A Study On James Bohman's Deliberative Democracy Theory

In the Late 20th Century, the important development of the western's political theories has become the benchmark of the Deliberative Democracy Theory. As a renascent democratic model, Deliberative Democracy affirms civic political participation and the boundary between nation and society. It tries to avoid conflict and assure the achievement of public reason and interests by consummating democratic procedure, widening the range of participation and emphasizing free and equal talk. Deliberative Democracy in some respects has made up for Representative Democracy limitation; However many authors indicate that the culture society has become increasingly plurality while social conflicts gets much more bitter. As a result, difficulties in implementing the Deliberative Democracy have risen. The research of James Bohman (Professor of St. Louis University) has descried the feasibility of Deliberative Democracy. He analyzes three challenges that Deliberative Democracy has met: Cultural Pluralism, Social Inequality and Social Complexity, and through which he assures the feasibility of implementing the Deliberative Democracy.Recently, China is advancing Political Civilization Construction, whereby the Democratic Construction is the most important part of Political Civilization Construction. In the process of building Political Civilization, it is important for us to use the Deliberative Democracy Theory as the reference. For one hand, although there are differences between china and the western in political culture tradition and realistic national conditions, it is much essence in Chinese traditional political culture for which can be benefit from the development of the Deliberative Democracy. On the other, the political foundation of China is the other advantage. Consequently, Deliberative Democracy is not only fit for China, but also an important path for the fulfillment of the Socialist Democracy.This paper firstly will summarize the establishment of the Deliberative Democracy Theory and therefore analyses the connotation and characteristics of the theory. Secondly, through analysis the basic contents and the impacts on Deliberative Democracy of James Bohman's theory, an exploration of the benefit it has built on regarding to beneficial our own democratic construction will be given at the end.