Citizen Participation And Democracy Development

"Participation"has always been a central topic in political life. When the shortcomings of liberal democracy emerged in the 20th century, it was timely provided with the treatment by participatory democracy theory, which holds that within the framework of representative democracy, citizens should participate in public affairs actively and orderly, and the participation in political life should be integrated with the broad participation of social practice for democracy development. Participatory democracy theory opened a new trend for the development of western democracy theory and the emergence of deliberative democracy once again inspired people's desire for autonomy in a free society.Basing on the core issue of"citizen participation",this dissertation has reconstructed and analysed participatory democracy theory by case studies of the works written by Hannah Arendt, Macpherson, Pateman and Barber, in the hope of revealing the basic connotation and background of participatory democracy theory, reconstructing the three dimensions of participatory democracy theory in citizenship, civil society and the system model about citizen participation. Moreover, this dissertation has also dedicated to analying the relationship between participatory democracy theories and deliberative democracy theory, and exploring the enlightenment to the democracy development of China. Through the three-dimensional studies of western participatory democracy, we think that the essence of participatory democracy theory is to expanding the manner and scope of direct political participation in the representative democracy framework. Participatory democracy theory holds that citizenship is the basis of of citizen participation. Unlike the legal protection of negative freedom and rights of liberal democracy theory, participatory democracy not only requires citizens to get rid of the "private nature" through active participation in political affairs and economic rights to obtain the actual civil rights, but also requires citizens to shoulder the responsibilities and obligations for the nation, and cultivate the virtue and being molded as rational people. Civil society is the foundation of citizen participation."Civil society" in participatory democracy theory includes not only a variety of civil society groups and the economic field of industrial plants, but also the public domain where people affiliate with each other freely. Only through active public participation in these areas, can democracy get new development. The realization of participatory democracy lies on the design of practicable system of citizen participation. Participatory democracy advocates a pyramid model, which is the combination of the bottom direct democracy and the upper representative democracy. Committee system is designed to encourage every citizen, within his range of competence, to participate in government decision-making process with the provided power, and so to establish a broad range of public space in a republic country. Strong democracy stands for neighborhood meetings, television and other forms of town meeting to systematize consultation and discussion. Citizens Initiative and referendum, electronic voting, ballot election will lead to the institutionalization of democratic decision-making.Through universal service programs and local volunteer programs, workplace experiments on democracy and public space construction, there will build up a system of citizen action. Deliberative democracy theory is the continuation and development of participatory democracy theory.It focuses on the relationship of participation and the quality of decision-making, and emphasizes citizens as rational and responsible subjects.In the field of civic engagement, it spares no effort to expand the field to national level or even global governance.It attempts to resolve the system interface issues between countries and civil society, which is neglected by participatory democracy theory.Participatory democracy theory has not only reduced the impact of empiricism of contemporary western democratic theory since World War II, but also expanded the democratic rights and its effect of ordinary citizens in social and political life, which breaked many new paths for the establishment of democratic authority and represents the direction of modern democracy. Democratic participation is gathering momentum and is there to stay in China. The inspiration for the development of Chinese democracy can be summerized as, on one hand, citizen participation has always been the power source of democracy; on the other hand, the construction of citizenship rights, the cultivation of civil society and the innovation of citizen participation systems should attract more attention to make a better development of democracy in China. In conclusion, this dissertation confirms the positive value of participatory democracy theory for its stressing the value of"citizen participation" from the "social"perspective.As for us, democracy is not only a national system, but also a social way of life. To the developing countries, bottom-up power is the ultimate driving force to promote democratic transition.