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Decent Democratic Centralism Author(S): Stephen C Decent Democratic Centralism Author(s): Stephen C. Angle Source: Political Theory, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Aug., 2005), pp. 518-546 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30038439 Accessed: 09/04/2010 03:44 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sage. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory. http://www.jstor.org SOURCESOF CHINESEPOLITICAL REFLECTION DECENT DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM STEPHENC. ANGLE WesleyanUniversity Are there any coherentand defensible alternatives to liberal democracy? The author examines the possibility that a reformeddemocratic centralism-the principle around which China's cur- rentpolity is officially organized-might be legitimate, according to both an inside and an out- side perspective. The inside perspective builds on contemporary Chinese political theory; the outsideperspective critically deploys Rawls's notion ofa "decentsociety " as its standard.Along the way, the authorpaysparticular attention to the kinds and degree ofpluralism a decent society can countenance,and to the specific institutions in China that might enable the realization of a genuine and/ordecent democratic centralism. Theauthor argues that by considering both inside and outsideperspectives, and the degrees to which they inter-penetrateand critically informone another, we can engage in a global philosophy that neither pre-judges alternative political traditions norfalls prey to false conceptual barriers. Keywords: Rawls, The Law of Peoples; democratic centralism; Chinese political theory; decent society; pluralism; global/comparative philosophy It is popular today to describe Chinese society and politics as "transi- tional": a complicated and unstable point on the road from dictatorship to democracy.The most sanguine observers see multi-partydemocracy emerg- AUTHOR'SNOTE: My thanks to the many members of Wesleyan'sEthics and Politics Group who readand commentedon an earlier draft of this essay, and especially to Donald Moon, whose insight and probing criticism have contributed a great deal to my thinking on these matters. Thanks,too, to membersof Hong Kong University's Politics and Philosophy Departments,for their stimulatingdiscussion of democratic centralism in a place where the concerns of this essay arefarfrom merelyacademic. I also appreciate the questions and advice from three anonymous reviewers, each from a differentperspective, which have collectively helped me improve the essay substantially. POLITICALTHEORY, Vol. 33 No. 4, August 2005 518-546 DOI: 10.1177/0090591705276880 C 2005 Sage Publications 518 Angle / DECENT DEMOCRATICCENTRALISM 519 ing within a decade; more sober analysts think the transitionalstate could carry on much longer than that. Almost all of them, though, see liberal democracy as the ultimate end goal. Some theorists, nonetheless, are critical of this "transitology,"characterizing it as "an ideological as much as a theo- retical endeavor"(Jowitt 1996, 5). And some analysts have begun exploring possible alternativesto liberal democracy,either for Chinain particularor for non-Western societies more generally. They ask: is there a political system that is both legitimate and practical for these societies-and either more legitimate or more practical,in the presentcontext, thanliberal democracy?' The question of legitimacy can be raised from two quitedifferent perspec- tives, both of which are importantto take seriously. On one hand, we can ask whether a given political arrangementis legitimate from the perspective of contemporary liberal democrats. That is, if China (for instance) pursues some alternativeto liberal democracy, will those committed,in their domes- tic societies, to liberal democracy have reason to respectand support this Chi- nese endeavor? Or must the liberal democrats criticize any regime that falls short of liberal democracy itself? On the other hand, we can ask how things look from within the society seeking to instantiatethe political alternativein question. Is the new system internallycoherent? Is it well groundedin values accepted by members of the society? How does it relateto currentlyexisting political and social arrangements? In this essay, I will reflect from both of these perspectiveson the possibil- ity of reforming "democraticcentralism," which at least in theory is the prin- ciple around which China's socialist society, under the leadership of the Communist Partyof China (CPC), is organized.I begin from the outside per- spective, drawing on John Rawls's idea of the "decent" but non-liberal regime to spell out what a "decentdemocratic centralism" would have to look like. After elaboratingsome of the theory of democraticcentralism, I then ask whether China's current political system should be assessed as legitimate from the perspective of democratic centralism and related Chinese theory. My discussion of both outside and inside perspectivesrevolves aroundthree issues: consultation, law, and pluralism. I make clear how and why consulta- tion is importantto both Rawls and democratic centralism;I make clear the difference between rule of law and rule by law, and spell out the mutual dependence of consultation and rule of law; and I probethe multiple ways in which pluralism is important, but also potentially vexing, from both Rawlsian and Chinese perspectives. All three of these issues are critical and complex. In the end, I focus most on pluralism, leaving the details of how consultation might be adequately institutionalizedfor anotheressay (Angle 2005). The specifics of institutionalizing the rule of law have been closely examined by others, and here I largely rely on their analyses. 520 POLITICALTHEORY / August 2005 Throughout the essay I go beyond simply juxtaposing "outside" and "inside"perspectives: as I discuss more fully in the conclusion, my approach might betterbe termed "global philosophy" than "comparativephilosophy" because of the degrees to which I find my two different perspectives open to mutual engagement and cross-fertilization. A decent democratic centralism (as judged from the outside) and a genuine democratic centralism (as judged from inside) may not look exactly the same, but in many importantrespects, the resemblanceswill be striking and important.These resemblances are not coincidences, because of the degrees to which those thinking within the "decency"framework and those thinking within the "democraticcentralism" frameworknonetheless ought often to be responsive to one another's rea- sons. Global philosophy, as I use the term, does not mean that we assume there is only one global set of answers, appropriateto all contexts-it is not a one-size-fits-all philosophy-but ratherthat as we, from our different per- spectives, try to work out the ideals toward which we should be striving, we should be open to reasoning from anywhere that bears on our situation. We can betterunderstand the implications of Rawls's thought if we take seriously political thinkingfrom China, and Chinese thinkerscan betterunderstand the implications of their own ideals if they engage seriously with Rawls. 1. RAWLS'SDECENT REGIMES In work done near the end of his life, Rawls argued that all well-ordered societies should endorse what he called the Law of Peoples.2 This is relevant to my purposeshere because Rawls explicitly extends the category of "well- ordered"peoples beyond liberal democratic societies. He claims that,among other possibilities, a "decent hierarchical people"-which has as its basic structurea "decent consultation hierarchy"-would also endorse the same Law of Peoples, which includes endorsing human rights. I will seek to show that while the CPC would certainly reject the idea of a "hierarchicalpeople," we can construct an ideal of "decent socialist people" undergirded by a "decent democraticcentralism." Rawls would argue that we liberals should consider a decent democraticcentralism to be legitimate because of the ways in which it fulfills the fundamental idea of social cooperation that makes a group count as a people. Rawls is famous for his argumentsabout what conception of justice a lib- eral society should endorse. He sees this conception of justice as compatible with domestic variety in "comprehensive doctrines": that is, with various fully specified ideals of the good life. So long as individuals endorse the sharedliberal ideal ofjustice, we liberals should tolerate them as equal mem- Angle / DECENT DEMOCRATICCENTRALISM
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