Deliberative Democracy:Analysis Of The New Path Of Constitutional Development

Deliberative democracy is a democratic theory which originated from the western countries in the1980s. It is believed to be a revision of the free democratic theory and the critical democratic theory. As a type of theory, its core concept relies on public deliberation, emphasizes the realization of public rationality and public interest via dialogue, discussion, debate, deliberation and consensus. The Constitutionalism applies the Constitution and laws to restrain the public power. In other words, the spirit is to regulate the public power under the framework of the Constitution and laws. The goal of the Constitutionalism is to regulate the public power and to protect the civil rights. Furthermore, the goal of regulating the public power is to protect the civil rights. In modern society, governing the country by law has become the consensus. First, based on the spirit of "governing the country by the Constitution", any country deviating away from the Constitution is difficult to obtain legitimacy. The deliberative democracy is not only applicable to democratic governance, but also associated with the social governance. However, as long as it is related to democratic governance, it is considered as a constitutional question. Even the social governance should also be placed in the constitutional framework. Therefore, deliberative democracy, as a form of democracy, is an important component of the constitutional system.Although deliberative democracy is a relatively new and emerging concept, it has a great influence on both theory and practice in the contemporary world. Compared with the dominating theory of representative democracy, the spirit of deliberative democracy is that citizens participate in the decision making process via public consultation in the forms of equal dialogue, discussion, and review. This represents a very important development of the democratic theory. The development of deliberative democracy can be seen as a search for the best way to ensure democracy and autonomy. It is consistent with constitutional ideas to some extent in a way that deliberative democracy promotes and protects the development of constitutional democracy. In fact, deliberation widely exists in the society, especially in the modern democratic politics. It is reflected in the deliberation among different political interest groups. To solve political problems and political conflict and to coordinate political behavior using democratic consultation has gradually become the consensus of modern constitutional countries. As the new development of contemporary democratic theory, deliberative democracy provides a new way for the study of the realization form of democracy. We intend to learn and absorb the reasonable elements of deliberative democracy with the purpose of guiding China’s democratic political practice. Especially during the current social transition, we intend to combine deliberative democracy with Chinese traditional culture and constitutional development, with the purpose of realizing the harmony of the society and the comprehensive development of citizens. With the development of socialist market economy and the construction of political civilization, the deliberative democracy will have promising prospects as the important content of the socialist constitutionalism. The deliberation mechanism promotes the participation and cooperation among members of the society, invites different opinions, improves the support of the public, enhances political legitimacy, further develops the public governance, and avoids social violence and conflict. However, the implementation of the deliberative democracy is associated with many difficulties such as the high costs, the time constraints, the conflict between personal interest and public interest, the weak protection of political equality and freedom, and the manipulation. In construction of the socialist constitution with Chinese characteristics, it takes joint efforts to provide a good environment and to benefit from democratic consultation. As long as we fully understand the uniqueness of our own nation, follow the basic rules of law and constitutional development, and actively learn from other countries, we will certainly be able to achieve the goals of our constitutional construction.