Deliberative Democracy In China:Theory Transmission And Development Prospects

As the new progress of western democracy theory, deliberative democracy theory has caused persistent attention and wide discussion since it was brought in China, which has become the main stage of democracy research at present. However, when the hot topic on deliberative democracy is diffusely spread, many misunderstandings about it exist in academic circles. Based on the introduction of normative researches on deliberative democracy, this paper is going to clarify the misunderstandings about definition of deliberative democracy, exploring the background and pushing force of it, and then foresee its future direction in China. To be specific, this paper includes five parts, the main parts (chapter II to V) are as follows:Chapter two introduces the normative researches on deliberative democracy theory. After the World War II, the western world entered the golden times of capital development, with remarkable characters of amazing developing speed, abundant products, and pluralistic society. At the same time, the liberal democratic system had to experience severe crisis. Thus, the deliberative democracy theory sprung up. While deliberative democracy theory as an academic school of democracy theory, differing from the elitist democracy and plural democracy, didn't get so-called core advocators, its norms and institutional mode were generally acknowledged. This chapter discusses the background of the deliberative democratic theory, the main concept and the institutional mode in order to make an exact definition of deliberative democracy.Chapter three analyzes the spread process of the deliberative democracy theory in China, and clarifies the misunderstandings generating in this process which can be divided into two stages:the translation stage and prevalence stage. Now that literally the "deliberative democracy" is similar to the "political consultation" and "democratic consultation", the misunderstandings has generated since the deliberative democracy theory became popular. But in fact, compared with political consultation, the political consultation has different genesis, purpose, theory and content, and also the main meaning of democratic democracy is different from the deliberative democracy in three aspects. Casting light on the spread process of the deliberative democracy in China, this chapter discusses the misunderstandings about this theory and why these misunderstandings could happen.Chapter four explores the development circumstance and pushing force of the deliberative democracy theory in China. Currently, domestic researchers insist that there should be many favorable factors to accelerate the development of deliberative democracy, such as the basic conditions at present, the traditional culture and so on. Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, the state-nominated society and the noncompetitive political system cannot provide sufficient support for the development of the deliberative democracy. And furthermore, the definition of consultation in traditional culture and politics is completely different from the definition of deliberation in the deliberative democracy theory. Thus, the favorable conditions for the development of the deliberative democracy are overestimated obviously. There is no doubt that we need the participation of deliberative democracy in China, but the real motive force for the development of the deliberative democracy should be the trend of pluralistic society, the civil positive participation and the need for improving the system of decision making.Chapter five foresees the prospect of deliberative democracy. The electoral democracy is the main framework of modern democracy, and the other democratic forms, regardless of the participant democracy or the deliberative one, are only microforms of democracy. Therefore, electoral democracy's development plays a decisive role on deliberative democracy system, and deliberative democracy system should be accordant with the main framework of electoral democracy. The Chinese People's Political Consultative, the carrier of the deliberative democracy, whose main function has experienced the transformation process from the coordination to deliberation, will stride into the deliberative democracy period by the innovation of the deliberative forum.In brief, this paper proposes that deliberative democracy providers a thoughtful idea for political development in the future. However, the reference of deliberative democracy should base on the precise understanding of it. If the misread theory was used to instruct our practice of democracy, the only result would be that our practice severely deviates from the right concept of democracy. As a result, there is no shortcut in democratic political development. Only relying on the reality of theory and national conditions and accelerating deliberative democracy process in the proper areas can have the positive influence on the deliberative democracy of political development in China.