【 Li Xiang China 】 Effectively ensuring the orderly operation of grassroots consultation and deliberation | Spirit | Grassroots
Grassroots consultation is the foundation and foundation for the extensive and multi-level development of consultative democracy, carrying many value functions such as cultivating the democratic spirit of the people, enhancing democratic literacy, practicing democracy, and realizing democratic rights. The process of consultation is an important support for ensuring the quality of democratic consultation, and promoting the institutionalization and proceduralization of grassroots consultations is an important guarantee for the orderly and dynamic operation of grassroots consultations. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, grassroots consultative democracy has achieved certain results in institutionalization and proceduralization. However, overall, the relevant institutional provisions are still relatively vague and broad, with weak operability. There are still some shortcomings in the specific operating mechanism, especially in the lack of standardization in procedures, and the arbitrariness and formalization of consultations are still serious, which restricts the development of grassroots consultative democracy. Efforts should be made to effectively promote the organization, agenda, process, results, and feedback of grassroots consultation proceedings from the basic elements of negotiation subjects, negotiation content, negotiation process, and negotiation results.
Improve the participation mechanism of grassroots negotiation subjects to ensure that "everyone's matters are discussed by everyone.". Grassroots consultative democracy first needs to address the issue of who will participate. The fundamental prerequisite for improving the quality of negotiation is to integrate all stakeholders involved in the negotiation issue, so as to ensure that the negotiation issues fully reflect the interests and demands of different participating parties, and to concentrate the collective wisdom most widely, making the negotiation results more in line with the interests of the people. Otherwise, grassroots consultations will lack sufficient information support and cannot consider all interests and demands, resulting in undemocratic and unfair outcomes. At the grassroots level, although the sparrow is small, it has all five organs, including party organizations, governments, mass autonomous organizations, market organizations, social organizations, the public, and other entities. In the current grassroots negotiations, the mechanism for the generation and replacement of negotiation participants is not yet sound, and there are no clear regulations on what conditions participants should have and how to generate them. In some places, the targeted and representative nature of the participating parties in grassroots consultations is insufficient. In some places, grassroots party organizations and governments still use "personal approval" to replace consultation with the people when making public decisions. The general public, especially stakeholders, may face the dilemma of "missing consultation".
Firstly, we attach great importance to the breadth and diversity of negotiation subjects. Construct a multi-party participation mechanism based on different deliberation and negotiation contents, including representatives from administrative departments, mass organizations, social organizations, "two representatives and one committee member", volunteers, grid members, village representatives, and representatives from stakeholders, to encourage and support the participation of people from different backgrounds and interest groups, and encourage all parties to provide diverse opinions and suggestions. Secondly, we attach great importance to the representativeness and balance of the negotiating parties. According to the principles of representativeness, recognition, and stability, the number and scope of participants should be determined through various means such as Party organization designation, nomination, invitation, and recommendation or self recommendation by representatives of the people, taking into account the public opinion foundation and negotiation ability of the negotiating representatives. Thirdly, we attach great importance to the professionalism and professionalism of the negotiating parties. Grassroots consultation is related to the hot topics, difficulties, and key issues of people's livelihood, covering a wide range of areas, and has put forward certain requirements for the professionalism and industry of consultation. It is necessary to pay attention to inviting experts, scholars, and experts with practical experience related to the topic as the main body of consultation to ensure the scientific and effective nature of consultation.
Improve the mechanism for determining grassroots consultation topics and ensure the precision of consultations. The determination of grassroots negotiation topics is the beginning of the entire negotiation process, which affects the direction and effectiveness of the negotiation. In the selection of negotiation topics, there are still issues with insufficiently detailed standards and insufficiently transparent processes. The phenomenon of "negotiate whatever you want" and "negotiate whatever you want" still exists in some places. These issues may lead to arbitrariness in grassroots negotiations and reduce their credibility.
In this regard, one is to establish a normalized and institutionalized system of visits and research, make full use of the workstations of National People's Congress deputies and CPPCC members, and widely collect public sentiment and opinions. The second is to facilitate channels and channels for grassroots people to participate in public affairs. Establish an institutionalized and normalized collection platform, and promote the transformation of monitoring public sentiment, visiting public opinion, and listening to public voices from "one-way passive" to "three-dimensional interaction" through the "online+offline" model. Focus on listening to the opinions of the masses through "public communication meetings" and "sincere talks"; Listen to the opinions of the masses through forms such as soliciting opinions, questionnaires, and letters; Listen to public opinions at any time by setting up consultation boxes, hotlines, etc. The third is to establish a system for topic disclosure and a dynamic adjustment mechanism. We should regularly organize, summarize and analyze the public opinion of all parties, actively respond to the urgent and difficult problems of the masses, pay attention to serving the people's livelihood with "small incisions", and promote big development with small measures. At the same time, maintain transparency and openness in the negotiation topics, open up channels for suggestions or feedback from the public on the negotiation topics, and ensure that the topics are selected correctly, accurately, and truthfully.
Improve the operational mechanism of grassroots consultation procedures to ensure that consultations are organized and organized. Negotiation must have specific rules, procedures, and technical methods to ensure that all participants have equal opportunities to express their opinions and that everyone's viewpoints and opinions are given equal attention. At present, some places have overly simple procedural regulations and unclear operational rules for grassroots consultative democracy. Some places have short consultation sessions, few speeches, and lack genuine face-to-face communication, deliberation, and debate, resulting in the negotiation process becoming mere formality.
In this regard, the concept of "full consultation" should be integrated into all aspects of negotiation initiation, dialogue initiation, and conclusion making. One is to prepare for grassroots consultations, including determining negotiation representatives, selecting specific forms of negotiation, selecting negotiation hosts, providing relevant materials and information, etc., and try to avoid the practice of "discussing topics today and negotiating tomorrow", ensuring sufficient time and detailed information during the preparation stage. The second is to build a discussion mechanism that combines online and offline methods. We will fully carry out consultations through various means such as meetings, symposiums, sincere discussions, discussions, hearings, arguments, on-site visits, joint work meetings, and expert interpretations. At the same time, we should make good use of the Internet, organize the masses to actively participate in online consultation and discussion, and promote "cloud feedback", "cloud interaction" and "cloud discussion" for major and minor issues. The third is to establish open, fair, and just rules of procedure. Clarify the procedures, methods, time, and location of negotiation, establish rules for the speaking time, order, and requirements of negotiation participants, provide equal opportunities for all participants to speak, and encourage open discussions. At the same time, establish an open procedure for the negotiation process and negotiation results to increase the transparency and credibility of the negotiation.
Improve the implementation and feedback mechanism of grassroots consultation results to ensure that there is a "response" to the consultation. Effective democracy is bound to solve problems, and the responsiveness of democracy is the standard for evaluating its effectiveness. The negotiation result, that is, whether the consensus reached through negotiation can be applied and implemented in a timely manner, is an important indicator of the success of negotiation. In the current practice of grassroots consultative democracy in China, it is difficult for consultation opinions and results to enter decision-making or be implemented, which is a prominent problem.
A rigid implementation and feedback mechanism is needed to ensure this. One is to timely announce the results of the consultation and deliberation. Communicate the consultation results and implementation status to the public through online and offline means, and encourage more people to participate in discussions and consultations. The second is to implement the results of the deliberation. Led by grassroots party organizations, we will track and supervise the entire process of the general and work teams, actively promote the implementation of negotiation plans by relevant responsible persons, timely summarize and archive the experience of successful completion, and provide policy explanations and resolve conflicts for those that cannot be completed temporarily. The third is to improve the mechanism for grassroots negotiation, assessment, and evaluation. Develop clear evaluation indicators, including participant satisfaction, degree of implementation of negotiation results, relevance of negotiation topics, etc., to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the negotiation process. In addition, the construction of grassroots consultative democracy will be included in the annual comprehensive assessment and evaluation content, and the effectiveness of consultations will be regularly evaluated to ensure that grassroots consultations are not wasted in terms of systems and procedures.
