The Analysis of Volunteer Service in Increasing Citizen Participation

Xu Shuai,Wang Yang,Yan Wuer

(1.School of Maxism　Beijing Jiaotong University,Beijing　100044;2.School of Public Policy and Management　TsingHua University,Beijing　100084;3.Beijing Jiaotong University,Beijing　100044)



The Analysis of Volunteer Service in Increasing Citizen Participation

Xu Shuai1,Wang Yang2,Yan Wuer3

(1.School of MaxismBeijing Jiaotong University,Beijing100044;2.School of Public Policy and ManagementTsingHua University,Beijing100084;3.Beijing Jiaotong University,Beijing100044)

Ⅰ.The rationality of volunteer service

Volunteer service is the product of social development,which is produced in Europe in 19th century.Under the social background at that time,contradictions in the western social class intensified and the social fragmentation trend became more obvious due to the rapid development of the capitalism.Volunteer service is developed mainly to ease the intensified class struggle.But with the development of the society,the volunteer service has also been given a richer connotation.

It’s rational for volunteer service becoming an effective way to increase citizen participation.In the process of modernization,the increase of citizen participation has become an inevitable trend.This is due to the inherent requirement of the market economy,and in addition,information as a resource for the country is no longer unilaterally monopolized.Therefore,governments,especially in developing countries,are actively seeking effective ways to make citizen participation performed in a reasonable way.With volunteer service increasing in the world in recent decades,more and more scholars realize that it can be an effective way to increase citizen participation.The reasons are the following:

First,volunteer service is featuring in openness and organization.Volunteer service is different from personal charity in the traditional society.In traditional society,individual charitable activities are mainly regarded as a kind of individual behavior and this behavior is usually completed by individuals who occupy more social resources.So it is simple and the activity is relatively restricted in a fixed range.The current volunteer service is open and organized.Openness means that,volunteer service is open to all citizens,and everyone can participate in the service.The organization of volunteer service means that,the carrier of current volunteer service is a professional volunteer organization,and organized activities are conducted more than individual activities.These two points can be regarded as the most distinctive features of volunteer service which distinct it from personal charitable services in the traditional society.The openness and organization of volunteer service make an important guarantee to increase citizen participation.On the one hand,the openness makes sure that every citizen can take part in volunteer work which is not in the hands of a particular class or individuals.Therefore,it can mobilize a wide range of social groups to participate in public life.Meanwhile,the organization of volunteer service ensures the orderly citizen participation.

Third,volunteer service is featuring in cooperation.Citizens cooperate and help each other mutually.This feature makes citizen participation increased greatly without damaging the existing social order in an intense way.In the process of expansion,citizen participation is often accompanied by more intense forms of activities which tend to exacerbate social differentiation and cause tension in the relationship between society and country.But in volunteer activities,there does not exist fierce confrontation between volunteer organizations and countries.Volunteer organizations combine citizens together organically and form mutual relations among citizens,who promote the integration between social groups,eliminate the gap between social groups,and aggregate social interests in a certain extent.

The above points show that it is reasonable to take volunteering as an effective way to increase citizen participation.Volunteer service has rational elements of increasing citizen participation,and in the process of citizen participation,it can gather social cohesion and strength so as to reduce the destruction of the increase to the existing social order.Therefore,the governments,especially in developing countries,pay high attention to volunteer service and take it as an effective response to the increase of citizen participation.

Ⅱ.The significance of volunteer service in China

China’s modernization process continues to accelerate and the level is constantly improved.In the process of modernization,citizen participation is also showing a widening characteristic.From the issues of online corruption to social rights,citizens pay more and more attention to public life than they did in any previous historical period.However,in our country,the society is lack of effective channels for citizen participation,which makes citizens participate in a non-rational way.This is not conducive to the stability and harmony of our society and is destructive to the overall situation of the socialism reform and opening up.

Volunteer service is of great significance for increasing citizen participation in our country.In China,with rapid development,volunteer service plays a positive role in some major natural disasters and social events in recent years,such as Wenchuan earthquake in 2008,the Olympic Games and World Expo in 2010.In the process of volunteer work in China,various social groups eliminate barriers to each other and the individuals are closely related to the country.There are some great points:

First,volunteer service is an important way for citizens to realize participation in public life.In our society,there is few ways for citizens to take part in public life and citizens generally have a certain sense of alienation of public life.In this case,the country would build channels for citizen participation and guide people to enter public life orderly.Volunteer service can effectively achieve this goal.Citizens have chance to have direct access to the social problems,in addition,they participate in them and become the direct driving force,which satisfy the needs of citizen participation in public life to a certain extent.

Second,volunteer service is an important platform for various social groups to express their own interests.An important goal of citizen participation is that citizens in social groups reflect their own interests and demands through participation in public life,thus affecting the public decision-making.In the process of volunteer service,various social groups can take it as a platform to carry out volunteer activities such as rights and expressing their interests.For example,women can establish women volunteer organizations to safeguard the interests of women;the disabled can establish the disabled volunteer organizations to maintain the interests of them.The volunteer organizations can offer help to the specific groups,and at the same time,they express the interests of different social groups to the public life so as to affect the public decision-making.

Third,volunteer service is an important way to cultivate the civic spirit.In the process of volunteering,the spirit of citizenship has been effectively spread.due to a high differentiation of interests of social groups,an “atomic” phenomenon emerges in our society.It means that many citizens in the society are concerned about their own interests only,paying no attention to public life and escaping public life;what’s worse,there is a lack of good interaction between individuals and public life.The social “atomic” phenomenon will not only lead to the individual’s lack of thinking for public life,but also damage the interests of the whole community.The process of volunteering is a process of cultivating civic spirit of volunteers.Volunteers can think about social problems via direct contact to public life in the process and participate actively in activities to solve social problems so as to establish a good interactive relationship.From the development of volunteer service in the past few years,governments take volunteering as an important way to cultivate the civic spirit.The civic spirit has an important influence on the citizen participation in public life.In the spirit of citizenship in highly developed countries,citizens are more willing to participate in public life orderly without bringing severe damage to the existing social order.

某跨河桥梁建设项目，该项目属于旧桥改造，全长约为137m，共设置了8跨，且每一跨均有一道伸缩缝。桥面宽9m左右，两侧设置了人行通道。荷载等级为一级，通行速度控制在80km/h左右，且由于该区域无地震发生，所以对抗震等级不予考虑。桥梁结构主要是采用钢筋混凝土空心板桥结构，利用钢筋混凝土浇筑实施桥面铺装作业，而墩台设计则采用了重力式墩台以确保桥梁的支撑效果。具体数据参数及其BIM模型如图1～2所示。

Ⅲ.Suggestions on the development of national volunteering

In our country,the development of volunteer service continues to accelerate and the role of volunteer service in increasing citizen participation has become more prominent.But due to the relatively short development of national volunteering,the social atmosphere for volunteer service in China is relatively weak.These relatively restrict the active development of volunteer service in increasing citizen participation in China.Therefore the following suggestions are put forward:

First,it’s advisable to reduce the access threshold for China’s volunteer organizations and play the role of professional volunteer organization more actively in volunteer service.“After 30 years of reform and opening up,the total GDP of China ranks the second in the world.In parallel,the number of various non-profit,non-governmental organizations has already reached to the second of the world.”“Chinese NPO which obtained the registration of the civil affairs department accounted for only a small part.” The main reason is that the threshold of access to volunteer organization is too high in China,and a considerable part of the grass-roots’ volunteer organizations have been closed.Volunteer organization is an important carrier of current volunteer service and plays an important role in increasing citizen participation.Therefore,the access threshold should be reduced in China to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of volunteers and keep volunteer organizations’ vigor to promote the development of volunteer service in the future.

Second,it’s helpful to pay attention to the combination of practice and education and cultivate civic spirit in volunteer service.Under the high pressure of the political system of China,volunteer atmosphere is relatively weak and citizens don’t have the habit of volunteering.There is a long way to go to form citizen spirit which can not be completed in a short period of time.So in the process of volunteer work,it’s key to pay attention to the effect of volunteer service,as well as the cultivation of civic spirit through the practice of volunteer work,so as to make volunteer idea rooted in the social soil of our country and make adequate preparations for the long-term development of volunteer service in China.

Third,it’s advisable to improve the security mechanism of volunteer service and guide more citizens to participate in volunteer practice.Security mechanism of volunteer service in China still needs improvements,which is mainly reflected in the uncompleted national volunteer law in our country currently.Therefore,our country should improve the security mechanism of volunteer service,especially the legal protection mechanism,to attract more citizens to join the practice of volunteer service.

Notes:

〔1〕亨廷顿：《变化社会中的政治秩序》，上海世纪出版集团，2008年。

〔2〕贾西津：《第三次改革:中国非营利部门战略研究》，北京：清华大学出版社，2005年。

〔3〕徐君、戴维德·史密斯：《中国非营利组织生存路径探析》，《国家行政学院学报》2012年第5期。

〔4〕房宁主编：《中国政治参与报告(2012)》，《社会科学文献出版》，2012年。

〔5〕Samuel P.Huntington,Political Order in Changing Societies,Shanghai Century Publishing Group,2008.

〔6〕Jia Xijin,Third Reform:Chinese Nonprofit Sector Strategy,Beijing Tsinghua University Press,2005.

〔7〕Xu Jun& David Smith,Chinese path of non-profit organizations to survive,Journal of Chinese Academy of Governance,2012(5),pp.39-43

〔8〕Fang Ning,Chinese Political Participation Report,Social Science Literature Publishing,2012.

Many scholars have gradually realized that volunteer service can not only manifest the social value,but also become an effective way to enlarge citizen participation.Mainly from the aspects of the rationality of the increasing of citizen participation in volunteer service,this paper analyses the significance of volunteer service in the modernization transformation of China and puts forward some suggestions for the development of China’s volunteer service in the future.

volunteer service;an effective way;citizen participation

About the author：Xu Shuai,PhD of School of Marxism Beijing Jiaotong University,research field:Marxist theory and Ideological Education;Wang Yang,Postdoctoral of non-government (NGO) Institute School of Public Policy and Management Tsinghua University,assistant researcher,research field:Social Governance and Social Organizations;Yan Wuer,professor,deputy party secretary of Beijing Jiaotong University,research field:Marxist theory and Ideological Education.