Democracy Is a Good Thing: Essays on Politics, Society, and Culture in Contemporary China by Yu Keping

Author:Yu Keping [Keping, Yu]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Political Ideologies, Democracy
ISBN: 9780815796947
Google: qeQXmQEACAAJ
Goodreads: 3386708
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2008-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

11. From Traditional Policy-making to Modern Policy-making

Policy-making systems are an important component of political systems, though they are often overlooked in political analysis. Likewise, the ability to make policy is an important component of the ability to govern, with good or bad policy-making directly related to levels of popular satisfaction towards the government and the government’s credibility. At the same time, it is an important influence on the stability (or otherwise) of the political scene. As far as China’s political development is concerned, the policy-making system has especially great significance. Due to the CCP’s management of state affairs and leadership of society, political development is largely realized through policies. Since “reform and opening-up” there has been no substantive transformation in China’s political system at all, yet its policy-making systems have undergone huge change. The important advances in Chinese politics, such as democratization, institutionalization, standardization and scientificization, are all obviously manifest in the changes to China’s policy-making systems. Small wonder Jilin University’s Zhou Guanghui says the policy-making system is the nerve centre of the Chinese political system, and the crucial variable in China’s development.

The main characteristic of the policy-making system that took shape after the establishment of the PRC was highly concentrated decision-making, with the ruling party holding absolute authority over major state policies. Decision-making power was concentrated in the highest levels of the central party apparatus, particularly the leaders of the party. Local decision-making rested with local party committees, and especially with the main leaders at each level. In an article titled “Democratization in Policy-making,” Professor Zhou has shown in great detail the historical rationality of the emergence of this kind of policy-making system, and also objectively identified its deficient structure, methods and mechanisms, for example, irrational division of labour, the replacement of politics with the party, arbitrary individual action, lack of transparency, openness and democracy, high prevalence of lapses in decision-making, and low levels of institutionalization and professionalization. In a nutshell, this was a policy decision-making system established on the basis of individual experience. As Chinese society modernized, this system became increasingly unsuited to actual requirements, eventually leading to serious political crisis. The historically unprecedented Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was an unfortunate consequence of traditional decision-making systems. It was decided upon, launched and led by the CCP’s paramount leader, Mao Zedong, alone. The ten years of the “Cultural Revolution” were ten years of turmoil that plunged Chinese society into total crisis, politically, economically and socially. Under the traditional decision-making system, no-one could reverse Mao’s decision.

After Mao’s death the CCP learned its lesson, and began implementing important reforms to the traditional decision-making system. The aim was to institute a democratic, scientific, rational and modern system in its place. In CCP official parlance, it was enacting “democratization and scientificization of decision-making.” With this in mind, the CCP made reforms to such aspects of the existing policy decision-making system as its structure, methods and mechanisms. For example, by commencing the separation of the party and state, and government and enterprise, the party

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