Inquiry of Modernization Managementof Rural Community Self-organizing on the Perspective of SocialWork

Shousong WANG

Law School of Linyi University,Linyi 276005,China

Inquiry of Modernization Managementof Rural Community Self-organizing on the Perspective of SocialWork

Shousong WANG*

Law School of Linyi University,Linyi 276005,China

The current rural community self-organizing of China is closely related with the rural social stability as well as economic and social development.However,the current rural community self-organizing construction falls far behind the requirements of realistic practice all over China,which greatly affects the advancement of the rural modernization of China.On the other hand,social work provides a unique perspective and method to deal with these problems.Its service philosophy of selfservice as well as its humanitarian value and practical working methods provide reality conformity for the intervention into rural community self-organizing,making it conductive to improving the social relations between rural community residents and possible to realize the mutual development of rural community and rural community residents.

Rural community;Community self-organizing;Social work

T he problems prevailin the current rural community self-organizing in China include low sense ofidentity and belonging of residents to community,low sense ofcommunity,insufficientmotivation of community self-organizing and weak selfgovernance capability as wellas inadequate strength for community resources integration.The existence of these problems has seriously affected the developmentprocess ofruralmodernization in China,and therefore we must actively seek for effective solutions.Meanwhile,social work can just provide a unique perspective and method to solve these problems.

Basic Connotation of Rural Community Self-organizing

Basic connotation of rural community self-organizing

The word"community"has its English origins proposed by sociologists Tonnies.In his view,"community"and"society"shares the same concept,referring to a social unit of any size that shares common values in a certain region.At present,it is generally believed that community is"a living community consisting of a certain number ofresidents,who are connected(objectively)to each other by relatively durable socialrelations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties,and who mutually define thatrelationship(subjectively)as important to their socialidentity and socialpractice; wherein,geography,population,organizing structure and culture are the basis elements of community constitution,among which geography is the spatialcarrier of the naturalgeographic location and human geography of community;population is the main body of community life;organizing structure is the social organizational form to carry out community activities; culture is the idiosyncratic spiritual bonds within the community."[1]This definition points outthatregionalism is one of the distinguishing features of community organization,while culture, which means having the sense ofcommunity identity and belonging,is the spiritualstrength to keep a socialorga-nization running normally.

In this paper,the ruralcommunity organizing is defined as a kind of social self-organizing.Beginning from 1970s in natural science field,self-organizing system is"a concept compared with organized(heter-organization),referring to the systematic procedure that can organize,create and evolve by itself without any outside specific orders,and can move from disorder to well-aligned independently and therefore forming a structure"[2].In recent years,self-organizing has been mainly used in the study on community self-governance and community organizing in social science field.Accordingly,community self-governance organizing refers to the organizing form in which community residents manage the social public affairs independently through the community democratic participation.It is obvious that rural community self-organizing is a community self-governance organizing in nature,and it ranges over the original village committee as wellas the transformed rural community residents committee.It is a operation management mechanism under the unified leadership oftownship streetparty(labor)committee and community party organization,set up in accordance with the principle of"community selfgovernance"to carry out community democratic election,democratic decision-making,democratic management and democratic supervisory.As a primary-level self-governance organization for villagers to conduct self-management,self-education and self-service,it plays an irreplaceable role in rural community development as well as the construction of socialism new countryside.

Nature and functions of rural community self-organizing

From the above definition of rural community self-organizing,itis easy to conclude that ruralcommunity self-organizing is to display the primary character,mass character and selfgovernance character,among which the primary characteris one ofthe basic characters of ruralcommunity selforganizing in terms of the ranges of governance.In China,the primary political power is in the township,while under township is the village self-governance or community resident selfgovernance.The geographical range of self-governance is limited within the rural community which is the closest form of rural living connection.The mass character is the performance of autonomous subject,and as far as the ruralcommunity self-organizing is concerned,its autonomous main body is limited to the scope of community residents.Community residents are the autonomous subjects,who are entitled to the right of self-governance.On the other hand,ruralcommunity self-organizing represents the wills ofresidents, which exercises the rights of self-governance on behalf of the benefits of residents,and it is an organization to manage ruralcommunity public affairs. Ruralcommunity self-organizing is set up in accordance with the principle of "community self-governance",and therefore self-governance is the most distinguishing features of rural community self-organizing.Compared with other organizations and governmental agencies,the self-governance of rural community self-organizing is to manage the public affairs and public welfares democratically according to the law based on the principle of"community self-governance"for all the residents within the community.

The functions of rural community self-organizing mainly include political function,economic function and social function.Firstofall,in terms of political function,ruralcommunity self-organizing is set up in accordance to the principle of"community self-governance" with the aim to realize the theories, guidelines and policies of the party in specific historical background under the unified leadership ofstreetparty or labor committee and the community party,which is the concentrated reflection of the will of the state and the objective of the struggle of the ruling party.The state ensures the community residents the rights and interests of self-management,self-service in the form oflaw,fully embodying democracy and self-governance.The construction of rural community self-organizing is conductive to ensuring the basic rights of ruralcommunity residents, beneficialto promoting the politicalrestructuring reform in China,forming the important political guarantee for building a new socialist countryside. Secondly,the economic function ofruralcommunity self-organizing refers to that the rural community self-organizing can promote the economic income increase of the residents,strengthen the collective economy,which is conducive to the development of community economy,making it an important economic guarantee for the construction of new socialist countryside.Finally,the social function of rural community self-organizing is that community residents self-organizing could solve community disputes,coordinate and improve community relations,which is conducive to the harmonious,stable and long-term development of ruralcommunity,making it an important organization and system guarantee for the construction of new socialist countryside.

Current Development Status and Existing Problems of Rural Community Selforganizing in China

The ruralcommunity self-organizing construction in China has gone through a long historicalperiod,which plays a great role in the ruralmodernization of China.Through the interpretation of its development historical path,it can clear up the problems existing in the developmentofruralcommunity self-organizing.

Current development status of rural community self-organizing in China

In the early 1980s,with the beginning of reform and opening up,village committee was gradually carried out throughout China.In 1988,the state developed and pilot tested the"Organic Law of Village Committees"(further revised in 1998),marking that the state made clear legal regulations to the status of villager self-governance organization that:"villager committee is a primary self-governing mass organization of self-management,self-education and self-service for villagers". The rural villagers gained the legal guarantee to carry out self-governance,making the mass villagers manage their own affairs according to the law.As history has proven,the establishing villager(resident)community to implement the"villager(resident)self-governance"accords with the basic nationalconditions of China,which not only embodies the creative spirit of the people,but also becomes a part of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Along with the acceleration of urbanization process,China has begun the"reform from villager committee to resident committee"gradually since 1990s to change the primary self-governance self-organizing of villager committee into community resident community.After the beginning of the "reform from villager committee to resident committee",great changes have taken place among all aspects of rural community,which mainly as follows"withdrawal of administrative village construction system,and establishment of community residents committee;in principle,some of the rural collective lands continue to use, some are requisitioned,and some become state-owned;the village collective assets still belong to the original village collective economic organizations,while the organization reappraise the fixed assets and the circulating fund,and define the sharing objects ofvillage collective assets to carry out joint-stock system reform"[3]. From these changes,it can be found that after the"reform from villager committee to resident committee",the rural community is not only different from the previous administrative village,but also has some distinction with the urban community.It is a new community mode developed in the process of rural communitization, which is in need of new community governance manner.

In short,the ruralcommunity selforganizing in China adapts to the pace of the construction of city and town in China,and it is the new achievements in the developmentprocess of China’s modernization.However,it also faces with some problems and difficulties in promoting the process of ruralcommunitization.

Existing problems in the ruralcommunity self-organizing in China Low sense of identity and belonging of community residents to community,and lack of sense of community

As a kind of socialconsciousness,the sense ofcommunity is a common psychological identification of the community residents to the community,and it is the common beliefto fulfillthe obligations of community residents and meet the needs of community residents.Community consciousness embodies in the sense of identity,belonging and participation of community residents to the belonging community.At present,the community villagers from the"reform from villager committee to residentcommittee"stillhave no clearconceptof"community",and there is still no enough cognition of the identity of their own "community residents".What is more, in practice many community is in the form of"multi village—community", which is formed by the merger of several adjacent villages,which didn’t have much daily contact before merging;in a period after merging,the village residents lack of communication, resulting in interior estrangement or differentiation within the community; furthermore,it is hard for the villagers to change the formed ideas and ways of living formed in the long process of rural life in short period,making some villagers not able to adapt to the life in the community in time in a short period.Therefore,it results in the lack of community consciousness,low community identity and integration,low participation in community affairs and other problems.

Insufficient motivation for community self-organizing,and weak capacity of self-government

Atpresent,many new ruralcommunities are still using the original management mode to manage community affairs, and community residents also believe thatitonly changes from the village into the community.In fact,the community from the"reform from villager committee to resident committee"is not simply the change of signs,it also include the transformation of self-organizing functions and ideas,namely,it aims to provide more efficient services to the villagers in the form of a more humanitarian and democratic way. The motivation for the development of community self-organizing mainly comes from the community leaders, who play an important role in the development of community.Community leaders also known as the"backbone villagers,are the core leaders who can grasp the essence of group hope and requirements,represent group will, and provide opinions and directions for group play".[4]However,in many rural communities,lacking community leaders to play the leading role results in insufficient community mobilization ability,lack of participation of the community residents,which weakens the ability of community self-governance; on the other hand,community residents'lack the sense of self management,self service,leading to low capacity ofcommunity self-governance.

Inadequate strength for community resources integration

As an important prerequisite for community self-organizing,resources integration mainly shows in the organic integration of human,finance and material.In the integration of rural community resources,as the main integration bodies,the government and the market all play an importantrole in resources integration.But it is impossible to mobilize the initiative and enthusiasm of all main bodies by only relying on administrative means to mobilize and integrate resources;and the market mechanism can easily make resources fail to get effective development,integration and use.[5]Only a well-equipped and operated community self-organizing and give full play to the integration of community resources.In vie of the reality of lacking rural community resources in China, the construction of rural community self-organizing still cannot meet the requirements of times,and the incomplete system functions make it hard to play its due role.Therefore,it is very important to solve the related problems through expanding the social capitals of rural community,building the objective need of community supported network to enhance the integration of community resources to make it become the responsibility of the times of ruralcommunity self-organizing.

Analysis on the Necessity and Feasibility of Social Work Intervention

The reality problems and difficulties faced by the development of rural community self-organizing seriously affect the development of rural mod-ernization in China,which strives for more practicalsolutions.Based on the historical logics of the development of social work at home and abroad,it is necessary and feasible for the intervention ofsocialwork.

Necessity of social work intervention

Social work intervention is conducive to enhancing the sense of identity and belonging of residents to community,which can improve the sense of community

As an important community resource,the sense of community is the soul and key for the existence and development ofa community.The cultivation ofrural community residents’community consciousness is conducive to promoting the construction of rural community, improving the enthusiasm and initiative of the residents to participate in community activities,and therefore promoting the socialist modernization construction ofruralcommunity.As for the reality of low sense of identity and belonging of the residents to community,based on the value idea of"helping people to help themselves",social work can offer certain help to residents by the high-efficient and practical working methods of regionaldevelopment,community education and community planning.According to community development goals,community work can formulate and implement the construction planning in accordance with the community reality by developing and using the inner and outer resources of community.Effective measures should be taken to help residents to change the way of thinking to adapt to community life and gradually establish the identity of community residents.Taking the strategy pattern of social work—community education for example,the aim of community education is to guide the community residents to fully aware of the close relationship between their self-interests and community construction to train the modern civic awareness of observing law and discipline,participation in self-governance and cooperation and mutual help among community residents.

Social work intervention is helpful to improve rural community autonomy

Modern socialgovernance system emphasizes the interactive process of the joint participation of multiple subjects,and it must carry out the guidelines of orienting with government intervention and coordination, based on primary community self-governance,and broad participation of the public.In ruralareas,it should give full play to the function of ruralcommunity self-governance,and extensively mobilize community residents to participate in social management and self service.In view of the urgent era demanding to accelerate the modernization of rural areas in China,the intervention ofsocialwork can improve the community self-governance capability in face with the reality of low rural community self-governance capability at present.Social work,upholding the value idea of helping people to help themselves,believes that service objects have the ability to change themselves.In practice,through the targeted social work practice,it emphasizes the dominantrole ofservice object and mobilize community residents to participate in community affairs to play to their potential.In view of the current situation of low rural community residents self-governance capability,socialworkers can use its value idea and method to encourage residents to participate in,and to improve residents' self management,self education,self service ability,and ultimately improve the ability of community self-governance.

Social work intervention is beneficial to promote the integration and utilization of the resources of rural community

One of the basic goals of socialwork is to promote the integration and use of community resources,and it is also the practical field of social work practices.At present,ruralcommunity is faced with the realities of incomplete performance of self-organizing resources integration ability,and ineffective development and use of resources,and socialwork can realize the integration and effective use of community resources.On the one hand,socialwork and mobilize and encourage community residents to participate in ruralcommunity activities to increase the sense ofcommunity identity and a sense of ownership, which can provide the community selforganizing with continuous impetus to the development;on the other hand, social workers can make use of the professional theory and method,and make full use of community resources to actively cultivate the community support network,break the"atomic" isolated community residents and form formalorinformalconstraints to realize the ordering and organized community public life,and therefore make the community enter into the benign state ofselfdevelopment.

Feasibility of social work intervention

The value idea of social work can promote the construction of main body personality of new type farmers

The transition of ruralmodernization in China not only means it enters from the agricultural society into the industrialsociety,but the most fundamentalsense is to realize the transition of the rural modernized dominant characters changing from traditional people to modernized people.It has proved that without a independent, creative and autonomous dominant character,it is not only difficult to establish the socialist marketing economy,but also hard for the beginning of modern management system construction.Because independent personality is the subjective characteristic for current human engaged in various socialactivities.Throughout the 2 000 years of China’s traditional feudal society,the independent personality of the mass farmers had never formed due to the self-sufficient agricultural production mode and low levelof labor productivity.After the reform and opening up,with the abolishment of people’s commune and the declining of ruralcollective economy,ruralcommunity self-organizing is stillin low degree,and the ruralcommunity villagers are almost lack of the spirit of cooperation,and thus individualindependent personality has not been developed well.Modern socialgovernance should establish a benign interaction mechanism between citizen and government, and ruralcommunity governance cannot do without the active participation of the broad masses of peasants.As one of the internaldriving force of social governance,rural residents are the core objective of primary socialgovernance.Advocating the ethical principles of active participation and self-determination,social work helps individuals,groups and community to improve or recover the socialfunctions under the viewshed of strengthening power theory as wellas superiority theory to fully mobilize the enthusiasm and creativity of the masses to participate in community affairs activity and take charge of their own things,and therefore realize the master's identity and status.Taking the professional characteristics of community social work as an example,the value target of community work lies in the realization of collective empowerment,which pays attention to the collective orientated human value and dignity.With community as the intervened object and unit,community work can improve the individualcapability through potential tapping,empowerment,and energization to promote the self-determination and self-independence ability of individuals,and itcan also promote the harmonious development of individual personality through cultivating the sense ofparticipation.With the continuous enhancement of human capital and potential development,it can further enhance the ability to participate in social competition,improve and enhance the quality of life,and ultimately contribute to rebuilding the new farmers’subjective personality.

The value idea of social work can enhance the reforger and cultivation of rural community self-organizing

Due to the impact of marketing economy,in the period of social transformation,on the one hand,the declining oforiginalmanagementsystem during the period of planned economy in rural areas,and on the other hand,the influence of the rural society"atomic"tendency,led to the transition of the identity of rural residents to"community man","socialperson".In this case,obviously,community organizations become the main carrier of social integration,especially the status and function of ruralprimary community organizations in the rural social management begin to play an increasingly prominent role.With meeting the needs of common people as the starting points and ultimate goal,social work can give full play to the community spirit of unity and cooperation,coordinate the forces of all aspects of the community,dig deeply the resources within and outside the community,and expand community social capital and a series of effective social support network,and therefore promoting the development of rural community self-organizing.Together with the value idea of self-help and effective method to help others,social work can completely solve the current problems of rural community governance and service failing to meet the needs of daily life,and can build and foster a community self-organizing system satisfied with the needs of the times.

The intervention of social work methods can improve the social relations among residents,and thus realizing the common development of community

Based on the scientific knowledge,socialwork uses scientific methods to help people with service activities.In the intervention process,social workers carry out scientific analysis and evaluation on the actual situations of community residents and self-organizing,and guide and conduct service activities according to scientific theories.Taking social work as an example,it emphasizes community development as the main goal,community and its whole members as the object to give full play to the relation coordination and resources collection function of social work,to attract external socialsupport and to fully explore community resources through determining community problems and requirements.The role of socialworkers comes into play through"designedly taking partin collection action to solve the community problems and meet the needs of the community".[6]During the participation process,the community members could explore theirinnerpotentials with the help of the social worker’s selfhelp,mutual help and self-determination spirit to establish to the sense of belonging and identity of the community,and to improve the capacity of community participation and influencing decision-making.In this way, through a series of effective methods of social work,on the one hand,it solves community problems,resolves the contradiction and conflict within community,improves the life quality of community residents,and therefore improving the social welfare level of the community residents.On the other hand,in addition to integrating community resources and expanding community capital,it also increases the initiative ofcommunity residents to participate in community affairs,which imperceptibly cultivates community residents'democratic consciousness and subject consciousness,as wellas the senses of identity,belonging and responsibility to the community.

Conclusion

The 3rdPlenary Session of the Eighteenth CPC Central Committee points out the general objective is to improve and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics and push on with modernization of the country’s governing system and capabilities. Based on the actualsituation of China, we put forward to the advice as follows:innovate socialgovernance,improve social governance mode,and stimulate social organizing vigor;let the people carry out self-discipline management,self-service and participate in social affairs management in accordance with the law through social organizations,which is conducive to give a better play to people's master spirit,maximize harmonious factors and enhance the vitality of social development.Based on scientific knowledge,socialwork uses scientific methods to help service activities.It has proved that based on the value idea of helping people to help themselves as well as the scientific and effective practical methods,social work intervention in rural community self-organizing,which is the basic form for rural community residents to exercise their democratic rights and carry out self management,self education,self serving,is not only a vivid portrayal to implement the spirit of the 3rdPlenary Session of the Eighteenth CPC Central Committee,but also conducive to promoting the rural community truly become an independent,autonomous, self sufficient human life community, which is conducive to the improvement of rural residents social relations andrealizing the common development of community,the implementation of community and common development.

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Responsible editor:Na LI

Responsible proofreader:Xiaoyan WU

基于社會工作視角的農(nóng)村社區(qū)自組織現(xiàn)代化治理探究

王守頌*
（臨沂大學(xué)法學(xué)院，山東臨沂276005）

農(nóng)村社區(qū)社會自治組織的現(xiàn)代化治理㈦農(nóng)村社會穩(wěn)定和經(jīng)濟社會發(fā)展密切相關(guān)。當前農(nóng)村社區(qū)自組織建設(shè)普遍落后于現(xiàn)實實踐的需求，嚴重影響著我國農(nóng)村現(xiàn)代化的發(fā)展進程。而社會工作可以為應(yīng)對這些問題提供獨特的視角㈦方法，其助人自助的服務(wù)理念及其人道主義價值觀和實務(wù)工作方法，為其介入農(nóng)村社區(qū)組織治理提供了現(xiàn)實契合性，有利于改善農(nóng)村社區(qū)居民社會關(guān)系，實現(xiàn)社區(qū)共同發(fā)展。

農(nóng)村社區(qū)；自組織；社會工作

王守頌（1969-），男，山東臨沂人，博士，主要從事馬克思主義理論㈦當代社會治理研究，E-mail：wss810@163.com。*通訊作者。

2014-11-12

*Corresponding author.E-mail:wss810@163.com

Received:November 12,2014 Accepted:December 30,2014

修回日期2014-12-30