Parsing Of Contemporary Western Concept Of Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative democracy is a process that all the stakeholders whoinfluence the policy by participate in the formulation of legal and public policy. Idecompose deliberative democracy into four essential factors in order toanalyze it, they are the subject of deliberation, the object of deliberation, theprocess of deliberation and the outcome of deliberation, then I discusses thesignification, condition, characteristic and so on of each factor in separately,clarify disputes among scholars in western, ultimately I want to have acomprehensive and profound understanding about deliberative democracy.The individuals and groups both have possible to be the subject ofdeliberative democracy. There are two ways——direct participation and indirectparticipation provide to the subject. The participant must bear someresponsibilities. Firstly, participant should provide arguments which canpersuade others; secondly, participant should respond to others' arguments;thirdly, participant should amend arguments according to others' opinions.Therefore, the deliberative democracy requires the participants have highability to express opinions explicitly; opening and tolerant attitude also isnecessary for the participant.The object of deliberation is preference. Preference is some interests orvalues which were cherished by individuals or groups. Preference is not onlyhave difference in content, but also in different intensity. These differencesconstitute the social basis of deliberation. Liberalism democracy thought thatpeople's preferences are established, and have not paid enough attention tothe preference of intensity. Deliberative democracy hold that the people'spreferences are affected by many factors, deliberation not only changepeople's preferences, but also enable people to sufficiently express theirviews, so different preferences can be shown in this way.Public deliberation is the core concept of deliberative democracy. Thereare two views in public deliberation——"process" and "results". The author insists on "process" when mention this problem. Deliberation not only hasability to solve numbers problems which are faced in modern society, but alsohave capability to protect the rights of the individuals. What's more significantis it enable self-government by citizens have possible to be realized, and showthe moral responsibility of citizens to society. Deliberation should go along withthe atmosphere of freedom, equal and ratiocination, but these conditions needto specifically analyze.Deliberation not pursues to a consensus, but it is delightful whenachieving a consensus. The process of deliberation play an important role tolegality of the policy even it failed to reach a consensus. What can we do whenwe need to make a decision immediately with the condition that we can'tachieve consensus? We can vote which based on the preference have morelegitimacy.In conclusion, deliberative democracy is not a radical ideal of democracy,nor a new model of democracy, but is a promising form of democracy in China.