On Deliberative Democracy: Expression, Discussion And Decision-making

Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the CPC has paid more attention to the construction of socialist democratic politics.For the first time,the 18 th National Congress has proposed to improve the socialist consultative democracy system,which indicates that the construction of China’s consultative democracy system will be an important direction for China’s democratic development in the future.Understanding the deliberative democracy theory will be helpful to the construction of Chinese deliberative democracy.The concept of deliberative democracy needs to be deconstructed,including three aspects: expression,discussion and decision-making,which are respectively deliberative democracy as expression,deliberative democracy with discussion and consultation as the main process and deliberative democracy with decision-making as the ultimate goal.Deliberative democracy is a democratic form that transcends electoral democracy.As a form of expression,deliberative democracy can realize the fairness of citizens’ expression,expand the content of citizens’ expression,better adapt to the requirements of a pluralistic society,and promote citizens to form public rationality in the orderly arrangement of individual partiality.The core foundation of deliberative democracy is public rationality.In the process of consultation,discussion can realize the subject status of citizens,with discussion as a decision-making tool and decision as the ultimate goal.Discussions can exchange private information and overcome the limitations of personal rationality.Deliberative democracy can promote scientific and democratic public decision-making,provide theoretical,procedural and institutional guidance for public decision-making,create legitimacy for public decision-making,and ensure scientific and democratic public decision-making.Citizens in deliberative democracy are displaying the precious public spirit,which can be shaped and cultivated.Deliberative democracy makes the realization of public good more possible,enhances the efficiency of democratic politics,and reduces the operating cost of the political system.These three aspects are interrelated and form an analytical framework for understanding deliberative democracy,presenting the main features of deliberative democracy and restoring the concept of deliberative democracy as a whole.