Reinstating autonomy: an exploration into the effective forms for realizing villager autonomy

The author believes that the intrinsic value of autonomy and villager autonomy dictates that villager autonomy will continuously open up a road for itself in practice. Also villager autonomy needs to realize its value in effective forms. Since the 1980s, there have been three stages in the forms of villager autonomy: the first being self-generated and voluntary villager autonomy based on natural villages with its main contribution of “three selfs” (self-management, self-education and self-service); the second being standard and regulated villager autonomy on the basis of administrative villages with its main contribution of “four democratics” (democratic election, democratic decision making, democratic management and democratic supervision); and the third being internally generated and externally coordinated villager autonomy below administrative villages with its main contribution of efforts to explore different effective forms of autonomy. With the socioeconomic development, it is necessary to explore in a continuous manner, the effective forms for realizing villager autonomy and build up a multilayer, multi-type and multiform system of villager autonomy.