Consultation And Public Decision-making

The "consultation" theories have made great progress since 1980s, which have been earning more and more attentions from scholars home and abroad. New ideas, such as "consultative democracy" and "consultative politics", contribute to the mainstream position of the concept "consultation" as a core value system. In the arena of public decision-making, when western world is still perplexed about concept of consultation, Chinese consultation system has been put into practice for as long as 50 years, which is the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation with Chinese characteristics. From the perspective of the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation (hereinafter refers to "the perspective on multiparty cooperation" for short), the system of consultation is not only being supported by political, social and cultural, and institutional resources, but going through theoretical and practical development as well, forming its own advantages and characteristics. Therefore, the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation can definitely, to some extent, break the ice for public decision-making, yet it still needs further studies in how comprehensively the system would influence public decision-making, how deep the influences would go, and what the influencing effects would be, to be of more assistance in theoretical and practical development.This article intends to study how consultation works in public decision and the effects, as well as the status quo of the influences. The author gives his essential analysis in two different dimensions, one is to study the relationship between the consultation under multiparty cooperation and the whole process of public decision-making, based on the over-six-year practice of democratic parties and nonparty personages in Qingpu District in multiparty cooperation and political consultation; the other one is to study the relationship between the consultation under multiparty cooperation and the key procedure in public decision-making (policy-making), exemplified by the proposals of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) presented by democratic parties and nonparty personages in Qingpu District in the past six years. Through the first dimension, the author draws up a panorama by the thread of the process of decision-making, while the author shows a micro-stereogram by focusing on a key procedure from the whole process in the second dimension. A series of conclusions on the relationships between the consultation under multiparty cooperation and public decision-making have been reached during the collection of large database, multi-tier analysis and detailed arguments.This article, built on real and persuasive first-hand materials, is a record of how actually the consultation under multiparty cooperation effects on public decision-making. Based on the conclusions drawn from the two-dimensional analysis, the article summarizes the functions of the consultation under multiparty cooperation in public decision-making with the help of theoretical tools, including public choice theory and theory of justice. In true sound bite mode, the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation opens up a Joharl Window (to integrate information and interests), realizing procedural justice, and making public choices based on reason and responsibility. Moreover, the article concludes the inadequacies in the consultation under multiparty cooperation, and suggests on how to improve the function effectiveness of the system in public decision-making.As far as the author is concerned, this article is distinct in the following aspects: it smartly and originally integrates the two different theories (the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation and public decision-making) which respectively belong to two different academic fields (democratic politics and public administration); it, with the perspective of the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation, accords with China national conditions and easily gets access to data collection, presenting its ideas through both theoretical and empirical analysis; it selects two dimensions in empirical analysis, which makes the analyzing more vivid and profound.In light of China's basic conditions, analysis and opinions in this article are quite helpful to further clarify the functions of the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation in public decision-making, and also inspiring to improve the effectiveness of the functions. The theoretical studies of political party system in this article provide a new perspective as well.