Autonomy by Villagers :A Special Way for the Construction of Democracy in China

The construction of democracy should be an interactive process between the construction of democratic system dominated by the national government and the fostering of social democracy led by socialism. Since the 1980s, encouraged by the government, the basic level democracy in villages—autonomy by villagers has been prevailing with a large number of villager participants. The establishment and development of the autonomy by villagers can be considered as a special way to construct contemporary democracy in China. With the efforts in the past two decades, autonomy by villagers has gained great progress: its popularization rate in the rural area has been improved; its contents have been enriched and its standardization has been upgraded. On the whole, the construction of democracy has made great achievements. Meanwhile, it should be noted that in the practice of autonomy by villagers there still exist some problems. Unless we solve them, the autonomy will not develop further healthily. Along with the exploration and improvement of autonomy by villagers, political democracy is able to develop first in the countries, being a start and breakthrough point of Chinese democracy construction at present stage.