The Reconciliation Of Democratic Ideal And Democratic Practice

Democratic practice is an important subject in the political science,and democratic theory is an important component of political theory.Giovanni Sartori,among many others,attempted to out forward a comprehensive democratic theory in the 20 th century.During latter half of the 20 th century,democracy was trapped in the dilemma of ideal and practice.Western political circles began to reflect on democracy,and democratic theorists began to have fierce debates on democracy.Various schools of democracy emerged in practice,and Sartori also conducted in-depth research on democracy.Sartori believes that the confusion of contemporary democratic concept is the wrong understanding of democracy,which is caused by people’s failure to distinguish the relationship between democratic ideal and democratic practice.Sartori put forward that democratic ideal and democratic practice are not opposite,but mutually binding and influencing relationship.Satori tried to coordinate and integrate the democratic ideal and democratic practice,and constructed his own democratic theory based on this,and made contribution to the perfection and development of democratic theory.Sartori emphasized that when analyzing democracy,we should pay attention to the difference between democratic ideal and democratic practice,and grasp the relationship between them clearly.In his opinion,the conflict between democratic ideal and democratic practice shows that the free value connotation of democratic ideal has been destroyed in practical practice,democracy has occupied the upper hand and overdeveloped,and democracy poses a threat to freedom.However,he believes that such conflicts are not irreconcilable.Democratic ideal can guide democratic practice,while the development of democratic practice acts on democratic ideal.In practical practice,the simple majority rule has the danger of endangering individual freedom,so Sartori advocates revising the simple majority rule into the limited majority rule to protect individual freedom.Satori believes that elite democracy is the effective form to realize democracy in democratic practice.It is undeniable that meritocratic democracy has defects that cannot be ignored due to its lack of value connotation in practice.Therefore,Satori believes that the ideal value should be integrated into the practice of meritocracy,so as to build "competition-feedback" meritocracy.Sartori tried to coordinate the conflict between democratic ideal and democratic practice.On the premise of protecting freedom,he proposed the rule of limited majority rule and competition-feedback” meritocracy to integrate democratic ideal and democratic practice and construct his own concept of democracy.In the process of constructing his democratic theory,Satori stood in the neo-liberalism camp and believed that freedom precedes democracy,and excessive development of democracy may harm freedom.What he constructed was a democratic theory with strong conservative liberalism.Any theory is a reflection of real practice.Sartori’s theory of democracy is developed on the basis of reflecting on the crisis of western democracy and combining the ideological trend of reality theory.Sartori’s theory of democracy cannot leave the influence of the time environment and personal experience.His democratic research foothold is concerned about the democratic development of Italy,and his hatred of autocracy is one of the reasons for Sartori’s yearning for democracy.The development of democratic practice is inseparable from the protection of the ideal of freedom.According to the feedback of democratic practice,Sartori revised the simple majority rule into the limited majority rule,limited the elite rule,and constructed the "competition-feedback" elite rule.In practice,the majority rule also has different forms of expression.In classical democracy,the majority rule is a simple majority rule,but in practice,the simple majority rule may lead to majority dictatorship,thus infringing on individual freedom.Sartori makes it clear that in modern democracy,majority rule can only be limited majority rule.In fact,Sartori rejects the ideal of democracy as the rule of the majority.He pointed out that,in practice,the horizontal democracy of majority rule is impossible to achieve.Democracy in practice is a kind of vertical democracy,that is,a minority elite rule.Satori emphasizes that the elite rule of a minority may lead to the oppression of a minority elite over the majority of the public,so the rule of competition and feedback should be embedded to build a "competition-feedback" meritocracy.It can be seen that Sartori made great efforts to try to merge democratic ideas and democratic practices.At the same time,we should also see the limitations of Sartori’s democratic theory,which reminds us to analyze sartori’s democratic theory with a rational and prudent attitude.Sartori’s in-depth exploration of democratic theory,whether it is the modification of the limited majority rule to the simple majority rule,or the construction of "competitive feedback" meritocracy,can be seen that Sartori’s firm position on the protection of individual freedom,which has an important inspiration for the study of democratic issues.