Research forum

Aug65438+

Volume 23, No.8

On the Multi-subject Structure of Social Governance

Zhu Xiaohong, Yi Qiang

1

2

School of Humanities, North China Electric Power University, Beijing102206; 2. School of Humanities, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing 100085)

Abstract: In the process of transition from industrial society to post-industrial society, we have established the historical goal of building a harmonious society, which is

It was put forward against the background of accelerating globalization. In the process of globalization, our society is showing more and more rapid growth of complexity and uncertainty, and the high risk of society is also increasing. The construction of a harmonious society needs to be based on the reform of social governance structure. Only by establishing an open, inclusive, open, flexible and responsible multi-subject governance structure can we achieve the goal of building a harmonious society.

[Keywords:] harmonious society; Multidisciplinary; Management structure

【 China Library Classification. ]c 9 16[ ID number ]A[ ItemNo. ——(2007)—— Harmonious society is not a society ruled by a single governance subject. We are in an era of globalization; Multi-subject is a state of coexistence of differences, not an isolated existence of homogeneity. Based on this, it can be inferred that the subject of cooperative governance will be open, inclusive, open and flexible in structure.

I. Globalization and the Open Structure of Social Governance Subjects

Globalization is the important background of many contemporary events and the central discourse of academic research.

[ 1]

, the characteristics of the nation-state, Marx and Engels pointed out: "the bourgeoisie, because it opened the world market, so that countries around the world production and consumption. ..... In the past, the self-sufficiency and isolation of local and ethnic groups were replaced by mutual exchanges and interdependence among ethnic groups. " Now it seems that the situation described by Marx and Engels has not only been more fully confirmed, but also the political, cultural and national characteristics have become blurred on national borders. The action of non-governmental organizations without borders is an obvious example of globalization, which cannot be simply summarized as politics or culture. To a certain extent, it is a comprehensive expression of politics and culture, and it is a global action belonging to the management category. Signs of cooperation between countries on the issue of "anti-terrorism" also show that the concept of national security is also changing. This means that globalization presents a new trend, which indicates that human society is moving towards integration.

When this new historical trend unfolds in front of us, China's * * * production party conforms to the situation and puts forward the goal of building a harmonious society. According to this goal and historical trend, we should think about and arrange our social governance structure instead of following the old closed social governance structure. We need to establish a structural model that can actively respond to globalization, open up and adapt to cooperative governance, and solve various political, economic and cultural problems of a country under the conditions of globalization through such a governance structure.

[2]

. Globalization appears with the popularization of information technology.

Popularization has triggered an irresistible trend. Under this trend, the handling of various social problems is no longer carried out in isolation, nor can it be solved by a country or even a department of a country alone. This requires the social governance system to change from a closed governance structure to an open governance structure.

The contents of globalization mainly include economic globalization, political globalization and cultural globalization. Economic globalization is the foundation and core content of the whole globalization process, and it is a historical trend that appeared in the early days of modern society. Especially under the condition of the prosperity of the nation-state in the 20th century, economic globalization has accelerated. The most valuable new symbol in the late 20th century is that, on the basis of economic globalization, the emergence of political globalization and cultural globalization has further increased the interdependence among nation-states.

[Date of receipt] May 30, 2007

(ZZ0527) Phased Achievements [Fund Project] This paper is a special project "Research on the Main Structure of Public Management" supported by the doctoral thesis of Beijing Science and Technology Commission.

[Author] 1. Zhu Xiaohong (1972-), female, native of Tonghua City, Jilin Province, associate professor of the School of Humanities, North China Electric Power University, director of the Public Administration Teaching and Research Section; 2. Yi Qiang (1970—), male, from Liaoning Province.

Dandong, Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Beijing Information Science and Technology University.

? 5 1?

Since human beings have the problem of social governance, the government is the ultimate subject of social governance, and can even be said to be the main and basic subject of social governance. Under the new historical conditions, there are two contradictory but unified problems around the government: in the process of globalization, it is necessary to break the monopoly of the government on social governance and establish a multi-agent cooperative governance system. The construction of this multi-governance cooperative governance system is also a conscious social construction process led by the government. It is when dealing with a contradictory and unified historical topic that the government's ability will be tested and higher requirements will be put forward. In particular, the government is required to take openness as a breakthrough, not only domestically, but also internationally. According to the characteristics and contents of social governance under the wave of globalization, the government should consciously build a seamless structure between different domestic social governance subjects and international cooperative governance subjects.

Second, the diversity and inclusiveness of the main structure of social governance.

"Harmony without difference" is the realm pursued by China philosophers, but it is a realm of interpersonal relationship. Today, in building a harmonious society, "harmony without difference" is not only the realm between people, but also the realm between organizations and countries, that is, between social elements. Universal and comprehensive "harmony without difference" is the symbol and basic content of a harmonious society. The emphasis should be on the process of increasing factors.

[3]

The formal rationality of the structure excludes the personality factors of the administrative personnel, which makes the administrative personnel transform into the requirements of the unity of their behavior patterns. Therefore, industrial society is essentially a society that rejects diversity and heterogeneity. Its governance system appears in the form of democracy or autocracy on the surface, but in essence it is a governance system that cannot tolerate differences and diversity. For example, in all places that call themselves democratic societies, their governments cannot tolerate criticism of democracy and must maintain the absolute dominance of democratic ideology. When dealing with the relations between countries, we find that some political entities claiming to be democratic countries sometimes wage war not for economic interests, but to eliminate factors that are inconsistent with the voice of democracy. In doing so, they should not only establish the absolute dominance of democratic ideology, but even cut off the inheritance of human civilization.

As far as industrial society is concerned, laws and policies are the most basic governance tools. As for administrative, political and other management behaviors, at least logically, they are also based on laws and policies. Under the broad legal concept, it is also necessary to reduce it. This is an attempt to simplify the social factors of diversity and pluralism. For example, in the 20th century, when there was an "economic crisis", the government began to pay attention to intervention. Government intervention is obviously effective, but its effectiveness is based on the idea of simplifying the "economic crisis". As a result, the situation of administrative state appeared, the independent power of society was stifled, especially a large number of social primary requirements, and the whole society had to operate and develop according to the will of the government. This is a picture drawn for us by a single subject. If it continues, what direction it will develop may make people shudder.

Of course, this hypothetical result will not appear, because in the post-industrialization process, the social governance structure of a single subject is being broken, and a social governance system composed of multiple governance subjects is emerging. From the perspective of economics, personalized production is replacing socialized mass production; From a sociological point of view, social components are becoming more and more complex; From the perspective of political science, diversified interests and diversified organizational forms have broken through the framework of political participation, thus appearing in the form of cooperative governance and universal social autonomy; From a cultural point of view, globalization not only leads to the coexistence of multiple cultures, but also the emergence of diverse cultural groups in a country and region. These are changing people's thinking and emotions, allowing people to tolerate and pursue individuality, and then a pluralistic society will emerge. The governance of such a society is beyond the capacity of a single subject. In other words, the subject of social governance must also adapt to such a society, respond to diversified needs, and govern a diversified society with multiple governance subjects.

To sum up, today's social governance needs to respect and adapt to diversity.

The process of meeting, then, the harmonious society we want to build should be a society that fully respects heterogeneous factors and should be an integral part of a pluralistic society in the form of harmonious coexistence. Therefore, a harmonious society and its governance system should be fully inclusive.

In the agricultural society, the governance structure with the government as the single subject always shows the suppression of diversity, and always tries to forcibly bring various social components into the framework of identity. Although industrial society no longer shows the compulsion of agricultural society in the pursuit of identity, industrial society brings diverse social components into the identity system with its technical system. In order to maintain the stability of the identity system, it does not hesitate to eliminate the quality differences of diverse social components and tries to find common factors in different things. Then, according to the grasp of universality, a framework of formal identity is established between different things, and tailoring is carried out according to the established framework of formal unity. This is particularly evident in the social governance system.

Compared with the governance system of agricultural society, the governance system of industrial society can always eliminate the factors that cannot be contained in all forms of unified framework by means of technology and operation. In other words, it can always strengthen the factors that can be contained in the framework of formal unity, so that it will not be impacted and destroyed by substantive differences. For example, in the administrative process, administrative procedure is such a unified framework, and the personality factor of administrative personnel is a factor that may conflict with administrative procedure from time to time. The ideal bureaucratic administrative organization mode is through.

? 52?

Reality, to achieve social governance in the form of multiple governance cooperation. In this way, the social governance structure must be inclusive, which can not only incorporate diverse social governance objects into social governance content, but also realize full governance according to the diversity and differences of social governance content, so that the whole society can be governed into a harmonious society through functional cooperation and complementarity among multiple governance subjects. Specifically, the government cooperates with non-governmental organizations outside the government and various social autonomy forces to govern our society. A * * * consistent governance structure has been established among diversified social governance subjects, which is not linear, but network; This network is not only interactive, but also captures all the problems that need to be solved by the social governance system. This is the structural inclusiveness of the social governance system.

Third, the publicity in the diversification of social governance subjects.

The diversification of social governance subjects is the inevitable requirement and result of the rapid growth of social complexity and uncertainty, which in turn will further promote the development of social complexity and uncertainty in a rational direction. Originally, complexity and uncertainty could not be included in the category of rationality, or, according to the concept of thinking and formal rationality in industrial society, complexity and uncertainty are just contrary to rationality. Because, a new topic, wai. However, this is not incomprehensible. On the contrary, as far as social governance is concerned, as long as we can take publicity as the starting point, we can establish a rational category about complexity and uncertainty.

As mentioned above, industrial society advocates simplicity, and the thinking mode of industrial society is to simplify complex things in order to seek the operational efficiency of industrial society. In order to simplify complex things, reduce costs and improve efficiency, it is feasible to divide complex things into professional divisions. This specialized division of labor will not only reduce the complexity of society, but also increase uncertainty. "Everything in the technological society, even human beings, has become an integral part of the growing social machine. When the overall function of society becomes increasingly complex and concentrated, the function of each individual becomes more detailed and limited. " Therefore, each individual's dependence on other parts increases. Just like a machine, "the simpler it is, the fewer parts there are, and the fewer mistakes there are." Simple machines are more flexible and can adapt to changing requirements. On the contrary, the division of functions in our scientific and technological society is so fine that if any part goes wrong, the whole system will be paralyzed. Biologists tell us: "Overspecialization is one of the most important reasons for the extinction of a species. "Specialization will reduce the flexibility of the system. When the environment it faces changes, it can't respond to the changes immediately and lacks the diversity to survive the crisis, which increases the complexity and uncertainty of society, which in turn leads to increased risks and frequent crisis events. Moreover, there is a limit to specialized division of labor, which already exists in industrial society.

[6]

[5]

[4]

There is no way out if we move forward on the basis of an increasingly detailed division of labor. However, the complexity of society is increasing day by day, constantly breaking through the boundaries of the division of labor system in industrial society.

On the issue of social governance, once the governance system constructed through division of labor is combined with the government intervention model, there will be an infinite impulse for the public sector to annex the private sector. Because, "conflicts of interest cannot be solved in the private sphere, so conflicts are transferred to the political level, and interventionism arises." In the long run, the state intervenes in the social field, and correspondingly, public power is transferred to private organizations. Public power covers the private sphere. "Because the model of government intervention cannot adapt to the complex risk society, the government's decision-making structure should be changed and the decision-making process should be open." The organizational structure of risk society once again links all fields with strict boundaries. Risk society requires not only the state, but also private companies and various sciences to open their decision-making process. It requires institutional reform of the power structure implied by risk conflict. "However, when the public domain basically embezzles the private domain, the public domain may be lost. . Will the field of * * * still exist? If the social governance system no longer exists, what is the significance of its rationality? Therefore, the rationality and publicity of the social governance system are beyond doubt and must be maintained. The only problem is how to maintain and construct rationality and publicity.

Looking at the governance system of industrial society, if it still has its declared objective characteristics on rationality, it will show great subjectivity and arbitrariness on publicity. Because the subject of social governance is single, it has a complete right to define publicity. What it says is publicity, and society must accept this publicity. What kind of publicity it uses to maintain and construct must be fully accepted by society. Imagine how this publicity defined by a single entity can be objective publicity. Furthermore, how is the way, method and content of its definition of publicity objective and reasonable? Such doubts can make us clearly see that the fairness and rationality pursued by the governance system of industrial society are all false. In view of this, the author believes that only in the complexity and uncertainty of post-industrial society can we obtain objective and true publicity and rationality. In other words, only when the subjects of social governance are diversified, the right to define publicity will not be monopolized and there will be objective and reasonable publicity. It can be seen that based on the pursuit of publicity of social governance, it is also necessary to construct the diversification of social governance subjects as a conscious process.

Fourth, the flexibility of the diversification of social governance subjects

The rapid growth of social complexity and uncertainty also requires the flexibility of social governance system, and the governance system of industrial society is just subordinate to the need of structural stability. The stability of its structure often makes it into a rigid state, especially bureaucracy.

[8]

[7]

? 53?

Form to show its rigidity. Under complex and uncertain conditions, if the social governance system is rigid, it is impossible to meet the needs of social governance. When it can't meet the needs of social governance, those uncertain factors stranded outside social governance will turn into crisis events, thus increasing social risks.

After simplifying the governance of industrial society, some calculable values and standards will be obtained, which will be very useful when making decisions in the governance process. Under complex and uncertain conditions, risk characteristics are everywhere, and there is no recoverable foothold, so it is impossible to find a simple standard and value conducive to decision-making. This also leads us logically to a disturbing ending, that is, the decision-making has lost its foundation and premise. Is that so? Yes or no, yes, it is aimed at a single and monopolistic governance subject, because in the case of rapid growth of social complexity and uncertainty, it will find itself losing its decision-making ability more and more; Saying no is for the sake of diversified governance subjects. Each relatively independent governance subject has superb ability to deal with professional problems and can make timely decisions according to the needs of tasks. Therefore, the latter shows us the structural flexibility of the whole social governance system.

Under the two premises (and uncertainties) given above, almost the whole northeastern United States has lost power. ..... after nightfall, many other facilities in the scientific and technological society ... are useless. " It can be seen that in such a dependent society, any problem in any link may cause a fatal blow to the overall situation. However, in this example, we imagine a common solution to the problem in an industrial society: the United States informs the Canadian Embassy through diplomatic channels, and they report it step by step according to the procedure, and then form a task and hand it over to the relevant departments, and the relevant departments set up a special investigation and problem-solving team. This team quickly sent two capable teams, and one team quickly got a visa from the American Embassy. We will investigate the power outage in the northeast of the United States, and another team will be sent to this power plant in Ontario soon ... We can imagine that it will take several months to solve the power outage and restore power supply in such a governance model established according to the industrial social governance model. This example contains a clear requirement, that is, our governance system must have great flexibility, and when dealing with some uncertain issues, we must break the procedural restrictions.

Just as economic monopoly will stifle the market, monopoly in social governance will turn the subject of governance into a stupid behemoth. Therefore, the diversification of social governance subjects and the denial of task-based governance monopoly are both positive and the source of social governance flexibility. This also proves from another angle that social governance under complex and uncertain conditions must be based on the diversification of subjects.

The flexible governance structure also ensures the success of the governance subject.

[9]

Be a responsible manager. We know that the governance subject under the bureaucracy has a perfect design in process responsibility, but once there is result responsibility, we will find that no one will or can take responsibility. No matter what efforts the bureaucracy makes in the construction of responsibility, there will always be gaps in the responsibility of consequences, and it is a system that no one can bear the responsibility if something goes wrong. This is what Baker said. We live in an organized and irresponsible background.

[ 10]

. In a society composed of multiple governance subjects

In the social governance system, the situation will change fundamentally. Because the decision-making power is dispersed to each relatively independent governance subject, each relatively independent governance subject will bear the decision-making risk while obtaining the decision-making power, and the risk and responsibility are intrinsically related. Moreover, under the condition of coexistence of various governance subjects, there is also a relationship of mutual supervision and competition, which is clear and clear in process responsibility and consequence responsibility.

In short, a governance system with multiple governance subjects is highly flexible in structure, which also means that the whole society is organized and irresponsible. In the complexity and uncertainty of society, the diversification of social governance subjects is an irresistible historical choice. With the diversification of social governance subjects, the whole social governance system gained publicity and flexibility in structure, and finally became a responsible governance system. This kind of governance system "does not treat the public interest with political ideas, but interprets the public interest with moral principles, and regards the content of the public interest and its realization as the moral standard of behavior". Therefore, it is also the most qualified guide to lead the society to a harmonious realm.

[Reference].

[1] Wen Jun. Evaluation of the concept of globalization from the perspective of western multidisciplinary [J]. Foreign Social Sciences, 200 1, (3).

[2] Selected Works of Marx and Engels (Volume/kloc-0) [M]. Beijing: People are out.

[ 1 1]

Press, 1995.276.

[3] Zhang Kangzhi. Cooperation and Harmony in Globalization [J]. The Central Nation

Journal of University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 2006, (2).

[4][5][6][9][ America] Jeremy? Rifkin Ted. Howard

De Entropy: A New World View [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House,

1987.82、82、84、83.

[7][ Germany] Habermas. Structural transformation in the public sphere * * [M]. In

Hai: Publishing House, 199938+0438+0.

[8][ 10][ Germany] ulrich? Baker. World Risk Society [M]. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, June and July 2004.

[1 1] Zhang Kangzhi. Ethics of public management [M]. Beijing: People of China.

University Press, 2003. 196.

[Editor: Xue]

? 54?