On The Ian Shapiro’s Democratic Thoughts

Ian Shapiro, Yale University Professor, is one of the famous contemporary democratictheorists in the modern western eminent political scientists. In Ian Shapiro’s view, the primarysolving issues in the democratic theory study are not only "What is democracy?" How to builddemocracy?"ect,Which have long puzzled the people, but should focus on" What should welook forward to democracy and how to make those expectations best be achieved in practice ",then, the primary solution is the goal of democracy and the central task is what?" Ian Shapiro,with its broad vision and deep research skills, detailed expositing and analyzing on a varietyof democratic theories, and on the basis of understanding proposing his own basic points interms of democratic theory, that is"the goal and the central task of democracy is to make thepeople to manage power relations and minimize domination”, which had a major impact inthe Western democratic theory community. If we do so, then the following question arises:What is power? What is domination? How to identify them? How to harness the power andlimit domination? How to achieve democracy and sustain democracy? How to deal with therelationship between democracy and distribution? These issues determine Ian Shapiro’sensuing discussion and reflection. The author surround with these issues, chosing IanShapiro’s democratic thoughts as the object of study.The article is divided into five parts:The first part, introducing the formation of Ian Shapiro’s democratic thoughts. Includingthe life of the well-known political scientist Ian Shapiro, and his writings, and the formationof social and theoretical background of Ian Shapiro’s democratic thoughts.The second part, introducing the goals of democracy. Ian Shapiro’s democratic theory isformed and developed on the basis of standing predecessors, with its unique insights and ahuge political science research methods skills, combining the normative and the explanatorymethods originally criticise the theory of aggregation democracy and deliberative democracy.In comparison, Ian Shapiro more inclined to agree the deliberative democracy. Subsequently,Ian Shapiro criticise and absorb the Schumpeterian competition democracy, proposing hisown concept of democracy based on it, the goal and the central task of democracy is to manage the power and limit domination. This constitutes the core idea of Ian Shapiro’sdemocratic theory.The third part,introducing the realizing and keeping of democracy. The currentdevelopment of democratic theory, we must understand the necessary conditions of someform of democratic transition. Ian Shapiro turned to the investigation of the development ofdemocratic political theory in developing countries, and put forward his own designs andexpectations on how they achieve democracy, how to maintain democracy. Ian Shapiroreveals that, however democracy is built, more importantly, whether democracy may besurvived.The fourth part,introducing the democracy and distribution. Thereafter, Ian Shapirofocuses on the impact of democracy on the distribution of income and wealth. He starts fromthe supply level of "Why do politicians and the political elites do not attempt to implementmore redistributive policies," as well as the demand level of "Why do not more pressure fromthe needs of the poor require redistribution policy ", cautiously comprehensive studying thedistribution status quo and deeply analyzing the reasons. Concluding some enlightenment toimprove the relationship between democracy and distribution.The fifth part, analyzing the rationalities and limitations of Ian Shapiro’s democraticthoughts. Ian Shapiro’s democratic thoughts is a product of the background of a new era in theend of the20th century and early21st century, its rationalities have been widely affirmed. Hepioneered combining the normative explanatory approach to look at democracy, alsostrongly refuted the view of democracy exists in a certain social formation. Of course, thedemocratic ideas of Ian Shapiro has its inherent limitations. In a sense, Ian Shapiro’sconception of democracy has limitations.To some extent, it is still not out of the restriction ofliberal constitutionalism, and even with a somewhat populist color, and wrongly putcommunism on a par with fascism. Even so, Ian Shapiro’s democratic thoughts still shine agreat light, and have great significance to the political development of modern democraticstates.