On The Dilemma Of Electoral Democracy And Its Transcendence

Among diverse concepts of democracy, the realistic electoral democracy has become the dominant mode of modern western democracy. As a result of the powerful position and tremendous influence of the western countries all over the world, the global democratization is mutating into universalization of electoral democracy. The concept of electoral democracy defines democracy by election, and leads to the disappearance of democracy and the emergence of election, which makes the modern western democracy under questions. Election democracy provides a simple, clear and definite concept of democracy for non-western countries, but its expansion in new democratic countries lead to a series of difficulties or disasters.The democratic enlightenment is over or to be over at the global view, and so the studies on democracy nowadays focus more on the construction of specific institutions and the summarization of experiences. However, the extremely reductionist electoral democracy monopolises the studies on democracy and democratization, which is disadvantageous to the further development of democracy and may do harm to late-development democratic countries. Therefore, it is necessary to study on the basic theories of democratic evolution and development, by which we can reaffirm the original figure of democracy. This paper is an attempt based on this consideration.We define the concept of process democracy based on a historical investigation on democracy and the exposure of the multi-level dilemmas of electoral democracy, hoping to terminate the hollowing evolution of democracy. On the opportunity of reviving the classical meaning of democracy, process democracy rethinks the concept of democracy and the feasible path of democratization. From the point of institutional model, process democracy is not an alternative to the electoral democracy, but in the way of thinking mode, process democracy is a kind of new understanding of democracy.In terms of the clue of research, an obvious basic clue is the evolution history of democracy. From ancient Greece to modern western democracy, the evolution of democracy has undergone three stages, which are ancient athenian democracy, representative liberal democracy and electoral democracy. Historical course and logical sequence is different, but on the issue of democracy, there is some consistency between history and logic which is the hollowing of democracy. The logic of the historical evolution of democracy is the loss of democratic value and purpose, which makes democracy eventually become a tool or means the by the understanding of electoral democracy. Compared with the historical evolution of democracy, the hollowing of democracy provides us with a logical clue.In terms of the framework of research, four pivotal concepts and their mutual internal relations connect the main content of this paper together. The four pivotal concepts are separately process democracy, electoral democracy, hollowing of democracy and return of the democracy. The concept of process democracy is proposed based on a microscopic individual perspective, which includes four dimensions namely directness, participation, substantiveness and valuableness. Run through the whole text of this paper, these four dimensions provide the basic line of thinking for our analysis of democracy and its evolution, and construct the basic frame of this paper. Firstly, the ancient athenian democracy corresponds to process democracy in this four dimension. Secondly, hollowing of democratic evolution corresponds to process democracy in this four dimension on the contrary direction. Thirdly, as the extreme of the hollowing of democratic evolution, electoral democracy is difference with process democracy in this four dimension. Finally, as the development trends of contemporary western democratic theory, democracy returns to the classical democracy in this four dimension.As far as the structure is concerned, the content of the text is divided into five chapters, and the basic sequence of the text follows the historical and logical order of democratic evolution. The first chapter examines the diversification of the democratic concept and measurement model. Diversification of the democratic concept triggers disputes about discourse power of democracy. The dominant democratic concept and measurement model actually reflect the western hegemony. In addition to these concepts of democracy, we advocate a microcosmic personal perspective to understand democracy. The second chapter reviews the ancient athenian democracy, which is regarded as a paradigmatic practice of the democracy in microcosmic personal perspective. The third chapter states the historical evolution of the democracy after ancient Athens. In the evolution from the new paradigm of representative democracy to the democratic end ambition of electoral democracy, hollowing of democracy runs through the whole process. The fourth chapter analyzes the dilemmas of electoral democracy form several perspectives, including the limitations of the function of electoral democracy, the defects of electoral democracy in the view of rational choice theory, and the dilemmas of the universalization of electoral democracy.The fifth chapter summarizes the trend of contemporary democratic theory, which we call return of the democracy. As the return occurred on the background of a new era, it’s not retrogression, but a kind of spiral advance, and so it’s necessary to reinterpret the concept of process democracy. Value pluralism and process philosophy inspire this reinterpretation a lot, and they also contribute to a deep comparison between electoral democracy and process democracy. In the epilogue of this paper, we criticize the non-activism of modern western democracy. On the basis of the criticization, we stand for the process democracy based on civic and individual activism, wishing it to be an autonomous and dignified state of existence.