On the Value of Legalization of Political Participation for Protecting Human Rights
- By Chen Youwu
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 12, 2013
IV. The legalization of political participation is a prerequisite for political stability
The protection of human rights needs a stable social environment, in which political stability is the core. The society cannot be stable if there is no political stability. In the whole social system of stability, political stability provides political guarantee for public security and the stability of people's minds and thus promotes the protection of human rights. To achieve political stability, we must ensure that the state power is organized and orderly and our people's rights are well protected. Among them, the orderly political participation by our citizens and its legalization process would exert an important influence on political stability.
There are many factors which can influence political stability. Social campaigns, economic development, urbanization, rate of literacy, and education development, as mentioned by Huntington, can all have some influence on political stability. Some scholars summarize the main factors affecting political stability as follows:（1）abuse of political power is the political factor;（2）uneven distribution of wealth is the economic factor; （3）mistakes made in the political decision-making process is the principal factor; （4）and damage by hostile forces is the environmental factor.
In light of the important influence of political participation on political stability, we should promote the legalization of political participation for it is a prerequisite for political stability. There are scholars who believe that political stability means that the political ruling by the ruling class can not only maintain the order of the legal system we already have, but possess the ability to adapt to political changes. Some other scholars point out the important resources which could promote an effective operation of the current system come from a deep exploration of the system. The development laws of social movement in a country and the possibility of subversive revolutionary activities basically depend on the country's ability of incorporating common social movement into the legal system. Through legalizing political participation, we can not only guarantee and regulate the people's right, acts and process of political participation, but effectively set limits to the state power to avoid its random infringement of our people's political participation rights. If political participation can be well regulated and guaranteed, and the people's pursuits of interests have normal channels of expression, then there is little possibility that extreme incidents which would threaten social stability would happen.
Only when the pursuits of interests from different parties are highlighted and properly taken care of, can our political stability be achieved. In this sense, the legalization of political participation is both a process and result of properly handling the pursuits of interests from different parties.
The author is deputy director of Human Rights Research and Education Center,
Guangzhou University.
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