Research on the Practical Benefits of Chinese-Style Democracy in Rural China: Based on the Cases of 20 Villages in Zhejiang Province, China

Whole-process people's democracy, core to Chinese-style democracy, sees China emphasizing rural effectiveness.Zhejiang, a reform forerunner, serves as a case: field research in 20 national demonstration villages highlights its "Five-Governance Integration" model, a holistic framework combining political leadership, rule of law, virtue-based social norms, grassroots self-governance, and digital intelligent governance.Dilemmas in Zhejiang's rural democratic governance include: exogenous-endogenous conflicts; hollowing-out from absent subjects; disconnection between grassroots democracy and practice; model homogenization/rigidity; and regional disparities in effectiveness.Measures proposed include: deepening "embedded collaborative governance" to integrate administration and autonomy; boosting villagers' self-governance for co-construction/sharing; optimizing resources to embed democracy in practice; innovating methods to upgrade the model; and building inter-village platforms to leverage demo villages.