Constitution-making And Democratic Transition Of Early Republican China

From 1990s on, Democratic Transition becomes the focus on the study of democracy in the foreign academia. Observing the political development of Early Republican China through the democratization, an obvious fact is the Republican China is at the pivotal phase of Democratic Transition. The old explanations on the failure of Early Chinese Democratization lay particular stress on the macro-analysis, emphasize democratization is restricted by the social, economic and cultural conditions. But the latest research on the third wave of democratization makes clear that macro-analysis of comparative modernization, political culture, Civil Society approaches have not explained well the fact of many developing countries setting up the democratic politics. From the angle of macro-analysis view, these developing countries' economy gets behind, or Civil Society is developing, or political culture is not mature. So this paper chooses the politics of Constitution-making and Democratic Transition of Early Republican China as a case study, expects to use rising political sociology methods, especially rational choice theory, new institutional theory, tries to review the lessons of Chinese early democratic failure by microscopic approaches.The preface concerns mainly the purpose, method and meaning of the research, and the retrospection of the correlative studies. The paper is made of eight sections. Chapter 1 reviews the survey of political development of Early Republican China. Through analyzing the political power, political participation, political validity and political culture, points out some new characteristics of Chinese political development from the revolution of 1911, expounds the Democratic Transition opportunity comes into being at the macro-analysis level, and the influence on Constitution-making process. Chapter 2 briefly retrospects Constitution—making process. On the one hand, with the help of comparative constitutional approach, Chapter 3 analyzes the structural limitations of "the Tiantan Constitution Draft " , on the other hand, draws on the institutional limitations to affect on theend of constitution-making in the view of Institutional Change, corrects the past moral reviews on the failure of Constitution-making. Chapter 4 argues some reasons of institutional limitations coming into being. The author analyzes the interest motives of institutional choice and the features of the constitution rational choice through saying disputes on the constitution choice by the constitution-making assemblymen. Chapter 5 describes strategy interaction on the goal of Constitution-making, the model of Constitution-making, and the method of Constitution-making between the parliament and Beiyang political bloc, and through comparing American, French Constitution-making process, discuss a series of strategies to affect the outcome. Chapter 6 and 7 discuss other reasons of the influence on framers' political choice, including the social background, policy institution and political tradition and so on. The importance of these factors is not paid worthy attention. The last chapter is conclusion.In the last conclusion, the author admits the Democratic Breakdown was a universal phenomenon in the 20th century, as the same time, insists the parliament and beiyang political bloc made false choice early or late in the challenging Democratic Transition. At first, the parliament excluded beiyang political bloc from participating in constitution-making, adopted the close parliament constitution-making model, chose opposed method of constitution-making solely, refused any compromise. The appearance of "Legislation Paramountcy " and "Hyperparliamentarism Polity " indicated every political bloc could not carry institutional compromise at the constitutional lever. Secondly, the constitutional choice has failed. Choosing what kind of constitutional system, there are two important principles. One did not violate basal constitutional theory, especially the principle of the checks and balances and separation of powers, the other is constitutional policy must embody plural interest structure. Choosing parliamentarism, not choosing "Hyperparliamentarism" , choosing presidentialism, not choosing "Hyperpresidentialism" , even not choosing "Enlightened Despotism " and any political kind of authoritarianism or totalitarianism. In the Democratic Transition phase, the first goal of political democratization must ensure any kind...