Toward A General Theory Of Policy Deliberation

Public policies are the norms, measures and methods used by public organizations entitled to statutory powers to solve the public problems. However, the public organization entitled to statutory powers is not the only policy subject. Public policy constitutes a public sphere whose public nature calls for opening up of the public policy system and realizing the democratic values of public policy. To maintain the publicness of public policy, it is necessary to promote policy dialogue and interaction on an equal footing between different subjects. The basic values of deliberative democracy are consistent with the requirements of the publicness of public policy. The concept of policy deliberation is to maintain effective public policy by free and equal dialogue, discussion and deliberation. However, there are still some distance between the ideal and reality of deliberative democracy. In the public policy, the introduction of the form of public deliberation in decision-making also faces with a number of constraints existing in the public domain. Therefore, as a form of public deliberation, policy deliberation should seek to reconcile the demands of the criteria to measure the difference as well as maintain the legitimacy of deliberation process; policy deliberation should help citizens to enter the deliberation agenda, achieve a consensus-oriented dialogue between citizens , which have particular emphasis on the outcome of the deliberations into the policy decision-making; policy deliberation should also promote diversification of policy subjects in order to achieve an orderly citizen participation in policy decision-making, at the same time, the main different types of policy subjects should also undertake their respective mission and function in the deliberation.Based on the above logic, the design of the framework of this paper is as follows:IntroductionIn this part, the author will state the reasons why to choose this title, and also the significances for discussing.According to the summary of theory on this fields, the author also conculdes the innovation and shortage of this article.Chapter I: Public Policy as Deliberative DemocracyIn the traditional perspective of public policy, public policy's publicness lies in the public-interests-orientation, namely, policy with the publicness should realize the public interests. Public-interests-orientation requires that public policy makers have the legitimacy of public policies to guarantee the legitimacy of policy outcomes. Therefore, on the traditional understanding of the publicness of public policy requires the government to have the legitimacy of the authority, the government in formulating public policies are able to safeguard the public interests. Such an interpretation is not logically wrong, but the publicness of public policy is viewed too narrowly, which reflects the view of government as the center of public policy. It is true that public policy would not have the basic attributes of public policy without government or public authority, but public policy coming from the government's independent judge can only be called the Government's Policy. Public policy constitutes a public sphere which requires openness, clearness and commonality. Different subjects interact and cooperate with each other, and each stakeholder should not be excluded from the public policy process. From the perspective of the public domain, the publicness of public policy requires that all subjects be able to enter the public policy system freely and equally, the subjects interact and cooperate to impact of public policies together to form a multi-policy cooperation structure and avoid that governance as the single subject leading to the detriment of rationality and legitimacy of public policy.Deliberative Democracy provides a reference to promote people's understanding of the publicness of public policy. The classic democratic theory is rooted in the definition of the poor character of the public, thus it calls for the elites, who are said to have the political capacity and skills, to be empowered to formulate public policies. It also emphasizes reasonableness of the elite top-down model of policy making. However, the failure of the welfare policy further revealed the fact that elite top-down perspective of public policy cannot endow the public policies with legitimacy, and that it cannot guarantee the rationality of public policies. From the perspective of deliberate democracy, only when the public subjects have equal dialogue and rational reflection and make decisions on the basis of consensus, can they meet the dual requirements of rationality and legality. Policy deliberation refers to the policy decision-making model in the form of public deliberations to reach a consensus of public policy.Chapter II: Mechanism and Requirements of Policy DeliberationPolicy deliberation is a form of public deliberation; therefore policy deliberation keeps in line with the general mechanism of public deliberation. From the perspective of the theory of deliberative democracy, the reason why public deliberations are able to promote the common consensus based on the rational thought is that the negotiators try to promote the formation of preferences by converting the preferred choices accepted mutually through dialogues, debates and persuasion. In the process of public deliberation, the negotiators state their reasons, listen to others'thoughts and reflect on the rightness of a variety of reasons so as to reach a most convincing point for the deliberations. Policy deliberation achieves the policy of collective decision-making between the main bodies in this general mechanism. In order to ensure the effective realization of the mechanism, certain requirements must be equipped, including the basic ones as sufficient information, equal and inclusive process and open thinking. sufficient information requires that information should be separated, each policy should have the right to gain information; equal and inclusive process requires the policy-making process be opened to each policy subject, it does not permit the denial of the opportunity to participate; open thinking requires that the policy subjects listen to others'reasons and views, make amendments to their own policies after a rational reflection.However, public deliberation is considered as a collective dialogue discussion activities extracted from outside communication world, whether or not it can be used in non-life policy-making world is still a question needed to be discussed. The deliberative democracy theory is facing criticism from different areas, critics argue that deliberative democracy is too idealistic to realize. But I believe that the concept of deliberative democracy is a worthy to insist, but public deliberation is to be applied to policy-makers on the condition of distinguishing the formal and informal public domain. Formal public sphere is in the purpose of forming public policy objective; deliberations in the informal public domain don't have the nature of public policy. Formal public domain is far away from the living world and therefore it can not realize fully inclusive, while the informal public sphere can use various channels to enhance the tolerance. Public power exists in formal public sphere, so it faces the problem of how to build an equal and open relation between the different subjects. Deliberative democracy theory stressed the importance of public deliberations during decision-making, but it ignores how to put the results of the deliberations into decision-making, and many deliberative priori democracy theorists see the results of the deliberations as the policy outcomes. Thus, controversy still exists on the scope of application of the public deliberation of. Some scholars believe that public deliberation can be only applied to civil society, and it is not suitable for transformation of the political system. From the perspective of public policy can clarify the distinction and differences on this problem, which is the reason why this paper proposes the concept of deliberation. First of all, this paper agrees that deliberations are not suitable for all on policy issues, and sometimes it requires independent government decision-making, a clear understanding of the limits of the policy deliberation is the basic to use it. Second, policy consensus, the connection between deliberation and decision-making, the role the policy main must be considered, these question will be discussed in the following three chapters.Chapter III: Policy Demands in the Policy Deliberation: Reconcile the DifferencesA pluralistic society brought about differences in policy demands, especially in China, since its reform and opening up the social structure has undergone profound changes, social stratification is inevitable, and thus the policy must be able to reconcile different policy demands to a consistent policy program. Among them, the differences between policy demands are caused by many reasons. This article outlines three types of the differences as follows: role-based, demand level-based cultural background-based, which are of the different levels. To some extent, it reflects the policy demands as well as policy perspectives which can be changed. However, all demand to avoid that the dominant people use its strong position to led the process of policy deliberation, and so on the basis of adhering to the procedure and principle we must provide the criteria for measuring the legitimacy of demands. From perspectives of the nature of public policy and the requirements of the reality of China's social development, the measure must be able to reflect the fairness as well as the promotion of the realization of social justice. According to China's practical requirements to social development, the principles of justice should be conducive to promoting equality of opportunity, equality of starting point and maximizing the interests of the minimum beneficiaries. The Constitution Based on the fair value can also be an effective regulatory system for the various policy demands, the Constitution itself is the result of deliberations, but the Constitution based on common recognition may also provide the basic criteria for legislative and decision-making. From the constitutional point of view,it is a necessary condition for the effective carrying out of policy deliberation to regulate the power of government by the spirit of the Constitution.Chapter IV: the Dialogue Mechanism of Policy Deliberations: Differentiation and Convergence of the Public SphereDifferent interpretations of public deliberation also led to different modes of the deliberation. Some scholars such as Dryzek believe that public deliberation as an autonomy model of social governance can be effectively used only by the civil society, and it is not made sure yet that whether or not the state can be included. From this perspective, public deliberation is not the best form of public policy making; also some scholars think that public deliberation the should be developed both in society and the State, such as Habermas's "dual" mode which insists that decisions should be made in the deliberation between the civil society and the state including legislature and the judiciary departments: the former as a "context of discovery" and the latter as "the legitimacy of the background". However, it has failed to consider the position of the executive agencies, at the same time it also suppose the deliberation ad non-continuity; Other scholars such as Cohen emphasize the use of public deliberation on the national level, they believe that social groups and political parties are the best venue for public deliberation, so public deliberation can be carried out in government decision-making by election of political parties system. I believe that these models have merit as well as drawbacks. Policy deliberation should be able to reflect mechanism between the formal public sphere and informal public sphere, which should include citizens, participated into the policy deliberation, whether or not on behalf of citizens. Government as the main role acts in the deliberation process and the mechanism that public deliberations become policy outcome. Therefore, this article designs three forms of the policy deliberations: representative deliberations, political parties deliberation and deliberation between the national authorities and the citizens, of which the election system plays an important role among all kinds of deliberation mechanisms. Although the deliberative democracy theory critics the representative democracy, but many forms of deliberation can not be run effectively without the protection of the electoral system. China's political system reform also needs to develop both political deliberation system and the electoral system.Chapter V: Policy Subjects of the Policy Deliberation: the Role and PositioningPolicy deliberation requires a network structure of the policy subjects. Different policy subjects play different roles in the policy network, and also they have different functions. Therefore, distinguishing and positioning the function of policy subjects is an important protection of policy deliberation. Different countries have different Political condition and social environment, so the main role of policy subjects is not exactly the same. On the actual situation in China, the ruling party and the government should change their administrative philosophy and the way of governing, they also need to find policy problem positively, creating the agenda of policy deliberation to solve the social problems. The National People's Congress should play its duties as a representative, and also it has to take up the mission and responsibilities of public negotiations on behalf of the public. At present, if the China's civil society want to participate in public policy deliberations, it can be realized step-by-step, country should provide system channel for public to participate public policy deliberations, and the community also need to try their best to find a way to express their interests rationally on the basis of self-government, it includes the development of social organizations, especially the non-governmental organizations, at the same time, mass media should play an important mission in fostering the sense of civic awareness, playing its function as public instrument.