The Value, Limitation And Transcendence About Schumpeter’s Theory Of Elite Democracy

Facing the contradiction between classical democracy theory and the reality, Schumpeter founded the elite democracy theory by interpreting democracy as the political competition process about leadership in the western political history, realizing the effective combination of elite and democracy. From the perspective of theory itself, elitist democratic theory did profoundly affect the process of democracy development, but it also suffered criticism for its characters of procedure and elite; From the view of complex and changeable political practices, on one hand, elitist democratic theory meets demand of the times by own advantages and the pursuit of efficiency, so it has certain theoretical value and realistic value; On the other hand, it also inevitably falls into realistic limitations in contemporary political for the changes of political and social conditions. So we need to explore present situation and forming reasons about realistic plight, to find possible breakthrough strategies.First of all, this article summarizes the origin and process about Schumpeter’s theory of elite democracy. In the aspect of origin, it mainly introduces the theoretical background and ideological source; In the aspect of construction, it mainly analyzes the construction process, the basic content and typical characteristics; The second, based on the theory itself and the contemporary politics, it has a comprehensive analysis on value of the elitist democratic theory. And combine with the current situation of democratic politics in China, getting inspiration to socialist democratic politics from the micro and macro perspective; The third, from the perspective of public, elite and democracy, it analyzes the realistic limitations and the causes of formation about elitist democratic theory; The last, facing the social development new situation, especially new media background, the article explores the feasible breakthrough strategies of elitist democratic theory, so as to realize the improvement of the theory itself.This paper covers a series of analysis about theoretical advantages, governing efficiency, cause of the dilemma, and feasible breakthrough, etc. In all studies our focus lies in the theoretical value, realistic limitation about Schumpeter’s theory of elite democracy. All the analysis is based on the complicated political practice, and our goal is to form the comprehensive understanding about contemporary role, status and role of elitist democratic theory. On one hand, we hope discover its helps for democratic construction in China; On the other hand, we try to achieve the improvement of elitist democratic theory itself, namely breakthrough.