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Theoretical Analysis Of Deliberative Governance System

Posted on:2020-04-02Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y MengFull Text:PDF
GTID:1366330602456697Subject:Political Theory
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The theme of this research focuses on the theoretical construction of a deliberative governance system.The research is based on deliberative theory and deliberative governance practices in the western democracies,which are totally different with consultative politics in China.Deliberation,as a mode of communication,emphasizes the two-track process that is from public opinion formation to public will formation.The core ideas around deliberation are deliberators'internal profound consideration and mutual judgement among them.Deliberative democracy,based on the deliberative theory,attempts to re-consider the drawbacks emerged in aggregative democracy and make democratic decisions more rational.However,consultative politics is rather different,which coordinate with the non-competitive political ecology in China.Many scholars try to seek consultative ingredients in Confucianism,such as the cultural basis of 'harmony',while the political basis of consultative politics in contemporary China can be traced back to the successful experiences of consultation between the Communist Party of China and other parties in the counter-Japanese base areas.Currently,the framework of extensive,multi-layered and institutional consultative democracy coordinates the formal arrangement of Chinese Political Party System,the institution of the People's Congress and the institution of self-governance in the community-level.The deliberative governance system is constructed on the basis of both theoretical and empirical discussion on deliberation in the western democracies.Theoretically,the deliberative governance system is an ideal type.In order to theoretically analyze the deliberative governance system,it needs comprehensive understanding of deliberative systems and deliberative governance.The basic inter-structure of the deliberative governance system is called deliberative governance sub-system.Based on the principle of 'division of labour',deliberative governance actors gather together and deliberate on governance issues in different sub-systems.In fact,in order to realize actors' deliberative functions,they usually undertake different deliberative task by applying appropriate forms of communication.The connection and interaction among the sub-systems are established through various types of 'flow',among which the most important are information flow and feedback flow.The transition of information and feedback makes it possible that the relationship among deliberative governance actors turns to be more cooperative and iterated.The systemic turn in deliberative governance would be beneficial for government to mobilize all kind of governance actors and make the best of governance resources,which would be further conductive to 'good governance'.Over the past three decades,increasingly serious and persistent governance challenges have emerged in western democracies at all levels from national to local.Main reasons are identified as both the impact of globalization and regional trends,as well as the increasing risked problems and declining citizens' trust in governments.In this context,reform on traditional decision-making patterns becomes necessity.Governments,therefore,advance democratic innovations,which pays great attention to the cooperative relations among government,ordinary citizens and other organization in both market and public sphere.Since the 1990s,deliberative turn appeared in western democratic development.The initial work on deliberative democracy concerns on ordinary citizens'engagement through rational discourse and reasoned argument,which helps government to update perception of either forms or effectiveness of public participation.However,the empirical turn in deliberative democratic research fosters attention to design deliberative forums,in which participants are included to deliberate authentically and empowered to make a collective binding decision.In practice,a new form of governance,called deliberative governance,appears.As a form of empowered participation governance,deliberative governance places the final decision-making in the hands of ordinary citizens,and,based on inter-subjectivity deliberation,construct cooperative relations between government and citizens.Meanwhile,governance actors will take clear accountability,due to the open and transparent deliberative process.However,in practice,what cannot be denied is that there are still empirical dilemmas emerged in deliberative governance,which includes exclusion of some relevant governance actors,inequality of governance process,and the break between deliberative results and final decision.To a large extent,such mentioned dilemmas are relevant to the practical challenges faced by empirical turn of deliberative democracy.This phenomenon stems from the embedded relationship between deliberative governance and deliberative democracy.In fact,it is the research on deliberative democracy that provides opportunity for government to be more cautious with deliberative innovation,which further makes deliberative governance come into being.As a result,more and more governance activities involve formation of both public opinions and public wills through actors' communication and reflection in a deliberative process.Meanwhile,the institutional design in empirical deliberative democracy provides abundant of information for considering how to help deliberative governance to be more effective.However,a systemic turn has emerged in deliberative democracy.Deliberative systems,which emphasizes deliberation happened in both macro public sphere and micro political sphere as well as the interactive relations between them,attempts to resolve the challenges faced by deliberative empirical development.Instead of focusing on individual deliberative sites,the deliberative systems introduce the relationships of interdependence or complementarity among different deliberative parts,which interact together to realize the whole function.The theory of deliberative systems is at its infant.It is inevitable that there are some drawbacks,including the ambiguous boundary stemming from inclusion of both deliberative and non-deliberative actions,and the indeterminacy in terms of the role played by ordinary citizens as well as the effectiveness of deliberative result.Even so,the research on deliberative systems offers opportunity for people to seriously consider the systemic turn in deliberative governance,which would be helpful to resolve the three empirical dilemmas mentioned above.Therefore,the core topic of this research focuses on the theoretical analysis of a deliberative governance system.It attempts to resolve three research questions:(1)what are the structural elements and their relations in a deliberative governance system;(2)why does the transition of structural elements can happen;and(3)how to realize the deliberative governance system.The analytic framework is framed as follows:The first chapter is designed as Introduction.This section introduces the clear background to explain why the research is of relevant importance.Three core research questions are also identified,which helps to frame the work schedule.Then,the systemic literature review on both deliberative systems and deliberative governance is conducted,which follows by the framing of research framework and research methodology.The second chapter examines the theoretical basis for constructing a deliberative governance system.It should be of great significance to clarify what deliberative governance means.The concept includes three main elements:actors' cooperation,deliberative action and the role of the public.Apart from that,there will be a integrated framework ? governance actors,governance issues,governance tools and governance structure—to explore what deliberative governance really means in terms of both theory and practice.In this branch,great attention will be paid to the institutions—minipublics—that support the development of deliberative governance.Minipublics reflects the microcosm of the broader public.In practice,minipublics functions as the transition mechanisms to connect informal deliberative spaces and formal deliberative spaces,as well as the engagement space in which ordinary citizens,experts and decision-makers can communicate with each other in an equal,open and mutual respect sense.Therefore,deliberating in the mipublics will help to enhance the legitimacy of a decision,mobilize citizens' active wills to participate and improve governance.Meanwhile,another theoretical basis goes to deliberative systems.Based on the systemic analysis of different deliberative parts by either Jurgen Habermas or John S.Dryzek,three models of deliberative systems are identified,i.e.sequenced deliberative systems,integrated deliberative systems and iterated deliberative systems.Both advantages and disadvantages of the three models are examined,which aims to deepen understanding of this theory,and expound the necessity of a relatively well-designed deliberative governance system.The third chapter describes the structure of the deliberative governance system.The logic of framing follows principles based on levels from 'macro' to 'micro '.Firstly,it is of great significance to identify the multi-levels of the system.Three sub-systems are identified,as deliberative sub-system for question cognition;deliberative sub-system for opinion formation and deliberative sub-system for decision making.The second step focuses on the inter-relationship of three sub-systems,which further will be beneficial for identifying transformation among the three sub-systems.Finally,the deliberative behavior of subjects is defined as complex adaptive behavior,which will contribute to future analysis of the system operation.The fourth chapter concentrates on the exploration of reasons why transformation exists among sub-systems in the deliberative governance system.Both interdependence and mutual influence identify the characteristics of the relationship among the three sub-systems.The section argues that the flows of abundant of information and feedback among sub-systems play a significant role in formulating such relations.Specifically,the reasons why such flows can exist in the deliberative governance systems can be explained as follows:the deliberative governance system is porous in nature,and the realization of its functions also rely on the transformation.Firstly,the porous structure allows relative independence as well as relative openness of the three sub-systems.therefore,those key deliberative governance actors can deliberate issues within the sub-system,but meanwhile can also move free,transfer information and penetrate discourses among the sub-systems.Such structure of the deliberative governance system originates from both the structure and the demand of public engagement in the democratic society.Secondly,the transformation also stems from the need to realize the function of the whole deliberative governance system.This branch explores such three functions as:cognitive improvement,mutual understanding and democratic decision making.The fifth chapter examines the practice of the deliberative governance system.Based on interpretive analysis method,the branch analyzes three typical cases:Citizens Assembly on Brexit in the UK,Participatory Budgeting in Dundee—'Dundee Decides' in Scotland,and Citizens' Jury on Community Planning in Bendigo,Australia.It aims to explore how deliberative practices are designed in different contexts,and how the deliberative results are transmitted into the public policy-making process.The case studies are followed by the investigation on three kinds of dilemmas appeared in the practice of deliberative governance,which pushes researchers to consider how to resolve those dilemmas by constructing a deliberative governance system.The sixth chapter concentrates on the realization of the deliberative governance system.The section attempts to investigate the conditions under with the deliberative governance system would become true in the western democracies.As an ideal type of complex adaptive system,the governance system's realization demands its sustainability,internal coordination as well as the embedded relations with the existing representative democratic arrangement.Specifically,first,the sustainability of the deliberative governance system depends on the complement of sub-systems'deliberative tasks.This will need deliberative governance actors gather in their relevant sub-systems,and deliberate on the governance issues by apply appropriate deliberative normative.The tasks are,respectively,to form structured public opinion,to generate collective deliberative results which can be accepted by all the affected,and to make final decision.Second,the coordination of the deliberative systems means that the relationship among deliberative actors within each sub-system and the relations among the three sub-systems are healthy.Within the sub-systems,it is important that deliberative actions by deliberative actors are iterated.The relations among sub-systems are also established on the basis of relationship among deliberative actor.However,in this context,the relationship would be that ordinary citizens in one sub-system empower citizens' representatives and elected representatives to deliberate in other two sub-systems.Third but the most important,the realization of the deliberative governance system will largely rely on its embedded relationship with the existing representative democratic arrangement.In terms of the system's construction,there is a clarified statement that the deliberative systems and the representative democracy are,to varying degrees,wedged in each other,while the practice and effectiveness of deliberative governance also need supports from the public agencies.Therefore,the realization of the deliberative governance system cannot be separated from the arrangements of representative democracy.However,there is no doubt that democratic reforms should be deepened,in order to resolve problems faced by representative democracy.The seventh chapter focuses on comparison between deliberative governance system in western society and consultative governance system in China.Theoretical explanation of the deliberative system governance should not be limited to explaining the system itself Actually,researchers should also analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the deliberative governance system from a comparative perspective.When talking about 'governance',what should not be ignored is that,governance mechanisms,which emphasizes discursive exchange between effected organizations and citizens,are utilizing both in western society and in China.Especially,with the constitutional modernization of China' system for governance and the extensive,multilevel,and institutionalized development of consultative democracy,a consultative governance system has also emerged.As for the function of this consultative governance system,not only it can integrate governance resources,but also strengthen governance capacity.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct the comparative research,in order to further provide a comparative perspective to improve the deliberative governance system.
Keywords/Search Tags:Deliberative Governance System, Deliberative Systems, Deliberative Governance, Internal Structure, Transformation and Realization of the Deliberative Governance System
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