Decision-making Democracy And The Reform Of Decision-making Power Structure In Contemporary China

For contemporary Chinese political scientist, exploring the path to democracywhich is suitable for China is an important task. Through the research on contemporaryChinese decision-making power structure change, the author aims to demonstration thatthe decision-making democracy at the core of "Party- State -Society" balancing ofpower among the decision-making structure.The first part introduces the electoral democracy and decision-making democracy.I first introduced the essence of electoral democracy, further I pointed out threedilemmas faced by electoral democracy: First, citizens can only participate in politics inthe election period, Once after the election, he will be far away from the politicalprocess, can’t meet the citizens need to participation and affect the policy outcomes inpolitical fully；Second, the decision-making way of electoral democracy(majority rule)may form some "permanent minority", this is likely to cause the problem of minorityrights protection；Third, electoral democracy exists a contradiction between theprinciple of“one person one vote”and citizens‘multi-interest demands, one possibilityis that they agree with the policies of a political party or politicians in a public issueadvocate, but they agree to another political party or politician’s policy in another publicissue, it’s a plight of the election. The root of the problem is that electoral democracygives citizens the right to choose which politician or political party control of publicpower, and ignores the specific participation of citizens in the political process. I believethat the decision-making democracy happens to be able to solve the problems anddilemmas of the electoral democracy effectively. Unlike electoral democracy focusingon the static attribution of power, decision-making democracy pay more attention to thedynamic operation of power, not only concerned about the level of participation ofcitizens in decision-making, decision-making democracy also care for the impact ofsocial participation on policy outcomes. Decision-making democracy solves theproblem of public participation is not sustainable and the protection of minority rights.As a persistent form of political participation, decision-making democracy can make a sustained response to the preferences of citizens, needs not determined all issues by aballot, solved the contradiction between the principle of”one person one vote”andcitizens‘multi-interest demands. Therefore, decision-making democracy adapted to thetrend of modern political development, it is the future direction of the democraticsystem.In the second part, by observation and rational analysis on the history of the CCPfrom centralization to decentralization reform, the author points out that in the newhistorical stage, the leadership of the CCP, mainly reflected in three aspects: the politicalleadership, thought leadership and organizational leadership. With power graduallydrawn from a variety of specific and cumbersome administrative, legislative, judicialand social affairs, the CCP has gradually become a real ruling party with limited power.The article pointed out that in the revolutionary period, Highly centralized power isnecessary and essential, But with the change of economic, social and cultural, the highlycentralized system gradually become obstacles to economic and social development.After the reforms, the party’s power gradually exit from the executive, legislative,judicial, the relationship between political parties and the government began tonormalization. I pointed out that with the expanding social participation and thedeepening of the impact on decision-making, The society has gradually become animportant part of the decision-making power structure in contemporary China.Citizens’participation in decision-making mainly in two forms: first, the governmentoffered public issues and let citizens to participate in; second, the positive interactionbetween citizen participation and mass media, and the formation of public opiniontogether to makes the decision-making to the direction of public expectations. In fact,the more important form of social participation to influence decisions is some socialintermediary organizations (such as industry associations) through various channels toinfluence decision-making in order to protect the interests of the groups represented.With the expansion of society participation, every citizen has the opportunity toinfluence decisions, no organization or individual can dominate everything, which fullyreflects the requirements of democracy, promote the development of democracy incontemporary China.The third part pointed out that Party-National-Social balance of power in thedecision-making power structure development in contemporary China is moving. Thebalanced decision-making structure plays a fundamental and integrated role in promoting decision-making democracy. In this decision-making power structure, theCCP with its organizational advantages to gather public opinion, and integratedmulti-interests and make policy recommendations, the state will legalize the party’spolicy intent and decomposition and implementation of policies with its legitimacyresources and management advantages. Throughout the decision-making process, socialparticipation not only extensive monitoring of the behavior of political parties and thestate in performing its duties, more important is the public through their own actions tochange and influence decision-making. This creates the decision-making structures that“Party - National - Society”balance of power in contemporary China. The article alsobelieves that the increasing social participation has a very important practicalsignificance to break through the shackles of the vested interest groups and to furtherpromote the reform in contemporary China. The leadership committed to reform canseek support to overcome the obstruction from anti-reform forces and push forwardreform.Finally, the paper points out, from the democratic theory, decision-makingdemocracy represents the direction of the development of democratic theory; from thepractical point of view of contemporary China’s reform and development,decision-making democracy is generated in the reform and opening up the process ofdecentralization changes in decision-making power structure, as the pursuit ofdemocracy on the policy level, it is a controllable, less risk of political forms ofdemocracy, in line with the requirements of democratic reform and democraticinstitution building in contemporary China.