The New Development in the Deliberative Democracy and Chinese Practices' Overpassing of the West: The Study on Deliberative Democracy Practice of Chaoyang District in Beijing
The deliberative democracy practice, both in China and abroad, have made a great achievement in many aspects. However, in fact, the deliberative democracy practices in western countries, such as consultative polls, citizens' juries, subject group and citizens' assemblies, fail to answer the four theoretical questions for the deliberative democracy known in the politics academic community. Firstly, the uncertain relation between representative democracy and deliberative democracy blurs the target of the latter one. Secondly, the fairness of agenda setting in deliberation process is impeded by the imbalance of power among the actors in deliberation. In addition, the content and the scope of deliberative issues are uncertain. Last but not the least; it is quite difficult to make consensus through the implementation of deliberative democracy in western countries to take effect in the original institutional system. The deliberative co-governance system of party and people in Chaoyang district of Beijing answers the academic questions in some key aspects about the theory and methods of the western deliberative democracy. Firstly, the relationship between deliberative democracy and representative democracy is made clear by institution and system building, which enables deliberation to target at public needs even with a weak representative system. Secondly, the imbalance of power in agenda setting is solved in this co-governance system by the officials' sharing decisive power with the grass-roots. Moreover, the uncertainty of content and scope in western deliberative democracy is reduced by widely absorbing public opinions through opinion polls, public hearing, etc. At last, a supervision and assessment system is set up, which empowers different subjects to monitor the project and its process and ensures the implementation of deliberative conclusions. In this article, it is stated that the practice in Chaoyang district represents a new way to institutionalize deliberative democracy, surpassing the existing experience of deliberative democracy. Firstly, compared with Wenling case in Zhejiang province, which institutionalizes the deliberative democracy by combining with the local people's congress system, Chaoyang case steps further. In the co-governance system in Chaoyang, effectiveness and legitimacy are improved by embedding deliberation into the core areas of Chinese characteristic party-governance system. Moreover, accompanying with the engagement and process of institutionalization and systematization, Chinese deliberative practices surpass the western experience. Instead of surrendering to the ″legitimate″ practice of western deliberative democracy, Chaoyang district develops a new path to apply deliberative democracy for the sake of Path-Dependence on the original party-governance system, which imbeds deliberative democracy into the unity system of the party and the government. However, the above process does not follow the original governance path, it creates a new path with the embedment of new institutional elements. This new path can be called ″governance driven democratization.″
引用本文:
郎友兴 张品. 中国协商民主的新进展及对西方经验的超越——北京市朝阳区协商民主实践之分析[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2017, 3(6): 17-.
Lang Youxing Zhang Pin. The New Development in the Deliberative Democracy and Chinese Practices' Overpassing of the West: The Study on Deliberative Democracy Practice of Chaoyang District in Beijing. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2017, 3(6): 17-.