With the development of social productive forces, the contradictions and problems in human society are bound to show "contemporary" characteristics, which are beyond the scope of human ability in the "primitive era" to a great extent. Therefore, the country and its "governance" ability are also produced and constantly developed in this sense. If we regard the way the country handles social contradictions and problems in history as a stage and a model of the development of national governance capacity, then the national governance capacity has gone through three stages and models: the stage of agricultural society governing national governance capacity, the stage of industrial society management governance capacity and the stage of modern society cooperative governance capacity.
In essence, the problem of the times is the call of the ability of the times. Every stage and pattern of national governance capacity in history is the "modernization" (or "modernization") requirement of national governance capacity at that time, and it is a process in which national governance capacity develops and adapts with the development of the country and society. When human history develops into the post-industrial era of globalization, democratization and informationization, people find that placing all their hopes on the state (government) is both utopian and dangerous. Therefore, people think that many problems and their complexity of the country in modern society need the organic cooperative governance of multiple subjects including the government. From the perspective of teleology, no matter what kind of national governance capacity, the main task of national governance capacity is to achieve national goals. Due to the requirements of modern society and the establishment of a modern country, the fundamental purpose of the modernization of national governance capacity is to achieve good governance of the country and society, thus promoting "free and all-round development of human beings."
First, the modernization of national governance capacity is an urgent need for the development of real society.
From a global perspective, the research on the modernization of national governance capacity has become the focus of human society today. Today's society is governed by a sovereign country in the process of modernization. The background of "modernization process" and the reality of "sovereign state governance" are two very distinctive features of modern society.
First, the changes and problems brought about by the modernization process. The whole human society is inevitably in the process of modernization, which is mainly manifested in the rationalization of human beings, the globalization of economy, the informationization of the world and the democratization of society. The trend of modernization has promoted the progress of the whole mankind, and at the same time, it has also produced various modernization problems. For example, from the individual point of view, modernization promotes the awakening of individual subject consciousness and individual rationality, but it also brings about problems such as individual atomization tendency, rampant egoism and money worship. From the social level, modernization promotes social vitality, efficiency and interconnection, but it also brings about problems such as contradictions in values, conflicts of interests, environmental damage and moral anomie. The whole human society presents all kinds of extremely complex and intertwined problems. Bill, an expert in management science, said: "The old world is characterized by managing affairs, while the new world is characterized by dealing with complexity."
Second, the failure of sovereign state governance. With the awakening of national sovereignty consciousness, sovereign countries have been established all over the world, but because the self-construction of sovereign countries in many countries can't keep up with the needs of social development, the problem of governance failure has emerged. Of course, the failure of sovereign state governance here mainly refers to the failure of the government of sovereign state in the process of governing the country, because governance in the traditional sense basically refers to government governance. Generally speaking, governance failures occur in both developed and developing countries to varying degrees. From the perspective of developed countries, the governments of many developed countries are positioned as "super wet nurses", but there are problems such as increasing government functions, increasingly complex institutional composition, increasingly low operating efficiency and serious fiscal deficit, and the government's service ability and service level are difficult to meet the needs of citizens; At the same time, the government is becoming more and more complex and elite, so it is difficult for citizens to effectively understand and understand the government's decisions and actions, and it is also difficult to effectively supervise the government's public management process. Therefore, citizens in many developed countries have lost more and more interest, confidence and trust in the government and its actions, and the government's ability to govern the country has experienced an unprecedented crisis. From the perspective of developing countries, the governments of most developing countries are either "too big" or "too small". Some governments in developing countries regard all areas of the country as the objects of government management, and the government assumes the role of "the manager of the whole country", which leads to problems such as huge government institutions, rude governance methods, inadequate governance and lack of vitality in society. Some developing countries are overly superstitious about the omnipotence of the market and society and position themselves as "children of society", which leads to problems such as disorder of the country, deepening social division, internal friction and poverty. Therefore, many developing countries have many problems in the legitimacy and effectiveness of national governance capacity to varying degrees, and there has been a crisis of national governance capacity. Furthermore, globalization makes it difficult to control a country's governance problems within a certain country or region, but spreads and conducts rapidly on a global scale, making many problems become global problems, resulting in the "ripple effect" and "butterfly effect" of national governance problems; At the same time, many international issues have transcended national boundaries, infiltrated and transformed into governance issues within sovereign countries. Therefore, from a certain point of view, promoting the modernization of national governance capacity to adapt, match and promote social development has become the focus of extensive concern and thinking of the whole human society.
As far as China's social development is concerned, it is more urgent to study the modernization of national governance capacity. Judging from the current social development in China, China society is in a critical period of social transformation and development and comprehensive deepening reform.
First, we need to solve a series of problems in the social transformation and development of China. With the in-depth development of China's reform and opening-up, China has experienced changes and transformations from an agricultural society to an industrial society, from a closed and semi-closed traditional society to an open modern society, and from a planned economy society to a market economy society. With the transformation and transformation of the whole economy and society in China, unprecedented social problems have emerged in the current society, mainly including value conflicts, interest conflicts, deterioration of public environment, etc. These contradictions and conflicts have the characteristics of concentrated outbreak, extensive prominence and deep interweaving. From a deeper perspective, it is mainly related issues such as social activation, value diversification and interest diversification brought about by social transformation. These "three transformations" influence, promote and deepen each other. It is this deep-seated change in social concept, structure and form that inevitably requires the national governance model and national governance capacity to adapt to it.
Second, China's comprehensive deepening of reform urgently requires the modernization of national governance capacity. Comprehensively deepening reform is a systematic project of reform and development. The fundamental of systematic reform is to promote the reform of the whole society through the reform of the government itself. At present, the China government itself is facing problems such as corruption, perfunctory responsibilities, arbitrary decision-making, ineffective implementation, poor social interaction and insufficient social response, which are totally incompatible with the needs of social development. At the same time, with the reform and development of China, citizens in China are more and more aware of participating in social governance, and various social organizations in China are more and more powerful and influential. How to better mobilize citizens and social organizations to participate in state governance, how to give full play to the enthusiasm of various social subjects, and effectively integrate the capabilities of various social governance subjects is another major issue for China to comprehensively deepen reform. Studying the modernization of national governance capacity is not only the need to solve a series of problems arising from the transformation of China, but also the need to comprehensively deepen the reform in China. Therefore, it is particularly important and urgent to study the modernization of national governance capacity in this context.
Second, the modernization of national governance capacity is a strong call for the development of social science.
The development of theoretical research develops with the development of society. With the rapid development of social economy, technology and ideas, the problems of human society have become more and more diverse, changeable, multidimensional and polymorphic, and show a trend of increasing relevance, integrity and complexity. The original classical social theories, such as state control theory, free economy theory and welfare state theory, have been unable to fully explain and effectively guide the development of contemporary society, so the crisis of traditional social science paradigm has emerged. After 1970s, complexity theories such as new public management theory, public choice theory, synergetic theory and self-organization theory came into being and were widely used in social science research. At the same time, a large number of western scholars focus on the new paradigm of state management on the basis of absorbing the nutrition of the new social theory. For example: James, one of the founders of governance theory? James N.Rosenau pointed out that "modern social problems require us to adopt different methods from the traditional ones. We may need to put forward a management theory that adapts to the development of modern society. It aims at good governance and promoting public interests. The main body of these management activities can be government organizations or non-governmental organizations. It can include government management mechanism and informal management mechanism. Rosenau believes that with the development of society, the problems of modern society have changed qualitatively compared with the past, and these new social problems need a new social theory to explain and solve. According to R.Rhodes, "the environment and conditions of orderly rule are very different from those in the past. Therefore, we need new methods and models to govern society. Governance means a fundamental change in the meaning of governance and a brand-new ruling process. "Roots believes that in today's society, the environment and conditions for the state to maintain social order and promote social development have undergone fundamental changes, which requires a brand-new theory of state management to deal with social problems and promote social development. In the research report of our Global House, the Global Governance Committee pointed out that "all kinds of conflicts or the reconciliation of different interests in modern society require the joint action of public or private individuals and institutions. This process includes not only formal systems and rules that people must abide by, but also various informal systems and arrangements that are agreed or recognized through consultation. "The Global Governance Committee believes that the traditional government, as a single subject, has been unable to handle various social conflicts and contradictions well, nor can it reconcile the interests and needs of all members of society. It needs a formal and informal cooperative governance between the government and non-governmental organizations or individuals. Therefore, in a sense, the research on the modernization of national governance capacity is the result of the development of social science theory with the development of society, and it is also the requirement of paradigm shift caused by the development of social science itself.
In China, as far as the information I have is concerned, I found that the earliest article introducing "governance" or "governance" may be a paper entitled "Wisdom"-"Governance: Modern Governance" in 1995 "Market Logic and National Concept" (the first volume of "On Public Affairs"). Then, from 65438 to 0999, researcher Yu Keping of the Central Compilation Bureau published a paper entitled "Introduction to Governance and Good Governance" in the magazine Marxism and Reality. In this paper, he comprehensively combs and discusses the related concepts such as governance, good governance and global governance, systematically introduces the governance theories and representative viewpoints of many western scholars, deeply analyzes the origin, generation, positive and negative effects and future possibilities of governance theories, and then puts forward his own thoughts and viewpoints on governance theories on the basis of comprehensive comments on various governance theories and viewpoints. He believes that the theory of governance is the inevitable logical result of globalization, the requirement of the two camps for a new international political and economic order after the end of the Cold War, the requirement of civil society and the democratic world in today's era, and the requirement of legal governance and effective governance in today's era. He further pointed out that the governance theory transcends the dichotomy thinking formed in social science for a long time, and holds that effective governance is a process of organic cooperation between market model and planning model, public organizations and private sectors, national government and civil society, sovereign countries and the international community in managing public affairs; It emphasizes that the essence of modern management is cooperative reaction; Its legal power comes not only from the government, but also from social organizations, market organizations and citizens, which determines that the government, society and citizens share public power and assume public responsibility. These forward-looking views reflect the strong voice of China scholars for the study of national governance and the modernization of national governance capacity. In 2000, the Essays on Governance and Good Governance, edited by Yu Keping, was published, which included the works of Stoke, Roots, Kuiman, Jessop and other internationally renowned representatives of governance theory, and "governance" immediately became a "prominent study" in domestic academic circles. For more than ten years, many scholars have conducted in-depth research on governance-related issues, involving governance values, governance subjects, governance methods, governance resources, governance background, governance influencing factors, China governance, corporate governance, urban governance, rural governance and other aspects, which greatly deepened the research on national governance and national governance capacity. At the same time, however, the author also found that there are very few studies on the theme of "modernization of national governance capacity", and most of the studies on the modernization of national governance capacity are only scattered in various governance-related topics.
To sum up, it can be clearly seen that the issue of national governance is an important topic in modern society, and the research on the modernization of national governance capacity is particularly important and necessary, because the modernization of national governance capacity will be the key and fundamental to the transformation of all national governance resources into the effect of national good governance.