On Pateman's Participatory Democratic Theory

A large-scale left-wing democratic movement erupted in the western society during the time about late-1960s and early 1970s of 21 century. But there is nothing about the participation in the mainstream democratic theory. In order to revive the ideal of participation of classic democracy, Carole Pateman published her "Participation And Democratic Theory" ,which indicating the formation of the participatory democratic theory.According to pateman's theory, The modern democratic theory which started from Schumpeter eliminated the idea of people's rule because of its unpractical dream. Pateman studied the criticism to the classic democracy of Schumpeter and his supporter. She found they misunderstood the classic democratic theory in which there are two different theories one of them could be called early participatory democratic theory its famous theorists are Rousseau, J-S-Mill and Kohl. Then Pateman concluded her participatory democratic theory from the early participatory democratic theorists. The two chief assumptions in Pateman's theory is the function of participation and the key position of the industrial area. Pateman searched a great deal of practical examples and proved that the participation in the working place could make the individual to be an active citizen which proved the educational function of the participation. The turbulent political participation in the movement and themainstream position of liberalism Pateman also analyzed the relation of democracy and participation in the industrial area. She found that under a non-democratic condition active citizen also could be educated. But which did not mean that democratization is not necessary, instead the democratization is very important and industrial democratization is necessary. Pateman analyzed the Yugoslavia's workers' autonomous pattern and believed that the practice of the Yugoslavia's workers' autonomy has provided the real example for the large-scale industrial democracy.Pateman revived the participatory ideas of the democracy, she analyzed the flaws of the Modern democratic theory and the damage of its practice. But there are some limits in her theory, because she overestimated the value of democracy and enlarged the function of participation. Also she ignored to analyze some fundamental questions in her theory. All of these makes her theory looked liked a Utopia. So it is necessary to face the effort bravely of the modern democratic theory, however, which does not mean we should completely restrain ourselves in the results of the modern democratic theory.