Research On The Practice Of Deliberative Democracy At The Grass-Roots Level

The connotation of deliberative democracy includes four dimensions: deliberative subjects, deliberative objects, deliberative processes, and deliberative results.Deliberative subjects should be equal and multiple, while deliberative objects should have public nature and be related to others. And deliberative processes must comply with the principle of freedom, equality and rationality, whereas deliberative results must emphasize the multiple consensus. As a new development of participatory democracy, deliberative democracy can help to alleviate the alienation between individuals and political life at the micro level, help to make up for the deficiency of simple voting mechanism at the intermediate level, and help to respond to the strengthening of the trend of social diversity at the macro level.In recent years, villages under the jurisdiction of Tiandeng County in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have actively responded to the call of the communist party of China by practicing deliberative democracy at the grassroots level. Among these practices, Yanzao Village created the Liangdai Conference according to the local characteristics including the distribution of its population. As the representation of the impoverished village, Huili Village has made full use of the linkage effect between the villager groups' leaders.(Villager group is the smallest organization in the village.) The practice in Gudi Tun is applying the Congress of Tun which is common in Tiandeng County.(Tun is the mass autonomous organization under the level of village.) Jirga of Luo Tun is similar to Congress of Tun, but it is effectively combined with the historical factors and human factors,which give full play to the positive effects of clan forces. These four kinds of practices almost cover all the main kinds of the deliberative democracy practices in the villages of Tiandeng County. The practices of grassroots deliberative democracy in Tiandeng County have achieved some success, showing a trend of pluralism of deliberative subjects, autonomous of deliberative objects,diversification of deliberative processes, and democratization of deliberative results. Meanwhile, there are practical difficulties in the equality of deliberative subjects, comprehensive deliberative objects, standardization of deliberative processes, and democratization of deliberative results.