On July 11-12, the Annual Conference of the Chinese Sociological Association took place at Wuhan University.

 

From July 11 to 12, the Annual Confer­ence of the Chinese Sociological Asso­ciation took place at Wuhan University. CASS Vice-president Li Peilin, Publicity Minister, Hubei Provincial Standing Committee member Yin Hanning, Party Secretary of Wuhan University Hanjin attended the opening cer­emony and delivered remarks. Song Yaping, president of Hubei Provincial Academy of Social Sciences hosted the event. The conference is themed "China’s Reform and Social Govern­ance," including 53 panels, with more than 1,500 participants from across the country in attendance.

 

Governance problems

In the panel "Urbanization Strategy and Social Governance," Wen Jun, direc­tor of the Institute of Sociology at East China Normal University, said that with regard to urbanization or social govern­ance, the most critical and the foremost issue is retaining a people-oriented focus. Many difficult and fundamental problems in social governance are re­lated to urbanization.

 

Village governance is a major compo­nent of the overall national governance system. Efficient operations at this level lay a solid foundation for national and social governance. Fan Hesheng, associ­ate dean of the School of Sociology and Political Science at Anhui University, argued that the key to improve social governance relies on actions at the grass­roots level.

 

The efficiency of village governance di­rectly affects the social status quo at the grassroots level. Building a strong base for village governance, Fan said, requires the government to take the lead with greater support from society. Fan sug­gested developing the potential capacity of village-township governments, village party branches, village committee, vil­lagers as well as various civil associa­tions to bring about unity of governance at multiple levels while maintaining social development and stability. China is currently undergoing a period of social transformation, and the migrant population tops the agenda. In the panel discussion "Migrant Workers and Social Governance," Zuo Xiaosi, deputy director of the Institute of Sociology and Demog­raphy at Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, focused on the issue of social reform, particularly reforms to house­hold registration, known as the hukou system.

 

Zuo said the hukou system should only serve as population registra­tion and information management. In addition, equalizing basic public services nationwide should be used as another means of improving social governance.

 

Satisfaction survey as a useful tool

Social governance is a holistic and complicated project covering public policy, social policy and welfare. It is necessary to improve the transparency of society in order to facilitate public participation in the construction of pub­lic policy. Social quality will ultimately be improved by providing more space for the people to develop and exercise social rights, said Lin Ka, dean of the Department of Social Security and Risk Management at Zhejiang University, dur­ing the panel on "Social Quality." Public happiness is one indicator of social qual­ity. Regarding the question of evaluating the public response to social governance, Fan Weida, a sociological professor at Fudan University proposed that evalu­ation should cover technological, ethnic and political aspects. Indicators assess­ing public satisfaction should include government work, public participation, public security and rights protection, Fan said.

 

The purpose of evaluating public re­sponse is to increase the effectiveness of social governance. To realize the goal, re­searchers must continue to examine the unresolved questions, Fan elaborated. First, researchers need to continue to improve methodology to make more sci­entific and objective surveys. Second, the survey is not only for evaluating results in hindsight but also should be used to inform future decision-making.

 

Some attendees also warned that caution must be exercised when using surveys to evaluate social governance.

 

The Chinese version appeared in Chinese Social Sciences Today, No. 621, July 16, 2014      

 The Chinese   link is:

http://www.cssn.cn/zx/bwyc/201407/t20140716_1255470.shtml                              

Translated by Feng Daimei