Deliberative Co-Governance: Constructing Institutional Cooperative Relationship in Rural Grass-roots Governance.

Villagers' self-governance in China is the institutional consequence of the re-construction of the relationship between state and society in the process of political and economic reforms in the rural areas in China. The practice of self-governance has encountered some institutional difficulties and limitations, which reflect the structural tensions between multiple subjects in China's rural grass-roots governance framework concerning the distribution of power. Against such a background, constructing institutional cooperative relationship and seeking co-governance are important ways to achieve good governance for rural grass-roots. On the basis of traditional deliberative governance in China and the deliberative democracy in the west, a mechanism of deliberative participation should be constructed to realize such a cooperative relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]