Public political discourse

Author: Wang Zhenhai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: China is currently undergoing a great social transformation, which manifests in various aspects, including political, economic, cultural, moral, ideological, and institutional. The political transformation also reflects many aspects. In my opinion, the fundamental aspect is establishing the public nature of power, shifting from rule to sociopolitical governance. This transformation internally aligns with democratic politics, rule of law, constitutional states, and limited governments, while externally converges with the market economy, advanced culture, international rules, and historical trends—it is an inevitable process beyond human will. Shedding historical burdens, embracing world civilization, and directing political analysis not only upward but also downward will enable the public to no longer be absent from politics. This is the only and unswerving choice for building a highly political civilization.
This book attempts to analyze political phenomena from the perspective of the public, establishing a public-centered political view, and promoting an understanding of the starting point of inverted political phenomena. It examines the subjective role of the public in politics, the delegation and transfer of public power, the government as a public agent, and the public nature of the state. It further reveals the value orientation of rational politics and advocates a public political view, democratic political view, public political view, and a sociopolitical view that encourages the public to participate in politics from the bottom up, restrict power, and govern the state. This aims to dispel many misconceptions and prejudices people hold about politics and restore politics to its true nature.
Specifically, this transformation will be reflected in the following political concepts: from natural politics to (delegated politics), from coercive politics to market politics, from ruling politics to governance politics, from class politics to public politics, from authoritarian states to constitutional states, from all-powerful governments to agent governments, from dominant governments to service-oriented governments, from private power to public power, from passive citizens to active subjects, from opaque politics to transparent politics, from rule by man to rule of law, from random politics to institutional politics, from closed politics to competitive politics, from official-centricity to people-centricity, and so on.