy
in China.1 Though lots of local governments attach great importance to the improvement
of livelihood, but their practices are more locally and randomly if it hasn’t become part of
the government strategy, while Hangzhou’s practice is overall and has more plans and
constructions. Therefore, taking Hangzhou as a sample can better illustrate the
relationship between public involvement and the solving of livelihood issues. Thirdly, the
author serves as the Committee member of the Consultative Committee of Hangzhou
municipal government for years, having a better understanding of Hangzhou’s practice in
government administration thus can make a comparatively objective review and
evaluation.
Citizen-oriented performance evaluation of the government administration
The most important practice of Hangzhou’s democratic working system is the
performance evaluation of the units directly under municipal government and districts and
counties/cities participated by the public and the implementation of performance
management.
Since 2000, Hangzhou has started a voting campaign of “satisfying and unsatisfying units”.
The purpose of this social evaluation is to realize the practical transformation of style of
work in units directly under municipal government and effect a radical cure of “Four
Negatives” syndrome, i.e. difficult entrance, cold face, harsh voice and reluctance to solve
problems. In 2005, the city government decided to establish a comprehensive evaluation,
which includes social evaluation (voting campaign of “satisfying and unsatisfying units”.)、
objective evaluation and leader evaluation, and innovation and high-quality creation is
otherwise set as bonus points for comprehensive evaluation.2 In this comprehensive
evaluation, the half of the whole weight is contributed to the social evaluation. In 2006, the
municipal evaluation office was formally established to stimulate the institutionalized,
standard and professional development of comprehensive evaluation. In 2007, the
comprehensive evaluation was expanded to the districts and counties/cities.
.
The voters in social evaluation include citizen’ representatives, municipal party
representatives, municipal NPC representatives, retired carders of provincial government
affiliated institutions, scholars, supervisors, leaders of the district /county(city) , heads of
1
The establishment of the strategy of improving livelihood by democracy on 4 th session of 10th Municipal
Party Committee’s Congress in July, 2008. but early in 2003, Hangzhou has set the solving of “7 tough
issues” as the primary task of government administration.
2
Evaluation can be classified into two types, namely, comprehensive evaluation and seeking opinions;
the former applies to the party committee, government and associations, the latter applies to the general
office, CPPCC organizations, court and procurator ate, development zone enterprises, state-owned or
state-controlled enterprises.
4
ministries/bureaus in district /county(city), heads of the street (town) party committee
(including NPC), heads of the community party committee and neighborhood committee,
enterprises representatives, etc. Among them, citizen representatives and enterprises
representatives are selected randomly; retired carders of provincial government affiliated
institutions, scholars, supervisors, are selected by invitation, others are selected
according to their social status or occupations. They evaluate government performance by
various ways such as filling questionnaires, and give suggestions and comments on
administration and governance of the departments.
Citizen-oriented is the basic orientation of the comprehensive evaluation, which means
insisting on the direction of “Letting People Judge and Making People Satisfied”, the
starting point and the end of the comprehensive evaluation are focused on solving the hot
and difficult topics concerned by people, and the degree of satisfaction is taken as the
fundamental standard for the evaluation of the work of all organizations. During the
comprehensive evaluation , the important is also attached to the processes and results of
how the units perform duties and accomplish objectives, and to the improvement of daily
work.
The voting campaign is held once a year, 10 times in total from 2000 to 2009. According to
the statistics, in the past 10 years, the number of evaluators increases from 6000 to 15000
(in which the number of citizen representatives is 4000 in year 2000, 6300 in year 2001,
10000 in the year 2003 and after; and 1000 migrant workers included since year 2007);
the distributing and reclaiming of questionnaires are well organized, and the reclaim rate
is above 99% on average; and the number of suggestions and comments received ranges
from 6000 to 11000 (see table 1).
Table1：The distribution and reclaiming of questionnaires selecting the satisfying
departments/municipal government-affiliated institutions in Hangzhou（2000—2009）
Year
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
5916
8919
15310
15516
15232
14990
14447
14786
14808
15076
5736
8849
15195
15404
15126
14421
14386
14762
14799
14962
10701
6242
6921
8434
9676
6794
7522
10630
10915
11085
Questionnaire
distributed
Questionnaire
reclaimed
Number of
suggestions
Sources: based on the material provided in the speeches on evaluating and other
published or unpublished material.
Most of the public’s suggestions and comments are concerned with the specific work of
the municipal government-affiliated departments, but some of them are universal.
According to the statistics, from year 2000 to 2002, public’s suggestions and comments
5
are mainly concerned with 7 livelihood-related problems, the so-called “7 tough
problems”： .traffic & parking ，housing，medical treatment ，education ，.living &
employment of the needy family ，sanitation and the work style of the officials in public
administration. After 2006, as shown in comprehensive evaluations and other
investigations conducted by the government, food safety, environment protection, rising
price, etc, are additional concerned issues. Therefore, Hangzhou’s “7 tough problems” are
actually “7+X” problems (see table 2 and table 3). Of the “7 tough/7+X problems”, 1except
the bureau’s working style part, others are all closely related to the public’s interests. “7
tough/7+Xproblems” has been the focus of the society since the very beginning, and
different social strata’s judgments on the livelihood issue which needs to be solved
immediately makes the government and public realize that different social classes have
different orders of priority.
Table 2：Views on the livelihood issue that needs to be solved immediately in
Hangzhou（2006-2009）
2009
2008
2007
2006
1.traffic & parking
15.05%
1.food safety
15.86%
1 traffic &
parking
19.72%
1. traffic &
parking
18.34%
2.housing
14.22%
2. traffic &
parking
15.11%
2.housing
14.94%
2.medical
treatment
16.49%
3.medical
treatment
13.80%
3. living &
employment of
the needy family
11.69%
3.medical
treatment
14.77%
3.food safety
16.33%
4.food safety
8.79%
4.rising price
11.61%
4.food safety
14.47%
4. living &
employment of
the needy
family
14.44%
5.living &
employment of the
needy family
8.33%
5.medical
treatment
11.46%
5. living &
employment of
the needy family
13.84%
5.housing
11.29%
6.rising price
8.30%
6.housing
9.99%
6.environment
protection
9.55%
6.environment
protection
10.76%
7.public security
6.97%
7.environment
protection
6.59%
7.public
administration
6.02%
7.public
administration
5.58%
8.relocation
3.76%
8.public
administration
4.89%
8.education
3.41%
8.education
3.48%
9.environment
protection
3.53%
9.running of
business
4.53%
9.sanitation
3.30%
9.sanitation
2.61%
10.taking care of
the elders & the
young
3.51%
10.relocation
3.57%
10.others
0.68%
11.public
administration
3.42%
11.education
2.73%
12.education
3.03%
12.sanitation
1.96%
13.property
management
2.50%
14.safety in
working & labor
1.92%
But, for the sake of illustration, the municipal government and public still use the word “7 tough
problems”.
1
6
protection
15.public utility
services
1.60%
16.sanitation
1.27%
Sources ： based on the sources provided by Office of Hangzhou Performance
Measurement Commission
Table 3：The vote distribution of the top livelihood problem in Hangzhou (2009) among different groups of
people
heads
of the
street
(town)
Head of
the
commu
nity
neighbo
rhood
committ
ee
Enterpri
ses
represe
ntatives
Migra
nt
work
ers
18.5%
19.0%
16.2%
18.8%
9.5%
15.8%
17.6%
17.8%
12.6%
18.2%
21.2
%
10.1%
12.7%
15.1%
14.2%
12.8%
15.5%
15.4
%
5.7%
10.3%
6.8%
7.2%
5.9%
6.1%
7.1%
5.2%
11.0%
7.3%
11.1%
9.5%
10.5%
9.7%
11.0%
6.4%
6.5%
2.2%
2.8%
4.4%
4.8%
2.1%
2.2%
3.5%
4.6%
6.6%
11.7
%
8.8%
3.4%
4.4%
3.8%
6.1%
3.6%
4.1%
2.4%
6.4%
4.2%
4.8%
relocation
3.6%
4.3%
4.3%
1.6%
1.9%
8.4%
5.1%
7.4%
7.6%
3.2%
2.3%
Environment
al protection
3.3%
5.8%
7.1%
2.8%
5.6%
5.4%
4.7%
4.2%
4.2%
2.7%
2.4%
Take care of
old and
young
4.1%
2.6%
3.1%
3.2%
5.0%
1.9%
2.1%
1.0%
2.0%
3.1%
1.8%
Administrati
on
3.4%
3.5%
2.5%
0.6%
1.6%
3.9%
2.5%
4.1%
3.2%
3.9%
4.6%
Education
2.2%
2.6%
2.9%
5.4%
2.7%
2.8%
3.5%
3.0%
3.2%
4.5%
7.4%
Property
managemen
t
2.9%
2.4%
2.7%
1.6%
2.4%
2.4%
2.4%
2.5%
5.0%
1.5%
1.2%
Safety in
working and
labor
protection
2.0%
1.0%
1.9%
1.3%
2.1%
1.2%
1.8%
1.3%
1.5%
1.3%
3.6%
public utility
services
1.3%
1.7%
1.3%
3.8%
2.7%
1.8%
2.4%
2.6%
2.0%
2.5%
1.1%
Sanitation
1.6%
0.8%
0.3%
1.3%
1.3%
0.3%
0.3%
1.4%
1.6%
0.5%
1.2%
Citizen
representati
ves
Munici
pal
Party
repres
entativ
es
Municipal
NPC
members
Parking &
traffic
13.4%
21.5%
Housing
12.0%
Medical
treatment
Municipal
CPPCC
members
Retired
cadres,
scholars, &
supervisor
s
leaders
of the
district
/county
(city)
heads of
ministries/bureaus
in district
/county(city)
20.4%
23.7%
19.6%
21.4%
15.5%
12.8%
19.6%
12.7%
13.4%
15.4%
9.0%
13.9%
Food safety
9.7%
7.8%
13.5%
Living &
employment
of the needy
8.6%
9.5%
Price
9.9%
Public
security
Sources：provided by Office of Hangzhou Performance Measurement Commission
7
Since the evaluators are from all walks of life, their suggestions and comments are typical
and authoritative as public opinions. One thing that is valuable of Hangzhou is that, though
the “7 tough problems “is the by-product of voting campaign of a satisfying government, it
is considered to be the priority job for the municipal party committee and government
since 2003 in response to the public’s request. The government joins the efforts of the
whole city to solve the “7 tough problems”. It associates the solving of livelihood issues
with the evaluation of government performance and voting campaign. For this purpose,
the municipal party committee and municipal government makes overall plans of solutions
at the municipal level, and at the same time decompose the tasks to the affiliated
institutions and assess them as part of their annual working plan. As requested by the
municipal committee, Office of Hangzhou Performance Evaluation Commission delivers
the original complaints and suggestions and comments whose wording has been changed
a little to the municipal government affiliated institutions, with the request of implementing
the improvement plans. When received these suggestions, the target institutions should
conduct diagnosing researches out of the institutions to trace the problem
comprehensively. Then based on the suggestions given by the public, all the institutions
should make improvement or working plans accordingly and open to those who they
worked for; since 2003, 12 institutions have made their working plans public, extensively
seeking opinions and supervisions. The number of institutions who make their plans public
has reached 92 by the year 2009, including all the municipal institutions which provide
public administration and social services. To better inform the public and ask them to
participate in solving “7 tough problems”, Hangzhou has set up a special website on
government portals and Hangzhou.com.1
In the annual comprehensive evaluation, the public evaluates the administrative
performance of solving livelihood issues and publishes the results of the evaluation. The
results will also be associated with the amount of the bonus and the promotion of the
leaders，thus reinforce the motivation and restraint effect of evaluation of all institutions,
the leaders in particular.
Hangzhou’s evaluation campaign of government’s performance provides a stable and
institutionalized platform for people to evaluate government performance and participate
in public administration. At the same time, it takes in the public opinion by regular survey,
seeking comments and suggestions from the public. After being verified, those
suggestions and comments can serve as important basis for determining the
administration policy and its contents, based on which the government makes decisions in
a way that is public and can be participated. The effect, content, and policy of
administration will be open to the judgment again. In this way, some new suggestions and
comments will come up. This cycle based on annual performance evaluation promotes the
development of Hangzhou substantially and sustainably.
1
Refer to page 7, Hangzhou Daily, June 11, 2003 and page B7-B10, Hangzhou Daily, May 27, 2009
8
Evaluation
Rectification
Feedback
Feedback
Rectification
Evaluation
Chart 1: the flow chart of the evaluation process of democratic performance evaluation
Other Forms of Democratic Governance
Besides performance evaluation, there are some other forms of rules、methods and
mechanism with a democratic style in local government which can be included into
democratic working system.
The open-ended decision making. The so-called open-ended decision making, is a
decision making system involving public engagement by law in which the whole process is
open to citizens and the media when Hangzhou municipal government makes decision on
public services and public administration issues, including the proposal of the draft,
discussion of the proposals, organization of decision-making conferences, and the news
release of the decision. The trial begins in 1999. The executive meeting of Hangzhou
municipal government is open to the public since November 2007; The online notification
of proposed Government Work Report (draft) for discussion before the Municipal Chinese
People's Congress (CPC) which calls for public opinion begins in January, 2008; Since
2009, 13 districts, counties(municipals) government has promoted the open-ended
decision making; The municipal meeting of the Standing Committee is broadcasted online
in August 2009; then the municipal Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC) in November 2009, and then the Municipal Standing Committee of the CPC in
December. The open-ended decision making is characterized by the following aspects:
widely soliciting public opinions before the meeting; disclosing the meeting information
and avoiding undercover activities; encouraging public involvement either by video
connection, net forums or on-site participation, thus providing interactions between the
public and decision-makers; giving feedbacks to opinions and suggestions proposed by
the public. Among all the above open-ended decision makings, the opening of the meeting
of standing committee, the people’s congress, the public notification of Government Work
Report (draft), and the CPPCC is already institutionalized and normalized, though the
disclosure of party’s meetings is still selective.
9
The system of soliciting public opinions. Since 2000, Hangzhou has established the
“Public Opinion Soliciting Office” which is responsible for soliciting and organizing public
opinions both on a daily basis and topic basis. The first one is the basic way of soliciting
public opinions by receiving mails, phone calls, faxes, emails, messages online and visits.
It collects and organizes various suggestions and transfer them to the department
concerned for processing. While soliciting based on the topics is different. The
government or department concerned will release the particular issues they want to get
opinions of via the office, then transfer the collected opinions to the department concerned
for their reference. The office calls for public’s opinion of “ the citizen-oriented projects”
every year since 2002, among which, the government will choose 10 projects, which will
go into the Government Work Report reported to the Municipal People’s Government.
They will become key components of the government administration if approved and the
handling of which would be reported on next year’s CPC, under the supervision of
peoples’ representatives. Though the soliciting of public opinions is administered by the
government, it mainly depends on citizens’ involvement. Every year, the government will
get more than 10,000 suggestions, a great many of which would be taken on city
constructions. To encourage public involvement, the government will award and recognize
advisers, advocate their opinions on newspaper and organize seminars of excellent ones
in which their suggestions could be directly delivered to the authorities.
Create a governance structure jointly involved by the government, social
organizations and the public. Hangzhou Municipal Government not only establishes a
great variety of “multi-level social organizations”, but also a governance structure involved
by multi-levels of government, social organizations, and the public. For instance,
Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Sports is the government office providing public sports
services, while Sports Federation is a social organization managing sports activities under
the leadership of governments. To provide better public services, each street is equipped
with a branch of sports federation, each community with a gym club, thus creating a sports
service network, which greatly enhances the development of the public sports. Another
example is the conflict resolution; it is the main job of the justice department and civil
affairs department, while in Xiacheng District of Hangzhou, there are so-called
peacemaker associations in 71 communities in the year 2009. The associations are
mainly composed of the retired officials, teachers, psychologists, lawyers, and leaders of
Community Autonomy Associations. The number of registered members that year
reaches 933. They are familiar with the neighborhood, thus they can actively participating
in disputes resolutions among residents by visiting and joint meetings. They solve the
problems through reason and empathy, without the restrictions of procedures, forms and
status, playing a crucial role that can’t be replaced by some authorities. It is an effective
adjust mechanism of resolving disputes in districts. Hangzhou has established a
governance network combined with government (party committee of city district),
residents’ committee and public service center of district. The cross appointment and
united administration effectively integrate the job of government, associations and
volunteers. In some districts, the cooperative coordination committee is established to
include the enterprises in the district governance network. The establishment of
governance network helps to enhance the efficiency of district administration.
10
Public involvement in discussion and decision making of public affairs. Under the
original system, Chinese local governments play a role of preside and decision maker in
public affairs administration, while the public is the performer and bearer of local public
decisions. During the recent 10 years or more, the local government submits more and
more public affairs to the public for discussion and make decisions based on the results of
discussion. It gradually changes the government-public relationship from the
managing-and-being managed to a consultative and cooperative relationship. For
example, to establish its own brand, Hangzhou chooses 10 candidates of brands by a
round of selecting and sets “the city of living quality” as the city brand of Hangzhou by
public voting. Whenever Hangzhou build public projects, the government will inform the
public of the design proposals and makes decisions based on the voting results of the
public. Hangzhou’s major municipal engineering projects, such as the protection project of
the West Lake, the protection project of Xixi Wetland, the protection project of Hangzhou
Grand Canal, the dilapidated old house improvement project, the courtyard improvement
project etc. To solve the parking issue and the traffic jam caused by illegal parking, the
government carries out a new parking policy which gives considerations to both right of
way and parking with the consent of the majority by public voting. They conduct surveys;
visit families; carry out debates on newspapers; have face-to-face dialogues with major
leaders, scholars, traffic managers and the public, etc. To facilitate the public involvement
in public affairs, Hangzhou sets up Hangzhou Web Chamber on the internet; and starts
regular TV and broadcasting programs for the public to discuss public affairs, especially
when the government launches a new policy or when some particular hot issues receive
special attentions. Usually Hangzhou Web Chamber and some local TV stations will
conduct series of discussions and conversations, not only to help the government get a
better understanding of the public’s thoughts, but also to advance the public’s
understanding and performing of the government policies. Generally speaking, the public
involvement in discussion and decision making of public affairs in Hangzhou has changed
from an occasional ornamental behavior under the original system to a normal way of
administration; and the public have gradually formed the habit of participating in public
affairs, thus the public involvement has become a life style.
The communist party proposes to organize the society with democracy. The modern
democratic politics is run under the organization and coordination of parties; therefore it is
obvious that the democratic governance performance basically depends on the party’s
understanding of democracy. Party’s understanding of democracy and the role the Party
itself plays are keys to solving the livelihood issues by citizen participation and protecting
people’s rights as well as social justice. In the case of Hangzhou, the role the Party plays
is mainly reflected in the following aspects: Regarding the guideline and macro-layout, we
should be aware that the government performance is judged by the public satisfaction;
initiating the performance evaluation with the involvement of citizens; giving priority to the
7 tough livelihood issues; proposing a development strategy of “ promoting civil livelihood
by democracy”; setting the general target of “ establishing Hangzhou as a city with quality;
urging every levels of governments to get citizens’ opinions of how and what to perform,
their needs and satisfaction of government administration; implementing people’s rights to
know, to participate, to choose and to supervise, expanding the scope of participation from
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various levels and fields. Apparently, without the clarified sense of democracy in guideline
and need of democracy on layout, it is hard to push the solving of livelihood issues driven
by public participation. As for the specific approaches to advance public participation, all
levels of party communities should strive to provide chances for people to express. In this
way, the efficiency of participation along with their effectiveness and initiative of further
participation can be enhanced, and with the full use of social investigation techniques and
various effective ways it can gradually form a regular, comprehensive, systematic, and
multi level network to solicit public opinions. Moreover, the received opinions should be
analyzed carefully, from which we could discard the dross and select the essential, thus
meeting the needs of the public. As for solving livelihood issues, the party should carry out
its work based on the public’s interests, playing a role of leading and coordinating,
gathering all the resources to solve the problem; and at the same time, we should be sure
that the plan will give considerations to both short-term and long-term, partial and overall
relationships, democracy and science, justice and efficiency, thus improving the balanced
development of all aspects in the society.
In short, during the recent years, the frequent, institutionalized, and equal interaction
between government and public has become a basic approach to the operation of the
government power. At present, the administration of most public affairs and the public
policy formulation in all government departments of Hangzhou, ranging from the
primary-level organizations to the municipal party committee, municipal government, are
included in this interaction process. They improve their performance in the process of
interaction. With such interaction, the public are willing to express their interest demands
and participate in the establishment and implementation of the public policies; while the
government gradually learns to solve the livelihood issues and other public issues with
democratic methods. Hangzhou’s practice of democracy is mainly about safeguarding civil
rights (rights to survive and to develop) and improving quality of life. It strives to meet the
needs of the public to participate and construct an effective leadership together with a
motivation and restraint mechanism, thus institutionalize and materialize the governance
concept of co-managing public affairs by the government, society and individuals ( see
table 1). Hangzhou’s practice tells us that a democratic working system which provides an
institutionalized authoritative interest expression mechanism, open decision-making
mechanism, extensive participation mechanism, and supervision and feedback
mechanism in the implementation process can play a crucial role in solving the livelihood
issues and public administration affairs.
The Improvement of local People’s Livelihood
Hangzhou’s democratic working system, greatly improves the local governance and public
service, and its administration wins the approval and support of its citizens. Below are the
examples of Hangzhou’s achievements in improving livelihood issues.
From the government’s point of view, the practice of democratic working system provides
a complete democratic public policy course to solve the livelihood issues. The complete
policy course is composed of 4 stages, namely, the identification of policy issues; the
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planning and evaluation of alternative policies; the establishment of the policy; the
performance evaluation of the implementation and the decisions of prolonging, adjusting
or terminating based on that.1 In the case of Hangzhou, The party committee and the
government not only respect the public involvement when making public policies, but also
specified the rule of being honest from the perspective of effective governance. To be
more specific, first, in the stage of identifying the issue of livelihood polices, the public
directly expresses their opinions and become the subject who identify the issue of
livelihood policy. What the public cares most and what needs to be solved immediately are
decided by the public itself. The party committee and the government have done some
organizing, leading, integrating job in identifying the issue of livelihood policies, such as
the proposal of “7 tough issues”. They don’t go beyond their duties and replace public
opinions with their own. Secondly, in the stage of planning and evaluating the alternative
policies, since the government functional department and professionals are clearer about
the technical conditions, legal regulations, financial status, and the implementation and
performance of the policy in the previous stage, and they can anticipate the influence of
the new policies on future development and related fields, thus they are the subjects who
plan and evaluate the policies, while the needs and wishes of the public are the
motivations, and to meet the desires and needs is the purpose. Thirdly, in the phase of
determining the public polices, the decision-making mechanism should be arranged in line
with the principle that the party and government leads while the public participates. The
livelihood issues that can be solved with laws should be decided by NPC; those that are
closely related to the public’s interest and can be chosen rationally with their own
cognitions should be discussed and decided by the public; and those that are heavily
restrained by techniques, regulations and budget, should be mainly decided by special
institutions. Finally, in the stage of evaluating the policies, as well as in the stage of
evaluating, public’s comments should be taken as a major reference. Policy evaluating is
mainly concerned with the effect of policy on target groups and its benefitted groups.
Professionals’ evaluations matter, but the comments made by the public who directly
benefit from the policies are more correct and real. They are likely to point out the political
and social effectiveness of public policies, and serving as a primary reference to decide
whether it should be continued, adjusted or terminated. In a word, in terms of solving
public livelihood issues, Hangzhou municipal government as a organizer of formulating
the public policies, not only make full use of its advantages in information, resources,
coordination, regulation, and clarified duties; but also extensively join the efforts of the
public, seeking public opinions and implementing democratic policies to guide and restrain
government behaviors.
From the society’s point of view, the institutionalized and stable public involvement creates
a favorable condition to solve the livelihood issues. To be more specific, first, it gives due
respect to the public’s basic rights and protect their dignity when solving livelihood issues.
Secondly, it assures the symmetry of information. For the livelihood issue, the public ones
in particular, the government is to blame. The basic way is to formulate and implement the
public policy, and a scientific, reasonable process of formulating the policy should meet
Refer to Thomas R. Dye, Understanding Public Policy. 10th version, Beijing: Hua Xia Press, 2004.
281-295.
1
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the basic requirement- symmetry of information. Since the livelihood issues concerns
public’s interests, no one feels keenly and knows better than themselves. Therefore,
public involvement is the basic way to realize the symmetry of information. Thirdly,
increase the degree of implementation. Respecting public’s judgment on livelihood issues
and inviting them to participate can better locate the problem, and gains recognition from
the public, thus cutting down the deal cost in practice and improving efficiency. Fourthly,
join the efforts of the whole society. The fiscal revenue is the basic source to solve the
livelihood issues, but it is limited at a certain period, especially for a developing country
like China. The improvement of livelihood issues is related to the interests of every
individual; therefore, they are willing to express their opinions and motivated to solve the
concrete problems, while public participation is the basic approach to organize the whole
society to contribute to solving the livelihood issues. Finally, advance the solution of the
issues further. The importance of the livelihood issues, especially the public ones, requires
serious consideration form any responsible government in state governance. On the other
hand, we have to notice that, the government with such a heavy workload is easy to be
distracted, and with some officials’ pursuit of the so-called performance or other
considerations, the livelihood issues will be neglected or done at a superficial level. They
may not intend to keep seek solutions. While public involvement can not only highlights
the importance and urgency of the issues, but also poses pressures on and supervise
them, to make them morally obligated, thus push forward the solving of the issues.
Hangzhou’s measures play a key role in advancing the solving of the “7 tough problems”,
taking the number and relative rate of complaints received from the public when
evaluating the governments’ performance as an example, compared with that of 2002
when the “7 tough problems” were first proposed, in 2009, the number of complaints on “7
tough problems” have been decreased greatly (except housing and traffic issue) among
all the complaints (see table 4), that is to say, most of the problems have been under
control with years of efforts. For example, to solve the living and employment issue of the
needy family, Hangzhou modifies “Provisions of Hangzhou Municipal on Basic Pension
Insurance”, expanding the coverage of social insurance. It also implements positive
employment policies to make sure that there’s no zero-employment household. Before the
breakout of the financial crisis, the registered urban unemployed rate is reduced to 3.23%,
the lowest during the recent years. To solve the sanitation issue, Hangzhou pays great
attention to enhance the management of city sanitation. Especially with the efforts of
thousands of sanitation workers, the city has taken on a brand new look. Now the two
issues have been under control, and the complaints of these two issues only account for
1% or a little more, the public’s overall satisfaction of these two issues are comparatively
high (see table 4, table 5). To solve the education issue, Hangzhou initiates the practice of
canceling tuitions and fees of rural students. 51 education groups have been established,
188 primary and secondary schools (kindergartens) adopts the Group School-running
strategy of famous schools; the coverage rate of excellent education during compulsory
education period reaches 55%, the rate in 6 districts even reaches 80%; The enrollment
ratio of above provincial key middle schools reaches 70.6%, the rate in 6 districts reaches
86.1%. The number of complaints of this issue now reduces to 3% below (see table 4).
The public administration issue has been improved, the complaints account for 3.42%
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(see table 4). To solve the medical treatment issue, Hangzhou implements the health
aiding for the needy, modifies the “Provisions of Hangzhou Municipal on Basic Pension
Insurance”, as a result, the participation rate of New Cooperative Medical System reaches
98.21% in total; it also implements mass drug purchasing by public bidding and open the
market of prescription drugs, which cutting down the medical cost, thus the complaints it
received only account for 2.14% (see table 4 and table 5).
Table 4：The comparison of the number of complaints on “7 tough issues” in 2009
and 2002
2002
Items
2009
Change rate of
the percentage of
No. of
complaints
Percentage (%)
All the issues
6921
100.00
11085
100.00
“7 tough problems”
2341
33.82
3225
29.09
-11.59
Sanitation
433
6.26
138
1.24
-80.19
Public
administration
668
9.65
379
3.42
-64.56
Medical treatment
309
4.46
237
2.14
-52.02
Education
257
3.71
259
2.34
-36.93
Living &
employment of the
needy
101
1.46
110
1.00
Traffic & Parking
405
5.85
1170
10.55
+80.34
Housing
168
2.42
932
8.41
+247.52
No. of complaints
Percentage (%)
complaints (%)
-31.51
Sources: based on the original complaints of year 2002 and 2009 provided by Office of
Hangzhou Performance Evaluation Commission
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Table 5：Vote distribution of the least satisfied item of the “7 +X problems” among
different groups of voters in 2008（%）
Choices
Daily life &
Employme
nt of the
needy
Medical
treatment
Educatio
n
Housing
Traffic and
parking
Sanitatio
n
Public
Administ
ration
Food
safety
Environ
ment
protectio
n
Citizen
representativ
es
13.409
15.361
2.141
13.059
22.346
2.011
6.034
21.795
3.843
Party
representativ
es
6.236
12.702
1.386
9.007
38.568
2.309
6.467
16.859
6.467
Party
representativ
es
12.923
8.923
1.231
5.846
34.769
0.923
2.769
22.769
9.846
CPPCC
members
2.957
7.796
1.613
9.946
40.860
2.688
4.839
20.430
8.871
Scholars
7.853
8.901
1.047
7.330
38.220
2.094
4.712
24.084
5.759
Leaders of
the district
6.375
9.960
1.195
10.359
43.426
2.390
4.781
15.139
6.375
Migrant
workers
10.261
13.246
8.116
39.925
12.966
1.959
5.597
6.437
1.493
Enterprise
representativ
es
6.324
11.858
3.953
19.895
31.621
2.372
7.246
13.570
3.162
Community
leaders
17.012
12.009
2.359
10.936
27.877
1.716
7.934
15.868
4.289
Town and
Street
8.617
17.034
1.403
13.627
39.078
1.403
5.010
8.216
5.611
Country/distri
ct ministries
8.163
14.129
2.512
11.617
39.874
1.570
4.082
12.245
5.808
Provincial
government-a
ffiliated
institutions
7.207
14.414
3.604
18.018
38.739
1.802
3.604
10.811
1.802
Sources：provided by Office of Hangzhou Performance Evaluation Commission
But generally speaking, Hangzhou’s efforts in solving the livelihood issues represented by
“7 tough problems” have won the recognition of the public. The public’s overall satisfaction
with the government’s job has maintained the level above 90% as shown in the recent 4
years’ evaluation of governments’ efforts in solving the “7 tough issues” (see table 6). In a
nationwide survey conducted by Oriental Outlook Weekly, Hangzhou has been voted as
the happiest city for 7 years, which is also an award for the government’s efforts.
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Table 6：Evaluation on the general effects of Hangzhou’s efforts in solving the “7
tough issues /7 +x ”
Quite
Choices
Basically
Not very
Satisfied %
Overall
Not satisfied
satisfied %
satisfied %
satisfied
satisfaction
2006
10.60%
36.56%
42.72%
8.99%
1.12%
89.88%
2007
13.46%
35.19%
42.53%
7.68%
1.15%
91.18%
2008
20.90%
40.61%
34.25%
3.87%
0.36%
95.77%
2009
20.66%
40.02%
34.31%
4.61%
0.40%
94.99%
Sources: based on the information provided by Office of Hangzhou Performance
Evaluation Commission
Some Issues of Democratic working System
There’s room for improvement in solving the livelihood issue. For example, according to
the investigation, during the recent years, the housing problem and the increasing living
cost have caused concerns among the public,1 who urges the government to solve them
immediately; the poor traffic and service of some monopolized state-owned enterprises
have got the most complaints in 2009; and there’s a considerable gap between locals and
migrant workers regarding the quality of life; besides, the transparency of public finance
and public involvement which are keys to solving livelihood issues still can’t meet the
needs of the society, etc.
The causes of these above problems are results of the development and China’s macro
system. The housing issue and traffic issue can be the results of the development. In fact,
Hangzhou has done a lot and made some achievements, such as carrying out lots of
innovative measures, investing a lot in solving these problems. In solving the housing
issues, the government adheres to the policies of “low-rent house, affordable renting
house, economically affordable house, capped-price house, refit house”. In 2007, the
per-capital using space in urban areas in Hangzhou is 20.7 square meters, 5.8 square
meters larger than that of 2000, ranks 4 nationwide; urban residents’ self-owned house
rate reaches 88.5%, 27.5% higher than that of 2000. In solving the traffic and parking
issues, Hangzhou has speeded its development of the public transportation system of
“subway, bus, taxi, water bus, water taxi, free bicycle”, and implemented some
well-received measures such as opening the parking lots of government compound to the
public at night. Thus, the main road capacity has been enhanced and the parking lots
1
According to the survey investigating the living issues that need to be solved to uplifting living quality
for the Hangzhou government, which is provided by Office of Hangzhou Performance Measurement
Commission, among the 12 choices shown in the questionnaire, decreasing the living cost ranks No. 1
or No.2.
17
have been increased. However, the physical conditions needed to solve the housing and
traffic issue and complexity is more demanding, and its time is much longer than that of
solving the employment issue, and it’s more restricted than the later (for example,
compared with 2002, the increase of cars per year is more than 100,000; and more and
more migrant works wishes to settle in Hangzhou.). The adopted measures will take effect
in a few years (such as the construction of subway and low-rent houses), therefore, the
public’s increasing dissatisfaction with these two problems are the results of the
development, but it also urges the government to make consistent efforts to solve these
two problems. It must be admitted that, Hangzhou municipal government is clear about
the current situation, and is taking all possible measures to meet the needs of the society.
The macro system is the reason for these problems also, because China is a unitary state,
a country with a one-party system, theoretically speaking, the local governments’ ruling
power is endowed by the central government, the local party committee is under the
leadership of the central committee. Hangzhou municipal government, as a local
government, whose democratic working system, will inevitably influenced by the state
structure and political system, which also restrict its performance to some extent.
Hangzhou’s deficiency in solving the livelihood issues such as the slowly improving of the
migrant workers’ living quality is also due to the system and the problem itself. There are
nearly 2,000,000 migrant workers, and most of them are the peasants from the
countryside, who have farm lands there. When they go into the town, they get the job, but
don’t enjoy the same access to the remuneration, housing, children’s education and social
insurance, etc as urban residents, and their living quality is generally inferior to the urban
citizens. In China, how to improve the living quality of the migrant workers is actually a
matter of how to realize the social equality and justice. Therefore, advancing livelihood by
democracy is to promote and safeguard the social equality and justice by democracy.
People in different social environment conditions will have different understandings of
what is equality and justice. In China, Equality generally means a system arrangement
and pursuit of value which reflect ideals of human beings. Roscoe Pound once said,
economically and politically, we can consider social justice as a system complied with the
social ideals and meeting the desires and wills of the public.1 John Rawls also points out
that justice is mainly about the basic structure of the society, or to be more precise, it’s the
way of distributing the interested arisen from cooperation, and the fundamental rights and
obligations are distributed by the main principles. 2 Therefore, justice is actually a
regulation、distribution and coordination of the interest and the rights and obligations as
interest relations in the most ideal ways in a more extensive scope and on a wider level.
Justice and equality are the principles to deal with the relationships between themselves
as groups; it belongs to the domain of political science. From the perspective of modern
politics, social justice and equality contains five aspects of rules, namely, distribute
fundamental rights equally; distribute basic objects and chances for development that are
related to survival equally; distribute other objects and contributions according to
contributions; create conditions for the development of the disadvantaged groups; the
1
Roscoe Pound, Social Control through Law. Beijing: The Commercial Press, 1984.p.73.
2
John Rawls, A theory of Justice. Beijing: Science Press. 1988. P.1.
18
same rules apply to the same person and same issue. The definitions of justice and
equality in modern politics constitute the fundamental behavior principle that we need to
follow when solving the livelihood issues. In China, these principles are mainly reflected in
the fundamental rules established in the constitutional law and related documentations. To
better solve them, we need to strengthen the construction of constitutional system，making
sure that the regulations of constitutional law and related documentations can be
implemented thoroughly, and this needs the joint effort of the whole country.
The appropriate use of public finance is the material basis of solving livelihood issues.
Hangzhou still doesn’t do enough concerning the transparency and public involvement to
meet the needs of the society. To improve this issue, we have to improve People’s
Congress system, which is the basic democratic system in mainland China. While one of
the basic duties of People’s Congress system is auditing and approving the financial
budget. The local People’s Congress which has decision-making power on major issues
can pay particular attention to the local financial budget and propose some reform
measures on local financial management. However, China is a unitary state; its
administrative power plays a dominant role in state governance. Under such circumstance,
though the local government and People’s Congress can initiate some reforms of the
system and methods of financial management, it can’t go very far. Otherwise, it will lead to
an imbalance or even shake to the whole system of a unitary state, causing other local
citizens’ criticize and distrust, leveling down the performance of government
administration system. Therefore, reinforcing the reform of the financial transparency and
public involvement is a reform that needs to be initiated by the government and pushed by
the public. If the central government lingers on the reform, local government can’t take
concrete steps on the way of reform, thus prevent the local government from making
achievement in improving the livelihood issues.
Then from the aspect of integrating interests, the democratic working system integrates its
interests in administrative departments, which is greatly different from the integration of
interest in the legislation departments. The administrative departments enjoy the
following advantages: they have rich experience and high-qualified officers, they have
more access to the latest information and the cost of decision making is comparatively low.
But the administrative department itself is the one who integrates the public opinions;
therefore, it is possible to be influenced by its own ideas and interests, thus distorting the
opinions. In the legislation departments, the integration of interests is carried out by
people’s representatives; therefore, it is better to do it by the legislation than by the
administrative departments. But in China, if the legislation department is the one who
directly solves the livelihood issues and integrates public opinions, People’s Congress
system needs to be reformed.
Conclusion
What I want to point out finally is that, democracy is an important and even decisive
system to solve the livelihood issues, but in return, concerning livelihood, and respecting
public opinions can advance democracy. The democratic politics in mainland China is still
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a growing career. Lots of people are giving serious considerations to the development
trend of democracy in mainland China, but most of the considerations are from the
aspects of patterns of democratic system and types. The development path, from
livelihood to public opinion then to democracy, tells us from the contents rather than from
the patterns or types that democracy is driven by inner motive, which comes from people’s
pursuit of solving livelihood issue according to the public opinion; the general public and
executives can reach consensus on initiating process of democracy and enhancing the
level of democracy, since it is the willingness of citizens as well as an inevitable choice for
the rational executives who pursue executive performance and the continuing of
administration; as for the public, one major function of democracy is to promote the
government to pay more attention to the livelihood, and respect the public opinion.
Therefore, the patterns of system which helps to make democracy work should be
constructed and promoted; it will succeed sooner or later. Democracy without concerning
livelihood or public opinions will not be accepted by the public. In nature, livelihood, public
opinion and democracy form a relationship of mutual aid and constructing. All prove that,
Hangzhou’s innovative practice of democratic working system plays an important role in
advancing the development of China’s democratic politics. But we should also notice that,
it is not enough to carry out the bottom up democratic reform by the local governments, it
should be combined with the top down reform to push forward China’s democratic reform
successfully, thus, we can have a clear understanding of how to design the development
strategy of democratic politics in mainland China and how to follow the path of
development.
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