A Study On The Evolution Of Socialist Consultative Democracy With Chinese Characteristics

Since its formal introduction at the 18 th Party Congress,socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics has made great strides towards broad,multi-layered and institutional development,gradually forming a consultative democracy system that is comprehensive in scope,rich in layers and sound in system,and becoming an important part of the system of the people’s mastery.The National People’s Congress,as the main and most direct form of realization of socialist democracy in China,is a representative,electoral democracy that has always played a leading role and occupied a dominant position.Socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics,based on the system of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference,has continued to develop and has become an important complement to the representative and electoral democracy of the NPC,becoming,together with electoral democracy,two important forms of democracy in China’s democratic politics and a key link in the development of people’s democracy in its entirety.Based on the existing research results,this article further deepens the study of socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics by focusing on the basic questions of what it is,where it comes from,how it is developed and what its significance is,with the aim of understanding its local attributes,understanding the laws of the development of Chinese democracy,and then contributing to its positive expansion of the channels for people’s political participation,effective management of all aspects of state and social affairs,and ultimately promoting scientific and democratic decision-making at all levels.The purpose of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of the logic of the reality of socialism with Chinese characteristics,which actively expands the channels of political participation of the people,effectively manages state and social affairs,and ultimately promotes scientific and democratic decision-making at all levels.This paper first defines democracy and consultative democracy,and on this basis,based on the policy documents of the Party and the state,distil the key elements including consultation subjects,consultation contents,consultation principles and consultation channels,and then integrates the elements to define the basic connotation of socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics.The three characteristics are endogenous,complementary and extensive,thus reflecting its superiority.Secondly,this paper analyses the ideological sources of socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics,namely the democratic ideas of Marxism-Leninism,the democratic ideas of traditional Chinese culture and the democratic ideas of the West,in order to identify their influence on the formation of socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics and to clarify logically the relationship between them and socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics.Thirdly,this paper takes a dynamic and historical approach to the exploration of socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics,arguing that the CPC exploration of consultative democracy has gone through an initial stage,a tortuous development stage,a continuous promotion stage and a formal establishment stage.Finally,on this basis,this paper summaries the historical experience and significance of the development of socialist consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics,taking into account the policy documents of the Party and the state,the research results of the academia,and the author’s own study,exploration and perception.The historical experience is manifested in five aspects: adherence to the Party’s leadership,adherence to the people’s sovereignty,adherence to the rule of law,adherence to the united front,and adherence to the development of the whole process of people’s democracy.The theoretical aspect includes the adherence to and development of the Marxist idea of people’s democracy and the important theoretical achievements in the development of socialist democracy in China;the practical aspect includes opening up a new path for the modernization of politics in China and creating a new form for human political civilization.