Hu Ming

　　Guanghua Law School, Zhejiang University

　　Abstract:The reality that social contradictions are intensifying in some parts of China has revealed some inescapable defects in the current stage of our criminal justice system and has presented new challenges to criminal justice. Justice is a crucial factor in effective linkages between social governance and the path to the rule of law, and the attainment of good social governance through justice is a basic marker of a rule of law society. Using the rational choice framework to examine representative individual cases, we can see that theories of participatory governance, self-governance and polycentric governance provide an approach to the interpretation of extreme social contradictions and the reduction of social conflicts, thus constituting a theoretical support and guiding direction for the reform of the judicial system. This will enable us to create a dispute resolution mechanism consistent with the concept of societal governance and judicial principles.

　　Keywords:criminal justice, social governance, dispute resolution, rational choice