Reflection On The Democratic Nature And Principle By Rational Choice Theory

Rational choice theory,as an important school in today’s western politics, applies the assumptions,methods and theory of economics into the political realm,so that it can analyze the behavior features of the main bodies in the political market, and the influence of their behaviors on political decision-making.In its view, democracy is a kind of rule,that is individual behavior is transformed into collective behavior.The meaning of democracy is different from traditional political science,which provides a theoretical basis for research of political process. There are two ways of group decision-making by democracy:A rule of consensus and majority voting. Man adopts the majority voting and abandones the principle of unanimity because of the complexity of the political reality. Rational choice theory has reflection on this principle. It is difficult to form the majority and the results are irrational by that rule.And the theory has found that there are some policies of violation of popular will, namely the paradox of democracy,so as to deviate from the original intention of democracy. There are two explanation path, rationally ignorant and rational irrationality.Researching on the reflections on democracy by rational choice theory, integrating politics and economics to think about practical problems, providing theoretical support for the research on how to resolve some political and economic problems in the present society and how to propel the political structural reform in contemporary China. At the same time, rational choice theory is being questioned, especially the methodology. There is internal consistency between its the economic assumptions and liberal democracy. Deliberative democracy,criticizing liberal democracy, has significance on the development of rational choice theory. First, people not only has economic rationality, but also has the rationality of communication. Second, individual preferences can be transformed. Third, The tension between the majority principles and consensus will be defused by deliberations.