When Deliberative Democracy Travels to China: An Example of Cultural Exceptionalism
Li-chia Lo ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5731-7971
March, 2018 School of Social and Political Science
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of PhD – Arts
University of Melbourne
0 Abstract
Global interdependence has stimulated the necessity of establishing the conversation between the Western traditions and non-Western traditions. Political concepts developed in one society, for example in the West, may have different implications in another society, such as in non-Western contexts. The meaning of political theory is constantly transformed and show different interpretations from the trajectory that we used to know. One example will be the use of deliberative democracy which is a concept developed from the West.
On the one hand, the development of deliberative democracy in China is deeply connected with the contexts of its culture, institution, socio-political traditions, and its local experiment. On the other hand, the adoption of deliberative democracy in China shows signs and conditions of democratization brought by incremental changes due to the cultivation of the deliberative capacity.
The duality between the local contexts and the universal trend of democratization constitutes the basic theme of deliberative democracy in China. With the inspiration from Edward Said’s Traveling Theory and Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of exception and example, this dissertation will discuss why and how the development of deliberative democracy in China is heading toward cultural exceptionalism rather than embracing the universalism prescribed in the normative goal of deliberative democracy.
1 DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY
This thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for any other degree in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference is given within. It comprises only original work toward the degree of PhD – Arts. The thesis is fewer than the maximum word limit in length.
Signature:
2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The moment has finally arrived! My winding PhD journey started at a very young age, and it took me more than 10 years to get on the right track and arrive at the destination. This journey was so long that I once almost lost faith in myself. There are so many things that have exceeded my expectations along the path of pursuing a PhD degree. Studying at the University of Melbourne may be the most unexpected one, and it turned out to be the turning point in my life.
My PhD journey would not have begun if I had not received the full support from the University of Melbourne. I can never forget the exhilarating moment when the full scholarship notice sat in my mailbox. It not only supported my life in Australia but also made my field trips to China and conference presentations possible. Beyond that, I have received enormous help from the well-established academic community at the university.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors - Prof. Adrian Little and Dr. Pradeep Taneja. They trusted me to conduct this innovative project and offered me crucial advice and encouragement when I needed it. Furthermore, in every challenge I had to go through and each presentation I had to do, their strong support was always there. I also appreciate the support of A/Prof. John Fitzgerald, the chair of my thesis. He more than once recognized the significance of my thesis and praised the originality of my work. Whenever I felt stuck with my thesis, he was the person who showed me the light at the end of the tunnel.
There are also many faculty members that I would like to thank. I will never forget Dr. Kate Macdonald’s guidance in clarifying the direction of my thesis. My deepest gratitude also goes to Dr. Clayton Chin and Dr. Daniel Mccarthy. I have learned so much from Clayton through the rewarding experience of tutoring for his subject. Daniel opened the door to the field of international relations for me and has generously shared much valuable advice on my papers and job hunting.
The wonderful experience of my PhD journey would not have been the same without my fellow PhD comrades. I especially owe my greatest debt to Caroline Chia, who read every word of my thesis and offered tremendous help to make this thesis perfect. The same goes to Aleks Deejay, who has always been there and backed me up when I need it. Moreover, on this journey full of joy, sorrow, and frustration, I am glad that Sophie Reid was always there.
3 From her example, I know what a great tutor should look like. Finally, I always remember the warm regards of my friends during our time together. They are El Anisha, Sylvia Ang, Mathew Beyer, Roksolana Cyxo, David Duriesmith, Awoh Emmanuel, Andrew Gibbons, Ben Glasson, Ryan Gustafsson, Adam Hannah, Bibiana Huggins, Hamza bin Jehangir, Ted Liu, Tom Mcnamara, Kasumi Nishida, Amanda Rosenstock, Jeremiah Thomas, Sitthana Theerathitiwong, Hani Yulindrasari, and Tamas Wells. It is you who make my life in Melbourne so special, and the list goes endlessly. Please forgive me if I forgot to put your name on the list.
Outside the University of Melbourne, there are people I truly admire and deeply appreciate what they have done for me. Because of Assistant Professor Mi Shih and Professor Carolyn Cartier, I was able to survive in Sydney and build my knowledge in China Studies. Mi showed me the spirit that a researcher should have, and Carolyn set an example of how to be a respectful scholar. When I lost faith in myself, their encouragement gave me strength to move on. I also gained valuable experience from my RA work for Assistant Professor Jonathan Hassid.
In the meantime, I cannot forget the timely support from Prof. John Dryzek and Dr. Nicole Curato at the final stage of my PhD candidature. Their invitation brought me to Canberra and taught me that as a collective effort, deliberative democracy is more than what academic works tell us. Prof. Dryzek perfectly demonstrates that what a world-class theorist does is remain open to different opinions. Nicole’s hospitality made my visit in Canberra a heart warming trip. She shows deliberative democracy can include caring, listening, and hope.
Finally, I want to thank my most important partner not only in my PhD journey but also in my life, Jane. This is neither the first time nor the last time will I thank her devotion in every milestone of my life. She knows how much I have been through to achieve this. Behind every struggle I had to face, she was always behind me and walked me through each frustration with her gentle and caring heart. She is the source of my resilience, and she never doubted I could become whom I want to be. I am glad that we have both completed milestones in our life in Australia, and we will move on and be there for each other.
Once again, I want to thank everyone who has participated in my long journey to PhD. As the journey has reached its destination, it is time to say, “Farewell, PhD life! After all the hardships and accomplishment, I am ready for new challenges in the next journey”.
4 Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 11
1.1 Problematizing the Translation of Deliberative Democracy in China ...... 11 1.2 Research Questions ...... 15 1.3 Interpretive Approach, Agamben, & Data Collection ...... 16 1.4 Discourses of Democratization & Deliberative Democracy in China...... 20 1.5 Chinese Discourses on Deliberative Democracy & Thesis Outline ...... 22 1.6 Concluding Remarks ...... 25
Chapter 2 Situating Xieshang Minzhu: A Peculiar Development of Deliberative Democracy in China ...... 27
2.1 Introduction ...... 27 2.2 China as an Exception to Democratization ...... 29 2.3 Deliberative Democracy & Its Turn to China ...... 37 2.4 China as an Exception to Democratization and Deliberative Democracy ...... 50 2.5 From Exception to Deliberative Democracy to Xieshang Minzhu as Exception ...... 56
Chapter 3 Methodology & Methods ...... 59
3.1 Introduction ...... 59 3.2 Interpretive Theory ...... 59 3.3 Agamben’s Interpretive Theory ...... 67 3.4 Research Methods & Research Design ...... 80 3.5 Concluding Remarks ...... 86
Chapter 4 The Point of Engagement: The Case Study of Wenling City ...... 88
4.1 The Emergence of the ‘Democratic Talk with All Sincerity’ ...... 88 4.2 The Xinhe Model ...... 93 4.3 The Zeguo Model ...... 100 4.4 The Ruoheng Model ...... 107 4.5 Wenling City Model ...... 108
5 4.6 Collective Labour Wage Deliberation ...... 113 4.7 Concluding Remarks ...... 117
Chapter 5 The Official Version: Xieshang Minzhu ...... 119
5.1 Introduction ...... 119 5.2 The ‘Pre-development’ of Xieshang Minzhu in China ...... 121 5.3 The Development after Xieshang Minzhu is Adopted as the Goal for Political Reform ...... 132 5.4 Concluding Remarks ...... 142
Chapter 6 The Analysis of Xieshang Minzhu: The Case of Scholarly Discussions ...... 145
6.1 Introduction ...... 145 6.2 The Confusion between Deliberation and Consultation ...... 150 6.3 The Content of Xieshang Minzhu in China ...... 155 6.4 The ‘Rediscovery’ of the CPPCC & Beyond ...... 158 6.5 Electoral Democracy & Deliberative Democracy ...... 160 6.6 Xieshang: The ‘Dangerous’ Supplement… ...... 168 6.7 Concluding Remarks ...... 171
Chapter 7 The Experimental Point as the Zone of Indistinction: The Exceptional Example of Wenling’s Experiment ...... 174
7.1 Introduction ...... 174 7.2 The Zone of Indistinction & the Politics of Shidian ...... 175 7.3 Zone of Indistinction between the Central and the Local ...... 177 7.4 Zone of Indistinction between Institution and Non-institution ...... 182 7.5 Zone of Indistinction between Consultation and Deliberation ...... 191 7.6 Zone of Indistinction between Authoritarianism and Democracy ...... 197 7.7 Concluding Remarks ...... 201
Chapter 8 Conclusion ...... 204
8.1 Introduction ...... 204 8.2 The Main Findings of This Thesis ...... 204
6 8.3 Implications of the Findings ...... 212 8.4 Limitations ...... 215 8.5 The Prospect of Future Research ...... 216 8.6 Concluding Remark ...... 218
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….220
7 List of Tables and Figures
Figure 2-1. Two-Model of Deliberative Politics...... 41 Figure 4-1. The red icon indicates the geographic location of Wenling city ...... 89 Figure 4-2. Map of Wenling city ...... 90 Figure 6-1. The search result for Xieshang Minzhu on the CNKI...... 146 Figure 6-2. The search result for “Wenling” plus “the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity” on the CNKI...... 147 Figure 6-3. The trend of academic attention on the keyword “xieshang minzhu” ...... 148 Figure 6-4. The trend of academic attention on the keyword “Wenling” ...... 148 Figure 7-1. Demonstration of how the two tracks are integrated and how the democratic state makes decision...... 186 Figure 7-2. The Two-Track Model Adapted into China’s Experimentation-Based Policy Cycle ...... 187 Figure 7-3. The Experimentation-Based Policy Cycle ...... 189
8 List of Official Documents Used in this Thesis
The Central Committee of the CPC 1987, 赵紫阳在中国共产党第十三次全国代表大会上 的报告[Zhao Ziyang's Report on the Annual Meeting of the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 1989, 中共中央关于坚持和完善中国共产党领导的多 党合作和政治协商制度的意见 [Some Opinions about Adhering to and Improving the System of Multiparty Cooperation and Political Consultation under the Leadership of the Communist Party of China ], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 2005, 中共中央关于进一步加强中国共产党领导的多
党合作和政治协商制度建设的意见 [Some Opinions about the Central Committee of the Party Further Strengthening the System of Multi-party Cooperation and Political Consultation under the Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 2006, 中共中央关于加强人民政协工作的意见（摘要） [Some opinions about the Central Committee of the CCP Strengthening on the Work of the CPPCC (Summary)], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 2012, 胡锦涛在中国共产党第十八次全国代表大会上 的报告 [Hu Jintao's Report on the Annual Meeting of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 2013, 中共中央关于全面深化改革若干重大问题的决
定 [Decision of the CCCPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 2015, 关于加强城乡社区协商的意见 [Some Opinions about Improving the Implementation of the Urban-Rural Community Consultation], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 2015, 关于加强人民政协协商民主建设的实施意见 [Some Opinions about Improving the Implementation of Consultative Democracy on The CPPCC], by The Central Committee.
The Central Committee of the CPC 2015, 关于加强社会主义协商民主建设的意见[Some Opinions about Improving the Establishment of Socialist Consultative Democracy], by The Central Committee.
9 The Central Committee of the CPC 2015, 关于加强政党协商的实施意见[Some Opinions about Improving the Implementation of the Political Party Consultation], by The Central Committee.
The State Council of the PRC 2007, 《中国的政党制度》白皮书 [The White Paper on "China's Political Party System"], by The State Council.
The National Committee of the CPPCC 1995, 政协全国委员会关于政治协商、民主监督、 参政议政的规定 [Regulations of the CPPCC National Committee on Political Consultation, Democratic Supervision and Participation in and Deliberation of State Affairs], by The CPPCC.
Party Documents Research Office of the CPC Central 2002, 江泽民论有中国特色社会主义 (专题摘编) [Jiang Zemin on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (Selection on Special Topics)], by Jiang, Zemin, Central Party Literature Press.
The National People’s Congress of the PRC 2004, 中华人民共和国宪法 [Constitution of the People's Republic of China], by The National People’s Congress.
10 Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Problematizing the Translation of Deliberative Democracy in China
Since the “deliberative turn” (Dryzek 2002) in the 1990s, deliberative democracy has undergone several “waves” of development (Mansbridge et al. 2012) and become an important school of thought in democratic theory. Although theorists hold different theoretical claims, they are supportive of a talk-based practice of democracy against the dominance of liberal democracy, which mainly focuses on aggregations and preferences. According to Jane Mansbridge (2012), since the emergence of deliberative democracy in the 1990s, its development has undergone three “waves” or “turns” of development, which are the normative wave, the empirical wave, and the systemic turn. The three waves are not mutually exclusive but complementary to each other. In addition, this development also represents the evolution and the shifting focuses in this field of research.
As a form of talk-based democratic theory, deliberative democracy deals with topics such as the public use of reason and legitimacy. Despite various claims, theorists all agree that deliberative democracy is about rational discussions among free and equal citizens to reach consensus in decision-making. Nevertheless, although deliberative democracy has been going through many evolutions, its focus still largely centres on experiences in North America and Europe. Non-democratic and non-Western experiences are relatively neglected until recent years. The rising importance of non-Western experiences corresponds to another development of the cultural turn (Min 2009; He 2013; Sass & Dryzek 2013; Pedrini 2015) in deliberative democracy. The relevant scholarship is small but growing steadily, and this is the area where I will like to use China’s example to highlight and engage.
The cultural turn of deliberative democracy corresponds to the rising importance of cross- cultural studies of political theory. As Mark Warren & Melissa Williams (2013) observed, greater global interdependence has stimulated the necessity of establishing the conversation between Western traditions and non-Western traditions. In their view, this cross-cultural and comparative study can be counted as an enterprise of deliberative democracy at the global scale. The meaning of the given tradition in political theory could be transformed when political theory was introduced and developed in non-Western traditions. Through a
11 comparative effort, the transformed meaning can be investigated, and new meaning can be enriched and generated through this cross-cultural and comparative elaboration.
Following this line of thinking, I take deliberative democracy in China as an example to demonstrate how the meaning of deliberative democracy can be transformed when it is introduced to another context. In this thesis, I aim to put the development of deliberative democracy in China in its context and investigate its implications for Chinese politics and deliberative democracy in general. In addition, what brought me to the topic of deliberative democracy in China is my Taiwanese background. As I am originally from Taiwan, the first thing I learned about deliberative democracy in China is that they use a different translation from us. In Taiwan, Shenyi Minzhu (審議民主) is used to translate deliberative democracy whereas in China, the widely accepted translation is Xieshang Minzhu (协商民主).
At first, it did not appear to be an issue to me. Having different translations is common, especially when the idea is from another language. Nevertheless, the more I learn about the translation in China, the more confusing it seems to me for several reasons. First, in the Chinese context, there are about eight translations of deliberative democracy. In China, the official translation is called “xieshang minzhu”( 协商民主). Xieshang (协商) refers to deliberation, and minzhu (民主) means democracy. While most people do not have a dispute on the translation of democracy, the contention lies in the term of xieshang. In the Chinese dictionary, xieshang means “to discuss together” or “talk over”. It is an ordinary language people use every day. What then is the issue with this translation?
Apart from the use of xieshang in ordinary language, xieshang has a very specific place in the political tradition of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Xieshang directly links to the political tradition in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, 中国人 民政治协商会议, zhong guo ren min zheng zhi xie shang hui yi) in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CPPCC existed at an early time as a part of the PRC’s founding. At that time, the communist party invited eight political parties to assemble and discuss China’s future. With the support from the eight parties, the CCP was recognised as the legitimate ruling party. After the success of the revolution, the CPPCC became an institutional setting for the CCP to assemble with other democratic parties and represented the highest representative of power in China.
12 The National People’s Congress (NPC, 全国人民代表大会, Quanguo Renmin Daibiao Dahui) later replaced its role and turned the CPPCC into an advisory institution alongside the NPC. Since then, it has been an initiative for the CCP to negotiate with other parties or factions where a consensus must be reached on important issues. These negotiations must be led and guided by the CCP, so it gives the CPPCC a strong impression that it is the Party’s political tool to control diverse opinions, factional powers, and different parties. Interestingly, in the English translation of the CPPCC, Xieshang is officially translated with the use of the word ‘consultative’, while Xieshang is used as the Chinese translation for ‘deliberative’.
From the official view, it is an attempt to bridge the tradition of the CPPCC with the idea of deliberative democracy. From the view of Chinese scholars, choosing Xieshang as the official and common translation is a safe way for the idea of deliberative democracy to be accepted by the officials. The direct consequence of this translation is that deliberation and consultation are confused together. Whereas deliberation and consultation are two distinct ideas in English, this difference disappears in the Chinese language.
Furthermore, as xieshang minzhu is linked to the existing political tradition and institutions in the history of the CCP, it may not be “deliberative democracy” when people are using the term “xieshang minzhu” in the Chinese context. That is to say, xieshang minzhu could refer to deliberative democracy from the West, or it could refer to the political tradition in the CCP, or a random mix of both.
At the early stage of introducing deliberative democracy into China, Chinese scholars were already aware of this issue. Some scholars think deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu are two distinct ideas. Other scholars maintain that some elements are common between the two ideas, such as rational discussions among equal participants, so using xieshang minzhu to translate deliberative democracy is not a problem. Still, others claim that it is deliberative democracy that helps people in China rediscover the long forgotten and unnoticed tradition of xieshang minzhu.
In recent years, a fourth view emerged to summarise the debate at the early stage and scholars propose a new idea to solve this issue of translation (Tan 2015). This view recognises that deliberative democracy is a foreign idea. By using the metaphor of ‘seed and soil’, this view maintains that adopting xieshang minzhu as the translation of deliberative democracy is like planting a foreign seed in Chinese soil. To further explain this view, this view incorporates
13 the deliberative experiment in Wenling and claims that Wenling’s deliberative experiment is a good example showing how a foreign idea can grow and have its own strength in China.
How can a translation raise such a complicated debate? In my view, this question was partly answered when I was reading Edward Said’s Travelling Theory (1983, p. 226). It is a short piece about how theory could travel from one place to another, and the meaning could be transformed through the process of translation and reinterpretation. In the beginning of his Travelling Theory (Said 1983), he mentioned that the travel of theory or ideas usually undergoes four steps:
First, there is a point of origin, or what seems like one, a set of initial circumstances in which the idea came to birth or entered discourse. Second, there is a distance transferred, a passage through the pressure of various contexts as the idea moves from an earlier point to another time and place where it will come into a new prominence. Third, there is a set of conditions - call them conditions of acceptance or as an inevitable part of acceptance, resistances - which then confronts the transplanted theory or idea, making possible its introduction or toleration, however alien it might appear to be. Fourth, the now full (or partly) accommodated (or incorporated) idea is to some extent transformed by its new uses, its new position in a new time and place. (Said 1983, p. 226)
A point of origin, a distance transferred, a set of conditions for reception, and the full accommodated idea by its new uses in a new time and place mark the four steps when theory and idea travel to a foreign land. In Said’s article, the example he cited was György Lukács’ Marxism. Said’s intention was to release the revolutionary power in Marx’s works through an inner critique of how Lukács transformed Marxism for his own use. This is to say, Said viewed that the way to search for the revolutionary power in Marx’s works is not just simply reading them, but also going through a critique of other Marxists’ works. The critique is not merely texts-based but also context-based. This is why he talked about conditions of “acceptance” and “resistances”. Through his approach, we may be able to get closer to the “true” thought of Marx on the revolution.
However, as my thesis is about deliberative democracy and not Marxism, what is the connection between Said’s Traveling Theory and deliberative democracy in China? If we focus on the four steps he mentioned, the process of investigation can basically be applied to
14 every idea and theory. What Said offered is a fresh perspective to understand the transformation of theory when theory travels to the places other than its birthplace. This phenomenon of theory travelling to different places is even more common when we are living in the globalised world, where ideas and societies have become increasingly interdependent and connected.
For the same reason, as the four steps of travelling theory are used to look at deliberative democracy in China, the purpose of this thesis is not to assess or measure how well deliberative democracy has developed in China. Instead, it is concerned with the question of what has been transformed when a foreign idea of deliberative democracy was introduced to China.
1.2 Research Questions
While this thesis focuses on changes of meanings in translation, xieshang minzhu, the Chinese translation of deliberative democracy, stands at the centre of my investigation. By showing the confusion caused by the translation, this thesis plans to expand its literary meaning to the broader contexts of society, politics, culture, history, and current practices related to this introduction of a new idea. Scholars may be aware of the travel of theories and ideas, but its implication and investigation have been underestimated.
Apart from Said’s elaboration, Susan McWilliams (2014) was also inspired by the idea of travel, but her approach was to use the idea of travel to go back to the Western tradition and reinterpret the history of Western political thought. This is to say, she is more concerned with the temporal aspect rather than geographical aspect of travel. By contrast, Ernesto Ganuza and Gianpaolo Baiocchi (2012) follow Said’s line of thinking and trace the dissemination and development of participatory budgeting at the global scale. As an emerging field of investigation, China’s case demonstrates itself as an example of how theory travels from its birthplace to foreign lands. By engaging in the development of deliberative democracy in China with the inspiration of Traveling Theory (Said 1983), this thesis can enrich the relevant discussions and fields of research.
Furthermore, in the scholarship of deliberative democracy, the potential of Said’s line of thinking has not been fully explored, not to mention its development in China. The relevant scholarship still largely focuses on the experiences in North America and Europe. Measuring
15 the quality of deliberation and understanding the function of deliberation are the main issues that researchers are concerned with. In recent years, the interest of deliberative democracy in non-Western traditions is gaining attention and importance, and the relevant scholarship is growing steadily. The rising importance of non-Western contexts and the lens of Traveling Theory (Said 1983) have made the investigation of this thesis urgent and necessary. By following this line of thinking, the research questions have been formulated into three interrelated questions:
1. What are the conditions shaping the development of deliberative democracy in China? 2. What has been transformed in the development of deliberative democracy in China? 3. What is the implication of deliberative democracy to China’s political landscape in general?
As these questions suggest, this thesis is concerned with the formation and transformation of meaning. Once these questions are aiming toward the transformation of meaning, how to investigate the formation and change of meaning becomes the crucial mission. As interpretivism is mainly concerned with the process of meaning making and subjective understanding of the subject matter, this is the reason for highlighting interpretivism, which becomes the guiding approach of my project. By emphasising the deep dialogue between theory and empirical data with the context, interpretivism fits the investigation of this thesis. In the next section, I will briefly introduce the version of interpretivism that I am developing in this thesis.
1.3 Interpretive Approach, Agamben, & Data Collection
Although interpretivism has a long history, it has become influential again in political science through the works of of Mark Bevir & Roderick Arthur William Rhodes (2002; 2004; 2010). Two quotations from their books may sketch out a simple outline of their project and how they view the interpretive approach:
Interpretive approaches begin from the insight that to understand actions, practices and institutions, we need to grasp the relevant meanings, the beliefs and preferences of the people involved. (Bevir & Rhodes 2004, p. 1)
16 Also, ‘Interpretive approaches focus on the meanings that shape actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so’. (Bevir & Rhodes 2004, p. 17)
To put it simply, their version of the interpretive approach is about “action, practices, and institutions (Bevir & Rhodes 2004, p. 1)” and its related process of meaning making. The interpretive approach adopts the research strategy of abduction rather than the deductive strategy or the inductive strategy. In the deductive strategy, researchers use the theory as the framework to apply and measure the difference of particular cases to the theory. The direction of this adopted strategy is from the general (theory) to the particular (cases). By contrast, the theory of inductive strategy is generated from the accumulation and generalization of the particular case in the empirical world. The direction of this adopted strategy is from the particular (cases) to the general (theory).
Rather than functioning in a one-way direction, the abductive strategy is a cycle between the general and the particular or between the rule and facts. It pays attention to the deep dialogue and interaction between the theory and the empirical data, or the relations between the general and the particular. The abductive strategy admits that our observations are always theory-loaded, incomplete, and problem-oriented. Our theory-loaded observation can revise and regenerate a new hypothesis to explain the phenomena happening around us. The infiltration between the theory and the empirical data is what the abductive strategy is looking for. It not only corresponds to the basic activity of interperation but also represents the best way to investigate the formation of meaning.
While there are many versions of interpretivism, the interpretive approach that Bevir & Rhodes propose is only one of them. In my project, starting from the interpretivism proposed by Bevir and Rhodes, I incorporate Agamben’s interpretivism to help me better understand the formation of deliberative democracy in China. In particular, I highlight his paradigmatic method and the related concepts of example and exception.
In answering the question of “What is A Paradigm?”, Agamben (2009) stressed that the paradigm could be revealed after the articulation of the particular examples. By borrowing Aristotle’s elaboration, Agamben rejected the idea that the paradigm functions as the logic of deduction or induction. Whereas the logic of deduction delivers its relations from the general to the particular, the logic of induction delivers its relations from the particular to the general. Neither deduction nor induction, the paradigm functions as something different. It is the
17 relations between the particular and the particular, and the connection between different particular examples that mark the boundary of the paradigm. How this articulation of the particular works can be traced to his elaboration of example and exception.
A simple way to explain the two concepts is to begin with our use of language. When we denote something, we identify either the universal or the particular part of the term. For example, when we say “tree”, it means all trees in its universal sense. By contrast, when we say “the tree” or “a tree”, we are denoting the particular tree or any tree in its particular sense. We cannot point out the universal and the particular aspects of a term at the same time. The only exception is the term ‘example’. It expresses both the universal and the particular aspects of the term. Consequently, using the example as a conceptual tool is to see the universal and the particular aspects at the same time. In addition, the example helps us to see the interaction between the universal and the particular. However, the whole picture is not clear enough if we only look at the concept of example. That is why it is important to introduce another concept in Agamben’s works.
In Homo Sacer (1998), Agamben gave a detailed elaboration on what exception means and how exception works. Here is the most crucial description of how he defines and understands “exception”.
The exception is a kind of exclusion. What is excluded from the general rule is an individual case. But the most proper characteristic of the exception is that what is excluded in it is not, on account of being excluded, absolutely without relation to the rule. On the contrary, what is excluded in the exception maintains itself in relation to the rule in the form of the rule's suspension.1 The rule applies to the exception in no longer applying, in withdrawing from it. The state of exception is thus not the chaos that precedes order but rather the situation that results from its suspension. In this sense, the exception is truly, according to its etymological root, taken outside (ex- capere), and not simply excluded. (Agamben 1998, pp. 17-8)
I will highlight some of the features in Agamben’s elaboration of his idea of exception: 1) it is an exclusion (from the general rules), but it is more than exclusion; 2) it is not unrelated to the general rules but stands outside the general rules; 3) the general rules cannot apply to the
1 I have highlighted the keywords in italics.
18 exception; and 4) the rules have been suspended. If we put exception and example together, exception is actually a form of an inclusive exclusion, which is included in a set because does not belong to it. By contrast, example is a form of an exclusive inclusion, which shows where the example belongs but remains outside of it. Conceptually, example and exception are two correlated but different concepts, but in Agamben’s framework, the two concepts are eventually merged into an indistinguishable set. In Agamben’s works, he has been making use of the two concepts as his paradigmatic method to conduct his philological studies. By tracing the change of meaning in a series of related ideas, he connects the particular examples and sees each change as a “paradigmatic shift”.
The interpretivism that Bevir and Rhodes developed and Agamben’s interpretivism are two important streams of interpretivism, but these two developments have not exhausted all the possibilities of this methodological approach. Other relevant variants include the literature influenced by Michel Foucault, critical discourse analysis and some post-colonialist approaches. The purpose of this thesis is to incorporate various versions of interpretivism, especially the versions developed by Bevir and Rhodes, Agamben, and Said. By forging an approach that fits the investigation of this thesis, I develop a unique version of interpretivism to help me engage with deliberative democracy in China.
Apart from the broader context of my theoretical framework and method, in order to investigate the conditions shaping the discourses of deliberative democracy in China, this thesis mainly collects data that can be summarised into the following categories. The first type of data is the discourses in English. In this part, I focus on the scholarly works on democratization in China and deliberative democracy in China. This type of data was mainly treated as the background of how deliberative democracy should be situated. In the literature review section, these collected data were closely reviewed and compared in relation to the material in Chinese. In the second category, I pay attention to discourses of deliberative democracy in Chinese contexts. Between 2015 and 2016, by adopting participatory observation & semi-structured interviews, I conducted two rounds of fieldwork in China. In addition to the ethnographic data I collected from the fieldwork experience, I also collected related official documents and scholarly works.
19 1.4 Discourses of Democratization & Deliberative Democracy in China
Among the data I collected, the discourses of democratization and deliberative democracy in English gives the background of deliberative democracy in China. This background represents a universal trend behind the two discourses, and this universal trend established a basic tone that discourses in Chinese try to negotiate. In the English context, deliberative democracy in China is closely connected to studies on democratization in China, and researchers’ interest in democratization in China began in the early 1990s when they tried to explain why a democratic transition had not happened since the Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989. Since then, scholars have been trying to understand, explain, and evaluate the possibility of democratization in China.
Among the huge amount of scholarship, the core studies of democratization are based on modernization theory. The basic argument of modernization theory maintains that a regime has a higher chance of transition into a democracy if a regime has a higher level of industrialization, urbanization, and literacy brought about by economic development. Based on modernization theory, the relevant studies can be summarised into three types of explanation below.
The first type of explanation is that China will have a successful transition to democracy. Scholars such as Gordon White (1994; 1996b), Jude Howell (1998), and Bruce Gilley (2004) argue that in China, the rapid economic development brought by the marketization of its economy has created a growth of the middle class. The increasing number of middle class people will generate the demand for more political participation, and the democratic transition should be expected to happen eventually in the future.
The second type of explanation is envisioning that the Chinese regime will experience a breakdown or decay. A transition to democracy can therefore happen, but the transitioned democracy will not be a successful one. Scholars such as Gordon Chang (2010) and Minxin Pei (2007, 2009, 2012, 2014) are in this group of discussion. This type of explanation concentrates on the continuing problems that the Chinese government is facing. They argued that China has recurring and unresolved problems such as inequality, corruption, debt, pollutions, and so forth. They imagined that these problems are so severe that the CCP would keep encountering challenges when dealing with these problems. Eventually, once the CCP regime cannot meet the challenges of governance, the CCP regime will experience a
20 breakdown or decline. Also, from Bruce Dickson’s perspective (1997), as a Leninist Party, the CCP does not have the adaptability to respond to the democratic transition. This would result into two possible outcomes: regime breakdown or strengthening the given rule. Nevertheless, when this type of explanation focuses on factors that would not keep the CCP regime sustainable, they tend to ignore the fact that the CCP has survived a series of challenges since 1989. The neglected aspect is what the third type of explanation is looking for and serves as an argument against the second type of explanation.
The third type of explanation is the idea of authoritarian resilience raised by Andrew Nathan (2003) and further elaborated by other scholars such as Kellie Tsai (2006, 2007), Xi Chen (2012b), Jessica Teets (2014), etc. In Nathan’s view, researchers should focus on the factors enhancing the CCP’s governing ability. These factors include “the institutionalization of orderly succession processes, meritocratic promotions, bureaucratic differentiation, and channels of mass participation and appeal (Nathan 2003, p. 15)”. By taking these factors into consideration, Nathan argues that we have more reasons to believe the regime has the ability to maintain its rule. Nathan’s studies have inspired researchers to investigate the question of why and how the governance of CCP can be sustainable.
It is against this background of democratization that deliberative democracy was introduced into the Chinese context. As the discussion of deliberative democracy contains a potential of fostering a better quality of democracy or promoting the conditions for democratization, some discussions deliver an optimistic prospect of deliberative democracy being introduced to China. Deliberative democracy in China sends a message that a chance of democratization exists in China. This positive prospect can be further seen in the book The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China (Leib & He 2006). From the development of deliberative democracy, it is a big step because deliberative democracy was adopted in an unusual and “unlikely” place (Fishkin et al. 2010). Many authors in this edited book and scholars in this field (Tang & Dryzek 2014; Tang 2015a, 2015b) hold a positive expectation on the development of deliberative democracy in China. They believe the conditions for democratization can be realised as more deliberations are practiced and adopted.
By contrast, when Chinese government officials positively embraced this idea and engaged in the interpretation of deliberative democracy, some discussions send out a different message. That is why the idea of authoritarian deliberation (He & Warren 2011) was proposed to envision a possibility that deliberation might be manipulated by an authoritarian regime for
21 the use of governance. The different expectations do not only represent different sets of assessment but also introduce a difference between the English discussions and Chinese discussions. While the discussions of deliberative democracy in China have been situated in the background of democratization, its actual development in Chinese context is different from the discussion in English. As Warren and Williams (2013) proposed the idea of comparative political theory and highlight the importance of translation and context, their proposal resonates with the investigation of this thesis. In the following paragraphs, I will give a brief overview of Chinese discourses on deliberative democracy and discuss the general outline of this thesis.
1.5 Chinese Discourses on Deliberative Democracy & Thesis Outline
As the discussion in the Chinese context is different from the discussion in English, this difference becomes the main focus of this thesis. Three sources of data form the discourses of deliberative democracy in China under analysis in this thesis. They are Wenling’s deliberative experiment, the official documents, and scholarly works. Wenling’s case plays an essential role in shaping deliberative democracy in China because it is where the Western theory meets the local context. In addition, Wenling’s deliberative experiment demonstrates a lot of intriguing and interesting elements for further discussion and analysis. Nevertheless, the most crucial reason to talk about Wenling’s experiment is that these experiments are interesting because they connect Western theory with local Chinese contexts. One of the Chinese contexts making Wenling’s deliberative experiments successful and sustainable is its link to the experimental approach to political reforms. The experimental approach in China plays a crucial role to decide how deliberative democracy should be developed in the name of xieshang minzhu.
Therefore, extending from Wenling’s deliberative experiments, this thesis will go into the details of the official documents and the scholarly discussions. In terms of the official documents, they occupy an important position in shaping the discourses of deliberative democracy because these documents work as a system of command and communication among the party cadres at different level. These documents may seem irrelevant to the discussion of deliberative democracy in the Western academia, but they are part of the political culture, tradition, and institutions that set up the basic framework of xieshang minzhu in China.
22 As the official documents are part of the system executing command and communication, the contents of these official documents become a source for the party cadres and scholars to follow. In this sense, engaging scholarly discussions in Chinese is to see how Chinese scholars balance among three aspects: deliberative democracy in the Western academia, xieshang minzhu in the official documents, and the local needs. Scholars’ mission is to find ways to fuse or combine the discussions of deliberative democracy into the discussions of xieshang minzhu. Reviewing the scholarly discussions can lead us to observe the struggle and negotiation among Chinese scholars.
The above mentioned are the conditions shaping the development of deliberative democracy in China. In Chinese discussion, these elements are amplified and emphasised as the step to build the “Socialist Deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics”. By contrast, the idea of deliberative democracy that we are used to is categorised as ”xieshang minzhu in the West”. Under this circumstance, the West is treated as one homogenous entity. By differentiating from the West and amplifying the elements in China, a distinctive and exceptional xieshang minzhu is thus born.
By following the viewpoints mentioned above, I will give a brief sketch of the thesis outline. In Chapter Two, this thesis will give an overview of how to situate xieshang minzhu in relation to the English discourses of democratization and deliberative democracy in China. In this chapter, I will give a more detailed review on the studies of democratization in China and the development of deliberative democracy in Western academia. By incorporating China as an exception to the knowledge system of democratization and deliberative democracy, I will utilise Agamben’s idea of exception to further understand the implication of China’s exceptionality.
Chapter Three focuses on the method and methodology of this thesis. The focus will be on the review of interpretivism and Agamben’s concepts of example and exception. By giving an account of the two developments, I attempt to formulate a version of interpretivism that suits the purpose of this thesis’ investigation. Moreover, how this approach is connected to the situation in China will also be discussed. At the end of this chapter, the research design of this thesis and the process of data collection will be explained.
Chapter Four will focus on Wenling’s experiments with the emphasis on its chronological development and the related contexts. Wenling’s experiments are not always the same in
23 nature. Since its emergence in 1999, deliberative practices had undergone several stages of development and transformation. At the beginning, it was simply a Q&A forum between residents and government officials. Around 2005, the practice was transformed into the form of participatory budgeting after two experiments were conducted in two towns. Since then, the practice of participatory budgeting has gone through some adjustments and upgraded from township level to city level. As the practice has continued to evolve, its transformation is deeply related to the interaction between the local government and the central government, which is important in our understanding of deliberative democracy in China.
Chapter Five covers the official views on xieshang minzhu and its development. As the term xieshang minzhu has long existed before the introduction of deliberative democracy, it is important to give a review of this political tradition. Moreover, after the introduction of deliberative democracy, the official view did not clearly express its connection to deliberative democracy. Nevertheless, by continuously releasing official documents, the official view plays a major role in directing the officials and scholars on how to understand and interpret xieshang minzhu. This influence of the official view also directs how deliberative democracy is understood and interpreted. This makes it inevitable to understand the official view on xieshang minzhu when deliberative democracy in China is interwoven with xieshang minzhu in English scholarship.
Chapter Six goes into the scholarly discussion on deliberative democracy. As the Chinese political system lacks the tradition of representative democracy, the initial conditions for understanding deliberative democracy in the Chinese context is totally different from the Western context. Furthermore, the condition is further complicated as the Party has engaged its discussion through the interpretation of official documents. This chapter will deal with the nuance and challenges that Chinese scholars are facing. In addition, apart from several waves of debates in Chinese contexts, this chapter will review how Chinese scholars tend to build the deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics by mixing deliberative democracy with their own political resources.
Chapter Four to Six have set a more complete context of how xieshang minzhu has been developed in China, but the whole picture is not complete without revisiting Wenling’s deliberative experiment. Revisiting Wenling’s deliberative experiments would be worthwhile as Wenling’s case contains rich resources for further elaborations on its connections to deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu. That is why Chapter Seven will return to
24 Wenling’s experiment and analyse how Wenling’s experiment is embedded in the policy making process of the experimental approach to political reform. As the experimental approach to political reform is working on the logic of creating exception in different administrative units, the deliberative experiment in Wenling is a suspension rather than application of deliberative democracy. In this chapter, by looking at the relationships of several binary sets, the focus will be on how Wenling’s experiment is a zone of indistinction in many senses. These features in the zone of indistinction reinforce the development of deliberative democracy in China as a suspension rather than application of deliberative democracy.
Chapter Eight summarises the main points of each chapter and talks about the limitations of this project and related prospects. The focus of this chapter will be talking about the implication of deliberative democracy to China’s political landscape. Later, I will gradually shift the focus from the development of deliberative democracy in China to its implications for deliberative democracy in general. As the study of deliberative democracy is an evolving area, the related discourses are constantly changing due to its expansion to a global scale. In the final part of this conclusive chapter, I will reflect on the limitations of this thesis and discuss the possible directions of future research from my research experience in the writing of this thesis.
1.6 Concluding Remarks
By problematising the Chinese translation of deliberative democracy and using Agamben’s ideas of example and exception, this thesis attempts to engage the discussions of deliberative democracy from a refreshing perspective that has not been well-addressed in scholarly discussion. In Chapters Two and Three, I review the relevant scholarship and established a unique methodology and theoretical framework. From Chapters Four to Six, I mainly introduce the different aspects contributing to the formation of xieshang minzhu in China. In Chapter Seven, I will provide an analysis of the implication of xieshnag minzhu in China and it relation to deliberative democracy. In Chapter Eight, I will give a final overview of this thesis and talk about the past, the present, and the future of this project. In general, this engagement not only aims at enriching the discussion of deliberative democracy in China but also attempts to deepen the study on deliberative democracy.
25
26 Chapter 2 Situating Xieshang Minzhu: A Peculiar Development of Deliberative Democracy in China
2.1 Introduction
By highlighting the issue of translation, this chapter aims to establish a conceptual framework and present the following viewpoints. First, through the lens of translation and the literature review, deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu (协商民主), the official Chinese translation of deliberative democracy, should not be treated as the same thing. Second, as the definition of ‘deliberative democracy’ does not fully explain the meaning of xieshang minzhu in the Chinese context, an alternative approach is required to investigate the connection between the two concepts. Using Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of “exception and example”, this chapter argues that the discursive formation of deliberative democracy in China has prompted the need to see the development of democracy in another light, leading to the concept of xieshang minzhu. By focusing on the knowledge production of deliberative democracy in the Chinese context, this chapter looks at how deliberative democracy in China is embedded in the studies of democratization, and how related discourses recreated discourses of xieshang minzhu through reinterpreting the scholarship in an English context.
Demonstrating the Chinese translation is to investigate the issue of cross-cultural translation and its potential impact. This issue is especially urgent and important as studies of deliberative democracy have ignored the relevant issue of cross-cultural comparison. Although the cultural turn has become one of the most important developments in the studies of deliberative democracy in recent years (Min 2009; He 2013; Sass & Dryzek 2013; Pedrini 2015), none of the studies focus on this topic of cross-cultural translation, especially its development in China. In my view, this long-ignored and underestimated topic holds a great potential in fostering a better understanding of China as well as deliberative democracy. Nevertheless, putting China and deliberative democracy together may sound strange to many readers. Official sources in China never recognised deliberative democracy as the idea they endorse, and China is usually viewed as an authoritarian regime. Furthermore, the general perspective is that deliberative democracy is often promoted within democratic regimes in Europe and North America. As a result, deliberative democracy in China may appear to be an oxymoron.
27 However, although it is not easy to put deliberative democracy and China together, scholars continue to show interest in the issue of democracy in China (Perry & Fuller 1991; Nathan & Shi 1993; White 1994; White et al. 1996a; Dickson 1997; Bell 1999; Gilley 2004; Pei 2007; Tsai 2007; Pei 2012, 2014). Literature on the studies of democratization in China is significant in linking deliberative democracy with Chinese politics as the potential of the deliberative capacity (Dryzek 2009) foresees a possible transition to democracy. Apart from the scholarship on democratization in China, there has also been a literature on political experiments with democratic implications or practices similar to deliberative democracy. Therefore, in recent years, deliberative democracy in China has increasingly become a hot debate (Leib & He 2006; Fishkin et al. 2010; He & Thøgersen 2010; He 2011; Kornreich et al. 2012; Zhou 2012; He 2013; Tang & Dryzek 2014; Tang 2015b, 2015a).
Despite the recent focus on deliberative democracy in the Chinese context, academic discussions often neglect the aspect of how the Chinese regime and its people understand and interpret this issue. The relevant scholarship fails to investigate the subjective understanding and the process of how related terms are formed. Furthermore, the translation and interpretation of deliberative democracy in China is never seen as an issue for scholars. The missing link of subjective understanding and translation is what this thesis wishes to engage with. This study takes into consideration existing scholarship on democratization and deliberative democracy in China but at the same time, there will also be engagement on the translation and interpretation of related terms. That is to say, the main focus here will be the Chinese term “xieshang minzhu,” which is regarded as the Chinese translation of deliberative democracy in much of the academic literature.
Instead of simply using deliberative democracy in China, the focus on xieshang minzhu is to show the gap between deliberative democracy in western academia and its development in the Chinese context. The main argument in this thesis will illustrate the differences between deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu. As xieshang minzhu has its own meaning with its corresponding tradition, history, and institutions, I surmise that these two terms have to be treated differently. Nonetheless, as xieshang minzhu is the translation of deliberative democracy, the difference does not mean separation but implies a special connection between theory in the western context and its dissemination in China. In order to proceed with the investigation of xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy, it will require a new
28 perspective. This is where Agamben’s conceptual tools of ‘exception and example’ (1993, 1998, 2009) are applied here.
By adopting Agamben’s paradigmatic method and the entailed methodology (2009), I would like to demonstrate two points. First, in the scholarship on democratization and deliberative democracy, China has been regarded as an exception in various ways. However, this does not mean that China should be fully excluded. On the contrary, by reinterpreting the scholarship in the western academia, Chinese discourses have managed to turn the exceptional position into a source of its own exceptionalism. This exceptional position of China and its knowledge production requires a new perspective and strategy to investigate its development and implication.
In order to proceed with this investigation, I would like to first review the scholarship on democratization in China and the development of deliberative democracy. In the discussion of democratization in China, I will mainly focus on the lack of subjective understanding and the difficulty of applying modernization theory in the Chinese context. In the section on deliberative democracy, I will outline the development of deliberative democracy and its relevance in the Chinese context. Moreover, the links and gaps between democratization and deliberative democracy in China will be discussed. This will lead to the argument of why China is an exceptional case study in the discussion of democratization and deliberative democracy.
2.2 China as an Exception to Democratization
Democratization is a field of studies examining how regimes turn into democracies under specific conditions. This field of studies is greatly influenced by modernization theory, which maintains that a country with a higher level of economic development, urbanization, industrialization, and literacy would have a greater chance to promote democratic transition and consolidation (Lipset 1959, 1994). This perspective also assumes a linear direction toward a multi-party regime with elections, rule of law, and separation of power. Founding works can be seen in Barrington Moore’s (2003) The Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship and Seymour Martin Lipset’s (1959) famous article ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic development and Political Legitimacy’.
29 Developments in democratization studies began in the 1980s and reached its peak when Samuel Huntington’s (1993) The Third Wave was published. Francis Fukuyama’s (2006) The End of History and the Last Man further strengthened this trend of democratization and the emergence of liberal democracy. Many comparative and global studies have been published since then. Among the huge amount of literature, Journal of Democracy is probably the most prominent platform, which has attracted significant contributions since the 1990s. One of the editors-in-chief, Larry Diamond, is also one of the most prestigious scholars in the field of democratization. Many of his works (1992, 1999; Diamond & Morlino 2005; 2008) reflect the liberal view on democracy and offer an observation on the development of democratization both regionally and globally. Moreover, the work of Pippa Norris (2008) contributes to the method of assessing the quality of democratization by establishing indicators to interpret trends in a given regime. Thomas Carothers (2010b, 2010a; 2010; 2011) plays an engaging role in finding critical strategies to promote democratization by analyzing its current trends.
Against this background, scholars’ interest in China’s democratization started in 1989. This was the year of the Tiananmen Square protests. Since the mid-1990s, many contributions have discussed the impact of the Tiananmen Square protests in relation to the emergence of ‘third wave democratization’ (Huntington 1993), and the debate on possible futures for China and its ruling party. Related studies have ranged from macro-level analyses, such as analyses of political economy and socio-economic conditions, to micro-level analyses that focused on the interactions of political elites and institutionalisation as well as the consciousness of the middle class.
Early studies conducted by Gordon White (1994) approached democratization in China from a political economy perspective. In White’s view, the authoritarian turn after the Tiananmen Square protests was the CCP’s temporary solution from the East Asian experience. Many East Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea went through a period of authoritarian rule during the time of rapid economic growth before they successfully transitioned to democracy. In the CCP’s view, the authoritarianism during the transition period was necessary because it prevented society from falling into chaos due to corruption, environmental problems, inequalities, and contradictions brought about by the rapid economic growth. Consequently, authoritarianism is interpreted by the CCP as the keeper of order before the democratic transition.
30 Borrowing from the East Asian experience but interpreting it in another way, White maintains that with a deepening market reform, a relatively peaceful democratic transition would be expected. A similar conclusion can be seen in the works by Gordon White, Xiaoyuan Shang, and Jude Howell (1996a). They draw an optimistic conclusion from China’s robust civil society, which had been accompanied by market reform since 1978. Although Chinese civil-society protestors encountered a defeat in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the vitality of Chinese civil society had not disappeared with ongoing market reforms. This vitality is evidence that could support a democratic future in China.
Contrary to a macro-level, political economy approach, some scholars have turned their focus to micro-level, local, and grassroots perspectives to identify the possibility and progress of democracy in China. This was evident in studies of village elections which emerged at the end of the 1990s. The research done by Kevin O’Brien and Lianjian Li (2000) gave an account of the historical development of village elections. According to their explanation, village elections were the Party’s means to gain support and strengthen its capacity to control. Focusing on similar practices but offering a different argument, the research conducted by Tianjian Shi (1999, 2000) demonstrated that the institutional setting for village elections was an arena for conservatives and reformers. It created a space for reformers to push political reform by using an incremental strategy. This space is the possibility for China’s democratic future (Shi 1999, pp. 409-10) .
Tianjian Shi (2000) also associated China’s democratization with the study of civic culture (Almond & Verba 1989) and measured people’s ideas and opinions about democracy. His intention was to test whether China has a corresponding culture to support democracy. His research demonstrated that the Chinese did not have a civic culture that could promote democracy. Also, according to his finding, he claims that ‘grassroots elections have not yet changed people’s attitudes towards power and authority nor made them support reform’ (2000, p. 558). Although Tianjian Shi looked at the incremental change to institutions, he pointed out that the lack of a civic culture may be the key obstacle for China’s democratic future.
In contrast to the explanations from institutional and cultural perspectives, Bruce Dickson (1997) approached democratization by evaluating the Leninist Party’s adaptability. As the structures of political parties in China and Taiwan are both Leninist, this commonality gives Dickson a leverage to compare the two cases. By viewing Kuomingtang’s (The Nationalist
31 Party) case in Taiwan as a successful adaptation in the process of democratic transition, he gives a pessimistic assessment of the CCP due to its lack of ability to adapt to changes in the external environment. This inertia of the CCP gave Dickson reasons to infer two scenarios of the CCP’s future. The CCP would sustain its ruling power or breakdown in the process of democratic transition brought by the market reform, which would create an unstoppable force for socio-political changes (Dickson 1997, 2003).
Unlike Bruce Dickson’s observation, Bruce Gilley’s study (2004) was geared towards modernization theory, and he held an optimistic view of China’s future democratization. After China joined the WTO and underwent a peaceful power transition, he applied the argument of modernization theory to China. As joining the WTO meant that China had become more embedded in the global market economy, Gilley claimed that China’s market reform and economic development had created an increasingly large middle class. This growing force of the middle class will demand more political participation and reform, which will become a pressure for a top-down democratic transition.
Echoing Bruce Gilley’s (2004) optimism but identifying a different future scenario, Minxin Pei’s (2009) work focused on how the CCP lost direction in its path to transformation. Pei argued that a democratic transition might happen after the regime’s breakdown because the CCP only relied on economic development and political repression to sustain its legitimacy and survival (Pei 2012). In his latest paper, Pei (2014) adjusted his position and concluded his prediction that China’s future scenario would transform from regime breakdown to regime degeneration.
However, with the durability of the CCP regime, scholars began to look at how the CCP maintained its power rather than how the CCP was threatened by variables that fostered or promoted democratization. Andrew Nathan’s paper on authoritarian resilience (2003) was the first to bring this topic to light and to public debate. His work attempted to reverse the impression that authoritarian regimes are fragile. He maintained that the resilience of the CCP regime can be observed from the following four aspects: ‘the institutionalization of orderly succession processes, meritocratic promotions, bureaucratic differentiation, and channels of mass participation and appeal’ (Nathan 2003, p. 15).
After Andrew Nathan’s elaboration on authoritarian resilience, instead of simply following modernization theory and checking factors and variables that can foster democratic transition,
32 a number of scholars shifted their focus to factors that prevented democratization from happening. For instance, by focusing on the identities, interests and values of private entrepreneurs, Kellee Tsai’s (2007) research maintained that the emerging middle class in China is hardly the force that would promote a democratic transition for two main reasons. First, private entrepreneurs did not share a common identity. Second, private entrepreneurs create their fortune by relying on their connections with the party system. Their connections with the party put them in a difficult position to hold against the party. Eventually, the lack of common consciousness and the dependency on the CCP to create fortune are why private entrepreneurs cannot be the force of change.
More examples could be found in the works of scholars who share similar interests but engage with different topics. For example, Steven Tsang’s (2009) concept of ‘Consultative Leninism’ focused on how the CCP has developed a resilient political system through the institutionalization of channelling dissent voices. Teresa Wright (2010) held a similar argument by concentrating on the state-society relations. She maintained that the state-led economic development to harness market forces has helped to enhance the socialist legacies in China. As a result, the Chinese people maintained an attitude or behaviour supporting the given regime. By focusing on China’s petition system, Xi Chen (2012b) focused on the government’s techniques in encouraging farmers and workers to protest and strengthen its governability by channelling social conflicts. In a recent paper, Elizabeth Perry (2012) also made similar conclusions by arguing that China’s robust civil society has strengthened the regime’s resilience rather than weakening it.
Regardless of whether the study is approached from a macro or micro level, qualitative or quantitative method, some commonalities of studies on democratization in China can be summarised as followed. First, the leading problematic of most studies is to assess whether China’s political landscape will follow the modernization theory. Under this circumstance, modernization theory is the framework, and China is the applied object of knowledge to be tested. In other words, when modernization theory plays the role of the dominant framework, scholars are spotting relevant factors and variables which are in modernization theory and can be measured. During this process of investigation, the subjective understanding of how the Chinese think of democracy is relatively ignored in studies on China’s democratization. Nevertheless, the officials, scholars, or even ordinary people are actively engaging in the formal or informal production of knowledge. Their active engagement has further
33 complicated processes of knowledge formation about democratization in China, but the given scholarship has not put a lot of emphases on this aspect.
Generally speaking, with a spectrum ranging from authoritarianism to democratic transition, these studies can be categorized into three types. The first type believed that China will eventually become a democratic regime due to China’s deeper connection with the market economy (Gilley 2004). The second type of explanation foresaw a breakdown (Pei 2009; Chang 2010) or decay (Pei 2014) before a not-so-successful democratic transition. The third type of explanation focused on the current governability and claimed that there would be a new evolution of authoritarianism in China (Nathan 2003).
Although the transformation of China into a democratic regime is still debatable, to scholars and observers, the possibility of democratization in China is shrinking. In recent years, fewer studies have maintained the view of a successful democratic transition in future, and more studies tend to focus on explaining why the Chinese government could maintain its governability (Chen 2012b), or why the democratic transition is unlikely to happen in China (Tsai 2007; Teets 2014). This trend has been reinforced after 2008 when China survived the financial meltdown. The idea of a “China model” or “Beijing Consensus” has been repeatedly mentioned and discussed to emphasize the uniqueness of China’s political system, economic policy, culture, and socio-political conditions, which have contributed to its own path of development. This “China model” is beyond the western understanding.
There were also studies stressing the governability of China’s authoritarianism or focusing on reasons why democratization in China is unlikely. On one hand, they recognised the uniqueness of China’s socio-political conditions. On the other hand, they felt that China did not fit into the traditional category of authoritarianism. Consequently, these studies came up with various terms to describe the uniqueness of China’s case such as Post-authoritarianism, Neo-authoritarianism (Perry 1993), fragmented authoritarianism (Mertha 2009), and consultative authoritarianism (Tsang 2009). Regardless of whether scholars held a positive or negative view of China’s future political landscape, their studies are suggesting that China is different from the western model or what modernisation theory prescribes. The uniqueness of China’s case is standing at the border of democratization. Potentially, China’s case could be either part of the paradigm or outside the paradigm. This puts China’s case in a peculiar position.
34 China’s peculiar position does not raise the necessity of rethinking modernisation theory and the dichotomy between democracy and authoritarianism. On the contrary, China as the representative of authoritarianism is reinforced in the latest discussion of democratization. This new discussion is in response to the talk of a power transition in the current conditions of the global economy. Since 2015, the Journal of Democracy, the most prestigious journal on the studies of democratization, has been taking two interrelated topics as the main theme of their journal. In the Volume 25 in 2015, the main themes in their four issues are “Is democracy in decline?”, “The authoritarian resurgence”, “Authoritarianism goes global”, and “Authoritarianism goes global (II)” respectively. In 2016, they further discussed two related themes, “The Authoritarian Threat” and “The Danger of Deconsolidation”. Judging from the main themes of each issue, the Journal of Democracy aims to deliver a message: While the democratic recession has been happening over the past ten years (Diamond 2015), authoritarian regimes are rising globally (Diamond et al. 2016) and becoming a threat to the world order and the global norms (Cooley 2015; Walker 2016). These two trends express two interrelated concerns—the crisis of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. The former represents the internal threat of democracy whereas the latter shows how democracy defines itself by identifying authoritarianism as the external enemy.
In the same series, Andrew Nathan (2015, 2016) contributed two papers to explore the challenges from China in this trend of authoritarian resurgence and investigate what would happen to the middle class in China. In the first article, Nathan mentioned that China’s increasing influence at the international level would "have a negative impact on the fate of democracy in six ways (Nathan 2015, p. 158)” as the Chinese government has been expanding its power for the sake of regime survival. In the six ways2 that Nathan had described, his main argument illustrated one point: China has set itself as an example to other authoritarian regimes and extended its influence from non-democratic regimes to democratic
2 In Andrew Nathan’s article, what the Chinese government is doing to challenge the global trend of democratization can be summarised as the following six ways: 1) Encouraging authoritarian regimes by the power of its example; 2) Attempting to burnish its national prestige abroad, partly through international promotion of authoritarian values; 3) Playing a key role in a circle of authoritarian states that pick up techniques of rule from one another; 4) Seeking to roll back existing democratic institutions or to stifle sprouts of democratic change in territories where it enjoys special influence; 5) Helping to ensure the survival of authoritarian regimes that are key economic and strategic partners; 6) Working to shape international institutions to make them “regime-type-neutral” instead of weighted in favor of democracy. These observations are important, but they are not directly related to the argument of this chapter. That is why I put these points in the footnote and could not go into the details of each point.
35 regimes. From Nathan’s viewpoint, Chinese government did not view universal values highly but sees them as another product of Western civilization. He wrote:
China views democracy promotion, human-rights diplomacy, humanitarian interventions, and the rise of international criminal law through the lens of strategic gain and loss – as efforts by Western powers to weaken rivals and expand their own influence. (Nathan 2015, p. 158)
Although Nathan recognised China’s capacity to potentially influence a trend of “authoritarian transition, (Nathan 2015, p. 168)” the crucial factor for the future of democracy, in Nathan’s view, lay in the performance of democratic regimes. That is to say, the ambivalence and anomaly of China’s case is contained in the category of authoritarianism, which is considered the opposite side of democracy. This tendency can also be seen in his second paper on China’s middle class. In answering whether China’s middle class could be the force to promote democratization as Lipset had predicted, he gave a negative response by emphasising the unique characteristics of China’s middle class. However, while recognising the exceptionality of China’s middle class, Nathan went back to modernization theory and maintained the uniqueness of Chinese culture is not so hugely different to the development of other cultures. In his view, the institutional development is a better measure for comparison, and China’s institutional change has demonstrated that the development of China’s political landscape is still following the path of modernization theory. Eventually, China’s exceptionality is neutralised and pushed back to the scope of modernization theory.
Although Nathan and other scholars sense something different in China’s rise, they tend to place China within the framework of authoritarianism versus democracy and categorize it as an embodiment of authoritarianism. While this study acknowledges this dichotomy, I will take this further by suggesting that China’s exceptionality should be problematised. This exceptionality could be found in the ambivalent conditions of Chinese development, which required further investigation. As the Chinese government never labels itself as an authoritarian regime, what they did was to define and interpret democracy under the premise of regime survival. As Nathan’s papers attempt to show this tendency, he mainly shifted his interpretation of China’s exceptionality into modernization theory and the broader scope of democratization. That is to say, he is not problematizing China’s exceptionality but neutralising it. Therefore, I would like to go further and show that China’s cultural exceptionalism is a strategy to turn its position of exception from a passive one to an active
36 one. Although the passive exception means that China remains outside the academic rule of democratization, the active exception is to accept the position of anomaly and use it as a chance to redefine the whole paradigm.
When scholars follow the given classification, they are not challenging the binary relationship between democracy and authoritarianism. Rather than labelling a crisis of democracy and the authoritarian threat, these signs are summoning researchers to rethink and renew the meaning and the connection between authoritarianism and democracy. The exceptionality of China’s case has prompted us to see a paradigm shift of the current hegemony of liberal democracy. Therefore, China’s case should trigger us to rethink the meaning and the connection between authoritarianism and democracy rather than reinforcing the existing binary division as seen in earlier studies. Only when we examine how Chinese exceptionalism is formed, can we put the labels of democracy and authoritarianism back in place. This is the key objective in this thesis as the development of deliberative democracy in China represents an excellent example of the struggle between the western theory and its adaptation in China. Furthermore, through this development, I will be able to show how the discourse of deliberative democracy in China is a process of appropriating the discussions of deliberative democracy for the purpose of building a xieshang minzhu with Chinese characteristics. Consequently, China as a passive exception in the discourses of deliberative democracy could be reversely turned into an active exception. In order to illustrate this process, I will give a short overview of deliberative democracy and its alternative development in China.
2.3 Deliberative Democracy & Its Turn to China
When we examine the issue of deliberative democracy in China, it becomes evident how difficult it is to define the term. This difficulty lies in the debate about whether deliberative democracy in China is an idea purely derived from Western academia or a ‘rediscovery’ when the idea of deliberative democracy is applied to the Chinese context. Before we go into the complexity of how this theory is relevant in China, it is necessary to briefly review its development in a Western context.
Deliberative democracy, a term first used by Joseph M. Bessette (1980) in his work Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republican Government, is a school of thought largely inspired by the works of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas. Although the
37 term’s definition varies in the views of different theorists and practitioners, the academic community (Curato et al. 2017) recognizes that its basic elements lie in the idea that free and equal citizens make collective decisions through public deliberation.
Deliberation occupies the central place in deliberative democracy as it is more than just talk or discussion. Deliberation represents a social and political process and exchange of rational argumentation. Although deliberation has a core of rational argumentation and an emphasis on procedural models, other forms of communication such as emotion, narratives, persuasion, and coercion are also included in the broader sense of deliberation (Curato et al. 2017). Deliberation can happen at anytime and anywhere. The recent development of systemic turn (Mansbridge et al. 2012; Curato et al. 2017) is aiming to link various sites of deliberation and investigate their interactions and effects.
As a form of democracy that involves the process of discussing an issue, reaching a shared practice judgment, and making a decision, deliberative democracy is not a new invention but a revival of an ancient idea that can be traced back to the ancient model of Athenian Democracy in the 4th to 5th century BC (Elster 1998). At the end of the 1990s, its contemporary revival has flourished with a ‘deliberative turn’ (Dryzek 2002). Since then, theorists have contributed to this topic from various perspectives and approaches.
In its early development, theorists mainly focused on normative investigations such as conditions and principles of democratic legitimacy, public reason, and public justification. Habermas, Rawls, and other theorists have debated how public reason can be achieved through a fair procedure of public justification. The debate between Habermas and Rawls marked the burgeoning development of deliberative democracy in the late twentieth century.
In the beginning, John Rawls constructed deliberative democracy through his elaboration of ideal political institutions and his later discussion of public reason. The discussion of public reason and public justification could be found in his later works, including Political Liberalism (1993), Laws of Peoples (2001b) and Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (2001a). Extending and amending ideas in his early work A Theory of Justice (1999), Rawls applied his idea of public reason to the realm to ‘“constitutional essentials“ and questions of basic justice’ (Rawls 1993, p. 214). In comparison with Habermas, Rawls limited the idea of public reason in the formal public sphere.
38 As Rawls limited his version of public reason to the formal public sphere, the public use of reason is not operational on an everyday level among citizens. Instead, rare events or major issues about justice or the constitution are the time when public reason happens. In those moments, the idea of public reason does not take place everywhere but only emerge in the exchange of opinions in courts, governments, parliament, or political campaign (Rawls 2001b, pp. 133-4). In the rare moments when public use of reason is in process, Rawls connect three main ideas for the public use of reason to reach the public justification. They are overlapping consensus, reflexive equilibrium, and free public reason (Rawls 2001a, p. 26).
With the recognition of the pluralism in modern democratic society, differences between religious beliefs, ideologies, values, morality, and political positions may eventually be incompatible and irresolvable. Under this circumstance, how can we find a political solution and an ideal political institution to make those irreconcilable values work together? That is the context in which Rawls introduced the three ideas to help members of a political community to reach public justification. For overlapping consensus, once we admit the existence of pluralism in our society, a consensus that everyone will accept is not likely to be reached. Nor is it feasible to foresee an ideal political institution with a single moral base. Rather, he argued that when envisioning an ideal political institution, a separation of politics from morality is necessary. Introducing the idea of overlapping consensus is crucial to establish an ideal political institution without sacrificing the existence of moral disagreement. In the overlapping consensus, Rawls does not expect to see a passage from morality to politics, nor does he think an agreement that everyone can accept is needed. What we need is an agreement that the participants are unable to reject reasonably (Rawls 2001a, pp. 32-8).
However, the overlapping consensus is not a static condition but a dynamic process. That is why the reflective equilibrium is introduced. In Rawls model, political consensus that members agree and their own values may not be corresponding. Members of an ideal political community have the ability to reason and judge, so members will continuously negotiate between the political consensus and their own values. A balanced conclusion from the interaction between intuitions and theoretical principles would then be achieved. This demonstrates how the reflective equilibrium works. Applying reflective equilibrium to the public level, the principle and the justification of justice would further turn public justification into a continuing process of adjustment between reasoned judgments about justice (Rawls 2001a, pp. 29-32). Finally, as Rawls’ version of public reason is strictly
39 limited in the formal public sphere, in Rawls’ view, media, community, and social association cannot bear the mission of public justification.The free public reason in the process of public justification can only exist in the formal sphere and can be only solved in certain political institutions.
Whereas Rawlsian’s concept of public reason remained in the formal public sphere and distanced the ideal political structure from morality, Habermas develops his idea of public reason differently. He had reconstructed an all-embracing theory of deliberative democracy with a two-track model of democracy that connects the formal and the informal public spheres and bridges politics with morality. Carolyn Hendriks’ work (2006) may be the most well-known elaboration on Habermas’ two-track model of deliberative politics and the ways in which the formal and the informal public spheres interact with each other. By borrowing her interpretation, we can see that in this two-track model of democracy, a polis consists of two concentric systems. The formal public sphere stands in the centre of the circle and plays the role of decision making through deliberation set by the democratic procedure. The informal public sphere is layers of concentric circles outside the formal public sphere and forms opinions into consensus that can impact the decision-making body through free exchange of information. Through the public use of communicative rationality, citizens involved in public debates could reach a consensus where everyone accepts the views, which is very different from Rawls’ overlapping consensus.
40
Figure 2-1. Two-Model of Deliberative Politics3
The idea of Habermas’ two-track model of deliberative democracy could be viewed as a concluding development of his academic life. In his early work The Structural Transformation of Public Sphere (1991), he recognized the value of Kant’s idea of public use of reason and explained its decline and disappearance with the development of capitalism. Later in his career, under the influence of Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Otto-Apel’s universal pragmatics, Habermas reconstructed the public use of reason based on the intersubjective communication and criticized that capitalist modernity will lead to a systematic distortion of communication. By exploring the communicative rationality inherent in life-world communication, Habermas (2001, pp. 97-100) formulated the possibility of reaching a reasonable consensus in his setup of the ideal speech situation and develops his discourse
3 The graphic is remade and adjusted based on Carolyn Hendriks’s work (2006).
41 ethics from it. The concept of communicative rationality and the emphasis on inter-subjective dialogue equipped Habermas (1984) with the theoretical resources to revive the public sphere in the realm of moral and social theory. However, it was not until the publication of Between Facts and Norms (Habermas 1996) that Habermas began to engage in political theory and integrate his former ideas of public sphere and communicative action into deliberative democracy. His strategy of establishing deliberative democracy was to differentiate it from liberalism and republicanism by bridging the gap between these two political traditions with communicative rationality.
For Habermas, the ideal model of deliberative democracy is a two-track model that connects an informal and a formal public sphere. In the first track—society’s informal public sphere— unrecognized and unspecified discussions circulate among individual citizens who are beyond the network of private interests. Opinions are expected to form a consensus through extensive and free deliberation in various areas in society, and the consensus formed through deliberation can influence or pressure the formal track (the actual political process) to take the consensus into consideration. Influenced by and open to the input of free communication in the informal public sphere, the second track of the formal public sphere reflects the official elements of the political process, such as parliament, election, and other decision-making institutions, and conducts a series of public discussions before any decision is taken (Habermas 1996, pp. 99-109, 304-8).
Although there is a difference of perspective between Habermas and Rawls, scholars in the field of deliberative democracy agree that their debate is likened to a family difference that faced similar obstacles and sceptical objections rather than incompatible conflicts (Bohman 1996, p. 4). The difference between Habermas and Rawls marks the broader scope of deliberative democracy and established its basic directions. Scholars who follow this tradition fill the gap with their theories and propose ideas to address the unresolved issues in their works. For example, Joshua Cohen (1989) renegotiated Rawls’ version of deliberative democracy. Cohen re-establishes the ideal deliberative procedures on free association among free and equal citizens with public and reasonable arguments, whereas Rawls sets his original position as the first principle to form an ideal deliberative procedure for public justification, which functions as a source of possible institutionalization,.
Inspired by Rawls and Habermas, Amy Guttmann and Dennis Thompson (1996) focused on the persistence and existence of moral disagreement. They noticed that deliberative
42 democracy theorists have overlooked the issue of moral disagreement; specifically, they either distance morality from politics (Rawlsian approach) or assume an ideal society where moral conflicts are resolved or can be provisionally settled (Habermasian approach). By recognizing the inescapable fact of moral disagreement in everyday life, they try to fill the gap in the area they called ‘middle democracy’, which emerged in the form of forums and free association in both the formal and informal public spheres. They proposed three principles—reciprocity, publicity, and accountability—for stabilizing the deliberation of moral disagreement as the foundation of deliberative democracy (Gutmann & Thompson 1996, pp. 12, 40). In their following book Why Deliberative Democracy? (2004), they differentiated deliberative democracy from the model of aggregative democracy by extending their discussion and claimed the superiority of deliberative democracy. In their view, aggregative democracy emphases the aggregation of votes and preferences in forming decisions and legitimacy whereas deliberative democracy focuses on rational discussion among free citizens, which would work as the foundation of liberal democracy and go beyond the aggregation of private interests. What Gutmann and Thompson aimed for was to encourage all kinds of public deliberation in different forums and free association to settle moral disagreements.
In addition, James Bohman promoted a similar idea but with a different justification. Following the steps of Habermas and Rawls, Bohman’s main concern was the feasibility of deliberative democracy. He argued that the feasibility laid in the balance between Habermas and Rawls. He was concerned with how challenges, brought by cultural pluralism, social inequalities, complexity, and community-wide bias and ideologies, can affect the ideal and quality of deliberation. Therefore, his approach was to push the Habermasian idea towards greater pluralism and widen Rawlsian liberal neutrality by making public deliberation a practical goal rather than an ideal guaranteed by pure or impure proceduralism (Bohman 1996, pp. 4-17). Bohman’s theory of deliberative democracy as a practical ideal shifted the discussion of deliberation from normative investigation to issues of feasibility and institutions (Bohman 1996, 1998). The issue of feasibility and institutions opened up the discussion of deliberative democracy to a new stage of theory that needed to be tested (Chambers 2003). This development deepened the debates around theory and practice as well as ideal and reality.
43 On the one hand, the discussion of deliberative democracy extends to different research areas, including public law, international relations, and public policy (Chambers 2003). On the other hand, many empirical studies about socio-political experiments and forms of deliberative mechanisms are emerging. These institution-centred discussions can be seen in similar but different forums in both the formal and informal public spheres. Forms and types of deliberative mechanisms are varied, and one of the most important forms the idea of “mini-publics” (Dahl 1989; Fung 2003a; Goodin & Dryzek 2006). “Mini-publics” are often referred to in the design of a deliberative practice. In “mini-publics”, a small group of selected or recruited participants, who are expected to represent the public, are gathered together to deliberate specific issues in both the informal and formal public spheres (Goodin & Dryzek 2006). Among different forms of mini-publics, three main types are mostly discussed. They are citizen Juries (Armour 1995; Crosby 1995; Coote & Lenaghan 1997; Smith & Wales 1999, 2000), deliberative polling (Luskin et al. 2002; Fishkin 2003; Fishkin & Farrar 2005; Fishkin & Luskin 2005), and consensus conferences (Joss & Durant 1995; Andersen & Jæger 1999; Einsiedel & Eastlick 2000; Hendriks 2005).
Apart from “mini-publics”, other forms of democratic innovation inspired by deliberative democracy are also influential. Among those forms of democratic innovation, the practice of participatory budgeting is the most prominent one having attracted the attention of many scholars, policy makers, activists, politicians, and so forth. However, although participatory budgeting and deliberative democracy are often connected, they were developed separately. Originally, participatory budgeting was a democratic innovation experimented in the Brazilian city of Palo Alegre (de Sousa Santos 1998; Wampler 2010). The city government allocated a part of their budget to poor communities and let local residents decide how to spend the money. This was a huge success and had extensive influence. Similar practices were later adopted in other Brazilian cities as well as the rest of the world (Ganuza & Baiocchi 2012). Its marriage with deliberative democracy was largely due to its later adoption in the US and elaborated by Archon Fung and Erik Olin Wright (2001) with their idea of empowered deliberative democracy. With the emphasis on empowerment and redistribution, Fung and Wright came up with a participation-based model of deliberative democracy. This model focuses on cultivating local residents’ ability to engage and discuss public affairs. They pay special attention to minority groups and expect to proliferate similar empowering practices (Fung & Wright 2001; Fung 2007). Relevant studies on this marriage between
44 participatory budgeting and deliberative democracy were conducted later on (Baiocchi 2001; Fung & Wright 2001; Fung 2003b; Fung & Wright 2003; Fung 2005; Sintomer et al. 2008).
These forms of deliberation have different but overlapping goals, such as including broader participation, promoting communication among different sides, initiating the process of opinion and will formation, making the government more accountable. However, all of them can only be realized in small-scale or micro-level institutions of deliberation rather than large institutions. That is why some theorists propose macro-forms of deliberation although these proposals either have limited effects due to low frequency of application or cost too much time and money. For example, Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin (2005) proposed the idea of ‘Deliberation Day’ when people do nothing but freely discuss and debate the public issues. Other scholars also endorse the idea of the representative deliberation (Bessette 1994; Coote & Lenaghan 1997) in which people would select some representatives, and their mission was to debate important public issues. In addition, Robert Goodin (2000) discussed the idea of reflective deliberation in individuals’ minds, in which he placed great emphasis and confidence on the individual’s ability to reflect on one’s daily conversation. Finally, John Dryzek (2001) envisioned an idea of deliberation detached from legitimacy at the level of civil society and bridged deliberation with the daily lives of people. However, the most challenging problem is that these proposals have a theoretical tendency to dissociate deliberation from legitimacy and formal institutions from decision making. In Carolyn Hendriks’ term (2006), this type of deliberative democracy is called the ‘macro-conception of deliberative democracy’ that focused on ‘the unstructured and open conversations outside formal decision-making institutions’ (Hendriks 2006, p. 487).
To overcome the challenges in micro- and macro-versions of deliberative democracy, theorists (Mansbridge 1999; Parkinson 2003; Hendriks 2006; Elstub 2008; Goodin 2008) have attempted to integrate the micro- and macro-versions of deliberative democracy. Scholars introduced the idea of the deliberative system as a platform to integrate micro- and macro-versions of deliberation. While Hendriks (2006) establishes a well-ordered and concentric system of deliberation that comes from a Habermasian model of a two-track deliberative democracy, Mansbridge (1999) extended her discussion of everyday conversation and envisioned a deliberative system that spontaneously emerged from countless and connected mini-publics. Following Mansbridge’s step, Parkinson (2003) used the case of health policy debate in the UK to illustrate how small-scale forums can have the
45 ripple effects to a broader system of deliberation and thus respond to the issue of legitimacy in deliberative democracy. In addition, inspired by Mansbridge and Hendriks, Goodin (2008) developed the idea of ‘distributed deliberation’ to predict how a deliberative system would work. In this distributed deliberation, ‘different agents playing different deliberative roles’ (Goodin 2008, p. 186) and different types of deliberation allocated around civil society supported a basic system of electoral democracy.
These attempts at integration are not just the evolution of theoretical debates but also emanate from feedback and interaction between theory and actual deliberative practices. The development of research on deliberative democracy has expanded from normative investigation to empirical tests (Steiner 2012), especially in the last decade. This development not only meant that the relevant discussions have deepened over time but also shows that the idea of deliberative democracy has become more widely accepted. Notably, deliberative democracy has been adapted and disseminated around the world instead of concentrating on one geographic area or political system.
The path from normative investigation to empirical test and their interaction not only opens new possibilities for relevant studies, but also generates a new discussion on the deliberative system. By reviewing and summarising different elaborations of the deliberative system, Mansbridge and other scholars (2012) further the discussion by proposing a systemic approach to deliberative democracy. They gave the deliberative system a more concrete definition and reviewed the development of deliberative democracy as a movement that had undergone three waves. The first wave was the normative debate, which represented the early development of deliberative democracy. Once the basic direction was set, the development of deliberative democracy progressed to the second wave of the empirical test. This meant actual practices were given guidance from the theory, and the theory in turn required more test and feedback from its normative implementation in the real world.
While the number of deliberative practices in the real world is increasing, most are limited to small scale and relatively independent practices. In order to bridge the connections between the macro- and micro- politics of deliberation as well as theory and practice, scholars began to introduce systemic thinking to deepen the given discussion. This “systemic turn” (Mansbridge et al. 2012) represented the third wave of deliberative democracy. Nevertheless, this model of doing empirical research and treating the interplay between theory and practice posed a challenge, especially when the idea of deliberative democracy spreads to non-
46 Western cultures or non-democratic regimes. In the development of deliberative democracy, most scholarship focused on cases in North America and Europe, which represent Western democratic political systems. The emphases on public reason, political justification, ideal deliberative procedures, forums beyond market and interest, and so forth have a deep tradition in the Western social-political culture.
Apart from the three waves of development in deliberative democracy, there has been a parallel development of the cultural turn when scholars sense the seemingly incompatibility between the western theory and the non-western contexts. In the emerging development of the cultural turn, in considering the role of culture, scholars are asking whether political deliberation in deliberative democracy is a cultural product or a universal activity. In the relevant scholarship, Min (2009) strongly maintains that deliberative democracy is a cultural product with western bias. Consequently, when the theory transmits to East Asia, it may become incompatible given the dominant culture of Confucianism in this region.
On the contrary, by considering cultural pluralism, Sass and Dryzek (2013) placed more confidence in deliberation. In their view, the core of deliberation will not be distorted, but it can be enriched through trans-cultural practices and the understanding of political deliberation. As they view culture as a result of intersubjectivity through the interactions and exchange of symbols, norms, and meanings, the claim of western bias or any connection with the western hegemony will not always be the same. Political deliberation will eventually be changed through its trans-cultural dissemination. When they view culture as a dynamic interaction between elements of tradition, institutions, language, meanings, symbols and norms, an alternative to cultural essentialism could be proposed.
In a similar manner, Pedrini (2015) conducted a series of tests and supported a contextual understanding of culture, which is in contrast to the holistic understanding of culture proposed by Gambetta (2000). She maintained that contextual understanding of culture could illustrate the strength of change and enhance the cultivation of deliberation. Her study was in dialogue with elaboration on the distinction between the analytical culture and the indexical culture elaborated by Gambetta (2000). Gambetta (2000) developed two ideal types of culture to explain that different types of culture might promote or hinder the development of deliberative democracy. The analytic culture, which represents an arguing and scientific culture to acquire knowledge, would be more beneficial to the development of deliberative democracy. In contrast, the indexical culture is the type of culture in which people hold
47 “strong opinions on virtually everything from the outset. (2000, p. 20)” The indexical culture would encourage people to bargain rather than arguing, and this type of culture would hinder the development of deliberative democracy. Whereas Gambetta’s argument is based on a holistic and essential view on culture, Pedrini (2015) refuted this argument and showed that the distinction may not be sustained. By using her empirical study, she highlights the importance of context and institution in shaping a better quality of deliberation.
By viewing culture as a dynamic residue, scholars in the discussion of the cultural turn in deliberative democracy attempt to demonstrate two points. First, culture should not be viewed as something essential or holistic but a context-dependent dynamism. Even when the idea of Confucian culture exists, it might undergo changes. Second, for the same reason, although deliberative democracy can be connected to western bias or hegemony, it does not mean deliberative democracy and the western bias are the same. Consequently, we should not just assume that only deliberative democracy could be changed and enriched by its dissemination. Changes can also happen to other cultures once the idea of deliberative democracy is introduced.
In the scholarship mentioned above, political deliberation is viewed as knowledge distinctive and independent from culture. Even though the meaning of political deliberation could be plural, diversified, and enriched, the core of political deliberation could be defined normatively and observed according to the normative understanding. This normative understanding of knowledge then entails corresponding practices or activities, which can be found and assessed in different cultures. Non-western cultures are no exception. Under this circumstance, if the perspective of translation is introduced into the connection between deliberation and culture, the first question would be about language and translation. Consequently, rather than asking whether deliberative democracy or political deliberation has a Western bias, the question should be: Does the language of a non-western culture such as Chinese have an equivalent term for deliberation? If the answer is yes, then we can further ask how equivalent the two languages are. If the answer is no, then we can begin to ask how translation is possible in a culture that does not have the idea of deliberation. No matter what the answer is, both directions lead to the necessity of highlighting the role of translation in knowledge dissemination, transmission, and formation.
Simply asking if another language has an equivalent word for deliberative democracy is what triggers the interest of this thesis. In the field of deliberative democracy, relevant studies are
48 absent so far, even after the emergence of the cultural turn. Therefore, raising and highlighting the Chinese translation, xieshang minzhu, is not only urgent but necessary in the cultural turn of deliberative democracy. Only through the investigation of cross-cultural translation could our analysis advance the emerging discussion of the cultural turn on deliberative democracy and also deepen our understanding and practice of deliberative democracy.
From the lens of translation, we are not measuring, assessing, or evaluating the object of knowledge according to the established system of knowledge. Rather, the perspective of translation brings us to the connection between knowledge and culture so that we can understand how knowledge travels and transforms to another culture (Spivak 2000, 2012; Gal 2015). Also, we can examine how a culture absorbs an unfamiliar knowledge with its own cultural resources (Fish & Jameson 1999). This travel of knowledge leads us to the details where knowledge and culture interact and the transmission of meaning through trans-cultural translation (Liu 1995). Lydia Liu (1995) once used the idea of trans-lingual practices to demonstrate the process of how modernity and related knowledge were translated into Chinese via the mediation of Japan. Nevertheless, while her studies mainly concentrate on the early 20th century China, my focus is more on the recent development of knowledge transmission after the 1990s.
Therefore, when it comes to the case of deliberative democracy in China, the first idea may neither be an issue of normative investigation nor a topic of applicability between theory and practice. Instead, when an authoritarian regime such as China appropriates the idea of deliberation and adopts deliberative mechanisms, it is the knowledge systems, institutional settings, and culture that confront, merge, and change with each other. In return, it is not just the universal claim in deliberative democracy influencing the country’s transformation of political reform and democratization. The universal claim in deliberative democracy may be challenged, revised or redefined through this trans-cultural dissemination as China holds the characteristics of exceptionality as derived from studies of democratization to deliberative democracy. In order to further discuss this issue, I will continue and review several aspects of China’s exceptionality in the studies of democratization and deliberative democracy. Also, I will connect these aspects of exceptionality in the discussion of China’s exceptionalism. Finally, in order to properly engage the issue of transcultural translation in deliberative
49 democracy, I will also introduce Agamben’s thought on exception and its influence on the related fields of research.
2.4 China as an Exception to Democratization and Deliberative Democracy
In Agamben’s theory, the concept of exception occupies an important place, and the crucial point in his elaboration of exception lies in two modes of operation. First, the ordinary understanding of exception means exclusion, anomaly, and uniqueness (Agamben 1998). That is to say, exception refers to extreme cases, which reflect the logic of exclusion that pushes the extreme cases outside the rules when the rules dominate the logic of exclusion. What Agamben is doing is pushing the limit of this understanding and digging deeper into its etymological roots. To Agamben, exception does not mean a total exclusion but an operation of inclusion via exclusion (Agamben 1998). As exception represents what is being excluded, it means two things are happening at the same time. On the one hand, a set of rules are running the logic of exclusion, and exception is not included in the rules because it does not belong to the rules. On the other hand, the fact that exception does not belong to the rule reveals another truth about exception. This means exception cannot be applied to the rules and therefore suspends the rule. This dual meaning of exception expresses how the inclusive exclusion works. Consequently, the fact that exception stands outside the general rules and suspends the general rules becomes the key in Agamben’s arguments as seen in his works. Hence, this study makes use of Agamben’s idea and opens a dialogue with discussions on democratization and the development of deliberative democracy in China.
If we look at the discussion of democratization in China, the central problem behind the academic inquiries is the possibility of democratization in China, and the main theoretical framework being deployed is modernization theory. The main idea of modernization theory is that higher levels of urbanization, industrialization, and literacy brought by economic development will promote conditions for democratic transition (Lipset 1959). This theoretical argument has become the common platform for comparing and measuring different countries around the world. In other words, the theory of modernization becomes the universal, and each regime is the individual and particular case for examination. The discussions of democratization in China not only reflect the complexity of the issue but also highlight the difficulty of applying modernization theory in the Chinese context.
50 Even when scholars disagree with the proposition of whether China will follow the path of democratization, they tend to agree that China holds a lot of differences and exceptionality from what traditional studies of democratization can measure. Therefore, even if China develops as modernization theory prescribes, the meaning of democratization will be changed to some extent. Needless to say, a total shift in meaning would potentially emerge if China creates an unforeseeably new path. Therefore, another implication of uncertainty in the academic elaboration has shown China as a particular case that shares a special relationship with modernization theory, which is neither outside nor inside but exhibiting a more unpredictable and sophisticated form. China’s particularity summons the quest to understand democratization in China not from a scientific observation which is external and objective but from an interpretive perspective which aims at the subjective understanding of democratization in China. Furthermore, this subjective understanding needs to be equipped with conceptual tools of exception. Furthermore, the example of China’s exceptionality is not a stand-alone phenomenon but a subjective and internal creation through its interaction with external forces.
Identifying the characteristics of exception has become an important mission because it is the place where we see the clash between the externality and internality as well as universalism and particularism. Once we begin to investigate China’s exceptionality, these characteristics of exception also appear in the discussion of deliberative democracy in China. These aspects are what this thesis will investigate. Nevertheless, China’s exceptionality is not an isolated entity but a result of struggles between the external and the internal discourses. This means China’s exceptionality is a reflection of a broader discourse formation and only a part of this investigation. Another part is about the general change in the discussions of deliberative democracy after China’s case was brought to light.
Before China’s case was included in the studies of deliberative democracy, most empirical studies focused on cases in democratic regimes such as cases in Europe and North America. From the perspective of scholars who care about the future development of Chinese politics, the introduction of deliberative democracy into China has shed light on the path to democratization because of the potential promise in the normative ideal of deliberative democracy (Leib & He 2006). Although the connection between democratization and deliberative democracy are not necessary, Dryzek’s elaboration (2009) has demonstrated that deliberation could be a capacity fostering a better quality of democracy or a potential
51 condition for democratic transition. For Dryzek, more deliberation with authenticity, inclusiveness, and consequentiality will bring about a higher quality of democracy and create better conditions for democratization (Dryzek 2009, p. 1382).
The adoption of deliberative democracy in China shared the similar expectation, but this adoption has never been taken for granted by scholars in the relevant field. The expression of “deliberative democracy in an unlikely place” (Fishkin et al. 2010) delivers a mixed feeling when scholars examine the case of deliberative experiment in China. On the one hand, the adoption of deliberative democracy generated surprise and suspicion. On the other hand, the actual development of deliberative democracy in China challenged the given scope of deliberative democracy. In the beginning, deliberative democracy in western contexts aimed to tackle problems in democratic politics, perceptions of which were mainly dominated by liberalism. Deliberative democracy was thus viewed as a theory of going beyond and/or improving liberal democracy. This idea of ‘going beyond liberal democracy’ was inherited when deliberative democracy was adopted in China. Nevertheless, when the idea of deliberative democracy was introduced to China, this idea of ‘going beyond liberal democracy’ has been interpreted differently in the Chinese discussions. For scholars in the western context, ‘going beyond liberal democracy’ means to develop a better version of democracy based on the given tradition of liberal democracy. For Chinese readers, ‘going beyond liberal democracy’ represents an expectation that China can skip liberal democracy and establish a different version of democracy.
Consequently, as empirical studies of deliberative democracy are extended from democratic regimes to non-democratic regimes, studies are forced to create a split between deliberation and democracy in the theory of deliberative democracy. This is because the development of deliberative mechanisms in non-democratic regimes challenges the original idea in the theory of deliberative democracy. Faced with the fact that non-democratic regimes can have deliberative mechanisms, the theory of deliberative democracy is no longer exclusive to democratic regimes, where the theory was born. Nevertheless, due to the differences in the types of regimes, the political systems in some non-democratic regimes are fundamentally different from democratic regimes. Under this circumstance, deliberation must be separated from democracy, but the separation is not a total dissociation. According to theorists such as Goodin and Dryzek, the actualization of deliberative democracy has some preconditions, including a voting system or the minimalist view that guarantees the power transfer with
52 regular and fair elections (Goodin 2008; Dryzek 2009). In this case, deliberation has the capacity to enhance the quality of an existing democratic system or improving the political communication among different aspects in political and social systems
However, although deliberation is the component that makes democracy more democratic, the adoption of deliberative mechanisms by non-democratic regimes puts the idea of deliberative democracy in an ambiguous position. Deliberative mechanisms in non- democratic regimes hold democratic potential, but they have not changed the essence of non- democratic regimes. One may explain that this is the gap between the normative ideal and the real world (Parkinson 2006) where theory is the guiding framework to see how far practices in the real world are from the framework. Other theorists such as Dryzek (2007) or Thompson (2008) may say that the democratic potential of deliberation has not been realised yet. These two explanations are not fully satisfactory in exploring the gap between the normative ideal and the real world in a non-democratic regime.
Therefore, whether deliberative mechanisms in non-democratic regimes can be regarded as the realization of deliberative democracy needs to be brought into question. To use Agamben’s term, the adoption of deliberation in non-democratic regimes creates a zone of indistinction (Agamben 1998, 2005). In this zone of indistinction, the potentiality of deliberative promise may or may not be realised. The original idea of deepening democracy through deliberation might turn into authoritarian deliberation when deliberative mechanisms are adopted and abused by non-democratic regimes (He & Warren 2011). This other side of deliberation is not the fulfilment of its democratic promise but the subordination of deliberation under the power of the regime. The reality of deliberation’s democratic potential in non-democratic regimes is suspended. The suspension of deliberation’s democratic potential makes non-democratic regimes an exception in relation to the deliberation seen in democratic regimes. Because China is categorised as a non-democratic regime, deliberative mechanisms in China are viewed as an exception rather than a normal case of deliberative democracy.
China as an exception to deliberative democracy is one thing. How the related discourses in Chinese contexts view this exception and their own exceptionality is another. In China, knowledge production of deliberative democracy in Chinese contexts interprets this idea differently. This difference highlights another creation of exception when Chinese scholars and officials talk about establishing the idea of socialist deliberative democracy with Chinese
53 characteristics. Building socialist deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics gives Chinese scholars and the officials the leverage to turn China’s exceptionality from a passive one into an active one. Therefore, while China’s example is viewed as an exceptional case of deliberative democracy, knowledge production of deliberative democracy in China recognises this exception. Moreover, this exceptional position has been used to emphasise the necessity of building a related knowledge with Chinese characteristics. This is not the first time when knowledge production in China embraces this exceptionality. The development of international relations in China is the first place where China’s exceptionality was turned into a strategy in a power struggle.
With the rise of China in recent years, some scholars (Alden & Large 2011; Carlson 2011; Zhang 2011; Agnew 2012; Callahan 2012; Ho 2014) were inspired by the discussion of American exceptionalism and argued that China also showed a similar but different model of exceptionalism. The idea of exceptionalism in international relations is derived from the discussion about a country’s mindset or the normative modality of engagement (Alden & Large 2011). This mindset tends to think that a country is good and great due to its uniqueness in history, geography, or both. This mindset of being unique and different from other countries would lead a country to behave in certain ways and adopt a foreign policy and strategy out of their subjective perception of good and greatness (Ho 2014). By articulating its greatness through uniqueness, a country’s exceptionalism would either look forward to protectionism and isolation or attempt to be the rule maker of the game. That is to say, exceptionalism could be defensive or offensive, but the two sides of it are not mutually exclusive. Whether one aspect is more apparent depends on the country’s self-interpretation through its interaction with the external environment.
Following this line of thinking, the earliest discussion on exceptionalism was United States exceptionalism, and the aim was to understand and criticise the United States for adopting an expansionist foreign policy and sometimes behaving as a norm-maker or going beyond international norms by perceiving itself as the moral representative of the world. In comparison, the discussions of China’s exceptionalism (Schaefer 1953; Alden & Large 2011; Carlson 2011; Zhang 2011; Agnew 2012; Callahan 2012; Ho 2014) focus on how China’s distinct history, culture, and geography form a different or even incompatible worldview with the Westphalian system. This distinctive worldview shapes China’s principles and strategies of foreign policy making and actions. Moreover, the intention behind the exploration is to
54 understand whether as a rising power, China will become an understandable and predictable player of international norms or a norm-changer because of its ambition.
The above discussion of China’s exceptionalism in international relations has revealed that the unique history and geography has made China exceptional. The exceptionality of China prevails in other fields of knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities. Furthermore, the discussion of the exceptionality of China is not only shared by international scholars, but also by Chinese scholars. Extending from the development of China’s exceptionalism in international relations, the example of deliberative democracy or xieshang minzhu in Chinese repeats some discussions of exceptionalism. Nevertheless, in this thesis, some remarks must be made in the discussion extending from exceptionalism to exception.
Although scholars have positively analysed China’s exceptionalism and take China’s uniqueness for granted, they ignore another important element in the discussion of exception, especially the one dealt with in Agamben’s works. That is to say, most scholars talking about China’s exceptionalism or its exceptionality overlooked that exception is exclusion in its first place. The disappearance of exclusion in the discussions failed to see the fundamental struggle of power embedded in ideas, history, geography, and culture. In the case of China’s exceptionalism in international relations, if we look at the whole discussions from the perspective of exclusion, the most important question would be what the target is that China wishes to exclude for the sake of claiming its exceptionality. The answer is the idea of the West and the Westphalia System. The picture of China’s exceptionalism is not complete if we simply focus on the exceptionality that is taken for granted. Therefore, although scholars (Zhang 2011; Ho 2014) recognize that China’s exceptionalism is not static but a dynamic formation, in their discussions, they did not portray the dynamic self-identification in relation to the West as the “other” and investigated whether China’s unique worldview fitted with international norms.
From China’s exceptionalism to democratization and deliberative democracy, a common topic is about how to reconcile between China’s own legacy and another system of knowledge which is originally not from Chinese context. Whereas knowledge production in China has been a struggle in balancing the different systems of knowledge and the entailed collision of worldviews, most discussion has used Western theory as the universal platform and treats China as a passive object of knowledge. Consequently, exceptions are produced in the knowledge production inside and outside China. These studies fail to consider the
55 subjective understanding and interpretation in China, which is based on the operation of the exception. Therefore, I intend to take deliberative democracy in China as a case study and investigate how deliberative democracy as a theory and form of knowledge derived from Western academia is introduced, understood, and practiced in China. On one hand, by applying the interpretive theory and method inspired by Agamben’s elaboration on example, exception, and paradigm (Agamben 1993, 1998, 2005, 2009), this thesis aims to investigate the meaning-making process of deliberative democracy in China. On the other hand, by making use of Agamben’s conceptual tools, this study focuses on the interaction among deliberative democracy, xieshang minzhu, and the forms of knowledge included in this interaction. Furthermore, through the investigation, this study seeks to understand how exception is applied to the subject matter in China and the implications for the theory of deliberative democracy in general.
2.5 From Exception to Deliberative Democracy to Xieshang Minzhu as Exception
By reviewing the relevant scholarship, this chapter has reviewed the scholarship of democratization in China and deliberative democracy respectively. A common topic among the two groups of scholarship is that China’s cases may not be directly applicable to the dominant theories. The inapplicability of China’s case to the dominant theories connects to China’s exceptionality and turns China into an exceptional case in relation to the dominant theories. Finally, China’s exceptionality potentially challenges many assumptions in the relevant studies. These studies fail to engage on a subjective interpretation in China, especially how discourses in China interpret the knowledge derived from foreign sites and formulate their position of being exceptional.
In the following chapters, by using Agamben’s conceptual tools as the methodology, I will surmise that with the mediation of xieshang minzhu, discourses of deliberative democracy in China are bridging its position of the exception to deliberative democracy with their distinctive history, culture, and socio-political context. Consequently, discourses in China have resulted in a form of exceptionalism. This form of exceptionalism not only attempts to separate itself from deliberative democracy in general but with its uniqueness, has become the norm-maker of the discourses of deliberative democracy.
56 This transformation from exception to deliberative democracy to xieshang minzhu as exception is the broader picture of this thesis. In Chapter Three, I will establish the method and methodology from Agamben’s thought and its influence on interpretivism. From Chapter Four to Six, I will respectively introduce the knowledge formation of deliberative democracy in Wenling’s example, the Party Central Committee documents and Official documents, and scholarly discussions. In chapter seven, I will analyse how the exception works in Wenling’s example and its interpretation of xieshang minzhu. Finally, in Chapter Eight, I will make Concluding Remarks on the implication of China’s exceptionalism on deliberative democracy as well as limitations and the future prospect of this thesis.
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58 Chapter 3 Methodology & Methods
3.1 Introduction
As mentioned in previous chapters, this thesis investigates the process of subjective meaning- making. Nonetheless, where the conventional approach of induction or deduction focuses a lot on establishing causal relations, understanding subjective meaning-making is not what these approaches are designed for. That is why the conventional approach may not fit the purpose of this thesis. Therefore interpretive theory is employed as a more appropriate methodological approach for this project. While interpretive theory does not have a coherent and distinctive methodology, different approaches converge into a family resemblance with similar but different emphases. In this chapter, I will begin with the concept of interpretivism developed by Mark Bevir and Roderick Arthur William Rhodes in political science. Later, I will shift to other developments of interpretive theory. Finally, from the various developments in interpretivism, I will use Foucault’s interpretive theory, which not only influenced Bevir and Rhodes’ interpretivism but also inspired many contemporary scholars in different disciplines to create their own version of interpretivism. In the meantime, Edward Said and Giorgio Agamben are also prominent figures inspired by Foucault. They developed their own interpretive theories generated the ideas of Traveling Theory (Said 1983) and the theory of biopolitics (Agamben 1998, 2005, 2011, 2013, 2016) respectively. Through Said’s Traveling Theory and Agamben’s theory of exception, example, paradigm, I will apply the concept of interpretivism in this chapter to conduct the investigation of xieshang minzhu in China.
3.2 Interpretive Theory
Broadly speaking, interpretive approaches have largely drawn inspirations from the tradition of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics was first a technique and method of interpreting texts, especially biblical texts (Bevir 2006, p. 491). In the mid-20th century, Hans George Gadamar’s hermeneutical theory (2004) connected with Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology had a huge impact on studies of social science and humanities (Bevir 2006, p. 491). However, the application of interpretive theory to political science has been fairly recent and has been explained in the greatest detail by Mark Bevir and R. A. W. Rhodes (2002; 2004; 2010) in their studies on British governance. In Interpreting British Governance, they demonstrate
59 how interpretive approaches can be used to describe how governance is decentred and formed by different actors with varied and even conflicted traditions and beliefs. In the beginning of the book, they give a distinctive mission on the use of interpretive approaches:
Interpretive approaches begin from the insight that to understand actions, practices and institutions, we need to grasp the relevant meanings, the beliefs and preferences of the people involved. (Bevir & Rhodes 2004, p. 1)
Following their elucidation on the objective of using interpretive approaches, they also gave a simple but clear definition: ‘Interpretive approaches focus on the meanings that shape actions and institutions, and the ways in which they do so’. (Bevir & Rhodes 2004, p. 17) From this definition, interpretive approaches focus on actors, practices, beliefs, and discourses. This is different from new institutionalism, which is widely used to study China’s social and political change. While new institutionalism focuses on the dependence, evolution, and change of institutions as well as the interactions between institutions, society, and the state, interpretive approaches pay more attention to the configuration of actors, practices, and beliefs in the construction of meaning (Bevir & Rhodes 2004; Bevir & Rhodes 2010).
In comparison with the analysis of British Governance through interpretive methods, the interpretive approach can also shed light on studies of democratization and deliberative democracy in China. Many reasons can be made to justify the use of an interpretive approach in Chinese contexts. First, in the field of deliberative democracy, scholars (Boswell & Corbett 2015b, 2015a, 2017; Ercan et al. 2017) have borrowed insights from interpretivism to link empirical studies with the systemic turn. In their elaboration, interpretivism has many advantages in shedding light on the gap between empirical cases and their systemic effect. Apart from focusing on individual sites of deliberation and actors involved, interpretivism can also help us understand the transmission from individual sites of deliberation to the systems of deliberation. As interpretivism focuses a lot on contexts that determine the process of meaning-making, contexts embedded in both deliberative forums and systems would be highlighted rather than sacrificed or compromised. Boswell and Corbett (2015a, 2015b) even argues that interpretation is an impressionistic enterprise, and impressionism may not be in conflict with system. Eventually, applying interpretivism to the study of deliberative systems can offer reflexivity and fluidity to an unorganised, overlapped, and interactive modes of deliberation in our real world (Boswell & Corbett 2017).
60 Second, with China’s increasing openness to the global system, officials, intellectuals, and people in general are familiar with the ideas of democracy and democratization. They have also created discourses to express their ideas and opinions about democracy and democratization. When researchers adopt a positivist perspective to research democratization in China, they are unable to see the infiltration of democratic discourses and the creation of subjective meanings. Therefore, an interpretive approach will furnish scholars with the insight and tools to fill the gaps in the extant scholarship, especially when the scholarship shifts its focus to actors, beliefs, practices, ideas, and discourses.
Third, applying interpretive approaches to the study of democratization in China not only enriches current perspectives but also problematizes our fixed understanding of authoritarianism and democracy. In Interpreting British Governance, Bevir and Rhodes (2004) criticized the epistemology of positivism and distinguished positivism from their approach:
Adherents of a positivist epistemology study political actions and institutions as atomised units, which they examine individually before assembling them into larger sets. They assemble such units into larger sets by comparing and classifying their similarities and difference. In contrast, anti-foundationalists stress interpreting political actions and institutions to reveal how they are constructed by prior webs of belief informed by traditions. (Bevir & Rhodes 2004, p. 3)
Stressing how ‘prior webs of belief informed by traditions (Bevir & Rhodes 2004, p. 3)’ are constructed shifts the focus in research strategy and highlights a different analytic strategy that interpretive approaches adopt. Interpretive approaches have analytic strategies that are distinct from conventional research approaches. Interpretive approaches stress the logic of abduction rather than induction or deduction (Hay 2002). In analytic strategies, inductive logic generalizes empirical data into theory, and deductive logic begins from simplicity and aims to test the validity of theory on given empirical data. In contrast to these two strategies, an abductive strategy adopted by interpretive approaches, relies on a deeper application of theories and locates them in a more dialogical and dynamic process between empirical data and theory (Hay 2002; Schwartz-Shea & Yanow 2012, pp. 27-34).
Instead of searching for variables that favour democratization or finding factors that strengthen the authoritarian resilience, interpretive approaches tend to construct more
61 dynamic and interactive narratives between theories and empirical data. The current situation formed by the struggle of actions and traditions appropriated can give us a more sophisticated idea about what we perceive of democracy and authoritarianism.
Finally, using interpretive approaches to study democratization can generate a non-linear and multi-directional understanding of democracy. Putting interpretive approaches into the Chinese context helps identify a political system consisting of a complex web of ideas, practices, and traditions that are appropriated by actors based on different beliefs, values, and ideas. In studies of democratization in China, the domination of modernization theory has limited the categorizations of regimes to either authoritarianism or democracy. This approach has failed to see the richness, complexity, and nuances in each regime. That is why new institutionalism was proposed in the mid-1980s with the famous book Bringing the State Back in (Evans et al. 1985), in which the authors called for a re-consideration of the details of each regime. In the context of the interpretive approaches, Bevir and Rhodes (2010) traced the development of new institutionalism and rejected a univocal trend in its development. By praising the unique contribution of historical institutionalism, Bevir and Rhodes (2010) radicalized their claim and proposed the idea of ‘bringing the people back’ in their later publication.
For Bevir and Rhodes (2004, p. 4), the intention of using interpretive approaches to engage in the study of British governance is to ‘decentre’ the idea of governance and present a more sophisticated view of how governance has been constructed. For the same reason, the intention of bringing interpretive approaches into China’s context is to portray a more detailed evolution of how the regime has turned into what it is right now. The richness and complexity will open multi-dimensional paths for its future, and our vision of democratic prospects will not stay in only one, linear model.
However, the interpretivism advocated by Bevir and Rhodes did not present a complete picture of interpretivism. Other scholars criticize their project for different reasons. For example, from the perspective of positivism, Keith Dowding (Finlayson et al. 2004) casts doubts on their approach for being vague about the explanation of causal relations.. Colin Hay (Finlayson et al. 2004) tries to turn Bevir and Rhodes’ interpretivism into the ally of constructivism by pointing out many commonalities between the two traditions. Alan Finlayson (Finlayson et al. 2004) regarded interpretivism more as falling into the tradition of critical theory and cultural studies. Rather than showing interpretivism as a problematic
62 project, these criticisms are supportive of applying interpretivism into their studies. These efforts demonstrate the inclusiveness and resilience of interpretivism and will be relevant in this study.
Before applying interpretivism, it is important to note its variety. Since the end of the 1980s, social scientists have discussed interpretivism (Rabinow & Sullivan 1979, 1987), with different emphases coming from political science (Finlayson et al. 2004; Schwartz-Shea & Yanow 2012), and anthropology (Schatz 2013). The criticisms and developments in other areas show the diversity of interpretivism. This diversity indicated that developing a form of interpretivism that fits this thesis will be more important than directly following Bevir and Rhodes’ approach.
In this thesis, my focus will be on the discursive formation of deliberative democracy in China and deciphering the meaning of deliberative practices. Unlike Bevir and Rhodes’ interpretivism, which is an actor-centred approach, my thesis will place more emphasis on discourses related to institutions formed by actors. Furthermore, while Bevir and Rhodes were more inclined to place interpretivism in the field of political science, various views on intepretivism, especially those who follow the Foucauldian approach, tend to take interpretivism beyond the limit of political science and explore a broader configuration beyond disciplinary limitations. As my project is a discourse-centred approach that proposes to look beyond disciplinary limitations, I will steer Bevir and Rhodes’s approach to versions of discourse analysis that have been inspired by Foucault’s works.
In The Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault (1972) states that discourse analysis is more concerned with the problem of ‘author function’ than exploring the original and unified meaning in an author’s work. Under the model of ‘author function’, the mission of discourse analysis is to ’seek the rules of its formation in discourses itself’ by articulating formations of object, concept, and strategy in the discourses and statements (Foucault 1972, p. 79).
Foucault’s work has influenced many scholars’ interpretations of the issues of ideology, power, and politics in many ways. Foucauldian scholars (Fairclough 2001; Arribas-Ayllon & Walkerdine 2008; Fairclough & Fairclough 2013) embrace the idea that power and ideology are processes of social construction involving power struggle. Under Foucault’s influence, scholars, especially Norman Fairclough and others who focus on Foucault’s idea of power and discourse analysis have been trying to develop an interdisciplinary method of what they
63 call “critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Van Dijk 1993; Fairclough 2013; Gee 2014; Wodak & Meyer 2015).” The critical discourse analysis these scholars developed has a strong theoretical inclination toward the tradition of critical theory. Although they are inspired largely by Foucault’s works, their theoretical and methodological core is to find a balance between Foucault’s critique of power through discourse analysis and Habermasian version of discourse analysis which attempted to reveal normative ideals through power analysis. The CDA has attracted many scholars’ attention and application as it offers a relatively clear illustration of how to create their version of discourse analysis and achieve goals.
Apart from the development of CDA, Foucault’s works have extensively influenced scholars in various disciplines, school of thoughts, and topics. One particular influence is post- colonialism. Scholars such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha are the founding figures in this area. Post-colonialism is not a coherent and identical area of research. What these scholars shared in common is that they are influenced by Foucault, and they prompt readers to rethink the history of colonialism and the period after decolonization. By extending Foucault’s analysis on power to many western canons and colonial history, they criticise the persistent dominance of the West and question the connection and the division between the West and the East. Edward Said’s Orientalism (1979) is an example of a post- colonial scholar’s effort in pointing out how the idea of the Orient is an invention of the Western projection. This Western projection dominates how we imagine the Orient, and the West consolidates its own identification through this projection of the ‘other’.
It is against this background that Said developed his idea of traveling theory. As stated in the introduction, theory and ideas are like goods and people that can move from one place to another, and this movement can be temporal and spatial. For a theory to travel, it requires four steps to complete the traveling process. They are the point of origin, distance transferred, a set of conditions, and a fully or partial accommodation/adaptation (Said 1983).
By breaking down the process of travel into four steps, this strategy suggested by Said has two sides. On the one hand, Said sees the ability of theory and ideas to leave their site of origin and travel to a foreign place. This movement from place to place creates new meaning for the theory and its ideas. On the other hand, by using Lukács as his subject of investigation, Said pointed out the possibility of misinterpretation where interpreters need to find the proper place to accommodate a foreign idea domestically. New meanings could be produced by the activities of misinterpretation. Rather than assuming the only correct understanding lies in the
64 author, Said’s strategy of investigation is through the clarification of readers’ interpretations and put their interpretations back to the contexts that create their interpretations. In Said’s view, pursuing the authentic interpretation is not just following the author’s works but also taking readers’ receptions and interpretations into consideration. Only by clarifying the (mis)interpretation in relation to readers’ context can the authentic meaning of the theory or ideas be born.
This is why in Traveling Theory, Said placed great emphasis on the details of texts and contexts and investigates the conditions that produce and reproduce the theory and ideas. In the process of tracing the set of conditions, we might find points that bridge foreign ideas with local points. Each point gives us the chance to see how a foreign idea has been accommodated. With each accommodation, we can determine whether it has resulted in acceptance or resistance. Eventually, this process is also a journey to re-negotiate with the given literature and discourses.
This operation of interpretivism as developed by Said shows the deep influence of Foucault in literary studies, which is also what this thesis wishes to engage and incorporate within the broader project of interpretivism. However, as Said’s elaboration is more propositional, he does not develop a more thorough method on the investigation of traveling theory. Therefore, this thesis wishes to bridge another area of Foucault’s influence to develop a more suitable methodology of critical interpretivism for this thesis.
In recent years, among the various topics that Foucault has inspired, arguably the most prominent development is the topic of biopolitics. It first appeared in Foucault’s The History of Sexuality (Foucault 1980, 1986, 2012) as well as his later publications and seminar presentations (Foucault 2009; Foucault et al. 2010). Extending from the discussion of “the power over life and death” in the first volume of The History of Sexuality (Foucault 1980), scholars focus on how individual lives have become a unit of population under the gaze of the modern state which are exposed to the control and management of sovereign power. As biopolitics is both oppressive and productive, one of the important features in the investigation of biopolitics is to expose the operation and techniques used by the state of the sovereign power in dividing qualified and unqualified lives. The underlying purpose for this division is to promote the productivity of the whole society and enhance the quality of life. This means the productivity and better quality of life is based on the elimination and exclusion of the so-called useless or disqualified lives.
65 At the early stage of Foucault’s reception, scholars who developed the method of the CDA were expected to reveal and expose the latent structure of ideology and power relations in politics, society, and daily life through the analysis of discursive practices. They focused more on building an operational method of discourse analysis. By contrast, through a marginal perspective and the investigation of actual texts, the post-colonial scholars influenced by Foucault concentrate on the “lens” that filter and shape the worldview and its division between the East and the West. While they are not contradictory but focus on different aspects, the later emergence of Foucault’s biopolitics shows a trend that scholars are inspired to explore new issues brought by the elaboration of biopolitics.
Among scholars who are exploring the idea of biopolitics, Giorgio Agamben is not only the most important figure but also the first one who brought the idea of biopolitics into light. His Homo Sacer series (1998, 2002, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016) is not only widely read after its publication but also influenced a lot of subsequent scholarship. One of his major contributions to the discussion of biopolitics is the distinction between bios and zoē, that is the qualified life and the unqualified life or the political life and bare life (Agamben 1998, p. 1). Through a philological investigation, Agamben engages in discourse analysis from another perspective and argues that the basic, pure, and biological form of life has been excluded from the realm of politics in the form of exclusive inclusion. That is to say, its exclusion is not fully dissociated from politics but linked and included in a form of exclusion. The political life in contemporary times has been under the dominance of this ancient distinction of bios and zoē (Agamben 1998, pp. 1-12).
By looking at Agamben’s works, one may find the basic methodology of his works is a philological one that attempts to explore the change of meaning in words through history. That is to say, if we trace the life of any particular term in history, we would find that the meaning of the term is not always the same and fixed. On the contrary, the meaning of every term changes through the use of the term, the influence of other languages, translation, and so forth. One of the missions for philology is to investigate the meanings of the ancient texts, put the meanings back to the contexts, and link them to our present time. Trained in philology, Agamben is good at exploring the historical change of meanings in some keywords and bridging them back to our contemporary era. The methodology behind Agamben’s philological method is called the “paradigmatic method (Agamben 2009)”. The most fundamental conceptual tools in this method would be his elaboration on “example” and
66 “exception”. The notion of “exception” is in many senses found in the academic discussion of China as well as democratization and deliberative democracy in China. As this thesis will be exploring the issue of maximizing the use of exception and the related ideas as conceptual tools, it is essential to understand Agamben’s methodology.
3.3 Agamben’s Interpretive Theory
Example & Paradigm
In the conventional way of doing research on deliberative democracy, researchers often follow a normative/empirical distinction and position their studies on either side of this distinction. Over the past 10 years, the studies of deliberative democracy have shifted its focus from normative investigation to empirical testing (Steiner 2012). This empirical shift usually assumes normative theory as the original framework and treats empirical cases as the copy. Furthermore, the empirical cases that most researchers work on are cases in democratic regimes, so they tend to focus on the distance between theory and practice (Parkinson 2006) as well as the level of deliberation in promoting the quality of democracy (Steenbergen et al. 2003). However, the emergence of deliberative democracy in China challenges the assumptions in conventional studies because the development of deliberative democracy in China has gone beyond the experience in Western academia. Also, the way an authoritarian regime adopts deliberative practices has violated conventional thinking in the studies of deliberative democracy. Therefore, by incorporating the concepts of example and exception, this thesis attempts to portray China’s unique development of deliberative democracy and expose the potential implication brought by China’s case. By articulating China’s development as an exceptional example, this thesis argues that China’s case represents a paradigm shift in deliberative democracy.
Before articulating China’s development of deliberative democracy, we need to establish a version of interpretivism with the inspiration from Agamben’s interpretive theory. In the last 10 to 15 years, Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer series (1998, 2002, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016) has had an extensive and growing influence on political theory, critical theory and other related areas. Many scholars (Diken & Laustsen 2005; Brown 2006; Douzinas 2007; Rose 2009; Fassin 2011; Dean 2013) extended Agamben’s ideas such as bare life, sovereign power, state of exception, etc., but the equally important part of his methodology is usually ignored. Apart from a few discussions of his methodology (Jensen 2011; Toscano 2011;
67 Kotsko 2013; Singh 2016), Agamben repeatedly clarifies some of the ideas and methodologies that he uses. “Example” and “paradigm” are two crucial concepts that are often seen in the methodology of his works.
To engage in Agamben’s idea of example and paradigm, we have to begin with the relationship between the universal and the particular. The dialectics of the universal and the particular can be traced to his idea of how language enters into our experience. He uses the word ‘tree’ to illustrate his point. In our linguistic activity, when we say ‘tree’, it not only refers to all trees but also means that the word ‘tree’ is purely a linguistic being at the very beginning. That is to say, ‘tree’ includes all trees into one classification as its universal form. In contrast, when we say the tree, a tree, or this tree, it is showing the particular form of ‘tree’. This linguistic phenomenon represents an antinomy that particularity and universality would not appear at the same time. However, the word ‘example’ is an exception to this antinomy because example forms itself as a singularity that bridges the universal and the particular (Agamben 1993, pp. 8-9). In a short essay on example, he writes:
The example is characterized by the fact that it holds for all cases of the same type, and at the same time, it is included among these. … On the one hand, every example is treated in effect as a real particular case; but on the other, it remains understood that it cannot serve in its particularity. Neither particular nor universal, the example is a singular object that presents itself as such, that shows its singularity. (Agamben 1993, p. 9)
In Agamben’s idea, an example is more than a word. It is a concept to help him see the relationship between the universal and particular as well as understand the language and the world. To him, everything is only meaningful in the world of language, and example shows itself as the linkage between the universal and the particular. The concept of example is the singularity because it intersects the universal and the particular. Its ‘proper space’ is ‘in the empty space in which its undefinable and unforgettable life unfolds (Agamben 1993, p. 9).’ Situating example as a singularity, Agamben sees everything as an exemplary being in language and articulates those exemplary beings into another related and crucial concept, the paradigm.
Agamben is not the only scholar who makes use of the concept of paradigm, but he is the first person to shape the use of paradigm in his own interpretation by following the steps of
68 Thomas Kuhn (1962) and Michel Foucault (1972). According to Agamben, the paradigm is ‘a form of knowledge’ that ‘moves from singularity to singularity’ (Agamben 2009, p. 31). Similar to his elaboration of example, a paradigm belongs to neither the universal nor the particular. The function of the paradigm is to create a bipolar dichotomy by canceling the distinction between the universal and the particular. Therefore, a paradigm shows itself by suspending and exposing the limitation of a group, it does not belong to any given paradigms but remains inside these paradigms (Agamben 2009, 31). To use his words, he says:
A paradigm is generated when an entity, which is found in something other and separated in another entity, is judged correctly and recognized as the same, and having been reconnected together generated a true and unique opinion concerning each and both. (Agamben 2009, p. 23)
For Agamben, ‘paradigm’ gives us a unique approach to articulate what we claim to know. When epistemology is about the truth of what we can know, it operates on the logic of either induction or deduction in broadening and establishing our knowledge. The contributions of Kuhn and Foucault did not come up with a better strategy to get closer to the truth, but proposed a new perspective by asking how the truth has been formed and changed through historical developments. Therefore, while scientific knowledge is conducted through the strategies of either induction (from the part to the general) or deduction (from the general to the part), the strategy of a paradigm is a relationship between parts (or the particular and the particular). The paradigm ‘moves from the particular to the particular’ (Agamben 2009, p. 19). As a paradigm runs between the particular and the particular, it links to the general rules or order in a very peculiar way:
We can therefore, say, joining Aristotle's observations with those of Kant, that a paradigm entails a movement that goes from singularity and, without ever leaving singularity, transforms every singular case into an exemplar of a general rule that can never be stated a priori (Agamben 2009, p. 22).
Here, a general rule is the abstract and general form to designate rules in different areas. A general rule broadly refers to a range of rules including the scientific law, legal regulations, social norms, rules of a game, disciplinary rules, and grammatical rules. At the level of language, an example represents the sides of the universal and the particular at the same time, but these two sides interact in a very particular logic. By referring to the discussion of the
69 performative speech act theory, Agamben is saying that an example is an utterance, so it is not a static condition but a dynamic process. Once an example is exhibited, the embedded context that the example situates has put this example outside the original network although it still belongs to a specific class. That is to say, an example represents the same way as a performative speech act. On the one hand, the meaning of an utterance does not leave the original meaning that had been accumulated through the historical development. On the other hand, as an utterance happens in a given context, the given context mobilizes and shifts the meaning of the utterance from context to context. This is why Agamben states that:
What the example shows is its belonging to a class, but for this very reason the example steps out of its class in the very moment in which exhibits and delimits it (in the case of a linguistic syntagm, the example thus shows its own signifying and, in this way, suspends its own meaning). (Agamben 1998, p. 22)
In Agamben’s theory, when an example is exhibited in a specific context, it redefines or signifies itself by standing outside the class or the original meaning. Nevertheless, it does not mean that it is dissociated with the class or the original meaning. On the contrary, when an example redefines itself in a given context by standing outside the class or the original meaning, the class or the original meaning will be suspended. To apply this to the binary relationship between the universal and the particular, as the example crosses both areas, the exhibition of the example shows its particularity and suspends the universality. The suspended universality denotes where a general rule resides.
Extending from the exploration of language, Agamben runs the same operation to illustrate the relationship in every example in different areas. That is to say, when an example is used in the legal field, the exhibition of an example is not only referring to a unique case but also indicating a set of cases corresponding to a general representation of legal regulations. By the same token, when an example is exhibited in the academic writing or a specific game, this example does not merely show its uniqueness in a given context. What is more important is that this example reveals the existence of a set of given rules in the accompanying areas, and its uniqueness is a result of exclusion.
Consequently, examples are access to exploration of the general rules. When Agamben introduces the example in this way, he conceptualizes example as a methodological tool and elaborates a very different approach to understand example in terms of the general rules, the
70 universal and the particular. His works show us how to treat each part or a particular example as a singularity. Furthermore, various singularities are articulated and transformed into a paradigm exposing how the general rules in different areas work and reveal more than what the general rules can tell us.
Nevertheless, when we attempt to articulate a paradigm by exploring the uniqueness of examples due to its intersection between the universal and the particular, what are the criteria that determine which examples are relevant? To answer this question, another crucial concept – exception – must be introduced to better understand Agamben’s method and thought.
Exception & Example
The concept of exception is the most important and penetrated idea in Agamben’s works. When he uses the concept of exception in his writings, including his most important work, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998), he gave a very detailed explanation of how the concept of exception operates. Dictionary definitions suggest that the exception is 'someone or something that is different from others' or 'someone or something that is not included'.4 However, through philological and etymological elaboration, Agamben did not just follow this simple definition but penetrated deeper into the Western tradition in philosophy and political theory. By incorporating Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology (1985) and other surrounding debates and discussions, he extended the meaning of exception to a more complicated structure of operation. He wrote:
The exception is a kind of exclusion. What is excluded from the general rule is an individual case. But the most proper characteristic of the exception is that what is excluded in it is not, on account of being excluded, absolutely without relation to the rule. On the contrary, what is excluded in the exception maintains itself in relation to the rule in the form of the rule's suspension.5 The rule applies to the exception in no longer applying, in withdrawing from it. The state of exception is thus not the chaos that precedes order but rather the situation that results from its suspension. In this
4 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exception (Viewed on 2016.02.27)
5 Italics added.
71 sense, the exception is truly, according to its etymological root, taken outside (ex- capere), and not simply excluded. (Agamben 1998, pp. 17-8)
Agamben’s most important contribution is that exception is not just uniqueness, difference or exclusion. Exception means that it cannot be applied by the general rule, so it connects to the general rule by suspending the general rule. That is to say, although the inability of application constitutes exception, this constitution does not prevent exception from being totally excluded from the general rule. On the contrary, the suspension of the general rules in the work of operation is the main feature when the exception stands outside the general rule. The inability of application and the suspension of the general rule represent the exception as a form of exclusion actually exhibits the logic of inclusion via exclusion. That is to say, the application of the general rule in the inside and the exception standing outside of the general rule form a whole picture of the binary relationship between inclusion and exclusion.
The purpose of Agamben’s elaboration on the exception is to explore and portray how the general rule works. As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, the general rule represents the abstract form of rules in all areas. Using exception as the method can furnish researchers with the conceptual tool to see a dual-movement: 1. Once the exception is approached from the direction of what is being excluded, the exclusion can lead us to the field of how power operates as a mechanism of exclusion; 2. When the exception is actively appropriated by those who claims to be different, special, and unique, the exception sheds light on how the uniqueness is formed through an operation of exclusion. At the same time, the claim of uniqueness through the operation of exclusion mirrors another mechanism of exclusion that the uniqueness expects to replace through exclusive inclusion.
On the theoretical level, the exception occupies an extremely important position in constituting Agamben’s argument of the zoē/bio distinction and the eternal return of the political capture of life under the sovereign power. Moreover, in State of Exception (2005), the exception is further elaborated into the void and the force behind the production of laws. Consequently, on the methodological level, exception is a strategy to see what is outside the general rule and portray the dynamics between what is excluded and how the force of rules runs the logic of exclusion. To Agamben, the best way to observe how the concept of exception works is language, especially the change of meanings of specific terms in history and translation. Although philosophical works are the main focus for Agamben, he also applies the strategy of exception in different forms of knowledge including religious works,
72 official documents as well as academic works in theology, anthropology, psychology, history, jurisprudence, etc.
The reason Agamben can extensively approach these diverse materials with the lens of exception is based on his idea of language. To him, every form of knowledge is channelled through language. The investigation of language is the most basic starting point of every investigation, and the lens of the exception is more obvious in language because the exception is involved with the logic of inclusion via exclusion, where a complicated dynamics of interiority and exteriority happens. He wrote:
Language is the sovereign who, in a permanent state of exception, declares that there is nothing outside language and that language is always beyond itself (Agamben 1998, p. 21).
The signifying process of language can be expanded in every way. The signification of each term is not a static condition and does not happen in isolation. Borrowing largely from the discussion of speech acts, Agamben has been trying to distinguish himself from structuralists by viewing the process of the signification in the use of language. In each use of language, whether it is in daily conversation or written works, each utterance dissociates itself from the original contexts and goes into a new context. This dissociation forces each utterance to go beyond the original context and class and heightens our awareness of the before and after effects of each utterance. In this before-after division, an empty space emerges when each utterance differentiates itself from preceding utterances and the system of meanings. This empty space runs the logic of exception and forms a zone of indistinction to create expansion and change in meaning.
The use of language occupies this zone of indistinction between what was signified and what is signifying. The exception in language happens in this zone of indistinction because something is always excluded from the conventional meaning of a specific word. This exclusion presumes a potential return of redefinition in everyday use in writing and speaking. This idea of language is the place where Agamben’s concept of exception meets the concept of example.
From his investigation of language, example and exception are two sides of the same coin. While exception is the inclusion via exclusion (or inclusive exclusion), example works as the
73 exclusion via inclusion (or exclusive inclusion) (Agamben 1998, pp. 21-2). An example crosses the inside and outside of a category and shows the universal and the particular at the same time. However, this crossing itself is an inclusion via exclusion because the example represents the universal by exhibiting its particularity. At this moment, the universal is replaced and excluded by the particular. The part of the particular has been therefore dissociated from the universal and created a new process of signification in its own exhibition. Consequently, from the perspective of exception, the unique part of this example is excluded from the category when the meaning of an example belongs to a specific category. The operation of the category is suspended by the excluded part of the example because the category is unable to apply to the example. This excluded part becomes the exception that suspends how the category works and potentially holds the ability to redefine the content of the category. The redefinition, due to the exception of the example as well as the articulation of exceptional examples, thus constitutes another paradigm. The relation between example and exception can be illustrated in the table below:
Example Exception • Exclusive Inclusion • Inclusive Exclusion • Set: [ N1, N2, N3, … Nx ] • Set: [ N1, N2, N3, … Nx ] • When Nx exhibits itself as an • The particular part of Nx does not example, Nx stands out and belong to the set because the rules of represents the set. the set cannot apply to this part. • As Nx is representative of the set, • This part is included in the set by the set is included in the form of exclusion exclusion. Eventually, in Agamben’s thought, example & exception become indistinguishable.
Table 3-1. The Relations between Example & Exception
While the concepts of example and exception help us see the operation of a series of dichotomies including inside/outside, interiority/exteriority, inclusion/exclusion, and the universal/particular, the investigation on the function of language thus corresponds to a binary split in the meanings of terms or sets of meanings in forms of knowledge. A more thorough and deeper investigation on tracing the changes of meaning in each binary division takes another methodological consideration on the operation of signification and history. In
74 order to answer these inquiries, Agamben proposed the theory of signature to clarify his methodology, which will be discussed below.
Theory of Signatures
As long as our understanding of the world is channelled through forms of knowledge, the issue of language stands at the centre of every investigation in humanity because forms of knowledge are mediated through language. This is also why language is the core to decode how we construct our understanding of the world through its representation in the forms of knowledge. However, although various ways to study language are available due to different problematics, Agamben’s investigation aimed at indicating the missing link in the transmission from the theory of semiotics and hermeneutics, and this missing link occupied the central issue in his works. Agamben’s emphasis on this missing link was influenced by structuralism.
In the field of linguistics and semiotics, structuralism focuses on the process of signification. In their view (Benveniste 1973; Starobinski 1980; de Saussure 1998), in order for a sign to be meaningful, it takes a signifier and a signified to form a triangular relationship of sign- signifier-signified. The signified meaning of a sign comes from a network of signs that carries along with a system of meanings. Therefore, a distinction between langue and parole can be made in order to express a network of language system and a particular speaking act or utterance (Jameson 1974).
However, how can an utterance be meaningful? A simple answer is that an utterance can be meaningful because it is derived from a network of signs. To Agamben, this is where the question lies because no theory can explain this transmission from langue to parole or from network of signs to utterance. The lack of investigation in this transmission is the missing link that Agamben wishes to emphasise and engage. In Agamben’s term, this missing link is about the lack of theory to explain the transmission between semiology and hermeneutics, and the theory of signatures is his attempt to fill this gap. We can call this theory of signatures as Agamben’s interpretive theory.
The biggest difference between structuralism and Agamben’s theory of signatures lies in the distinct views on the process of signification. For structuralism, the process of signification is a static process, so the parole is a reflection, assemblage, and combination from the lange,
75 which is the network of signs. By problematizing the transmission from lange to parole, Agamben uses the concept of signatures to express the formation of meaning in each utterance. Agamben’s focus on utterance is very similar to Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive operation (1977) in his paper Signature, Event, Context. In this philosophical investigation, Derrida engages with J. L. Austin’s speech act theory (1975) and puts many assumptions in Austin’s works into questions.
In Austin’s How to Do Things with Words (1975), he laid the foundation in the field of speech act theory . Whereas traditional views on language focus on the true/false validity of each proposition, speech act theory opens a new window for investigating the meaning and the effect of each utterance. This different focus makes speech allow for a different type of linguistic investigation. The importance of the speech act lies in its power to put words into actions. Just like Austin’s book reveals, the speech act is about the idea of “doing things with words”. However, in order to make the speech act meaningful and effective, the speech act must be embedded in a specific context with formats and conditions. Also, only when the context is replicable, can the speech act be effective in each repetition of utterance.
However, in Derrida’s view, Austin does not push the speech act to its limit. Derrida transgresses many assumptions of Austin’s speech act theory. While Austin’s speech act theory only treats speech act as a phenomenon in speaking, Derrida extends the speech act to the field of writing and reverses the priority of writing over speech. Furthermore, as Austin maintained that the speech act can only be meaningful and effective in a repeatable context, Derrida challenges this view and reveals a more dynamic view of how a speech act can be made meaningful and effective. In Derrida’s view, the assumption we have that the meaning and effect of a speech act happens in a seemingly repeatable context is not fully correct. When meaning and effect are formed in the event of a speech act happening in a given context, speech act and context are not in a stable condition. Consequently, in every repetition of a speech act, the change of meaning and effect is possible when the context shows slight changes.
Moreover, by using the model of writing to explain the speech act, Derrida also explained that a speech act is like a signature imprinted on a document with the necessary authority to guarantee its legal force. On the one hand, the signature leaves us a mark to trace origins and conditions that made the signature effective. On the other hand, the absence of reader in the signature also opens a possibility of an alternative interpretation, which leads to a different
76 meaning and effect. What Derrida is concerned with is the formation of meaning in the event of a speech act in a particular context and the forces that made the speech act effective.
Taking a different course, Agamben adopted a similar perspective as Derrida.6 Agamben also agreed with the idea that meaning and effect are formed in every speech act. The signature is what happens in each passage from lange to parole. It does not lie in either side of the signifier or the signified, but it carries the signifier in each transmission and shifts the meaning to another direction. Neither the signifier nor the signified, signatures lie between the signifier and the signified where signatures play the role of transmission.
Due to its role of transmission, signature stands in a very special position and plays a very specific function. On the one hand, signatures are marks leaving traces back to the conditions which make signs meaningful and effective. On the other hand, when each sign appears as if a performance of speech act, it carries signatures exhibiting in an unstable repetition of context. Signatures found in each performance of a sign stand outside the given context and create a possibility of redefining new meanings and effects. Consequently, the dual characteristics of signatures work in the zone of indistinction between the signifier and the signified. The generation of meaning in every signification requires a signature to be effective. Hence, Agamben’s central strategy is to investigate what makes a signifier signified and workable which is then used to approach different issues such as the bio/zoe division created by sovereign power (Agamben 1998), the force of law suspended by the state of emergency (Agamben 2005), or the theological origin of economic governance (Agamben 2011).
However, although Agamben’s strategy is to investigate what makes the network of signs efficacious using his paradigmatic method, he is not satisfied with only investigating the individual signs. His aim is to find the most crucial signatures which make the whole network of signs workable. By referring to Foucault’s The Order of Things and Archaeology of Knowledge, Agamben follows Foucault’s steps in exploring the relationship between word and world by discovering the change of forms of knowledge in history. He makes an analogy with his concept of signatures and analysis of Foucault’s theory:
6 Although Agamben and Derrida have a similar view on the speech act, Agamben more than once marks his difference from Derrida. Whereas Agamben thinks Derrida is envisioning a zero-degree signifier, he personally endeavors to see the abandonment of signification after its fulfilment (Agamben 2009, pp. 78-80).
77 The whole argument acquires clarity if we hypothesize that the statements in The Archaeology of Knowledge take the place that in The Order of Things belonged to signatures. Statements, then, are situated on the threshold between semiology and hermeneutics where signatures take place. (Agamben 2009, p. 64)
When signatures are excluded from the triangular structure of sign-signifier-signified, signatures are similar to example and exception by suspending the fixed relationship between the signifier and the signified. Tracing the signatures back to their origin is a task of problematizing the fixed relationship between the signifier and the signified because the change of meaning happens when there is a different signature. For this, Agamben wrote:
In all these cases, a signature does not merely express a semiotic relation between a signans and a signatum, rather, it is what - insisting on this relation without coinciding within - displaces and moves it into another domain, thus positioning it in a new network of pragmatic and hermeneutic relations. (Agamben 2009, p. 40)
Although Agamben indicated that the displacement is the core determinant for the change of meaning in the whole network of signs, his version of interpretive theory is not to replace the network of signs with another signature. On the contrary, his mission is to trace backward in time and expose the paradigmatic shift of each signature through historical and philological investigation. Consequently, this tracing positions the theory of signature beyond and in relation to Derrida’s deconstruction and Foucault’s archaeology. To Agamben, their goal is to critique the dominance of the first philosophy with different missions. While Derrida’s deconstruction aims to search for the zero degree signifier (or the signifier without meaning), Foucault’s intention is to release the multiplicity underlying the dominance of the one fundamental truth (Agamben 2009, pp. 78-80). In comparison with their projects, another strategy adopted by Agamben which envisioned the trace of signatures back to the origin is to cancel and abandon the historical fulfilment of signatures. In other words, the aim of Agamben’s paradigmatic method is to make the signature inoperative or unworkable.
78 From Agamben & Said to A Cross-Cultural Interpretivism
From What is a Paradigm to Theory of Signatures, Agamben explained in detail the path that led to his methodology. Although Agamben’s study was inspired by Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge and theory of genealogy, Agamben applied Foucault’s method and methodology in a different field7. In addition, Agamben’s engagement in the change of meaning through linguistic investigation resonates with Said’s Travelling Theory. While Said focused on how theory and ideas travel from one geographical location to another, Agamben paid more attention on how the meaning of terms changes in history through the use of language. That is to say, Said looked at the change of meaning through spatial transportation, while Agamben is concerned with the same issue through historical and temporal movement8. Both are not contradictory but complementary to the investigation of this thesis. Furthermore, while Agamben’s idea of signature is about the process of signification in each use of language through historical development, Said’s Traveling Theory is concerned about similar issues with an emphasis on the use of language appearing in different languages and regions. Finally, as Agamben’s theory of signature relied on a set of conditions in different contexts, Said highlighted the set of conditions for an idea to be translated and accommodated.
These comparisons reinforce the complementary nature of Agamben and Said, which is essential in the study of interpretivism in this thesis. This exploration is even more crucial as it has become evident as we live in a globalised age that everything is getting more and more interconnected and interdependent (Williams & Warren 2013). It is against this background that Melissa Williams and Mark Warren (2013) borrowed from the deliberative tradition. In their view, global interdependence constantly called for political theory to go beyond the western tradition and open a broader and deeper dialogue between the western and non- western traditions. They envision this type of intercultural or cross-cultural dialogue could
7 It is beyond the scope of this thesis to ask to what extent Agamben followed Foucault’s approach closely. Nevertheless, if we put this question aside, Agamben had established his own style of thinking and method under Foucault’s influence.
8 Nevertheless, different emphases on time and space between Agamben and Said do not mean they ignore the other dimension. Agamben talked a lot about the historical change of terms, but that does not mean his works are unrelated to the spatial dimension. On the contrary, his State of Exception (2005) has had a very extensive influence on human geography since its publication. For the same reason, although Said’s works focused on the transformation of knowledge across geographical boundaries, historical dimension has been a very important element to bridge many investigations of his works. Therefore, highlighting the difference is to express the approach of how I engage their works. Engage their works in this way is not to separate them but view them as complementary.
79 foster the “mutual intelligibility (Williams & Warren 2013, p. 38)” and the emergence of a new global public. Among many forms of intercultural and cross-cultural activities, they proposed a new area of “problem-driven comparative political theory (Williams & Warren 2013, pp. 42-5).“ This approach is divided into five stages, and translation is one of them. As Williams & Warren focus more on the potential that marks the beginning of a new field, their work also invites more elaborations to join in this emerging area of cross-cultural dialogue.
By incorporating the interpretive theories of Agamben and Said, this thesis hopes to contribute by extending the approach to the development of deliberative democracy in China. Moreover, as this thesis aims to tackle the issue of how theory travels via translation, translation is not merely a choice of words. This translation is connected to a broader historical, political and social context, and the responding practices also reinforce and reshape the meaning and the effect. Therefore, if we regard the emergence of a specific translation as a signature, what makes this signature works? That is to say, in the case of xieshang minzhu in China, what meaning and effect has xieshang minzhu displaced in relation to deliberative democracy? Through the lens of Agamben’s paradigmatic method, this thesis engages in the topic of deliberative democracy in China using a non-conventional approach. In the next section, I will elaborate the relationship between Agamben’s approach and deliberative democracy in China.
3.4 Research Methods & Research Design
To conduct the investigation through interpretivism and construct a theoretical argument for the study of deliberative democracy in China, four methods are deployed for data collection including ethnography, participant observation, archival method, and discourse analysis. The aim of this thesis is establishing a dialogue between the theory of deliberative democracy and China’s political development. This thesis will analyse primary data with Agamben’s critical interpretive theory and paradigmatic method. The four methods mentioned above are deployed for the collection of primary data. I will describe the process and experience of data collection using the four methods below.
This thesis was initially aimed at a purely discourse-based study, and the goal was to explore and establish a generalizable rule through scholarly debates and analysing official documents. However, this initial plan was met with a number of challenges. Deciphering the scholarly debates and the official documents requires deeper contextual knowledge about the political
80 and local conditions in China. Moreover, once the scholarly debates and the official documents are deeply embedded in China’s social, political, and historical context, discourse analysis cannot be processed without gaining the experience, knowledge, and insight about the relevant contexts. In addition, while local experiments in Chinese cities have been burgeoning in the past few years, various achievements recorded in the documents and academic works seem to indicate a gap that needs to be filled in the given scholarship. After serious consideration with reading related scholarship in the field of deliberative democracy and more data collection, I decided to shift the direction of my thesis from a discourse-based study to a fieldwork-based study. By going into the fieldwork sites and collecting data about deliberative practices and participatory budgeting, the goal was to situate the discourses in a bigger framework, and the focus was on two cases in Chinese cities for a comparative study.
Between 2015 and 2016, I went to China to conduct two rounds of fieldwork. The first round was between February and July 2015, and the second round was between January and February 2016. In the first round, I was mainly based in Hangzhou city, which is the capital of Zhejiang province. The geographical location gave me convenient access to the model example in Wenling city and other experiments related to deliberative democracy nearby. Among the many experiments, the reason for highlighting Wenling city, a county-level city in Zhejiang province, is because the practices of deliberative democracy and its extended form of participatory budgeting have been experimented and conducted since 1999. The sustainability of their experiment has made it the model example of deliberative democracy. Apart from visiting the deliberative experiment in Wenling city, the original plan was to gain more access to other experiments in cities around the southeast coast provinces in China.
Nevertheless, after staying in China for an extended period of time, other than Wenling’s experience, my informants were unable to introduce me to other experiments. There are two reasons for difficulty in gaining access to other experiments. First, a lot of cases I read and found during the process of the literature review were between 2012 and 2014. When I attempted to access these experiments, many informants (Personal Interview 032 2015; Personal Interview 012 2015) told me that most cases in other cities no longer have similar experiments anymore because the former leaders were promoted. Once new leaders come to power, they have very low incentive to continue the former leaders’ experiments. That is because new leaders rely on creating their own experiments and earning enough credit if they wish to be promoted. Second, except for those cities that no longer have experiments, cities
81 with ongoing experiments related to deliberative democracy were hard to access for two interrelated reasons. Either experiments were conducted for a very brief period of time so that any concrete conclusions are unable to be identified, or researchers did not have participatory access. Under such circumstances, Wenling city became the only site I had access to for understanding the conduct of a deliberative democratic experiment. Also, due to its sustainability and durability, Wenling became the most ideal case to study.
During my time in China, apart from attempting to gain access to other cities, I went to Wenling city several times. Semi-structured interviews and participatory observation are the two main strategies of data collection. In terms of semi-structured interview, I interviewed 26 people. Some of them were interviewed more than once when they were active and more willing to be interviewed. The interviewees basically belong to four categories including 1) 15 scholars in the related areas; 2) 5 local officials who organize or participate in the deliberative practices; 3) 4 representatives of the People’s Congress at township and city level who have experience of participating in the deliberative meetings; and 4) 2 ordinary residents who have experience of participating in the deliberative meetings. I also talked to ordinary people in Wenling city, but I did not have any formal interviews with them.
As for participatory observation, I participated in two forms of deliberative meetings in two towns of Wenling city respectively. One form of their deliberative practices is in Xinhe town, where I had the chance to join as an observer in the annual meeting of the Township People’s Congress which the officials combined within the practice of participatory budgeting. In the meeting, I had the opportunity to see how the annual meeting of the Township People’s Congress was held and how the township budget was discussed and decided. Another form of their deliberative practices I observed was a practice of “Democratic Talk with All Sincerity” in Zeguo town. The meeting was a broader part of their practice of participatory budgeting. In 2016, the township government invited over 400 residents to discuss the township’s annual budget, and nearly 300 residents came to the meeting.
After attending these two forms of deliberative meetings, difficulties emerged which went beyond my original expectation. First, the deliberative meetings were held at the levels of township and city in Wenling, but the way they practiced the deliberative meetings and the extended form of participatory budgeting slightly differed between the two cases. Furthermore, experiments with different parts are regularly held without a fixed date, and it is difficult for researchers to get full access to every part of the deliberative practice. The
82 difficulties I encountered have some implications: 1) it would take a longer time to see the evolution, change, and the effect of the development of experiments; 2) it is almost impossible to collect data in a coherent and consistent manner. As a result, my fieldwork experience forced me to rethink and redesign this research project.
As Kevin O’Brien noted that “interviewing has become the heart of much fieldwork conducted in China (O'Brien 2006, p. 27),” that does not mean interviews and fieldwork would go as planned. By using the metaphor of fishing, O’Brien showed the gap between what is planned and what is actually happening in the field. Consequently, he thinks having flexibility in fieldwork being “open to new ideas, theories that did not originally seem pertinent, and new research foci (O'Brien 2006, p. 29)” are important to researchers studying China. That is to say, although we should have a set of research questions and sufficient knowledge before going to fieldwork, the actual situation may not necessarily go as planned. On the contrary, many unexpected situations, conversations, ideas, theories, people, publications, events, and so forth may happen in fieldwork. Researchers are advised to prepare for change, adjust, or even redesign the whole project according to what is available.
Following O’Brien’s line of thinking, after the first round of my fieldwork, I struggled with adjusting the research questions and redesigning the project according to what I had collected and experienced. Nevertheless, while O’Brien stood in a position close to the positivist model in explaining causal relations and building theory from generalization (O'Brien 2006, p. 28), this thesis adopts an interpretive approach and emphasises the abductive logic between theory and the empirical material. Moreover, unlike the conventional approach in treating the relationship between theory and the empirical material as the relationship between the universal and the particular, this thesis follows Agamben’s paradigmatic method and views theories and empirical materials as particular discursive representations. Consequently, the mission of this thesis is to articulate the singularities of each particular and investigate the implication of what stood up as the exception from the general rules.
After the first round of my fieldwork, I redesigned the research project from a fieldwork- based case study to a discourse-based study with a theoretical orientation. The process felt like going back to the beginning of this research project but fortunately, I was furnished with more details, new content and engaging perspectives. The re-design brought a reappropriation of the archival method and discourse analysis. Apart from my fieldwork experience, I
83 reviewed what I had collected and started again a new process of data collection. I will give a full illustration on how I use the archival method and discourse analysis to collect data.
For the archival method, I studied the discourses of how xieshang minzhu was endorsed and developed by the Chinese government in official documents at different levels. I also focus on the archives of several official websites such as the official website of The State Council of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国中央人民政府门户网站)9, News of the Chinese Communist Party (中国共产党新闻网)10, Xinhua (新华网)11, and other related governmental websites and archives at different levels. The reason for focusing on these online archives is because they are the channels for the party system to communicate with the broader audience, including party members and citizens. Important documents related to policy-making, include White Papers, new legal bills, or new directions for policy-making are publicly published on these websites. These channels have become important sources for researchers who wish to investigate and understand official views. Apart from those online resources, I also gained access to other published official documents referred by the informants such as the Central Committee documents in 2007, 2012, 2015, 2016, and so forth. The list of official documents analysed and discussed can be found on page 8 and 9, and Chapter 5 is dedicated to the analysis of those official documents.
For the discourse analysis, I paid attention to the following types of written works: (a) Chinese translated works of deliberative democracy; (b) Chinese scholars’ works on deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, and governance; (c) media reports related to deliberative democracy, the CPPCC, and local governance; and (d) Chinese journal papers in the CNKI database. In type (a), the most important collection is a series of translated books on deliberative democracy published by the Central Compilation & Translation Press (中央 编译出版社). In type (b), I focus on publications related to deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, and local governance. Among the relevant publications, apart from the books published by the Central Compilation & Translation Press, I paid particular attention to scholars who either have established a prestigious reputation in related areas in China or are labelled as having a closer relationship with the Party or government. All
9 www.gov.cn
10 http://CCP.people.com.cn/
11 http://www.xinhuanet.com/
84 publications are sourced from libraries or my personal collection gathered from my fieldtrip in China. In type (c), two kinds of media reports were considered. The first is news reports about local experiments on deliberative democracy or participatory budgeting, which are mainly found in the local newspapers. The second is comments made by officials or party intellectuals, especially comments that were widely circulated. In type (d), due to the huge amount of journal papers in China, I focused on using the database of the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, 中国知网)12. The CNKI is the most important and widely used database in China. With the assistance of the CNKI, I used the keyword “xieshang minzhu” in Chinese and downloaded the top 250 most cited journal papers.
The data collected via the four methods mentioned above corresponds to and constitutes the basic framework and conditions of how deliberative democracy has been developed and discussed. The discursive mediation of xieshang minzhu as the translation in China is intertwined with a broader network of socialist deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics. During the process of data collection, I gradually noticed several features of ‘created exception’ in my investigation. This is also why Agamben’s idea of exception is incorporated in this thesis, and I believe his approach will become an important perspective to engage in a cross-cultural dialogue of comparative political theory (Williams & Warren 2013).
Nevertheless, although this approach of using Agamben’s idea to look at Wenling’s example has many advantages for the investigation of this thesis, some limitations and reflection need to be addressed. First, focusing on Wenling’s example offers insight to bridge Agamben’s idea with the development of deliberative democracy in China. However, this does not mean that this is the only way to look at the development of deliberative democracy in China. Nor does it mean this is the only way to study Wenling’s deliberative experiment. As an interpretive study of the Wenling case, this study is not intended as a comprehensive analysis of Chinese deliberative democracy. The publication of studies of the other cases in China will enable a more comprehensive picture of Chinese deliberative democracy to emerge in the future. In the following chapters, I will go in detail of the formation and configuration of the
12 The CNKI website: www.cnki.net/
85 three aspects of xieshang minzhu respectively.13 I will further investigate the implications of xieshang minzhu to deliberative democracy as well as the broader political environment in China.
3.5 Concluding Remarks
This chapter illustrates different developments of the interpretive approach in the social sciences and humanities. The goal is not just give an overview of each development but to formulate an adequate interpretivism that fits the investigation of this thesis. As this thesis aims to investigate how deliberative democracy has been introduced, discussed, and practiced in the Chinese context, the investigation heavily relies on the local knowledge and its broader socio-political and cultural contexts. That is why the interpretive approach is adopted. By incorporating Said’s Travelling Theory and Agamben’s paradigmatic method, the interpretive approach engages the topic in light of the issues caused by translation. I believe this approach will enrich our understanding and discussions of deliberative democracy and democratization in China. In the following chapters, I will go into the details of how deliberative democracy in China is reformulated through their uses and discussion of xieshang minzhu, which can be found in Wenling’s experiements, official documents, and scholarly works.
13 As this official documents and scholarly works are the main subjects of investigation, these materials were originally written and published in Chinese. Unless otherwise stated, the author translated most of the materials discussed in this thesis.
86
87 Chapter 4 The Point of Engagement: The Case Study of Wenling City
4.1 The Emergence of the ‘Democratic Talk with All Sincerity14’
In establishing xieshang minzhu in China, the case of Wenling’s deliberative practice is crucial. This case study of Wenling city allows us to understand the political tradition of the CCP, the development of local contexts, and related scholarly discussions. Since the experiment in Wenling city plays an important role, this chapter will give a chronological overview and evolution of the deliberative practices in Wenling.
The beginning of Wenling’s deliberative practice can be traced back to the end of the 1990s. At that time, officials in Wenling introduced a public forum which gained great success in solving social conflicts. In 2001, the officials in Wenling unified similar practices of a public forum under one name called “the Meeting for the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity (Minzhu Kentan Hui, 民主恳谈会)” or “the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity (Minzhu Kentan, 民主恳谈).” Around 2005, in order to deepen their reform, officials in Wenling consulted two groups of scholars and conducted political experiments in two towns, Zeguo and Xinhe, respectively. That was the time when the idea of deliberative democracy was brought to light to officials, scholars, and the general public.
Although the emergence of this public forum in Wenling was considered a surprise (He 2010; Chen 2012c), its sustainability for over 15 years relies on several conditions and actors. As part of these conditions, this section will give an outline of the geographical, historical, social, cultural, and political background, which will be followed by the discussion of how the public forum, deliberative democracy, and participatory budgeting developed over time.
Wenling is a coastal city in Zhejiang Province which is located approximately 300 km south of Shanghai in south-eastern China15. As a county-level city, it governs 11 towns with a
14 The English translated term of Minzhu Kentan is not my own but comes from from the edited book The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China (Leib & He 2006). Some scholars, local officials, and Party intellectuals contributed to this edited book. Therefore, although there is no ‘official translation’ for Minzhu Kentan, the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity can be viewed as a semi-official translation.
15 The actual geographic location can be referred to the Figure I showing below.
88 population of around 1.2 million people16. It is also a successful model of how a city acquired wealth due to local reform policy and its openness. Wenling follows the economic development of the Wenzhou Model (温州模式) (Liu 1992; Parris 1993; Ye & Wei 2005; Wei et al. 2007). The Wenzhou Model is an economic model that emphasizes local government’s role in ‘doing nothing’ or non-intervention in order to let the market decide and grow. The result is that the private sector can run their business freely, and these areas have attracted a lot of small and medium enterprises drawing capital from civil associations17 to run labour-intensive and manufacturing industries. Hence, it is not surprising why these areas enjoy a relatively large percentage of private enterprises, and Wenling is no exception.
Figure 4-1. The red icon indicates the geographic location of Wenling city
16 A map of Wenling city can be seen in the Figure II below.
17 In Wenzhou and affiliated areas, the level of social capital is high. The strong interpersonal network can also reflect the fact that most small and medium enterprises sourced their capital from non-banking financial institutions. At the early stage of Wenzhou model, non-banking financial institutions offer great resources for economic development.
89
Figure 4-2. Map of Wenling city
Although the local government adopts an economic governance approach of non-intervention and loose control, it does not mean that the political structure is different from other areas. On the contrary, the political structure in Wenling is basically the same as other areas. In China’s party-state system, governments at different levels are in a relation of delegation with hierarchy. In parallel with each level of the government, a corresponding party organization infuses into the government system and holds a more powerful position than the government system. Inside party organizations, the central committee stands at the top of party organizations and commands the delegated party organizations.
90 Following this basic structure, the County or county-level city, as what we would broadly call the local level in China, is usually the basic unit in the Chinese political system, but several layers of government lie below the county level, including the town (乡镇), section (片区), and village (村). At each level of local government, four pillars constitute the basic structure, including the party organization, the local administration, the people's congress, and the CPPCC (Personal Interview 038 2015). The order expresses the priority and importance in China's political system, so it gave the party and the administration greater power to decide how to develop the local area. The people's congress and the CPPCC at the local level have been regarded as a rubber stamp18 (O'Brien 1988) that can only endorse government's decision in China's political system.
After the policy of openness and reform was introduced in 1978, although China enjoyed a rapid growth in its economy, there were also many unresolved issues. These issues included domestic immigrant workers' rights, huge inequality, corruption, pollution, poor performance of social services, conflicts of interest in the process of urbanization (and urban redevelopment), and so forth. These problems have placed immense pressure on local governments (Personal Interview 032 2015) coming from both the top and the bottom and it has been a challenge to keep them from exploding. Chinese scholars have analysed these conflicts as follows: 1) Conflicts between town governments and village committees (乡村关 系); 2) Conflicts between the village committee and party committees in the village (两委关 系); and 3) Conflicts between party members and the general public (干群关系) (Chen 2012a, p. 67). In order to solve or mitigate the conflicts under the premise of expected economic growth, local governments have been trying different strategies, and the central government has also encouraged local governments to experiment with all kinds of trials and errors in the name of government innovation. This is the broader background of how the 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity (民主恳谈)' was gradually adopted by the Wenling government.
18 The metaphor of “rubber stamp” to describe the function of the People’s Congress is a common saying in China. People use the term as mockery due to the fact that although the People’s Congress is given the position of the highest power in China’s political system, in reality, the People’s Congress merely endorses the decisions of the Party and the administration. In many of my interviews, interviewees also used the same saying of the rubber stamp to describe the People’s Congress. Nevertheless, the topic of whether the People’s Congress has made any progress is another popular topic in China studies which I will not discuss here, for further readings, see (Cho 2002; O'Brien 2009; Truex 2014)
91 In 1999, the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee planned a campaign on agricultural modernization in rural areas, so the town government seized it as a chance to set up a platform for dialogue (He 2010; Chen 2012c) between Party cadres and villagers in Wenling’s Songmen Town (松门镇) (He 2010). At first, everyone thought that it was part of the routine for Party cadres to use the platform to give talks in front of villagers for ideological purposes, which the Party cadres also admitted. However, the meetings ended up including many local residents, who were able to give their opinions (Chen 2012c). The local government officials found the outcome positive, so they decided to hold more forums of a similar nature in the same year which was greatly accepted. During the latter half of 2000, the city government unified all the forums in villages, towns, and city under the name of 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity'.
The 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity' was expanded to other towns and villages in Wenling and established its reputation when it won the 'Prize for the Reinvention of Chinese Local Government (中国地方政府创新奖)' in 2004 (Tseng 2012, p. 180). However, it still faced the risk of termination because an institutional experiment like the 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity' was an informal institution without clear legal basis. This kind of experiment might diminish when a new leader came to power or when the government is not satisfied with the outcome of the experiment.
Furthermore, due to the lack of legal basis, the position of an informal institution like the 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity' is unclear even though promoters hope that this experiment can be sustainable. In order to achieve sustainability, some scholars suggested that the only way to keep this institution alive is to bridge it with established and legal institutions. Therefore, some scholars strongly introduced the idea of participatory budgeting to deliberative meetings. The goal was to push the local government to adapt this new form of the 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity' into an established system. To use a quote from one of my interviews, the turn to participatory budgeting is more like 'giving the form of deliberative democracy a concrete matter (Personal Interview 032 2015).’ Otherwise, it is useless if we only talk in the deliberative meetings. In addition, the interviewee also said that budget making is not just about distribution and allocation of money. In a democratic state such as the United States, the process of budget making is actually a process of democratic competition, so in China, the budget could be a breaking point to lead the country to the path
92 of democratization (Mu & Chen 2005; Personal Interview 032 2015; Personal Interview 012 2015).
With the advice of scholars, the local government began to try out participatory budgeting in 2005 because the government officials were told that participatory budgeting might be able to increase the government's accountability and legitimacy by making the budget transparent and thus deterring corruption. However, due to consultations from different groups of scholars, the paths of bringing participatory budgeting into the deliberative meetings varied. Two groups of scholars have helped local governments to develop four different but related models of participatory budgeting. The following section will introduce the evolution of different models and their development.
4.2 The Xinhe Model
One of these models of participatory budgeting was the Xinhe Model19. The success of the Xinhe Model could be attributed to two important figures: Li Fan (李凡), the Director of the World and China Institute (世界与中国研究所)20, and Ma Jun (马骏), the Vice President of Sun Yat-sen University. Li has been engaging in many experimental and innovative reforms at the local level for over 20 years, and Ma is a Chinese expert in public finance and a promoter of financial democracy in China. From their perspective, the most feasible way for the 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity' to be sustainable is to bind this informal institution with the Township People's Congress. Once these two institutions are connected, two effects can be identified. First, the given deliberative meetings would have a position in the local political system and gain its sustainability. Second, the bonding of the two institutions could reactivate and awaken the dormant function of the Township People's Congress when reviewing, approving, proposing, and monitoring the government's budget has been the constitutional rights of the People’s Congress at every level (Personal Interview 032 2015).
19 The reason it is called Xinhe Model is because it was tried in Xinhe (新河) Town. No concrete connection could be made between the name of the town and the model itself.
20 The World and China Institute is a private think-tank/NGO based in Beijing, China. It was founded by Li Fan, and what they have been doing is doing research, building network, and conducting fieldwork on studies related to democratization and governance in China. The English translation here is their official translation, and here is the website of the centre: http://www.world-china.org/
93 According to Li (Personal Interview 032 2015), during the process of consultation, the government officials asked him two questions: 1) What is good about participatory budgeting? and 2) Is participatory budgeting beneficial for economic growth? He told the officials that there is no guarantee that participatory budgeting can be useful for economic growth, but he is sure that participatory budgeting can be helpful in fighting against corruption and enhancing accountability. As the process of budget making had not been well-monitored, many people believed that a bad budget-making process has contributed to the serious problem of corruption. The government officials thus accepted this proposal and began the experiment in 2005. Although Xinhe's participatory budgeting has been changing since it was implemented in 2005, its basic elements and procedures are still similar to its original design. In March 2015, with the help of my informants, I had the chance to conduct a participatory observation and experienced how they really run the deliberative practice. The process can be summarized into three stages. Combining my participatory observation with the relevant literature, the three stages of how Xinhe town runs their actual practice can be illustrated in the following paragraphs.
Stage One: Deliberation on the Draft of Annual Budget Plan
In the Preparatory Meeting of the Township People's Congress (镇人大筹备会议), the Township People's Congress Presidium (镇人大主席团) proposed and organized a special finance team (镇人大财经小组) consisting of representatives of the Township People's Congress (Chen 2012a; Chen 2012c). Before the annual meeting of the Township People's Congress, the Standing Committee of the Township People's Congress (镇人大常务委员) held a deliberative meeting21. Five days before the deliberative meeting, a notice was posted on the government hall's bulletin board to invite residents to participate through registration (Chen 2012a, pp. 178-9; Chen 2012c). In this meeting, members of the special finance team comprising professionals from various industries reported to the participants about how the town government was going to spend their money. After the briefing, the facilitator encouraged participants to express their opinions, and all the opinions were recorded and collected. After the meeting, the special finance team would revise their budget plan
21 In Xinhe, the deliberative meeting is usually held on the first day of the annual meeting of the People's Congress or several days before the annual meeting.
94 according to the opinions raised in the deliberative meeting, and the town government would follow the deliberated and revised version of budget plan sent from the special finance team.
Stage Two: Deliberating and Approving the Budget in the Annual Meeting of the People's Congress at Town Level
This is the most important stage because the annual budget is officially approved in the annual meeting of the People's Congress. The annual meeting usually takes two to three days. Participants are mainly representatives of the People's Congress at the town level, but ordinary residents are welcome to audit the meeting. Although ordinary residents can join the meeting, they have no rights to express their opinions. In the meeting, all participants were given a report of the next financial year's draft budget plan, which is a revision after the deliberative meeting. The township government would report their budget plan to all the participants at the assembly hall.
After the township government had reported on their annual budget plan, all participants (Representatives of the Township People’s Congress) were divided into several groups according to the sections (pianqu, 片區) they belong.22 The participants would then join in their respective discussion rooms according to their group. A party cadre or government official would join the discussion with the representatives as the facilitator. Their mission was to assist the discussions and collect questions raised by the representatives. The group discussion lasted about an hour, and after the group discussion, all participants would go back to the assembly hall to proceed with another deliberative meeting.
In this round of assembly meeting, according to my experience of participatory observation, the session lasted for one and a half hours. First, each group had a leader to report their questions and ideas about the budget plan of the next financial year. After each group expressed their questions and ideas, the town government had the obligation to answer every question as well as they possibly could. The government would lead their response to another Q&A session and encourage representatives to further express their ideas. Some representatives would raise new questions that they did not express in the group discussion or ask the same questions when they thought their ideas had not been sufficiently reached. In the
22 The section (pianqu, 片區) refers to the sub-divisions in each town. The division of each section is only meaningful in its geographical sense. It only plays the managerial role, and it does not have any solid power in China’s political system.
95 meantime, all questions raised by each group and individual were recorded as references for further discussion in the next stage.
After the second round of the deliberative meeting, deliberation was over for that day. However, after the end of the deliberative meeting, the government officials and party cadres organized another meeting called the 'United Meeting (联席会议)' to discuss how to respond to the questions raised and adjust the budget according to the opinions. The result of this meeting is close to the final version of the 2015 financial year's budget plan (Lo, observation, 02 March, 2015).
The next morning, representatives had a one hour group discussion on the revised budget plan, and these groups would formulate proposals of budget revision as a response to the government's decisions the previous evening. After proposals of budget revision were made, the Township People's Congress Presidium had another meeting for an hour to review all the proposals and decide which proposal to present to the government. When consensus was reached, all the party cadres, government officials, and representatives gathered in the assembly hall again. In this 40-minute session, leaders in the group discussions would report their opinions and proposals, and the government officials had to respond and explain the feasibility of each proposal. The town government officials and party cadres had another Q&A session to further discuss the revision and feasibility of the proposals. Finally, the town government would hold a vote to decide the final proposals. With the finalization of the proposals, the Township People's Congress Presidium would hold a short meeting to confirm that they had accepted the decisions made in the former session23.
23 In China, the regulation that government is not allowed to have deficit is a very special situation for its budget making and execution. Any change in one item means a whole change to the budget plan. If representatives wish to add more money on a specific item, it means the money must be cut from other items. Therefore, when participants in the deliberative meetings and representatives of the People's Congress have any opinion on the budget, the government has to make adjustments on the entire budget plan.
96 In the final session, the party cadres, government officials, and representatives would sit together again in the assembly hall and announce their final reports separately. The annual budget plan was officially confirmed and approved. The agenda can be seen in the following table:24
Day 1 Agenda Time Venue Routine Proceeding for the Township Government to report 09:30-12:30 Assembly Hall this financial year's budget plan Group Discussions on Budget Plan 13:30-14:30 Meeting Rooms Group Discussions on Reports from Township Government 14:30-15:20 Meeting Rooms & the Township People's Congress The Township People's Congress Presidium Meeting: 15:20-15:30 Meeting Room Organizing Questions & Proposal Assembly Meeting: Q&A Session 15:30-17:00 Assembly Hall Party & Government's United Meeting 17:00- Meeting Room
Day 2 Agenda Time Venue Group Discussions on Proposals of Revision 08:10-09:10 Meeting Rooms The Township People's Congress Presidium Meeting: 09:10-09:40 Meeting Room Confirmation of Proposals Assembly Meeting: Q&A Plus Vote on the Proposals 09:40-10:20 Assembly Hall The Township People's Congress Presidium Meeting: 10:20-10:30 Meeting Room Confirming the final proposal The Assembly Meeting: Report on Final Decisions 10:30-12:00 Assembly Hall
Table 4-1. The sample agenda for the Annual Meeting of the Township People’s Congress
24 As mentioned in the beginning of this section, the agenda of the 2-day meeting is made according to my participatory observation in March 2015. In addition, this re-made agenda mainly focuses on the program related to budget deliberation and excludes many details for the sake of readability.
97 In the past, the people's congress was usually viewed as a rubber stamp, which has no function in reviewing, revising, approving, proposing and monitoring the budget (O'Brien 1988). When the idea of participatory budgeting was brought into the deliberative meetings, the local government combined the idea of participatory budgeting with the annual meeting of the Township People's Congress. In the two-day meetings, the representatives of the Township People's Congress were able to use their right to question, debate, propose and decide whether the budget plan should be approved.25
However, things were not so easy when the participatory budgeting was implemented. First, since the township government had no experience in publicizing their budget plan to a broader audience, their budget plan was very unprofessional at first. After training and practicing the same mechanism for many years, the township government gradually learned how to publicize the detailed budget plan without losing its readability. For example, when the town government began participatory budgeting in 2005, the draft of the budget plan was only a few pages. However, in 2015, the town government presented a 25-page report, and all budget items were listed separately and clearly. (Personal Interview 036 2015; Personal Interview 032 2015; Personal Interview 012 2015).
Furthermore, for volunteered residents and representatives of the People's Congress, they knew very little about the budget plan and hence lacked the experience in debating and argument. In the first few years of the participatory budgeting, participants were often unfocused when they were arguing with the government officials and party cadres. The government had to invite experts to teach participants, especially representatives of the People's Congress, on how to understand the budget plan (Personal Interview 036 2015; Personal Interview 012 2015).
In addition, in order to make the review of the budget plan run smoothly, the Township People's Congress had to organize a special finance team to collaborate with the town government in budget-making. The special finance team invited experts for consultation and regularly organized a deliberative meeting for the initial draft of the budget plan. The entire process of participatory budgeting can be seen in the following flowchart26:
25 In some rare cases, the annual meeting can last for three days.
26 The flowchart is based on my own observations and the work of Szu-chien Hsu and Chien-chung Wu (Wu & Hsu 2012, p. 192).
98
Table 4-2. The Process of Participatory Budgeting in Xinhe Town
99 In sum, the Xinhe Model focuses on combining the participatory budget with the Township People's Congress. The intention is to prolong the process of deliberative democracy by reactivating the function of the People's Congress as provided for the constitution. Furthermore, as it aims mainly at revitalising the People's Congress, the Xinhe Model can be seen as a model that emphasizes more on giving the right of decision-making to broader political elites and residents rather than cultivating the citizens' ability of deliberation.
Stage Three: Monitoring How the Money Was Spent
The process of participatory budgeting did not stop after the annual budget was approved. The special finance team regularly monitors how the government spends the money. In the middle of the year, the Township People's Congress Presidium would invite some representatives and volunteer citizens to review how the government used their budget (Chen 2012a, p. 190; Chen 2012c, p. 15). If the township government wishes to adjust the budget during the period of execution, the government needs a further approval from the Township People's Congress after they hold a new meeting to review, discuss and approve the township government's request.
4.3 The Zeguo Model
Zeguo is the wealthiest town in Wenling because it is the most advanced in terms of development in industrialization (Personal Interview 008 2015). In 2005, with the help of Baogang He, James Fishkin, and Youxing Lang, the township government began to hold deliberative meetings.27 At that time, the theme for the deliberative meetings was about the town's basic development of infrastructure. The government selected 30 items most relevant to residents' lives and incorporated participants in the process of decision-making through deliberative meetings (He & Jiang 2012, p. 46). The reason for doing so is because the township government only had a budget of 40 million RMB whereas the estimated total cost of all items was 137 million RMB (He & Jiang 2012, p. 44).
27 Professor Baogang He is a faculty member at Deakin University. He is among the first group of scholars who introduced the idea of deliberative democracy into China. Professor James Fishkin is a faculty member at Stanford University. He is an important figure in the study of deliberative democracy as his method of deliberative polling has contributed a lot in understanding whether deliberation can improve participants’ policy preferences. Professor Youxing Lang is a faculty member at Zhejiang University. He works with Professor He and acts as a main figure in promoting the studies of deliberative democracy in China.
100 Seeking the advice of Baogang He and James Fishkin, the town government adopted two important methods in conducting its deliberative meetings: random selection and deliberative poll. For random selection, the government recruited participants by rolling ping-pong balls with numbers. As there are a total of 99 villages in Zeguo, the government picked four representatives from each village with more than 1000 residents and two representatives from each village with less than 1000 residents. They gave each resident from each village a number that would correspond with the number printed on the ping-pong balls. In 2005, after the random selection of numbers from ping-pong balls, the government recruited 275 participants, and 259 people actually participated in the meeting (Chen 2012a; He & Jiang 2012, p. 45; Personal Interview 008 2015). Ten days before the deliberative meeting, the government gave all participants a report with all the information about the 30 items of infrastructure (Chen 2012a; He & Jiang 2012; Wang 2016).
For the deliberative poll, at the beginning of the deliberative meeting, the township government asked the participants to fill up a survey about their attitude and knowledge about the 30 items. The township government then divided all participants into 16 groups and proceeded with the group discussion in separate meeting rooms. Each group discussion had a trained facilitator, usually a school teacher or principal, to lead the discussion.28 After the group discussion, the government gathered all participants in the assembly hall for collective discussion. In the collective discussion, each group was asked to send a delegate to report their opinions about the 30 items of infrastructure, and the facilitator would encourage further discussions according to each group's report (He & Jiang 2012, pp. 44-6).
After exchanging ideas and opinions through the group discussion, all participants continued with a second round of group discussion and collective discussion and repeated what they did in the first round. After two rounds of small group discussion in meeting rooms and collective discussion in the assembly hall, the government asked the participants to do the same survey. In the meantime, the government requested all participants to vote among the 30 items and decide which item should be built. During the process of deliberative meeting, the government officials and representatives of the People's Congress at the township and city level were allowed to sit in as observers, but they cannot express their opinions. After the
28 According to my informant, the reason they invite teachers and school principals as facilitator is because teachers are highly respected in China. As ordinary people respect teachers, it would give facilitators higher authority to lead the discussion.
101 deliberative meeting, the result of deliberative poll and votes were sent to the town government as a reference for the decision making (He & Jiang 2012; Personal Interview 008 2015). A flowchart of the Zeguo model is summarized in the table below29:
Table 4-3. The Procedure of the Deliberative Meeting in Zeguo
29 This flowchart is made according to the author’s participatory observation in January 2016. I also compare my observation with another reference (Chen 2012a) to ensure coherence in the procedure.
102 In Zeguo's first experiment with deliberative practice in 2005, the outcome surprised the township government as participants were more interested in items related to environmental protection and wastewater management rather than items related to infrastructure and economic development (Personal Interview 008 2015). Based on the results in the deliberative poll and vote, the township government adopted 12 items which amounted to 3.64 million RMB as its priority projects for next year's budget plan (Chen 2012a; Chen 2012c). The township government also selected 10 items which round up to 2.25 million RMB as a backup plan. Later, the township government sent their budget plan to the township people's congress for approval.
In 2006, under the scheme developed in 2005, the government not only increased the number of items to 38 in the seven categories for deliberation, but also made minor adjustments on four things: 1) random selection was picked according to the ratio of population (2%) which included a small ratio of non-native/non-hukou residents; 2) the hosts for group discussion were categorised into the rational group and the regular group as an experiment to understand whether the rational guidance would influence the quality of discussions; 3) the township government set aside 5-10 per cent of preparatory money for the items that are important but not able to be included on the list; 4) the township government asked the Township People's Congress Presidium to recommend 5 representatives as observers of deliberative meetings to allow the representatives of the Township People's Congress to become familiar with what is going on (Chen 2012a; Personal Interview 008 2015).
In 2008, under the same name of the 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity’, the Zeguo government updated their experiment with the influence of the Xinhe model. They began to incorporate residents to discuss the township government's budget and let the Township People's Congress discuss and approve the budget plan (Chen 2012a). By keeping elements of the random selection and the deliberative poll, the township government organized a deliberative meeting about the township government's draft of the annual budget plan before the annual meeting of Township People's Congress. Furthermore, in order to make the annual meeting of Township People's Congress run smoothly, the government even organized a training course for the representatives of People's Congress right before the annual meeting and added a debate procedure in the collective discussion. Since 2009, under the guidance of the Wenling city government, Zeguo has gradually formulated a complete process of
103 participatory budgeting according to their past experience. Similar to the Xinhe Model, the Zeguo Model had three stages of participatory budgeting as listed below.
Stage One: Before the Annual Meeting of Township People's Congress
Although the budget is approved by the representatives of the Township People's Congress in the annual meeting, the township government broadens its decision-making process to more participants. By making use of the deliberative meetings developed in 2005 with random selection, a deliberative poll as well as 2 rounds of group discussion and collective discussion, the township government requested that the Standing Committee of the Township People's Congress regularly holds the deliberative meeting before the annual meeting. The topic is associated with the drafting of the annual budget plan and its related projects for the town's development. With the development of the Zeguo Model, the deliberative meetings also had some adjustments: 1) In 2012, the recruitment of participants changed from random selection to a combination of random selection (picking 100 participants) and selection from two databases which comprised past participants (picking 100 participants) and experts in different areas (picking 100 participants); 2) Apart from the deliberation on annual budget, the deliberation also asked participants' opinions about the town's future development and other issues; 3) The township government also strongly encourages township government officials and representatives of the Township People's Congress to join the deliberative meetings to collect the opinions of citizens (Mu & Chen 2005; Chen 2012a).
Stage Two: The Annual Meeting of Township People's Congress
Once the annual meeting of the Township People's Congress became the most important event that decides whether the budget plan is approved, the representatives’ ability to debate and the procedure of the meeting became crucial. Enhancing the accountability of the government's budget-making process relies on a sound procedure and the cultivation of representatives’ ability to engage in public debates. In order to improve the quality of the annual meeting and the process of budget plan approval, the city and township governments held many training courses to guide representatives about the content of the budget plan and the process of budget making (Personal Interview 008 2015; Personal Interview 032 2015). Furthermore, the township government had another training course before the annual meeting, and the content was about the next year's budget plan. The annual meeting of the Township People's Congress in Zeguo is basically similar to that of Xinhe. Both incorporate two rounds
104 of group discussion and collective discussion as well as the right to propose budget revision in the two-day meeting. Nevertheless, after studying many types of debate rules, designers of the policy in Zeguo incorporates some elements of debate rules into group discussion and collective discussion in order to enhance the quality of discussion.
Stage Three: After the Annual Meeting of the Township People's Congress
After the annual budget plan is officially approved by the Township People's Congress at the annual meeting, the town government and the Township People's Congress have follow-up sessions to enhance the accountability and transparency. On the part of the town government, according to the city government's mandate, within 15 days after the approval of the annual budget, the township government has to publicize their budget on multiple channels. These channels include the internet (several governmental websites), a local newspaper, and bulletin boards in the villages and the town government hall (Chen 2012c; Personal Interview 040 2015). Among all of the content in the publicized budget, the town government particularly emphasizes on the items of 'funding related to three publics (三公经费)', which include money spent on official receptions, car purchases, and maintenance, as well as officials' travel fund (Personal Interview 008 2015; Personal Interview 040 2015)30. Furthermore, in each season, the township government has to report how the money is spent to a special committee that consisted of the representatives of the Township People's Congress. The township government also reports the execution of budget and any revision to the Township People's Congress Presidium regularly.
On the part of the Township People's Congress, as mentioned above, it must organize a special committee to monitor the actual expense and the execution of the governmental budget regularly. The committee also has the right to invite experts as consultants when they have any questions about the budget execution.
30 The reason for emphasizing this part of the budget is because it had been misused and became a big source for the officials' corrupt behaviours. In the past, when this part of budget was not publicized, officials could easily misuse the money without restriction. For example, officials may buy expensive cars and use them for personal travel. The officials could also spend the money by having expensive and luxurious banquets with their colleagues, friends, and businessmen. In many cases, officials used taxpayers' money to travel abroad in the name of business trips. Once this part of the money is publicized, the corrupt behaviours of officials can be restrained.
105 The Working Stations for the Representatives of the People's Congress
Apart from a chronological procedure of participatory budgeting by bridging the deliberative meetings with the annual meeting of the Township People's Congress, the township government also has a geographical arrangement for the deliberative meetings. The township government in Zeguo set up many workstations in different locations in town, which are called the 'Working Stations for the Representatives of the People's Congress (renda gongzuo zhan, 人大工作站)' (Personal Interview 008 2015). In these working stations, the representatives of the Township People's Congress would take turns staying in the station once a week. When the representatives are in the working station, their job is to serve residents, listen to residents' problems and requests as well as deliver residents’ voices to the government.
In addition, the representatives also have the obligation to organize the deliberative meetings before and after the annual meeting (Personal Interview 008 2015). Usually a week before the annual meeting, the representatives have to gather other representatives, selected residents, and experts to discuss the draft of the annual budget. In the meantime, officials are required to be present in the deliberative meetings and have the obligation to answer all questions. All opinions collected in the meeting would be delivered to the town government for reference.
After the annual meeting, representatives would use the working stations to report the progress of how the township government spends the money. In addition, the representatives of the Township People's Congress also have the obligation to deliver participants' opinions to the town government as a source of reference. If the opinions are strong enough to warrant a revision, the township government has to revise and get approval from the People's Congress.
106 4.4 The Ruoheng Model
Ruoheng (箬横) is another town under Wenling’s jurisdiction. The township government began participatory budgeting in 2008, and its model is basically an improvement based on the Xinhe Model with some elements borrowed from the Zeguo Model. Because Ruoheng had two models to learn from, it soon developed its model successfully and was able to execute it smoothly. Similar to the Xinhe Model, Ruoheng runs its participatory budgeting in three stages: 1) deliberative meetings before the annual meeting; 2) Approving their budget plan at the annual meeting of the Township People's Congress with deliberation; 3) Monitoring their budget execution after the annual meeting (Chen 2012a; Personal Interview 037 2015).
What makes the Ruoheng model different from the Xinhe model is the way they recruit participants and the frequency of deliberative meetings held before the annual meeting (Personal Interview 037 2015). In the recruitment, they build two databases which consist of registered residents and experts. Apart from the representatives of the Township People's Congress, participants are randomly selected from these two databases. As for the frequency of deliberative meetings, unlike other towns that usually have only one deliberative meeting before the annual meeting, Ruoheng holds two deliberative meetings (Personal Interview 037 2015). The time span between the two meetings is about three weeks. From their perspective, holding two deliberative meetings with a proper time span can give participants more time to think about the annual budget plan. In addition, the working stations for the representatives of the Township People's Congress can also be seen in Ruoheng. The working stations was first set up in Zeguo for holding deliberative meetings. By learning from Zeguo’s experiences, working stations in Ruoheng not only function as sites for the deliberative meetings before and after the annual meeting (Personal Interview 037 2015), but also become a place for routine consultations between residents and the representatives of the Township People’s Congress (Lang 2015). This transformation in Ruoheng later influenced Wenling city and Zeguo. They also turned their working stations into the places for routine consultations.
Another characteristic that makes the Ruoheng model special is that they began to include the topic of revenue sources in the deliberative meetings (Personal Interview 037 2015). While most towns in Wenling and Wenling city merely focused on expenditure, Ruoheng is the first town that also considered where the money comes from in the deliberative meetings. It is
107 important to understand the reason for this difference because Ruoheng has been facing a shortage in revenue. This means that they have to conduct a thorough investigation of where their money comes from to sustain a sound balance of their public finance. By including the topic of revenue sources into the deliberative meeting, the government not only clarified all the assets they have but also standardized the taxable items and their rates. In the meantime, deliberating on the revenue sources gave the township government and the participants a sense of how much money the town can have for its future sustainability and development (Personal Interview 037 2015).
4.5 Wenling City Model
In comparison with the towns in Wenling, Wenling City began to experiment with participatory budgeting in 2008 (Chen 2012a, pp. 196-204; Wang 2016), which was relatively late. However, because Wenling city is at a higher level administratively compared to the other towns, the Wenling city government has the advantage of collecting experiences from each town, which can then be used to create their own strategy of participatory budgeting. At the same time, the city government also has the power to mandate, regulate, and guide how towns should run their participatory budgeting. There is a cyclical relationship between the city and its corresponding towns. While towns are experimental sites, the city government is a hub that connects the higher-level governments and lower-level governments. Therefore, the city government can collect and review all experience at the town level and delivers all the information from bottom to top and from top to bottom. At the same time, the city government can conduct its own experiments and implement new policies for the city and its towns without violating the principles of the central government (Chen 2012a).
As Wenling City is bigger and more complex in the governmental structure, the way they run the deliberative meetings and participatory budgeting also differ. The Wenling City government is more interested in participatory budgeting than deliberative democracy, so the focus of their reforms places participatory budgeting at its center. Deliberative meetings are regarded as a way to enhance the legitimacy and acceptance of the budget-making process (Personal Interview 032 2015). Conversely, Wenling city's practice and direction also influenced towns in Wenling. Eventually, Wenling city and its towns tended to merge into one similar model.
108 In 2008, when Wenling City first began to experiment with participatory budgeting, due to the huge volume of the budget plan, they released their plan according to departments. The Department of Transportation, which involved the largest amount of money, was the first section to be made public for deliberation. Similar to the procedure for the town's models, a deliberative meeting was held before the annual meeting to discuss the draft of the annual budget plan on transportation, and 50 opinions were sent to the government for further revision. Eventually, the annual budget for the transportation department was reviewed and approved at the annual meeting of the City People's Congress (Chen 2012a; Wang 2016).
In order to improve the quality of the decision-making process, the government advanced some changes in 2009 (Wang 2016) which included: 1) the training of representatives of the City People's Congress was strengthened; 2) the deliberative meetings before the annual meeting of the City People's Congress were able to discuss the budget plan draft in the Department of Transportation and the Department of Water Resources; 3) the annual meeting of the City People's Congress could review, discuss, and approve the annual budget of the three departments, including urban planning, technology, and birth control; 4) the draft of the budget plan was also more detailed than the previous year.
Following a steady pace, in 2010, Wenling city made adjustments to enhance the quality of participatory budgeting. The departments of the budget plan for the deliberative meetings increased in number from one to three (Wang 2016). The city government sent out the budget report of the three departments to participants ten days before the deliberative meeting (Chen 2012a, pp. 198-9). Due to broadening channels of recruitment via registration, recommendation, and invitation, participants coming to join the meeting rose to 250 (Wang 2016). Apart from the continuous training, representatives of the City People's Congress can review, discuss, and debate on the 15 departments of the city government's annual budget plan (Chen 2012a; Wang 2016). Moreover, the city government attempted to publish its annual budget about urban planning for the first time in the local newspapers (Wang 2016).
In 2011, participants in the deliberative meetings discussed the annual budget plan of five departments, and the representatives of the City People's Congress could review, discuss, and approve the annual budget of the 17 departments at the annual meeting. Compared to the previous years, there were more channels to publicize the budget plan. The openness of the budget plan was also better than previous years. In addition, the city government started to use working stations of the representatives of the City People's Congress as another site for
109 deliberative meetings, and five meeting were held in five places across Wenling City (Congress 2016).
At the current stage, the annual budget of seven departments would be discussed respectively in the deliberative meetings, and 32 departments of the annual budget plan are separately discussed at 32 working stations inside Wenling city. Representatives of the City People’s Congress can review, discuss, and approve an annual budget plan of 24 departments at the annual meeting. Furthermore, voting for the departments' annual budget was introduced in the annual meeting in 2013, and the representatives of the City People’s Congress can now vote for the annual budget of four departments. In 2015, representatives of the City People’s Congress can propose budget revisions with a petition from ten representatives of the City People's Congress. Since 2012, the city's annual budget from 35 departments is publicized in a standard format with details on the government websites and local newspapers (Congress 2016).
Owing to the complexity of the city, participatory budgeting in Wenling is still evolving. Some of its procedures are different from how participatory budgeting runs at the town level. First, while participants in the deliberative meetings can discuss the budget package at the town level, deliberative meetings at the city level have to be engaged with the various departments due to its larger scale. It also reflects the fact that Wenling city relies more on the deliberative meetings at working stations than the formal deliberative meetings before the annual meetings. Second, at the annual meeting, the representatives of the City People's Congress only have group discussions according to different departments, and all opinions would go to the city government for feedback and revision.
Apart from participatory budgeting at the city level, in 2010, the city government also mandated that the 16 towns and Sub-Districts (jiedao, 街道) 31 under Wenling’s administration should develop participatory budgeting as a regular institution (Wang 2016). In 2012, the city government requested that these 16 towns and Sub-Districts must publicize their annual budget plan and the execution of the previous financial year's budget according to a standard format, especially the part referring to the 'three publics'. All publicized budgets
31 Sub-District (jie dao) is an administrative unit under the governance of the city. Its political status is at the same level of the town, but neither the Sub-District nor the People’s Congress has financial autonomy because it falls under the jurisdiction of the city government.
110 should be published on the government websites and local newspapers (Congress 2016; Wang 2016).
Although the mechanism of participatory budgeting at both levels of city and township is developing, a rough structure has been formed after 15 years of experimentation. Especially after the introduction of participatory budgeting in 2005, the City and Township People's Congress, especially the Standing Committee in the People's Congress at both city and town levels, has been empowered. This means that the institution allowed representatives of the People's Congress at both the city and township levels to gain the power to review, approve, propose, and monitor the budget making and execution. However, rather than viewing the empowerment of the People's Congress at the township and city levels as a new invention, by incorporating the informal institution of deliberative meetings, its reactivation is more of pushing the People’s Congress at the township and city levels into what it is supposed to be in the regulations of the constitution.
It is still unknown how far this process of normalization for the People's Congress at the city and township levels will go. The spill over effect to other areas or to the higher levels is not obvious. The furthest it can go is to turn the local People's Congress into a real representative assembly that has the full power to make a budget and monitor its execution on the premise of fair and competitive elections. It can also become a formal routine if the process of power sharing stops at the current stage, which gives more power to the Standing Committee of the People's Congress at the city and township levels which only includes a small number of representatives.
If we compare Wenling's case with Brazil's experience on participatory budgeting, China’s case is totally different. While the objective of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre is for the city government to give money to citizens to discuss and decide how to use the money (Baiocchi 2001; Wampler 2010), the case of Wenling is to incorporate the opinions of their residents and representatives of People's Congress at the city and township levels into the process of budget-making. Without the deliberative meetings, Wenling's case can hardly be regarded as participatory budgeting. Analyzing the current development of Wenling city, the deliberative meetings also run the risk of being reduced to a ‘decoration’ in the sense that the currently-run deliberative meetings serve more like consultation from residents rather than encouraging residents to make decisions through the exchange of opinions. Moreover, the recruited participants’ ability to debate (He 2014) would also affect whether deliberative
111 meetings are an empowered institution for citizens or an instrumental institution for bringing about manipulated consensus and therefore enhancing the government’s legitimacy.
This development can also be observed in the citizens' participation. In comparison with the reactivation of the People's Congress at the city and township levels, the empowerment of citizens is limited because participants who joined deliberative meetings during the past 15 years are mainly limited to the residents who have direct or indirect connections with the local elites. Moreover, due to the industrial structure and the regional differences, most young residents often move to big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen, so most residents who could participate are the elderly. Finally, in many ways, the recruitment for most deliberative meetings is still under the control of the city and township governments because the governments need to keep the reform of deliberative democracy and participatory budgeting manageable and within their control (Cheng & Kuang 2014). Except for the random selection implemented in the Zeguo model, deliberative meetings are, in actual practice, only open to a small number of people who either have a close relationship with the government or people with higher education or social status32.
In sum, Wenling’s practice evolving from deliberative democracy to participatory budgeting is a top-down process (Cheng & Kuang 2014) in that the government is conscious of sharing its power with only a selected group of people such as local elites as well as the People's Congress at the city and township levels. With the current achievements, the Wenling model still faces challenges. First, with the complexity of the city's budget, it is extremely difficult for the representatives of the City People's Congress to fully deliberate and decide all budget plans in a three-day meeting. Moreover, for the current political system in China, leaders still play the crucial roles in keeping the institution sustainable. This means that deliberative democracy and participatory budgeting are likely to face the danger of termination or become a merely formalized routine without drive and function. In addition, due to its top-down characteristics, the central government can potentially stop, freeze, or change the local experiment at any time. The general observation is that instead of aiming to create an
32 In my interview, the informants tend to emphasize that the recruitment is open to the public and fair, but they became less clear when I further asked how they really run the recruitment. In addition, the informants also mentioned that they would exclude residents who are disabled or have trouble in speaking when they established the database or select participants from the database. This remark raises a further question that cannot be easily asked or answered in China’s political atmosphere. The situation remains ambivalent whether they do the background check on residents and exclude the so-called ‘unqualified’ residents.
112 autonomous civil society, this kind of reform is a ‘gift’ given by the central government and reinforces the central-local hierarchy.
In addition, when Wenling’s participatory budgeting emphasizes the activation of the People's Congress at the township and city levels, the empowerment of its citizens is relatively ignored. This is particularly so when the current reform aims at manageability and efficiency, it gives the city and township governments no incentive to broaden the scope of participation. Due to the instrumental use of deliberative democracy and participatory budgeting, the actual practices are result-oriented and focus more on skills for dispute resolution. As a result, deliberation is easily swayed towards negotiations on the conflicts of interests. The focus on values, ideas, or the common good is rarely seen at the current stage.
4.6 Collective Labour Wage Deliberation
Other than the deliberative meetings and participatory budgeting in the formal public sphere related to budget making, deliberative democracy in Wenling also has another development in the informal public sphere and economic life of residents. This development is called the 'Collective Labour Deliberation'. The background of the collective labour deliberation can be traced back to the constant conflicts between owners and workers in Xinhe's wool industry (Chen 2012a; Song & Fu 2012; Yu 2012). Since the 1980s, residents in Xinhe had developed the wool industry after a policy of reform and openness had been implemented. However, there are two characteristics in the wool industry that led to a series of conflicts that could not be settled easily. First, the wool industry is a labour-intensive industry with strong competition between business owners, so it takes a huge number of skilful workers to meet the market demand. Second, the wool industry is a seasonal industry, which means the factory will reach its peak season between September and December and non-peak season between April and August. Between January and April, factories are basically closed (Zhu 2008).
A huge number of domestic workers from other provinces migrated to Wenling for better job opportunities. However, due to the strong competition and the high demand for skilled workers, workers would collectively transfer to another factory that can offer a higher wage (Laoban yuangong heyi zuo dao “yi jia qin ” 2008). The consequence is that if large numbers of workers decided to move to other factories, the business owners who faced a shortage in manpower would suffer great losses (Cai 2009). At first, in order to solve deter
113 the workers from collectively transferring to other factories, business owners would keep a part of workers' salary until the end of the year. The purpose was to prevent workers from leaving in the middle of the peak season. Sometimes, owners made promises such as raising the worker’s salary or giving bonuses, but this also meant that problems would occur if the owners could not keep their promises. Workers would either go on strike or send a petition to the government when they feel they have received unfair treatment from their employers (Translations 2009; Song & Fu 2012; Yu 2012). This led to serious conflicts between business owners and workers, and the conflicts were so tense that the government had to intervene.
In 2003, in order to explore the possibility of settling these conflicts, the township government played the role of arbitrator and invited the representatives of the industrial association and the representatives of the labour union. The township government’s move was not easy. As most business owners were running small workshops, most of them did not join the industrial union. Only a small group of business owners joined the industrial association and tried to solve the conflict by networking, sharing information, and unifying workers’ salary. With the township government’s encouragement, the industrial association recruited most business owners and sent the leader of the industrial association to participate in the first negotiation. Similarly, at the side of the workers, before the township government actively intervened, rather than seeking help from the labour union, the strategy workers used was appeal, strike, or protest due to the impression of the labour union being the Party’s transmission belt (Morris 1985; Taylor & Li 2007; Lee et al. 2014). Once the township government intended to tackle this issue, the officials encouraged workers to select their representatives who are influential and able to negotiate.
Borrowing from the experience of the 'Democratic Talk with All Sincerity', the township government decided to resolve the conflict between business owners and workers by making use of the deliberative meetings. To make the deliberative meetings work, the township government reactivated the labour union in the wool industry by inviting an experienced delegate, who is also a worker, as the leader of the labour union.
At a later period, the township government offered a platform and played the role of an arbitrator by inviting delegates from the industrial association and the labour union. After six rounds of negotiation and ten deliberative meetings, delegates from the industrial association and the labour union reached an agreement on the basic salary of workers and signed a
114 contract under the witness of the government (Zhu 2008). Both sides also agreed to renegotiate and update the basic salary every year.
Due to the success in resolving conflicts in the wool industry, the township and city governments decided to extend the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation to 14 industrial sectors such as water pump, axle bearing, and injection molding (Zhu 2008) in 2004.33 Moreover in 2008, owing to its continuous success, the government geographically extended the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation from Xinhe to other towns and Sub-Districts in Wenling. The success of the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation can be attributed to its five-step procedure (Chen 2012a; Personal Interview 041 2015).
First, the government would identify the subjects of negotiation. That is to say, they needed to confirm with the delegates from the industrial association and the labour union. In the officials’ view, identifying the subjects of negotiation is important because these delegates not only represent the employers and workers, they also serve as a buffer to cushion the conflicts of interests within the industrial association and the labour union (Personal Interview 041 2015). Second, the government invited delegates from both sides to calculate the most reasonable wage according to the type of work, fabrication procedure, and the government's data on basic salary and living standards (Personal Interview 041 2015). Third, the deliberative meetings were required to come up with specific topics and run several rounds according to different stages of negotiation (Chen 2012a; Personal Interview 041 2015). Fourth, as long as the delegates can reach a consensus, both sides must sign a contract under the government's witness, and the contract will be recorded in the government archive (Zhu 2008; Chen 2012a; Personal Interview 041 2015). Fifth, in order to make sure both sides follow the contract, the city and town governments, especially its related departments, would work with the court, the industrial union, and the labour union in monitoring the actual execution of the contract. (Chen 2012a, pp. 242-51)
By introducing the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation, conflicts between owners and workers have been successfully settled, and the number of strikes, protests, and petitions
33 According to my description of how the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation works, one can argue that this practice is more like arbitration rather than deliberation. The only connection to deliberation is that this practice incorporated their experience of the Democratic Talk into the practice. Therefore, the purpose of including this case is to show that in Chinese contexts, practices of negotiation, arbitration, consultation, and deliberation are usually mixed and confused.
115 dropped dramatically after this scheme was implemented (Kong 2008; Personal Interview 041 2015). This case in Wenling is so successful that the central government has expanded a similar scheme to other areas in Zhejiang Province and other Provinces (Zhu 2008). However, the success of Wenling's Collective Labour Wage Deliberation also reveals some issues in this model and its implications.
First, the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation has become part of skilful negotiation, which aims to balance represented interests and brings about a win-win-win situation among the local government, business owners, and workers (Zhu 2008). But this goes against the ideal of Habermasian deliberative democracy, which expects personal interests could be channelled into the emergence of a common good through the use of communicative rationality.
Moreover, when the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation focuses on the resolution of conflicts and disputes, problems are often reduced to conflicts of interests. The result is what was meant to be deliberative democracy turns itself into a tool of channelling conflict and strengthens the logic of state corporatism of the Chinese government (Wen & Lin 2014). Workers' requests are reduced to issues on the amount of wage and working hours. This scheme forbids any request to work on the workers' solidarity or the articulation of workers’ rights.
At the first glance, the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation seems to be a very different development from the deliberative meetings at the township and city levels. The former is about labour wage, which belongs to the informal public sphere and economic life, whereas the latter is about the budget, which can be attributed to the formal public sphere and the political life. Nevertheless, the two different practices have a common line of thinking: the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity and the government’s engagement. From the view of the official practitioners, although these two practices are different, the spirit behind them is the same. Both practices bring the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity as the problem-solving mechanism. Therefore, from the view of the officials, the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity as a practice of deliberative meeting is more similar to a mechanism of dispute settlement. The aim is instrumental without any specific normative values.
116 4.7 Concluding Remarks
This chapter introduces the development and practices of the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity in Wenling. The practices began with a Q&A forum in Songmen Town. Then the Q&A forum was transformed into practices of participatory budgeting. Different models such as the Xinhe Model, the Zeguo Model, and the Ruoheng Model were developed, but eventually, these models were merged into a similar practice under the city’s supervision and mandate. In the meantime, when different models were practiced in the formal public sphere, the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity was also spread to the informal public sphere, which is the Collective Labour Wage Deliberation discussed above.
These practices of the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity reflect the deliberative democracy that the Chinese government is directing. What the government envisions is the process of deliberation to settle interests and to enhance the efficiency, legitimacy, and accountability of governance. Giving citizens the right to argue and foster the emergence of a common good through deliberation has not been the priority. Thus, from Wenling's experience, deliberative democracy in China can be seen as a form of depoliticized politics, which excludes serious conflicts and the channelling of manageable conflicts under the current scheme of deliberative institutions.
However, the development and the actual practices of the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity are just a part of xieshang minzhu. The Democratic Talk with All Sincerity has drawn a lot of attention from the higher level governments and scholars, but only focusing on the study of Wenling’s case is not enough. The Democratic Talk with All Sincerity as an embodiment of xieshang minzhu is merely a part of the broader configuration. To continue with this investigation, I will proceed with another aspect of deliberative democracy in China. I will find out how the idea and knowledge of deliberative democracy has been introduced, translated, understood, discussed, and accommodated in the Chinese context. In the next two chapters, the official views on xieshang minzhu and its connection with scholarly discussions will be the topics of this investigation. After reviewing the official view and scholarly discussions, I will go back to Wenling’s case again and bring the three elements, Wenling’s case, the official views, and scholarly discussions, together.
117
118 Chapter 5 The Official Version: Xieshang Minzhu
5.1 Introduction
Deliberative democracy in China comes in many forms, and the discursive production by the Central Party and the state is the most important but ignored aspect in our current understanding of deliberative democracy in China. Although the official version of deliberative democracy is important in the sense that it effectively sets the boundaries within which the idea of deliberative democracy can be discussed and practised in China, one encounters many challenges when investigating the official model of deliberative democracy.
The first difficulty lies in getting access to official documents. These documents include documents containing details on the talks of top leaders, the report of the National People’s Congress of the CCP and the CCP Plenary Sessions each year, guiding documents issued by different levels of the Party, constitutional and other legal documents. These official documents constitute a huge volume of materials that are not easy to access. In addition, some of the documents are publicly released and come with an official English translation, others are categorized as ‘neibu’ ( 內部) documents, meaning ‘internal’ which is only accessible by a specific group of people. Furthermore, although some documents may not be totally banned from public circulation, but for all kinds of unknown reasons, they are not easily found. Unclear regulations on accessing such documents were one of the main challenges I faced in my study of the official model of deliberative democracy.
The second difficulty is about the language. Most of the documents are written in Chinese, only some of the more publicly circulated documents have an English translation. During the investigation, I faced a very serious issue in the investigation: While xieshang minzhu is widely accepted as the official translation of deliberative democracy in China, the official English translation of xieshang minzhu is ‘consultative democracy’ instead. Furthermore, the officials have never admitted to the connection between deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu. The English translation of xieshang minzhu to the inconsistent use of consultative democracy and deliberative democracy existed among the officials and scholars. That is to say, while there was no official confirmation that the translation of xieshang minzhu is
119 deliberative democracy, scholars use xieshang minzhu to identify it as China’s deliberative democracy. I will discuss later on the issues of translating xieshang minzhu.
To overcome the difficulties and proceed with the investigation, the strategy used in this thesis is to trace how the terms of ‘xieshang’ and ‘xieshang minzhu’ are used in the official documents that I have access to. For the selection of documents for investigation, the strategy used in this thesis is to study the documents that Chinese scholars have been citing and discussing in their works. In doing so, I can locate more accurately the documents that are related to xieshang minzhu in China but also explore the connection between the official documents and academic papers. The significance of this approach is to save time without having to go through a huge volume of documents using the phrase ‘xieshang’ and risk misinterpreting these documents.
Although xieshang minzhu was a term emphasized in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, scholars currently trace the first use of the term back to the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party in 1987 (tCC 1987), which emphasized the importance of expanding xieshang from the political sphere to the social sphere. Later, the Central Party document in 1989 (tCC 1989; Li 2015, p. 67) and other series of documents co-construct a socialist type of deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics. If we look at the development of xieshang minzhu from the perspective of the intersection between deliberative democracy and xishang minzhu, the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012 marked the beginning of xieshang minzhu being seriously considered as the goal and policy for future political reform (Li 2015, pp. 90-9). While the phrases xieshang or xieshang minzhu were found in Chinese documents before 2012, these expressions were not treated as having the endorsement of the central government. Consequently, when scholars traced related documents before 2012 in order to establish the existence of xieshang minzhu in China, these documents can be regarded as the ‘pre-development’ of xieshang minzhu in China. In the following sections, I will go into the development of the ‘pre-development’ and the history of xieshang minzhu in China respectively.
120 5.2 The ‘Pre-development’ of Xieshang Minzhu in China
Multi-Party Cooperation & Political Consultation under the Leadership of the CCP
There are countless official documents with references to the terms xieshang or xieshang minzhu, but the No. 14 Document published in 1989 is by far the earliest document that scholars have traced. The full title of this document is: ‘Opinions on the adherence and improvement of the multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (《关于坚持和完善中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商 制度的意见》)’. It was issued by the Central Committee of the CCP in December 1989 to provide their opinions and guidance on the kind of political system China should aspire to and develop. Although the title contains the term “opinions”, the document does not contain opinions only. These “opinions” are similar to mandates that the Party cadres should pay attention to. They make up the basic framework of China’s political system, which is encapsulated in the following sentence in the document: “Multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CCP are formed and developed after a long period of revolution and establishment (tCC 1989).34” Four elements should be highlighted and explained here, and they are: 1) multi-party cooperation; 2) political consultation; 3) under the leadership of the CCP; and 4) after a long period of revolution and establishment. These four elements constitute the basic framework of how China’s political system should work, and there are several implications that need to be explained further.
While this document raises four main elements, it delivers several messages to the Party members, the political elites, the general public, and anyone who might read this document. First, although China is a one-party state, it does not indicate that the party-state bans the existence of other political parties. On the contrary, the claim of multi-party cooperation not only indicates the existence of other political parties, but also represents the model of how the CCP works with other political parties. As this model of multi-party cooperation is under the leadership of the CCP, it also means that the possibility of other political parties becoming the ruling party is ruled out. Consequently, other political parties function as participants in public affairs to channel the people’s voices and supervise the ruling party’s policy and strategy.
34 I have translated the paragraph cited in the main text, and I will cite the original Chinese text here: 中国共产 党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度是在长期革命与建设中形成和发展起来的. (tCC 1989)
121 Nevertheless, the participation and supervision of this multi-party cooperation is conditional. Apart from the recognition of the CCP as the ruling party and the willingness of other parties to be led by the CCP, multi-party cooperation is “formed and developed after a long period of revolution and establishment (tCC 1989)”, these other political parties are referred as the eight parities that existed before the establishment of the PRC and had recognized the CCP’s leadership after 1949. Apart from these eight parties, no other parties are recognized as participating parties, and anyone who wishes to join political parties other than the CCP can only join one of these eight parties. If anyone tries to form any new political party, he or she would need to face the potential risk of being charged by the government. The China Democracy Party in 1998 is an example. In June 1998, a group of activists tried to form and register a new political party. Later in December, most of members were detained, arrested, sentenced, or exiled.
It is important to take note that although these eight parties are supposed to supervise in public affairs of the state, this supervision is unlike what opposition parties do in the western democratic systems. The objective of the supervision by the eight political parties is to express their constructive opinions and suggestions on the premise of helping the leadership of CCP. In this way, political consultation becomes very important in promoting the communication between the CCP and other political parties. According to the No. 14 Document mentioned above, the channels to conduct political consultation can be roughly summarized into two categories (tCC 1989). One category is political consultation in the institution of the CPPCC. This is where the CPPCC claims its importance by gathering other political parties and delivering their opinions and suggestions towards the state policies and strategies. Another category for conducting political consultation is the use of channels outside the CPPCC. As the channels outside the CPPCC cover a wide range of areas, the No. 14 document requires the top leaders or leaders at different levels to have consultative meetings with members or representatives of other parties on a regular and casual basis. Also, different levels of political institutions should maintain a certain ratio of members to guarantee the participation of the other political parties and non-party members. All consultative meetings are to follow the formula of ‘unity-criticism-unity’ to resolve any contradiction between the CCP and other political parties.
In addition, another requirement was added to the model of multi-party cooperation under the CCP’s leadership. This requirement is called the “Four Basic Principles” propounded by
122 Deng Xiaoping in 1979, which received four mentions in the No. 14 Document. The content of the Four Basic Principles” can be summarized as follows: 1) We must keep to the socialist road (必须坚持社会主义道路); 2) We must uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat (必须 坚持人民民主专政); 3) We must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party (必须坚持 中国共产党的领导); 4) We must uphold the Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought (必 须坚持马克思列宁主义、毛泽东思想). The “Four Basic Principles” is strongly articulcated in the document as the requirements for multi-party cooperation, political consultation, the objective of supervising the participating political parties, and how participating parties should propagate their ideas. This is a clear indication that the “Four Basic Principles” expresses not only the ideological doctrine in China’s political system, but also reinforces the unshakable position of the CCP as the only ruling party.
After the No. 14 Document was published in 1989, the CCP for a long time did not develop any systematic view on how to develop xieshang minzhu. Nevertheless, multi-party cooperation via political consultation under the leadership of the CCP had been established in this document as the framework for China’s basic political party system. The Chinese government repeatedly confirmed the idea in its official documents, which we will mention in the following paragraphs. Even when subsequent documents raised new ideas or sayings, they were based on what is written in the No. 14 Document.
In 1993 and 2004 respectively, the Chinese government incorporated the content of the multi- party cooperation in the No. 14 Document into the Preface of the PRC’s Constitution (Xiong 2013). In the preamble, after introducing the historical context and mission of the CPPCC, a sentence is added to express the realization of this framework in constitution. It says: “The system of the multi-party cooperation and political consultation led by the Chinese Communist Party will exist and develop for a long time to come35 (PRC 2004)”. Again, the framework was taken from the Central Party Document and applied to the Constitution, and this not only reinforces what is said in the document, but also represents the importance of the Central Party Document in regulating the framework of the political system, the given policy and the central government’s strategy.
35 The original text is: 中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度将长期存在和发展 (PRC 2004) , and the official English translation can be found here: http://www.npc.gov.cn/englishnpc/Constitution/2007- 11/15/content_1372962.htm
123 Apart from the multi-party cooperation and the political consultation under the leadership of the CCP, another official development in establishing a more thorough idea on xieshang minzhu can be found in the expression of the “Two forms of China’s Socialist Democracy” (Jiang 2002). Some implications can be revealed after a chronological examination of how scholars understood the official documents.
Two Forms of China’s Socialist Democracy
According to a search of the academic literature examining the official documents on xieshang minzhu, the first mention of the “Two Forms of China’s Socialist Democracy” was found in a speech given by Jiang Zemin in 1991. He said:
Our system of socialist democracy has two important forms: the people used their rights through elections and votes; and internally, adequate discussions before major decisions are made, and we do our best to reach a consensus on common issues. (Jiang 2002; Chen 2016).36
In the opinions of the Chinese scholars, although Jiang only used the term “xieshang” instead of “xieshang minzhu” in his speech in 1991, they believe that the idea and meaning of xieshang minzhu had been delivered, albeit in a very rough form (Li 2015; Chen 2016). This is because the two elements of xieshang minzhu – election and consultation among people to reach a consensus before decision-making – are crucial and recognized by the government. Nevertheless, this statement was not clear enough to be considered as a concrete idea, and the relationship between the two elements was not clarified. It was not until two documents were issued in 2005 and 2007 respectively that the officials made a more concrete and systematic elaboration on the two elements of democracy. In the 2005 and 2007 documents, the reference to the two forms of democracy is not an independent expression but a proposal embedded in the multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CCP.
The 2005 Document about Multi-Party Cooperation and Political Consultation under the leadership of the CCP
36 Unless otherwise stated, the English translation of official documents and scholarly works in this thesis is done by the author. The original text in Chinese: 人民通过选举、投票行使权利和人民内部各方面在重大决 策之前进行充分协商，儘可能就共同性问题取得一致意见，是我国社会主义民主的两种重要形式。
124 In February 2005, the Central Committee of the CCP issued a document called ‘Some opinions about the Central Committee of the Party further strengthening the system of multi- party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (中共中央关于进一步加强中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度建设的意 见)’ (tCC 2005). Similar to the documents discussed before, this document did not mention the term “xieshang minzhu”. Only “xieshang” and “political xieshang” are mentioned. In the views of Chinese scholars, a continuous development and evolution of xieshang minzhu can be found in the official documents. By considering the opinions of the Chinese scholars, we can trace how officials define and prescribe xieshang and its political use. This document reiterates most of the content of the No. 14 document, and the most quoted paragraph says that:
We must insist on the principle of the political consultation (xieshang)37. Political consultation is an important component of the institution of the multi-party cooperation and the political consultation under the leadership of the CCP. Political consultation (xieshang) is also a crucial part of the scientific and democratic decision-making as well as an essential channel for the CCP to enhance its ability to govern. Putting political consultation into the process of decision-making and conducting consultation before and during decision-making on important issues are the important principles of political consultation38[emphasis added] (tCC 2005).
This paragraph is often quoted when political xieshang and its use are confirmed and emphasized. First, it confirms and defines the term ‘political consultation’ or political xieshang. This definition is important because it puts political xieshang in the context of the institution of the multi-party cooperation and the political consultation under the leadership of the CCP. Moreover, when it is put in the context of the CCP’s political party system, the political xieshang is further connected to the idea of decision-making and governance. The way the political xieshang should function in decision-making and governance is to conduct it “before and during decision-making on important issues.” When political xieshang is
37 Consultation here follows the official English translation of xieshang.
38 The original paragraph in Chinese is written in this way: 坚持政治协商的原则。政治协商是中国共产党领 导的多党合作和政治协商制度的重要组成部分，是实行科学民主决策的重要环节，是中国共产党提高执 政能力的重要途径。把政治协商纳入决策程序，就重大问题在决策前和决策执行中进行协商，是政治协 商的重要原则。
125 defined in this way, the CCP prescribes when, how and in what aspects political xieshang should be conducted.
As this document is considered a supplement to the No. 14 document of 1989, it is mainly about the multi-party cooperation and the process of political consultation under the leadership of the CCP. We can find that similar terms and expressions repeatedly appear in these documents. The repetition and difference exhibit how the CCP communicates with its members and other partisans. While similarities in both documents represent the persistence of the party on specific topics, the difference indicates the enforcement of new changes or guidelines that the CCP wants everyone to follow. This is why the No. 5 Document, issued in 2006, attracted scholars’ attention when the terms of election and xieshang appeared in the Central Party document.
The Impact of the No. 5 Document in 2006 on the CPPCC and the Political Consultation
In 2006, the Central Committee of the CCP issued a document called “Some opinions about the Central Committee of the CCP Strengthening on the work of the CPPCC (中共中央关于 加强人民政协工作的意见),” which is also called the No. 5 Document. The following paragraph from this document is constantly cited and discussed by Chinese scholars:
In our territorially vast and populated socialist country, under the leadership of the CCP, major issues related to the country’s plan and the people’s lives are conducted through extensive consultation (xieshang)39. The two important ways to implement socialist democracy are that the people exercise their rights through election and voting and consultation is conducted among people from all walks of life to achieve consensus as much as possible before any significant decisions are made40 (tCC 2006).
39 Again, the original text of ‘consultation’ in Chinese is xieshang, and for the same reason, I do not use ‘deliberation’ to translate xieshang because ‘consultation’ is the official translation of xieshang.
40 Here is the original paragraph in Chinese: 在我们这个幅员辽阔、人口众多的社会主义国家裡，关係国计 民生的重大问题，在中国共产党领导下进行广泛协商，体现了民主与集中的统一。人民通过选举、投票 行使权利和人民内部各方面在重大决策之前进行充分协商，儘可能就共同性问题取得一致意见，是我国 社会主义民主的两种重要形式。
126 “Election and voting” and consultation (or xieshang) soon caught the attention of Chinese scholars. Although this is not the first time these two terms had appeared in official documents, it was the first time they had been mentioned in a Central Committee document. This indicates that these terms were included not because they were used by Jiang (or any other specific leader) in their speeches but because a consensus had been reached within the Party about the significance. This is why this document is more important than Jiang’s speech. In addition, the way these two terms are recognized is to emphasize they are not only the people’s rights but also two important forms of China’s socialist democracy. Nevertheless, unlike how the two terms are understood in the western context, their use in China is embedded in the institution of the multi-party cooperation and the political consultation under the leadership of the CCP. This is why the document has to summarize their political institution and emphasize its uniqueness by saying that they “will not directly adopt the model of the western political system. (tCC 2006)”
Under the leadership of the CCP, the multi-party cooperation with the institutions of political consultation (xieshang)41 is a basic political institution in our country. We must insist on the path of the socialist political development with Chinese characteristics. It is based on our country’s conditions after summarizing our experience in practices and borrowing useful results of political civilization. We would not directly adopt the model of the western political system42 [emphasis added] (tCC 2006).
This strong declaration serves two purposes: first, to repeatedly emphasise the unique path developed during the revolutionary era and sustaineded after the establishment of the PRC; the other to refute any likeness or similarity by stressing that the CCP would not copy the western system. This is where the exception works. Although the CCP insisted on not copying the western political system, it included “borrowing useful results of political civilization (tCC 2006)” because they want to walk their own path based on their own conditions. The western political system is therefore not considered worthy of emulation but
41 Consultation is the official English of ‘xieshang’.
42 The original paragraph in Chinese: 中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度是我国的一项基本政治制 度。要坚持走中国特色社会主义政治发展道路，立足我国国情，总结实践经验，借鉴人类政治文明的有 益成果，绝不照搬西方政治制度的模式。
127 it is not totally excluded. Western political system is a part of the “results of political civilization. (tCC 2006)”
This idea is heavily repeated in official documents. The elements of “China’s conditions” as well as the revolutionary and post-revolutionary legacy created a barrier preventing any penetration from the West. Nevertheless, this does not mean Western values, institutions, and ideas are totally excluded from the Chinese system. On the contrary, they can be included under “China’s conditions” or in consideration of the historical legacy of the revolution and establishment of the PRC. For example, a similar strategy can be found in the No. 14 Document. In the beginning of this document, it reminds its readers that:
Our country adopts the political party system of multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP, and it is the feature and the advantage of our basic political institution. It is fundamentally different from the multi-party or two-party system in the Western capitalist states. It is also different from the one-party system that some socialist states adopt. It is the creation of combining Marxism-Leninism with China’s revolution and establishment. It is a socialist political party system corresponding to China’s conditions43 (tCC 1989).
China’s political institutions are regarded as unique, which differ greatly from any other states in the capitalist world and other socialist systems. This emphasis on uniqueness exhibits a kind of exclusion that appears to be immune from any categorization. Furthermore, even when Marxism and Leninism are a part of the Western legacy, the emphasis on “the creation of combining Marxism-Leninism with China’s revolution and establishment (tCC 1989)” indicates that the Western legacy is included in the form of exclusion. Another example can be found in the White Paper on China’s political party system issued by the State Council in 2007. Not only does this White Paper operates similarly on the exception, it gives a more detailed and systematic account of the two forms of democracy as well as its basic political institutions of the multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CCP.
43 The original text in Chinese: 我国实行的共产党领导、多党合作的政党体制是我国政治制度的特点和优 点。它根本不同于西方资本主义国家的多党制或两党制，也有别于一些社会主义国家实行的一党制。它 是马克思列宁主义同中国革命与建设相结合的一个创造，是符合中国国情的社会主义政党制度。
128 The 2007 White Paper on China’s Political Party System
The importance of the White Paper on China’s Political Party System in 2007 lies in the fact that it is issued by the State Council. It means that the content of this report is not just the Party’s opinions. The Party Central Committee’s opinions were promoted to the level of state policy. The similarity and continuity can be found between the White Paper and other Party Central Committee documents. While the White Paper represents the PRC’s formal policy to the country’s political party system, the White Paper works as a summary that concludes all the Central Committee documents issued before. In addition, although the content of the White Paper is basically a repetition of what had been recorded in previous documents, there are some important changes that deserve a special mention.
First, this White Paper further elaborated on the relationship between the two forms of democracy. Although the White Paper is not the first official document to mention about the two forms of democracy, official documents published before the White Paper do not explain how the two forms of democracy relate to and interact with each other. The 2007 White Paper affirmed the existence of these two forms of democracy, coined phrases to acknowledge these two forms of democracy, and prescribed how the two forms should interact. In one of the most relevant paragraphs, the document reads:
One major feature of China's socialist democracy is the combination of democratic election and democratic consultation. In China, the People's Congress system and the multi-party cooperation system under the leadership of the CCP complement each other. The two important ways of implementing socialist democracy are that the people exercise their democratic rights through election and voting and consultation is conducted by people from all walks of life to achieve consensus as much as possible before any significant decisions are made. The combination of democratic election and democratic consultation has extended the breadth and depth of socialist democracy. Political consultation takes into account the opinions of the majority and shows respect to the reasonable requirements of the minority, thus guaranteeing democracy of the widest scope and promoting the harmonious development of society44 [emphasis added] (PRC 2007).
44 This is not the official English translation: http://www.china.org.cn/english/news/231852.htm
129 As expected, the White Paper reiterates and reinforces the framework of multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP. As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, the constant repetition in different documents indicates that official view is consistently maintained. The multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP therefore marks the channel and framework to guide how other political parties can participate in the public affairs. What is new in this White Paper is that it highlights the people’s congress system and claims that the multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP and the people’s congress “complement each other (PRC 2007).” That is to say, the document holds that the election function corresponds to the People’s Congress system. By contrast, consultation is an essential feature of the multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP. In other words, the need for consultation has led to multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP.
By comparing the two institutions, endowing them with different missions, and stressing they complement each other correspond with the opening sentence of the paragraph quoted above: “The combination of democratic election and democratic consultation has extended the breadth and depth of socialist democracy (PRC 2007).” This sentence explains that the uniqueness of socialist democracy in China lies in the combination of election and consultation when election and consultation were categorized as the two forms of democracy. This is also the first time that an official government document presents and uses the terms “xieshang minzhu (协商民主)” and “xuanju minzhu (选举民主),” which are referring to “democratic consultation” and “democratic election” respectively in the paragraph above (PRC 2007)45. By coining the official phrases for these two forms of democracy, the White Paper also prescribes the two forms of democracy with their corresponding institutions, which are the People’s Congress system and the multi-party cooperation. Although they do not belong to two separated forms of democracy, the People’s Congress system and multi- party cooperation are meant to complement each other.
The original paragraph in Chinese is expressed below: 选举民主与协商民主相结合，是中国社会主义民主的 一大特点。在中国，人民代表大会制度与中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度，有着相辅相成的 作用。人民通过选举、投票行使权利和人民内部各方面在作出重大决策之前进行充分协商，儘可能取得 一致意见，是社会主义民主的两种重要形式。选举民主与协商民主相结合，拓展了社会主义民主的深度 和广度。经过充分的政治协商，既尊重了多数人的意愿，又照顾了少数人的合理要求，保障最大限度地 实现人民民主，促进社会和谐发展。
45 The terms of xieshang minzhu and xueju minzhu can also be translated as “consultative/ deliberative democracy” and “electoral democracy” respectively.
130 While it is hard for non-Chinese speakers to fully understand the logic and meaning of “democratic consultation” and “democratic election” as well as the institutions of the People’s Congress system and the multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP, the government felt that a way to justify the existence and legitimacy of these institutions and ideas would be to relate to their historical and cultural legacy. This is reflected in the preface of the White Paper:
The political party system is an important component of modern democratic politics. What kind of political party system to adopt in a country is determined by the nature, national conditions and social development of the country. The diversity of political party systems in different countries reflects the diversity of human civilizations.
The political party system adopted by China is multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (hereinafter "multi-party cooperation system"), which is different from the two-party or multi- party competition systems of Western countries and the one-party system practiced in some other countries. This system was established and has been developed during the long-term practice of the Chinese revolution, construction and reform. It is a basic political system that suits the conditions of China. It is a socialist political party system with Chinese characteristics, and a key component of China's socialist democratic politics46 (PRC 2007).
I will categorize the argument in the above paragraph into three parts. The first part is to emphasize that the political party is a crucial component in modern democratic politics. The second part is to stress the priority of context in deciding a country’s political party system. This is why the preface says that the adoption of the political party system “is determined by
46 The English translation is from here: http://www.china.org.cn/english/news/231852.htm
Here is the original text in Chinese: (政党制度是现代民主政治的重要组成部分。一个国家实行什麽样的政 党制度，由该国国情、国家性质和社会发展状况所决定。各国政党制度的不同体现了人类文明发展的多 样性。
中国实行的政党制度是中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度（以下简称中国多党合作制度），它 既不同于西方国家的两党或多党竞争制，也有别于有的国家实行的一党制。这一制度在中国长期的革命、 建设、改革实践中形成和发展起来，是适合中国国情的一项基本政治制度，是具有中国特色的社会主义 政党制度，是中国社会主义民主政治的重要组成部分
131 the nature, national conditions and social development of the country (PRC 2007).”47 The third part is to embrace the diversity of political system around the world. These three parts constitute the very basis to justify China’s political party system. Based on this premise written in the first paragraph of the preface, the second paragraph of the preface not only stresses the uniqueness of its political system but also purposefully differentiate its own political system from others. Consequently, the operation of building China’s political party system according to its own definition prioritizes China’s unique context and adopts the strategy of differentiation rather than connection. This operation puts China in an exceptional position that is incomparable and incommensurable with other political party systems.
This operation of exception has been prevailing in many official documents and exhibits a binary operation in fulfilling the logic of exception: on the one hand, China’s context is so unique that it cannot be compared with others; on the other hand, by rejecting comparison, the differences with other political systems such as the Western countries and other one-party systems are totalized as identifiable entities. The totalized and identifiable entities are then excluded from China’s context. Similar operations of exception have been repeated many times in the official documents. While this is the first time the term xieshang minzhu is explicitly discussed and recognized in the White Paper, the full elaboration of xieshang minzhu came later in the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012.
5.3 The Development after Xieshang Minzhu is Adopted as the Goal for Political Reform
The Report of The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012
The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China marks its importance as this report affirms the position of xieshang minzhu and clearly expresses how this idea should be developed. In this report, the idea of xieshang minzhu was proposed as the future goal of political reform and gave a systematic view on xieshang minzhu. In the section on “Improve the system of socialist consultative democracy”, the report says:
47 The original text of “national conditions” in Chinese is called “guoqing”. The government often uses “guoqing” to claim the legitimacy of their policy and refute the criticisms from outside China. The emphasis of “guoqing” also represents a repetition and reinforcement of its cultural particularism.
132 Socialist consultative democracy (xieshang minzhu) is an important form of people's democracy in our country. We should improve its institutions and work mechanisms and promote its extensive, multi-level, and institutionalized development. Extensive consultations should be carried out on major issues relating to economic and social development as well as specific problems involving the people's immediate interests through organs of state power, including committees of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, political parties, people's organizations and other channels to solicit a wide range of opinions, pool wisdom of the people, increase consensus, and build up synergy. We should adhere to and improve the system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and make the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference serve as a major channel for conducting consultative democracy. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference should, focusing on the themes of unity and democracy, improve systems of political consultation, democratic oversight, and participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, and deliver a better job in coordinating relations, pooling strength and making proposals in the overall interests of the country. We should strengthen political consultation with the democratic parties, make political consultation a part of the policymaking process, conduct consultations before and when policy decisions are made, and make democratic consultation more effective. We should conduct intensive consultations on special issues with those who work on these issues, with representatives from all sectors of society, and with relevant government authorities on the handling of proposals. We should actively carry out democratic consultation at the community level (tCC 2012).48
48 The English translation is not official translation, and the source is here: http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/news/2012-11/19/content_15941774_6.htm
The original paragraph in Chinese: 社会主义协商民主是我国人民民主的重要形式。要完善协商民主制度 和工作机制，推进协商民主广泛、多层、制度化发展。通过国家政权机关、政协组织、党派团体等渠道， 就经济社会发展重大问题和涉及群众切身利益的实际问题广泛协商，广纳群言、广集民智，增进共识、 增强合力。坚持和完善中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度，充分发挥人民政协作为协商民主重 要渠道作用，围绕团结和民主两大主题，推进政治协商、民主监督、参政议政制度建设，更好协调关系、 汇聚力量、建言献策、服务大局。加强同民主党派的政治协商。把政治协商纳入决策程序，坚持协商于 决策之前和决策之中，增强民主协商实效性。深入进行专题协商、对口协商、界别协商、提案办理协商。 积极开展基层民主协商。
133 What should be noted, again, is the use of “consultative democracy (tCC 2012)” and the English translation of xieshang minzhu in the report. While the officials have never formally admitted the connection between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy, they hold the power to interpret and prescribe how xieshang minzhu should be presented. As long as the official interpretation is offered as the framework for interpreting and practicing xieshang minzhu, the essential principle will be how to fit deliberative democracy into the framework of xieshang minzhu rather than fitting xieshang minzhu into the discourses of deliberative democracy, if anyone in China wishes to discuss the idea of xieshang minzhu. Moreover, the adjective of “socialist” before consultative democracy reaffirms the term is not only different from the conventional way of understanding either xieshang minzhu or deliberative democracy, but also reinforces that xieshang minzhu must be understood under the socialist ideology monopolized by the Party.
Furthermore, for Chinese scholars and readers studying this official report, this paragraph contains a lot of messages that the government wishes to deliver. In the following sections, I will go into detail to give a deeper interpretation and to include a broader context for decoding the framework of the official view of xieshang minzhu. First, when the paragraph begins with the sentence that “socialist consultative democracy is an important form of people's democracy in our country,” it represents the idea of “socialist consultative democracy” as an important and recognized idea that everyone should follow. The adjective “socialist” that comes before consultative democracy can be read as an emphasis on its socialist connection.
Also, as xieshang minzhu is affirmed as the goal for future political reforms, this idealistic concept is not only a slogan. On the contrary, the corresponding institutions that practice xieshang minzhu must be improved, and the way to improve is to develop in an “extensive, multilevel, and institutionalized way (tCC 2012)”. The report designates several channels to develop and conduct the political consultation. These channels are “organs of state power, committees of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, political parties, people's organizations and other channels. (tCC 2012)” Although several channels are assigned as channels for political consultation, the list has not been exhausted. While some channels are institutional channels that have not been fully functional, other channels are not fully institutionalized. Naming the channels that are not yet fully institutionalised and functional illustrate that these channels may well be the future direction for development.
134 Broadly speaking, under such circumstances, the development is prescribed as “extensive, multilevel, and institutionalized (tCC 2012)” way to give the designated or undesignated channels the opportunity to run their own experiments and institutionalise such political experiments.
Apart from the discussion of corresponding institutions and channels, this section also touches on what type of topics can be discussed if we turn our attention to the expression of “major issues relating to economic and social development as well as specific problems involving the people's immediate interests. (tCC 2012)” That is to say, when the idea of xieshang minzhu as the future goal for political reform is officially proposed, not every topic can be discussed regardless of whether xieshang minzhu refers to consultative democracy or deliberative democracy. Not only do the discussed issues have to be “major”, the three types of issues should be included as topics for political consultation. The three types of issues are economic issues, social issues, and issues “related to the people’s immediate interests. (tCC 2012)” In other words, while theorists of deliberative democracy only confine the issues to be discussed to either any daily conversation (in Habermas and his followers) or the constitutional essentials (in Rawlsian sense), the official view of xieshang minzhu in China frames and reduces the discussed issues to merely interests, which can and have to be resolved with channels of the political consultation.
In addition, although many channels are assigned for exploring and developing xieshang minzhu, it does not mean that these channels can stress their own uniqueness because every experiment and development in each channel must be directed to and complied with a bigger framework of multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP. Based on the framework of the political party system described in the 2007 White Paper and reinforced in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, the time frame to adopt the political consultation is before and during the process of decision-making. Combining the political consultation with decision-making is therefore an important characteristic of xieshang minzhu, and the practice of combining consultation with decision- making can be commonly seen at the local level. The report mandates that political consultation should be conducted intensively on special issues, and the issues being consulted upon should involve the participation of related government officials and the representatives whose interests are involved. This is also why xieshang minzhu as mentioned towards the end of the report recommends to actively developing democratic consultation at the local level.
135 Not only has democracy at the local level become the incubator of political experiments since the 1980s, consultation is more feasible at the local level with a relatively small number of residents and participants. This explains why the democratic consultation occurs at the local level.
In summary, xieshang minzhu is not an isolated concept or slogan. It is embedded in a broader framework of the People’s Congress and Multi-party Cooperation under the leadership of the CCP, and this framework is extended to community-level democracy and governance with a focus on decision-making. However, when the “extensive multi-level, and institutionalized development (tCC 2012)” is still underway, the report inspires and summons different institutions and channels to experiment or improvise their own development of xieshang minzhu under the conditions regulated in the former documents and the report. In the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, proposing xieshang minzhu as the future goal for political reform also marks the existence of a pathway. This pathway points out how xieshang minzhu has evolved from the Central Committee documents to the White Paper and later on to the report of the 18th National People’s Congress. It shows that xieshang minzhu is not a term that appeared from nowhere but is a term undergoing long consideration and evolution.
Nevertheless, it is not fully transparent whether proposing xieshang minzhu is part of a planned policy-making process in China. The linear process under review so far is a retrospective effort with the assistance of scholarly discussions. During my fieldwork, I noticed that Chinese scholars show strong interests in tracing related official documents that were published after the 2012 report. Although some scholarly works on xieshang minzhu already mention the development of the official documents, most did not undertake a systematic analysis of the official documents. In addition, the officials have maintained an ambivalent connection with deliberative democracy. On the one hand, the officials never admit xieshang minzhu is deliberative democracy. On the other hand, they repeatedly claimed in various documents, including the white papers and reports, they would not directly adopt Western value or system, and the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is no exception. In the first part of the report about political reform, it states:
136 We should place high importance on systemic building, giving full emphasis to the strength of the socialist political system and draw on the political achievements of other societies. However, we will never copy a Western political system49 (tCC 2012).
“Systemic building (tCC 2012)” is emphasised in order to showcase the extraordinary side of socialism, and on the path of this “system building (tCC 2012)” is not without any reference. That is why the report states that they would “draw on the political achievements of other societies. (tCC 2012)” While the “other societies (tCC 2012)” could refer to any society, in my opinion, Western societies are also included. Nevertheless, the final sentence negates this possibility by saying that “we will never copy a Western political system. (tCC 2012)”
A negation similar to this expression is not only an official view that they repeatedly maintain, but also an operation of exception when the Western political system, values, or institutions are not fully excluded. To be precise, nothing related to the West is fully excluded from the Chinese soil. On the contrary, they are included in a form of exclusion, which means that it must be contained in the way of exclusion in order to claim the subjectivity of Chinese characteristics and maintain control over interpretation. Consequently, while everything must be associated with the term “socialist”, in the Chinese context, Chinese characteristics come before the term “socialist”. The operation of exception thus works in a binary direction: on the one hand, the West is included in a form of exclusion; on the other hand, by excluding the West outside its own area, Chinese characteristics make China an exception to the world.
Third Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress of the CCP in 2013 (十八大三中全會)50
After the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has set a systematic view on xieshang minzhu, the Central Party continued releasing documents to regulate how xieshang minzhu can be developed for different institutions and channels. The first example is the report on the 2013 Third Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress of
49 The English translation is from here: http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/news/2012- 11/19/content_15941774_6.htm
In addition, the original text in Chinese is here: 要把制度建设摆在突出位置，充分发挥我国社会主义政治制 度优越性，积极借鉴人类政治文明有益成果，绝不照搬西方政治制度模式。
50 (CPC 2013) The English translation can be found here: http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2014- 01/17/content_31226494.htm
137 the Communist Party of China (十八大三中全會).51 In this report, three points were made to deepen the official view on xieshang minzhu, and they can be treated as a continuous prescription on the development and interpretation on xieshang minzhu.
The first point is the repetition of the “extensive, multi-level, and institutional development (CPC 2013)” on xieshang minzhu. What is new in this point is the stress on building a more rational, procedural, and coherent system of xieshang minzhu, as well as widening channels and deepening five types of xieshang as regulated by the report. The goal is to develop a system that can penetrate all aspects of society with full coverage. Certainly, every development must be conducted and experimented under the principle of the leadership of the CCP, and the topics to be discussed before and during decision-making are related to the people’s interests as well as issues about economic and social development.
The second point is to strengthen the role and function of the United Front in xieshang minzhu. This is not the first time the idea of the United Front is mentioned in relation to xieshang minzhu, but its appearance in this document is to direct the framework of multi- party cooperation and the political consultation under the leadership of the CCP back to a strategy of alliance practiced in the revolutionary era. As a strategy for the CCP to establish an alliance with other political parties for the sake of expanding the CCP’s dominance and influence, the fundamental principle of the United Front is to unite with the secondary enemy and fight against the primary enemy (Mao 1939). Placing the principle and strategy of the United Front into the discourses of xieshang minzhu not only connects xieshang minzhu with the historical legacy of the CCP, but the historical legacy is also used to build a genealogy of xieshang minzhu in China. Establishing the genealogy of xieshang minzhu is a way of asserting that xieshang minzhu is unique and distinct from deliberative democracy in the Western context. This genealogy reinforces the impression that deliberative democracy is a western product which has different preconditions and cannot be directly applied to Chinese context. Consequently, the introduction of the United Front strengthens China’s own genealogy of xieshang minzhu, this strategy of establishing China’s own system of xieshang minzhu creates and reinforces a division between China and the West. This division does not fully exclude deliberative democracy from the Chinese context. Instead, through the
51 (CPC 2013) The English translation can be found here: http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/2014- 01/17/content_31226494.htm
138 confusion of translation brought by xieshang mizhu, deliberative democracy is contained in the position of “the western product” as an exclusive inclusion.
Nevertheless, creating the discourses of xieshang minzhu is an ongoing process, and the final destination of this idea has not been reached. Although elements are brought together to shape the socialist xieshang minzhu with Chinese characteristics, its completion requires more practices and experimentation. This is why the third point in the report on the 2013 Third Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China directs xieshang minzhu to improve the function of the CPPCC. The CPPCC was viewed as the important channel for democratic xieshang when the strategy of the United Front went hand in hand with the CPPCC during the revolutionary era. Even when the CPPCC is not the only channel and institution for political consultation, it is intuitively viewed as the most important institution in conducting political consultation. In the beginning when xieshang minzhu was proposed by the officials and discussed by scholars, the CPPCC was the first institution that came to people’s minds. Since then, members in the CPPCC or their affiliated personnel tend to think and build the CPPCC as the only and exclusive institution in building the idea of xieshang minzhu (Personal Interview 042 2016). After this document was released, two points can be affirmed: First, by repeating the same position, this document advices the CPPCC to be more institutionalized under the condition of re-emphasizing the CPPCC’s missions as a) the political consultation, b) democratic supervision, and c) participating and discussing the political affairs. Second, this document confirms the CPPCC not as the only and exclusive but as a major and important channel for political consultation. It means that the Central Party does not limit xieshang minzhu in the institution of the CPPCC. The Central Party hopes to have xieshang minzhu as an idea that people in different areas, organizations, and institutions can have their own channels to express their opinions. This setting also corresponds to the idea of the “extensive, multilevel, and institutionalized development (tCC 2012; CPC 2013)” that appeared in this document and the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012.52
Although the “extensive, multilevel, and institutionalized development (CPC 2013)” has been the mission that the Central Party assigns to their members and readers, the Central Party has not regulated how “extensive, multilevel and institutionalized (CPC 2013)” xieshang minzhu
52 For more information about this document, here is the link to the document: http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-11/15/c_118164235.htm
139 should be. After confirming that the CPPCC is important but not monopolizing the idea of xieshang minzhu, the Central Committee of the CCP later issued some documents to map out seven channels of conducting xieshang minzhu and gradually released their opinions on how to develop xieshang minzhu for the various channels.
The Central Committee Documents after 2015
Among the documents issued in 2015, the earliest document that was released in February can be regarded as the most important document in that it summarizes all official discussions before and after 2012. This document is called “Strengthening the constructive opinions of xieshang minzhu socialism” (《Guanyu jiaqiang shehui zhuyi xieshang minzhu jianshe de yijian, 关于加强社会主义协商民主建设的意见》), and its importance lies in two points. First, it gives a summarized and clear definition about xieshang minzhu. Later, it prescribes seven channels in developing and promoting the idea of xieshang minzhu. In the beginning of this document, it directly gives the definition of xieshang minzhu:
Consultative democracy (xieshang minzhu) is an important form of democracy which under the leadership of the CCP, people from all walks of life can conduct consultations (xieshang) on major issues relating to reform and development as well as specific problems involving the people's immediate interests before and when policy decisions are made and can endeavour to achieve and form consensus (tCC 2015b)53.
Not surprisingly, this definition is another extended summary of what have been written in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012 and the Third Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2013. While the content does not go beyond what had been written before, this is the first time xieshang minzhu is viewed as a form of democracy under the leadership of the CCP. The topics discussed are “major issues relating to reform and development as well as specific problems involving the people's immediate interests. (tCC 2015b)” Rather than using “major issues relating to economic and social development (tCC 2012)” in the previous document, this definition adopts “reform and development (tCC 2015b)”. The implication is that
53 The original text in Chinese is as follows: 协商民主是在中国共产党领导下，人民内部各方面围绕改革发 展稳定重大问题和涉及群众切身利益的实际问题，在决策之前和决策实施之中开展广泛协商，努力形成 共识的重要民主形式。
140 xieshang minzhu aims to solve social conflicts of interests after implementing a policy of reform and openness. The timing to conduct political consultation remains the same, that is, before and during decision-making.
Apart from its summarized definition, the most important development in this document is that it prescribes seven channels for conducting consultation or xieshang. The seven channels are: xieshang among political parties, xieshang among the People’s Congress, xieshang among the government, xieshang among the CPPCC, xieshang among the people’s groups, community-based xieshang, and xieshang among social organization54. Assigning xieshang to these seven channels represents and reinforces the view that the party-state does not treat xieshang minzhu as something exclusive to the CPPCC. The official view regards xieshang as a broader idea that prevails and covers both the formal and informal public spheres. Nevertheless, due to the very premise that xieshang must be under the leadership of the CCP, the seven channels must not just correspond to the Party’s categorization on the formal and informal public spheres. The seven channels also entail a possibility that every site of xieshang must acknowledge the existence and leadership of the CCP.
Although the introduction of the seven channels for conducting xieshang is an important step in the political development of China, because the developments in the seven channels are still not even, thorough, and systematic. Consequently, in June 2015, the Central Committee of the CCP issued another document called “Some Opinions about Improving the Implementation of Consultative Democracy on The CPPCC (《Guanyu jiaqiang renmin zhengxie xieshang minzhu jianshe de shishi yijian, 关于加强人民政协协商民主建设的实施 意见》), and this document is a concrete prescription of how the CPPCC should conduct and experiment xieshang minzhu. In July 2015, another document called “Some Opinions about Improving the Implementation of the Urban-Rural Community Consultation” (《Guanyu jiaqiang chengxiang shequ xieshang de yijia, 关于加强城乡社区协商的意见》) prescribes how the delegated government should enhance the consultation at the community level. In December 2015, the Central Committee of the CCP released another document called “Some Opinions about Improving the Implementation of the Political Party Consultation” (《Guanyu jiaqiang zhengdang xieshang de shishi yijian, 关于加强政党协商的实施意
54 The original words in Chinese are here: 政党协商、人大协商、政府协商、政协协商、人民团体协商、基 层协商、社会组织协商.
141 见》) , and this document is on how xieshang can be improved among the political parties. Following the current pace, it might be expected that the Central Committee of the CCP will release other documents regulating how other five channels should develop and experiment their practice and institutions of xieshang.
5.4 Concluding Remarks
This chapter has provided a detailed account of the background, history, and development of how the official view of xieshang minzhu and how it has been understood, treated, interpreted, and prescribed on related issues. While the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012 marks the beginning of xieshang minzhu as the future goal for political reform, the terms of xieshang or xieshang minzhu that appeared before 2012 weretraced by referring to the academic publications of Chinese scholars. These publications also shed light on how officials establish their understanding of xieshang and xieshang minzhu. The official views stand in a very important position because these documents form the basic framework for scholarly discussions and local experiment. Consequently, the official documents form an extremely important part in understanding how xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy are understood and practiced.
In addition, while the official views constitute the basic framework, they are also a form of knowledge and define conditions for the development of deliberative democracy in China. Also, as these documents reveal the behaviours of officials, institutions, and the people, the way these documents work is similar to what Foucault calls the “conduct of conduct” in his discussion of governmentality (Foucault 2009, p. 503). Despite the difficulty in tracing relevant documents, this chapter chronologically reviews the related documents so as to illustrate the development of the official views on xieshang minzhu and show the context and change in these documents. The motivation behind the detailed examination is to exhibit how these documents work on two ends. On the one hand, these documents have made strong impact in regulating and prescribing the mindsets of potential readers who are engaged with the documents. In the strict sense, they are not legal documents but have more powerful effects than legal articles or bills.55 Their effects are based on historical legacy during and
55 It is still an open question whether these Party Central documents can be viewed as “law”. In my interview with scholars, they gave me different answers to the position of the Central Committee documents. One interviewee told me that these documents have the same legal effect as law though they are not presented as legal regulations. Another interviewee did not directly answer my question, but this interviewee said that in a
142 after the revolutionary era, and this process of tracing back to the past guarantees the continuous power of prescription.
On the other hand, the prescription in the official documents may have been developed from the Chinese soil. The emphasis of the Chinese context is not based on the principle of articulating with other cultures, values or political systems outside China but on the operation of exception. The repeated expressions of emphasizing that they are not copying or replicating the Western political systems go hand in hand with the recurrent emphasis on the uniqueness of Chinese characteristics. Nevertheless, as I have tried to point out consistently in this thesis, the denial of the West does not mean the West is fully excluded. Instead, it is actually included in the form of exclusion and understood as a unified totality. This operation of exception in the official documents separates xieshang minzhu from deliberative democracy, and the constant comparison between xieshang minzhu in China and xieshang minzhu in the Western context reversely reinforces China as an exception in relation to deliberative democracy in general. While the official view constitutes one form of knowledge about xieshang minzhu in China, the investigation can be extended to other forms of knowledge on xieshang minzhu and explore the operation of exception in other forms.
vast country like China, using the Central Committee document to communicate with Party members and mandate what they should do is the most efficient way to conduct reforms.
143
144 Chapter 6 The Analysis of Xieshang Minzhu: The Case of Scholarly Discussions
6.1 Introduction
The development of xieshang minzhu in China is a major concern in this dissertation. In addition to the official documents released to the public and the political experiments in Wenling city, scholarly discussions on the topic play a significant role in the analysis of xieshang minzhu. Prior to the experiment of deliberative democracy in Wenling city and the official endorsement, the idea was first introduced to China around the early 2000s56. In the beginning, the concept of xieshang minzhu was limited to the Party intellectuals attempting to apply the latest trends of democratic theory in the Chinese context. As some Chinese scholars later discovered, the theory of deliberative democracy was also applicable at the grass-roots level, such as in Wenling. The successful experiments carried out in Wenling city attracted more scholars to study deliberative democracy and Wenling’s experiment. As xieshang minzhu works as the translation and medium of deliberative democracy, the concept of xieshang minzhu has to find the right balance among deliberative democracy, the political legacy of the CCP, and the experiment in Wenling. Scholarly discussions demonstrate this process.
An important source of information for scholarly discussions on xieshang minzhu is the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), which is the largest academic database in Chinese. It covers a large number of journal articles on xieshang minzhu, as well as deliberative experiments in Wenling and other cities. These articles were highly relevant to my understanding of the development of xieshang minzhu in China. The screenshots of the search results for ‘deliberative democracy’ and ‘Wenling’ can be seen in the Figures 6- 1 and Figure 6-2 below:
56 Yu Keping (俞可平) was the first person who brought the idea of deliberative democracy in late 2002, and his paper was then reposted to official media and attracted a lot of attention.
145
Figure 6-1. The search result for Xieshang Minzhu on the CNKI
146
Figure 6-2. The search result for “Wenling” plus “the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity” on the CNKI
Another important feature of the CNKI database is the graphic illustration of the trend of scholarly discussions when any keyword is searched57. Consequently, two keywords were inserted respectively, and the result can be viewed in Figures 6-3 and 6-4:
57 http://eng.oversea.cnki.net.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/kns55/
147
Figure 6-3. The trend of academic attention on the keyword “xieshang minzhu”
Figure 6-4. The trend of academic attention on the keyword “Wenling”
In Figure 6-3, the graph illustrates that the number of publications mentioning xieshang minzhu had a slow growth between 1999 and 2012. The rate of growth picked up between 2006 and 2012. After 2012, however, the number of publications experienced a dramatic upward trend after the report of the 18th Party Congress endorsed the idea of xieshang minzhu. In comparison, as shown in Figure 6-4, the total number of publications on Wenling was relatively small, but it also showed a steady increase. The trend is obvious between 2006 and 2008. The ascending trend between 2006 and 2008 is related to Wenling winning the ‘Award of Local Government Innovation’ in 2005 and a related international conference in 2007 in Hangzhou. Nevertheless, the trend shows some decline after 2014, and it may be due to the
148 fact that Wenling was only one crucial site of experimentation with xieshang minzhu. It means that Wenling does not hold the power of interpretation on xieshang minzhu. The power of interpretation lies in the hands of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and hence the local government cannot take the credit.
From the search results derived from CNKI, one may have the impression that xieshang minzhu exists on its own and shows no connection with deliberative democracy. However, if we look carefully at the process of translation and bring the relevant contexts into the discussion, a more complicated scenario emerges. To begin with the investigation, the choice of words is an important starting point. When several alternative Chinese translations of the term deliberative democracy were being used at an early stage, we noticed that the translation “xieshang minzhu” 58 matched the prevailing political tradition in the Chinese Communist Party, especially in relation to the historical development of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, 中国人民政治协商会议), which also includes the characters xieshang.
The CPPCC now functions purely as an advisory body in parallel with China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC, 中国人民代表大会). In the early years of its existence (during the revolutionary period and early in the history of the Chinese Communist Party, in the late 1940s/early 1950s)59, however, it was the main decision-making body for the CCP, which worked with the other so-called democratic parties to reach a consensus on political decisions about the constitution. In 1954, the NPC took over the functions of the legislature and the CPPCC was turned it into an advisory organization for consultation.
By translating ‘deliberative’ as xieshang, which means ‘to consult or talk things over’ or ‘to discuss together to reach consensus’60 in Chinese, the introduction of deliberative democracy and its perceived links to the CPPCC allowed the CCP and Chinese scholars the opportunity
58 In the translation of xieshang minzhu, xieshang corresponds to deliberation, and minzhu refers to democracy. While minzhu is the commonly accepted translation of democracy, scholars have different views on the translation of deliberation. In comparison with the case in China, scholars in Taiwan and Hong Kong adopt different translation of deliberation respectively.
59 Here is referring to the Old CPPCC in 1946 and the New CPPCC in 1949. Detailed development for these two historical events will be described in the following paragraphs.
60 http://www.zdic.net/c/f/a/17282.htm (为了取得一致意见而共同商量). In addition, xieshang can be used as noun or verb depending on the context.
149 to reinterpret the political tradition of the CCP. Also, placing the emphasis on deliberation as the central feature of democracy gives the CCP the opportunity to bolster its claim to be democratic without directly endorsing elections as the only way of practicing democracy.
Although the term xieshang gives the CCP and Chinese scholars a way to connect deliberative democracy in a Western sense with the political tradition in China, it cannot erase the fact that the Chinese term xieshang has traditionally been translated as ‘consultation’ in English. The shift of meaning from consultation to deliberation may cause confusion, but it also reflects the expectations of Chinese scholars for a gradual political change in China. By incorporating the theory of deliberative democracy in the Western sense, some scholars (He 2015; 2017) believe that the incremental change would possibly promote changes in the political system. Other scholars (Personal Interview 042 2016) are of the view that deliberative democracy offers some insights for resolving the governance problems created by China’s rapid growth since 1978.
Nevertheless, this strategic use of deliberative democracy and the indistinction between consultation and deliberation is not without controversy. This translation has led to many scholarly discussions on what exactly xieshang minzhu is and its relationship with deliberative democracy. These debates expose the inherent tensions in merging the two traditions – Chinese and Western. These discussions also reflect various views on how China should establish its own version of democracy that is relevant to its context.
6.2 The Confusion between Deliberation and Consultation
Between early 2000 and 2007, deliberative democracy in China was still at its infant stage. Chinese scholars mainly focused their attention on understanding the development of deliberative democracy in the Western context. During this stage, the scholarly works can be generally categorized into two groups. The first group defined deliberative democracy as a procedure of democratic decision-making whereas the second group saw it as a form of governance (Mu & Xiong 2007, p. 36; Ma 2013, p. 16). These two groups of scholars are not mutually exclusive. The difference rests on the particular aspects of deliberative democracy they wished to highlight. After 2007, the second stage of studying deliberative democracy has taken place (Ma 2013). At the second stage, scholars have a better understanding of what deliberative democracy is. The interest has shifted to a debate on the possibility and necessity
150 of deliberative democracy in China. Differences among scholars have become more apparent during this period.
On the discussion of deliberative democracy in China, the scholars can be categorized into four groups. The first group claims that deliberative democracy has been misinterpreted and that it does not exist. This view is best represented by Jin and Yao (2010, pp. 126-38) who emphasise the difference between consultation and deliberation. To support their views, they highlighted the history of the CCP and argued that xieshang has been understood as consultation and the relevant institutional arrangements reflect that fact. Nevertheless, although they recognise that in Chinese context, deliberative democracy was misinterpreted with a misleading translation, they did not think that Chinese speakers should use another translation. In their view, using xieshang minzhu to translate deliberative democracy caused an accidental marriage between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy. Even though they disagreed with using xieshang minzhu to translate deliberative democracy, they recognised that consultation in China and deliberation in a Western context share some commonalities. These commonalities could be found in the CCP's tradition of multi-party cooperation and institutions of political consultation. Elements such as reaching consensus through xieshang can act as the shared commonalities in bridging the gap between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy (Jin & Yao 2010, p. 137).
Once the idea of deliberative democracy is viewed as something not from China, a distinction between xieshang minzhu in China and deliberative democracy in the Western context can be made. This distinction continues to persist among Chinese scholars and is expressed in various ways. In Jin and Yao’s view, they think ‘it is impossible to reform and construct China’s democratic model according to the basic model of deliberative democracy in the West (Jin & Yao 2010, p. 137)61.’ What they expect to do is to creatively reinterpret the idea of xieshang in Chinese history and develop a Chinese version of deliberation that is inspired by deliberative democracy.
Jin & Yao highlight China's tradition of consultation and deliberation in the context of xieshang. A number of other Chinese scholars have echoed their view, and a similar opinion can be seen in the writings of Lin Shangli (林尚立), the Vice President of Fudan University
61 The original text is here:以西方审议(协商)民主为基本模式来改造和构建中国的民主模式，显然是做不 到的
151 and Executive Associate Dean of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. He noted that:
Deliberation/consultation (Xieshang,协商) is the endogenous element in China's democratic growth. In the beginning, its mission and focus were different from the theory of deliberative democracy that emerged in the 1980s. Xieshang is came into use for making democracy adaptable and rooted in Chinese society; while the latter appeared for the sake of saving Western democracy and 'making democracy more democratic'62 (Lin 2007, p. 17).
The intention of Lin’s paper is to argue that the CCP has a long and rich tradition of consultation/deliberation. In Lin's view, if China can build on the concept and practice of xieshang and establish China's deliberative politics, China can create a democratic political system with Chinese characteristics. However, the original text is written in Chinese and does not mention the distinction between consultation and deliberation in English. As a result, Lin's writing blurs the distinction and interprets the two terms as having the same meaning in Chinese. When Lin equates consultation and deliberation, it becomes hard to tell whether reinterpretation of xieshang is a Chinese version of deliberation or consultation.
Lin equates deliberative democracy in China with China's political practice of consultation or xieshang. His view is widely held by many other scholars, including those who form the second group of researchers on deliberative democracy in China. These scholars focus on China's deliberative politics, which is a Chinese tradition of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the CCP's leadership. For them, the Western concept of deliberative democracy is a way to help them recognize that China has its own history of deliberation.
These scholars believe that China's model of developing deliberative democracy is to take Chinese political traditions as the core and selectively choose the relevant parts from deliberative democracy in the West. A similar view can be seen in the works of Jiagang Chen (陈家刚), a prominent researcher at the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau (CCTB,
62 The English translation is done by me, and the original text is here: 协商是中国民主成长的内生要素，其 使命一开始就与 20 世纪 80 年代末兴起的协商民主理论关注的协商民主不同，前者是为了使民主适应并 札根于中国社会而产生的，后者是为了救治现代西方民主、「使民主变得更民主」而产生的。
152 中共中央编译局. In his paper, he highlighted the common mentality among Chinese scholars: 63
About our political development, the value of deliberative democracy is that we can take it as a reference and borrow some values and ideas, some institutional elements, and some methods to enrich and perfect democratic politics with Chinese characteristics. Learning from, and transplanting ideas from other systems does not mean mechanically and simply copying them (Chen 2008, p. 16).
Chen's academic career has been built on the systematic introduction of deliberative democracy into China. Although the discussion on deliberative democracy has somehow deviated from Chen’s original concept, Chen and other scholars have attempted to pick up ideas and arguments that are regarded as beneficial in developing an endogenous tradition of political deliberation in China. Moreover, the idea of “do not simply copy (Chen 2008, p. 16)” echoes the official interpretations of deliberative democracy discussed in Chapter Five. This effort on the part of the Chinese scholars not only confirms the attempt to differentiate China from the West but also creates a filter to empower the Chinese side on what to adopt and what to refuse.
Similar to its expression in official documents, this way of relating deliberative democracy to xieshang minzhu is an operation of exception. On the one hand, the existence of endogenous elements in China is continuously emphasised. On the other hand, the protestations that China does not “simply copy (Chen 2008, p. 16)” deliberative democracy indicates that deliberative democracy has been included in the form of exclusion. In the view of Chinese scholars, political xieshang , which is consultation is this context, is always referred to in relation to the CPPCC, the NPC, and other political institutions. The existence of this exceptional tradition and institutions is not the same as the Western political systems and the following development of deliberative democracy. By appropriating useful ideas in deliberative democracy, they can use some elements to reform these political institutions. As long as reforms to these political institutions are successful, these experiences can be extended to deliberation in society.
63 The original text is here: 对于我国的政治发展来说，协商民主的价值在于我们可以借鉴其中的某些价值 观念、某些制度要素、某些方法来丰富和完善中国特色的民主政治。制度的学习、借鉴和移植不是简单 的照搬照抄。
153 By contrast, the third group of scholars holds the view that deliberative democracy in China only exists in civil society and grass-root organizations, so it should not be mixed with Chinese traditions of political consultation. Shengyong Chen (陈剩勇), from Zhejiang University, who has conducted extensive research on the deliberative practices in Wenling and other cities in Zhejiang Province, is the representative of this group. He believes that, although there are certainly differences between deliberative traditions in China and the West, the common features of deliberative democracy in a Western context and in Chinese culture should be highlighted. In his paper on deliberative democracy theory and China, he wrote:
The emphasis on pluralistic coexistence and development between competing interest in Confucianism, to a certain degree, corresponds with the nature of the basic spirit of modern-day democratic politics64 (Chen 2005, p. 30).
By focusing on the commonality between China and the West, Chen applies theories of deliberative democracy to China's local deliberative practices. Chen examined deliberative practices at the local level under the cooperation of local government and citizens from the civil society. These small-scale deliberative mechanisms prevailing in local townships and villages emerge into what Jane Mansbridge calls a ‘deliberative system’ (Mansbridge 1999), which can influence a deeper reform of political institutions.
However, since Chen views Chinese society as dominated by the state and suffering from a lack of democratic traditions, it is not feasible to create an autonomous civil society that can compete with the state. What is only possible is to increase cooperation between local government and society in a bid to make it a better governance. Under the situation where Chinese society has been dominated by the state, it is the party-state leading the cooperation rather than the other way around.
Echoing the deliberative practices prevailing in society, the fourth group takes up the state- society division and stresses that deliberative democracy can be seen in different aspects of the state and society. They do not purposively differentiate between deliberation in China and the West. On the contrary, they maintain that China has already fulfilled the conditions for
64 The original text is here: 儒家对利益主体多元共存和发展的强调，与现代民主政治的基本精神在某种程 度上具有一定的契合性。
154 developing and constructing deliberative democracy. Mu & Xiong, for example, explain China's current situation in the following way:
Since the policy of reform and openness, some characteristics and trends have emerged during the development of Chinese democratic politics. Developments on the economy, society, culture, technology and other fields have already laid the foundation to cultivate and construct deliberative democracy (Mu & Xiong 2007, pp. 36-7). 65
According to them, xieshang and deliberation mean the same thing. The distinction that needs to be made is not between China and the West but the deliberation happening at the state and social levels. Deliberations occur at different levels, and what scholars like Mu and Xiong plan to cultivate is cooperation between deliberation at the state level and deliberation at the social level. Again, when Chinese society is dominated by the state, what kind of cooperation would that be? Moreover, when xieshang is equated with deliberation without mentioning the confusion between deliberation and consultation in Chinese translation, what would xieshang minzhu actually mean?
6.3 The Content of Xieshang Minzhu in China
Generally speaking, Chinese scholars are conscious of the difference between Western theory and the Chinese context. They are also aware of the theory of deliberative democracy and China’s xieshang mizhu are not entirely compatible. However, these debates swayed in the same direction that China has its own tradition of xieshang minzhu though it is unclear whether xieshang minzhu as an idea of democracy takes the form of consultation or deliberation. Neither was there consensus among scholars on the content of xieshang minzhu, nor the same opinions about how to establish a theory of xieshang minzhu. One point on which most Chinese scholars agree is that the conditions of culture, historical development, and political system in China are very different to where the theory of deliberative democracy stemmed from.
65 The original text is here:改革开放以来，中国民主政治的发展历程已呈现出协商民主的某些特征和趋势。 经济、社会、文化科技等方面已经具有了发育和建构协商民主的基础。
155 Faced with the confusion between consultation and deliberation due to the translation of xieshang, Huosheng Tan (2012), a prominent professor at Tsinghua University, is openly against translating deliberative democracy as xieshang minzhu because he understands the confusion brought by the translation. However, after xieshang minzhu became the most commonly accepted and officially appointed translation, he suggested that Chinese scholars should view the issue of xieshang minzhu in a new way that he calls ‘embedded development’ (Tan 2012, p. 93; 2013, p. 165).
In Tan’s view, the idea of ‘embedded development’ is designed to recognize the fact that deliberative democracy is entirely a foreign idea, and its introduction is a process of adapting this foreign idea into the Chinese context. Just like transplanting foreign trees or seeds in a new continent, Chinese scholars should find the linking points between deliberative democracy and the Chinese context. By doing so, some dormant values, systems, culture, or institutions can be activated because of the introduction of a foreign idea like deliberative democracy. As long as the given elements in the Chinese context have been activated owing to the introduction of deliberative democracy, the subsequent institutionalization can lead to further dissemination and development. Ideally, an incremental systemic change through embedded development should occur (Tan 2012, pp. 93-5; 2013, pp. 165-70).
Tan uses the experiment in Wenling to illustrate the process of embedded development. The success of Wenling’s ‘Democratic Talk with All Sincerity’ is to use the theory of deliberative democracy to activate the given institutions in the local political system, and Wenling’s deliberative experiment has gradually moved on to the path of institutionalization. However, Tan points out that reforms or experiments, such as those in Wenling, are dominated by the local government. The government-led experiments have caused some doubts: is it a realization of deliberation or another form of domination? Many Chinese scholars have cast similar doubts (Lang 2009). In Tan’s opinion, we should face the truth that in China, having a government-led deliberation is unavoidable for the embedded development of deliberative democracy. What we need to observe is whether the plantation of deliberative democracy into the Chinese context can create a change from an authoritarian deliberation to governance through cooperation-deliberation. (Tan, 2012: 94-100)
Although Tan’s opinions cannot represent that of most Chinese scholars, his idea encapsulate the debate over the past decade. Tan’s perspective reconciles the question of translation and the question of whether China’s political system possesses the characteristics of deliberative
156 democracy. Questions such as ‘Are xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy the same thing?’ or ‘Is xieshang consultation or deliberation? do not seem to bother Chinese scholars any more. They concur that deliberative democracy is not an idea that stemmed from the Chinese context. By using ‘xieshang minzhu in the West’ (Zhang & Wu 2006; Han 2008), they identify it as deliberative democracy, which is something foreign but may be useful to them.
Although Chinese scholars generally ignore the question of translation, the issue continues to exist. It is clear that ‘xieshang minzhu in the West’ specifically denotes deliberative democracy. When they use xieshang minzhu, the term becomes a mix of deliberative democracy and something drawn from China’s political tradition. This mix makes xieshang minzhu appear vague and ambiguous. Interestingly, this lack of distinction and ambiguity do not cause problems to Chinese scholars but give them space to reform and recreate the meaning of xieshang minzhu. Given these circumstances, xieshang minzhu is not a translation but works as a form of deliberative democracy in China. It bridges these two meanings that arose from two different contexts, albeit in an unstable fashion. Each time when xieshang minzhu is used, it inevitably brings out the conditions in the two contexts and recreates a new meaning in the process of signification.
This explains why Chinese scholars are inclined to emphasize how the Chinese context is different from that of the West and focused on locating elements that can help them establish a theory of xieshang minzhu with their own path and development. Without fusing deliberative democracy into xieshang minzhu, xieshang minzhu was not a popular idea that Chinese scholars would pay attention to. Only by using xieshang minzhu as the medium to incorporate a foreign idea, can they reinterpret xieshang minzhu and link it to the Western context.
Nevertheless, the reinterpretation of xieshang minzhu is an ongoing and unsettled process. The reinterpretation takes into consideration related historical events, institutions, and cultural values. Some of them are agreed among scholars whereas others are debatable. The following section will provide a more detailed demonstration of how these discussions are conducted.
157 6.4 The ‘Rediscovery’ of the CPPCC & Beyond
Once the translation of deliberative democracy and the political tradition of the CPPCC in the CCP’s history share the same Chinese characters, most scholars recognize that the historical development of xieshang minzhu should include the two political consultative conferences held in 1946 and 1949. In the history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), both conferences are crucial because they marked the recognition of the CCP as the legitimate party in China and established its ruling position. The political consultative conference of 1946 is usually referred to as the Old CPPCC, because it was held by the Nationalist Party (or KMT), the CCP and other democratic parties. The conference was originally held in January 1946 in Chongqing. One of important outcomes was for all the parties to form a coalition government after World War II.
However, the Nationalist Party did not trust the CCP and was reluctant to follow the agreement, so the failure of the conference led to a civil war between the Nationalist Party and the CCP. At the end of 1948, when the CCP controlled most of the territory in the mainland, Mao Zedong called for another political consultative conference with other democratic parties (except for the Nationalist Party) to talk about forming a new coalition government. The CPPCC session held in September 1949 became known as the New CPPCC. The New CPPCC is much more important in the history of the CCP for the following reasons. First, at this conference, the CCP was officially recognized as the ruling party of China with the participation and support from other so-called democratic parties, which did not include the KMT. Moreover, the other achievement of this conference was that it approved a document called ‘the Common Programme (中国人民政治协商会议共同纲领).’ This document was regarded as the interim constitution during the founding period of the People’s Republic of China until 1954.
According to Chinese scholars, these two meetings represent the essence of xieshang minzhu because both conferences invited all democratic parties. Each party was recognized as an equal subject with a free and equal voice to discuss the constitutional essentials (Li 2015). The result showed, argued these scholars, that the Chinese people could reach a consensus with rational discussions, and this historical experience corresponds with some core ideas of deliberative democracy such as rational deliberation by free and equal citizens to reach an agreement on important issues (Chen 2014). The two historical conferences were the
158 precursors to the current institution of the CPPCC, which assumed its present consultative role in 1954 after the new constitution of the PRC created the NPC as the new legislative. The CPPCC’s role is to allow representatives from the CCP and other democratic parties to participate in public affairs, monitor the government, and offer political consultation (CPPCC 1995).66
For Chinese scholars, introducing deliberative democracy is not just helping rediscovering xieshang minzhu related to the political tradition of the CPPCC, but also making them realise that they do not need to limit xieshang minzhu to the CPPCC. The idea of xieshang can be extended everywhere as xieshang is a common Chinese term. However, each expansion has resulted in confusion and triggered more debates. For example, Chinese scholars, such as Weiping Qi and Peng Chen (2008), maintain that the long history of the CCP’s victory in the revolution and success in ruling China has proved that xieshang politics is the most fundamental feature of Chinese politics (Qi and Chen 2008, 15).
In Qi and Chen’s views (2008), xieshang politics should not equate to the Western notion of deliberative democracy. Nor should it be equivalent to the CPPCC because the CPPCC is only one part of China’s xieshang politics. Consequently, xieshang becomes the core of Chinese politics. Everything can be included in the realm of xieshang, and terms are invented in order to tackle the issues as xieshang has infiltrated every socio-political aspect, such as political xieshang, social xieshang, inner-party xieshang, local xieshang, etc (Qi and Chen 2008, 15–16). Each term relates to a different aspect.
Qi and Chen are not the only Chinese scholars to elaborate on the meaning and scope of xieshang. Ning Fang, a prominent Chinese scholar in political science67, summarizes that China’s xieshang minzhu has three forms: political xieshang, administrative xieshang, and local xieshang (Fang 2013, 173–174). These three forms constitute a broader governance system comprising of the party, the state, society, and citizens (Fang 2013, 173–174). Although scholars propose their idea about how to classify xieshang in different areas, none of them can become the authoritative voice as the official definition still relies on the idea
66 This is only to explain the role of the CPPCC in theory. Nevertheless, in reality, the CPPCC has not been able to run its full function. Many critics believe the CPPCC is just a decoration showing the existence of other democratic parties in China. Other critics constructively suggest that the real function of the CPPCC should be reactivated in order to rebuild China as a democratic regime according to its original design in constitution.
67 Ning Fang is also viewed as an intellectual defending the legitimacy of the CCP rule.
159 proposed by the central government. As I have discussed in Chapter Five, in early 2015, the Central Committee document (tCC 2015a) categorizes seven types of xieshang that the members in the Party-state system should follow to enhance the establishment of socialist xieshang minzhu68.
Enumerating the different ways of classifying xieshang is not to justify or declare which version is the correct one. The intention is to showcase the fact that the meaning of xieshang in the Chinese context has been broadened and redefined after the introduction of deliberative democracy. With xieshang being broadened from the CPPCC to other areas, the idea of xieshang has been transmitted to various aspects of Chinese politics and society. Different classifications indicate that the meaning of xieshang has since changed but not totally settled. The ongoing process of signification can be seen through a constant readjustment and repositioning of xieshang between the Chinese political systems and Western theory. In the renegotiation between Chinese political tradition and Western theory, another issue has also emerged in scholarly discussions. This is the role of traditional culture and its connection to xieshang, regardless of whether it is deliberation or consultation.
6.5 Electoral Democracy & Deliberative Democracy
Apart from various topics mentioned above, the issue of relating xieshang with elections is the most challenging question brought forth by the introduction of deliberative democracy. While this question is not so problematic in the Western context, it has resulted in a lively debate among Chinese scholars. Nonetheless, this debate in China not only exposes the limits of deliberative democracy but also challenges our expectation of incorporating deliberative democracy into the representative mechanism.
If liberal democracy is understood as having the elements of regular elections with fair competition, the rule of law, and the separation of powers, then modern China, strictly speaking, does not have any tradition of liberalism or liberal democracy69. This lack of liberal
68 In addition, the seven types of xieshang are Party xieshang, People’s Congress xieshang, the CPPCC xieshang, People’s groups xieshang, Local xieshang, Social Organization xieshang (政党协商、人大协商、政府协商、 政协协商、人民团体协商、基层协商、社会组织协商)
69 The lack of a liberal tradition does not mean that Chinese scholars know nothing about liberalism or liberal democracy. In terms of translation, most of the works of liberal thinkers, regardless of whether they are modern or contemporary, have Chinese translations. Also, their works are easy to purchase and circulate. In terms of research, scholars have never lost interest in reading and studying liberal thinkers’ works and thoughts.
160 tradition and the fact that the CCP government refuses to adopt liberal democracy constitute the biggest difficulty in incorporating deliberative democracy into China’s political system. Whereas the emergence of deliberative democracy was to go beyond the challenges that liberal democracy (or representative democracy) faced, introducing deliberative democracy into China serves a different purpose. By clutching the idea of “going beyond,” what Chinese government and scholars see was an opportunity to develop a version of democracy that can be detached from election and skip any necessary step to follow the path of liberal democracy.
For liberal scholars in China, the development of deliberative democracy would be similar to the introduction of a market economy. The introduction of market forces since 1978 has promoted the liberalization of China’s economy, society, and politics. For the same reason, it was predicted that the implementation of deliberation in China could become an unstoppable force in fostering favourable conditions for democratization. For party intellectuals, rediscovering xieshang minzhu serves as an opportunity for China to create its own discourses of democracy that may not be necessarily associated with elections. Once xieshang minzhu is detached from electoral democracy, deepening political reform through elections may not be necessary. Therefore, reinventing xieshang minzhu through the introduction of deliberative democracy works both ways. On one hand, there are expectations about the possibility of deliberative democracy changing or reforming xieshang minzhu. On the other hand, the re-interpretation of xieshang minzhu is a strategic move to gain discursive hegemony on democracy.
However, liberal scholars and party intellectuals are neither mutually exclusive nor polarized groups. Scholars’ opinions and positions are always changing in China. Their only commonality is to admit that the Chinese political system is different from the Western liberal democracy. In my interaction with the interviewees, liberal democracy refers to terms such as representative democracy, parliamentary democracy, competitive democracy and
Nevertheless, at the official level, the CCP government repeatedly announces that they would not copy the western style of democracy, which is the dominant form of liberal democracy. It is for these reasons it is argued here that modern China lacks the tradition of liberal democracy because the CCP does not run its political system according to the influence of liberal democracy. Furthermore, this official attitude has discouraged or even forbidden studies related to liberalism.
161 electoral democracy interchangeably. 70 These terms are slightly different, but they often overlap.
While deliberative democracy grew on the soil of liberal democracy, election and deliberation are not oppositional elements in a democratic system. In the Western context, some theorists of deliberative democracy would argue that deliberation is the most fundamental principle in any given form of liberal democracy (Dryzek 2002). However, in China, depending on the different political stances, xieshang minzhu and electoral democracy are viewed as separable parts or even oppositional forms of democracy due to the absence of independently organised, extensive, and successful elections. Hence, Chinese scholars tend to concentrate their debates on two related questions. The first is how to situate xieshang minzhu, deliberative democracy, and electoral democracy in the Chinese context in order to create the Chinese theory of democracy. The second question is how the Chinese version of democracy can be developed.
The form of democracy, electoral or xieshang minzhu, and which form deserves more attention or enjoys a higher priority, is intensely debated in Chinese academia. This debate can be divided into two groups. The first group claimed that deliberative democracy is a substitute for competitive democracy, and it should not be mixed up with xieshang minzhu (Chen 2004; Zhang & Wu 2006, 2010). In their view, xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy are like to two cars running in two separate lanes. Each of them has a unique history of development. This means they are not intersecting with each other. Therefore, in their view, directly applying deliberative democracy in the Chinese context or assuming that China’s political tradition of the CPPCC already has corresponding elements, would be a misunderstanding. For example, Zhang and Wu (2006) content that:
Whether it is deliberative democracy or deliberative politics, to some extent, they are emphasised as the substitute for competitive politics and understood as a new form of political development in contemporary democracy (Zhang & Wu 2006, p. 66).71
70 In the Chinese context, Chinese scholars use electoral democracy from time to time to denote either liberal democracy or the form of democracy that is recognized as the official language. In my interviews, scholars often do not make it very clear about what electoral democracy means.
71 The original text is here: 无论是协商民主还是协商政治，在一定程度上都是作为竞争政治的替代品来强 调的，作为当代民主政治发展的新形式来认识的。
162 On the one hand, they claim that deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu are new forms of democracy and they are also against using deliberative democracy to reinterpret xieshang minzhu and China’s democratic development. On the other hand, they attempt to argue that China’s political tradition as unique and exceptional, and xieshang minzhu is not limited to the CPPCC. Zhang and Wu argue that this exceptionality is what makes China’s democracy special. Although they are against the idea of using deliberative democracy to reform Chinese politics, this position does not prevent them from learning what deliberative democracy is. Eventually, they come to a similar conclusion that the establishment of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics needs to borrow some elements from deliberative democracy rather than directly copying Western political ideas (Zhang & Wu 2006, p. 68). That is to say, this group of scholars pays attention to China’s own resources of xieshang minzhu. They maintain that China needs to establish its own path, and the uniqueness of China’s xieshang minzhu is more advanced than deliberative democracy. The advancement here refers to the official discourse of xieshang minzhu. This official discourse repeatedly refers to the multi- party cooperation under CCP’s leadership, which has been gradually established during the revolutionary and post-revolutionary eras. By appropriating the official language to defend its uniqueness, the underlying idea is that xieshang minzhu can potentially be a replacement for both competitive democracy and deliberative democracy.72
Jiagang Chen also has a similar interpretation of deliberative democracy and its relation to xieshang minzhu. In his interpretation, deliberative democracy is a replacement of competitive democracy (Chen 2004, 2014). He thinks “deliberative democracy is an improvement over and even better than indirect democracy, representative democracy, and cyber democracy” (Chen 2014, p. 93).73 In an introduction to deliberative democracy for Chinese readers, he wrote:
72 The competitive democracy here can be replaced with other interchangeable form of similar expressions such as representative democracy, liberal democracy, and electoral democracy.
73 The English translation is by the author, and the original text is here: 协商民主是对间接民主、代议民主和 远程民主的完善和超越。
163 Deliberative democracy has become the universal substitute for the model of democracy that emphasises individuality, competition, and aggregation74 (Chen 2004, p. 29).
In his works, Chen often treats deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu as two distinctive ideas. The only connection is that xieshang minzhu is the translation of deliberative democracy, but they are not equivalent. To differentiate thee two, Chen, like many other Chinese scholars, compares China with the West. Nonetheless, differentiating China from the West disguises the possibility that deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu are two incomparable and incommensurable ideas. In the Chinese context, stressing the advancement and uniqueness of xieshang minzhu is achieved by contrasting it with deliberative democracy.
In addition to the idea of substitute discussed above, some Chinese scholars have proposed the idea of supplement. Although their ideas appear similar, the difference of this group of scholars lies in their claim that xieshang is more fundamental and essential then deliberation. In their view, deliberative democracy is only a supplementary form of electoral democracy but xieshang minzhu is not. Xieshang is not only different from deliberation in the Western sense but also more advanced. What should be noted is how and without any evidence these Chinese scholars justify their claim. Their claims often lack a solid empirical basis. To justify their claim, they reiterate the achievements that the CCP has made throughout the revolutionary period and the post-revolutionary era. Another way to support their claim is to emphasise the uniqueness of Chinese culture and traditions. In a paragraph analysing the difference between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy, Fang Ning, the director of Political Science Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences writes:
74The original text is here: 协商民主已经成为那些强调个性、竞争和聚合民主模式的普遍替代。
164 Obviously, due to differences in conditions and environment, essential differences lie in the state of development. There is a huge difference between the deliberative democracy of China’s xieshang minzhu and that of Western scholars, including its limited existence in practice. The main difference can be seen in the aspect that … deliberative democracy in the West is the “supplement” whereas in China xieshang minzhu is the “focus.75” (Fang 2013, pp. 181-2)
Fang Ning is not the only one who holds this view. In my interviews with Chinese scholars, some also expressed similar opinions. In their view, xieshang in China is more fundamental and coherent than deliberative democracy in the Western context. From this perspective, xieshang minzhu is an idea that is totally different from Western electoral democracy, regardless of whether it is understood as liberal democracy or for official use. The strategy is to stress on xieshang at the provincial and central levels, and when interactions are between the CCP leaders (inner-Party deliberation) or between the CCP leaders and leaders from democratic parties (the CPPCC tradition). By contrast, local experiments with deliberative meetings, which are most directly related to deliberative democracy in the Western context, have been marginalized as one form of China’s xieshang minzhu that has little influence on China’s political landscape (Personal Interview 015 2015).
Whether deliberative democracy is viewed as a substitute or supplement, both groups try to differentiate xieshang minzhu from deliberative democracy. This differentiation implies that China has a unique history of xieshang minzhu that cannot be compared with the theory of deliberative democracy in the West. By claiming its exceptionality and uniqueness, this strategy connects xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy but also separates them. Also, deliberative democracy is included in a form of exclusion as xieshang minzhu only borrows useful and beneficial elements from the former.
In one of my interviews with a Chinese scholar, when I asked how this scholar viewed the connection between electoral democracy and xieshang minzhu, he gave three possibilities (Personal Interview 001 2015): Firstly, electoral democracy comes first followed by xieshang minzhu; secondly, xieshang minzhu comes first followed by electoral democracy
75 The original text is here: 显而易见，由于条件、环境不同，发展的状态也有本质区别。中国协商民主与 西方学者倡导的以及在实践中有限存在的协商民主，具有很大的差异性，主要表现在...西方为「补充」， 中国为「重点」。
165 due to the socio-political change brought by xieshang; and thirdly, xieshang minzhu and electoral democracy should be implemented at the same time to see the mutual influence on each other. This scholar has also strategically mapped out how these two forms of democracy may develop. However, the meanings of xieshang minzhu and electoral democracy remain relatively ambiguous.
There are two reasons for this ambiguity. First, xieshang minzhu is not clearly distinguished from deliberative democracy, so we are not clear what kind of xieshang minzhu is being referred to. At the local level, xieshang minzhu may be the adapted form of deliberative democracy. It can also be the reinvented tradition of the CPPCC that aims to achieve a more centralized, elite-oriented form of xieshang at the central and provincial levels. It can also be a mix of both. Moreover, the idea of electoral democracy is unclear because it is not clearly stated whether electoral democracy can be equivalent to liberal democracy, the implementation of elections, or the official CCP interpretation of electoral democracy.76 In this context, electoral democracy referred to village elections in China held since the early 1980s. Electoral democracy can also mean the top-down political reform that holds elections at different levels as the centre of reform. Even so, electoral democracy can be envisioned as a complete reform of China’s political system according to the ideal of liberal democracy, including regular and fair elections with multi-party competition, the rule of law, as well as separation of powers with checks and balances.
76 Elections in liberal democracy often refer to regularised practices to openly select representatives at different levels (city councillors or members of parliament) or choose leaders at different levels (mayors or the president). Therefore, elections are based on fair competition and campaign among candidates to win the majority votes. By contrast, elections in China do not follow that pattern, and what it means to have an election in China is not entirely clear. Since 1981, the central government has introduced and experimented with village elections across many regions in China. Nevertheless, as the local government controls the process of nomination, not every villager can have an equal chance to be a candidate. Eventually, the one who can get elected is usually the party cadre or the local elite. Furthermore, as village elections were run in the form of experimentation, how villages run their elections vary from place to place. For this reason, village elections have become formalised practices without any potential for democratic transition. Similar to village elections, in urban areas, community elections are also run regularly although community elections face similar issues. Apart from village elections and community elections, residents can directly select representatives of the People’s Congress at the township and county levels (or some small prefecture level cities), but the situation is basically the same as village elections. Beyond elections mentioned above, no open elections are held to choose heads of government at different levels and representatives of the People’s Congress above the city level (the capital, provincial, and national levels). In addition, as the Chinese government does not set elections as its future goal for the political reform nor invest many resources on elections, officials, scholars, and ordinary people have very little incentive or passion to talk about elections or deepen any reform related to elections. For further information about the study of village elections in China, please refer to the works of Kevin O’brien and Lianjian Li (2000), Baogang He (2007), Tianjian Shi (1999), and so forth.
166 Consequently, by rendering the meanings of xieshang minzhu and electoral democracy vague and ambivalent, the strategies for developing deliberative democracy can be unfolded in many ways without contradicting the Party line. Under these conditions, the election is dissociated and detached from xieshang, regardless of whether it is translated as deliberation or consultation. Moreover, by positioning deliberative democracy as an alternative, this interpretation is made compatible with substitution and supplement (or at least not mutually exclusive) because the alternative can be both the replacement and supplement. After the idea of the third group of scholars presented on how to interpret deliberative democracy are presented, discussion of the three groups merges toward the same direction that xieshang minzhu is different from deliberative democracy. As for the strategies for development, scholars have different emphases depending on which part is essential from their perspective.
To illustrate the above scenario, I will include the observation made by an interviewee here. Under the current system, the interviewee stated that it is impossible to develop or expect electoral democracy (Personal Interview 015 2015). Therefore, developing xieshang minzhu in China would be like cultivating possible conditions for the future arrival of democratization. Other scholars also stress that developing xieshang minzhu in China is a dubious way of delaying democratic transition or blocking the possibility of implementing or developing deliberative democracy. They hold a more skeptical view of central government’s recognition of xieshang minzhu.
For the consumption of officials, some might follow the party line and state that in China’s context, xieshang minzhu is not contradictory to electoral democracy (Personal Interview 040 2015). Echoing the official line, they claim that Wenling’s experiment is an organic combination of xieshang minzhu and electoral democracy. As mentioned in Chapter Five, the expression “an organic combination” was stated in the 2006 document of the Central Committee of the CCP77 and the White Paper in 200778. By harking back to the official documents, local officials and scholars attempt to clarify and support three points: One, xieshang minzhu has been confirmed as China’s form of democracy; two, xieshang minzhu and electoral democracy are officially recognized; and third, the Chinese version of socialist democracy is the organic combination of xieshang minzhu and electoral democracy.
77 (“中共中央关于加强人民政协工作的意见（摘要）” 2015)
78 (“《中国的政党制度》--中国共产党新闻--中国共产党新闻网” 2015)
167 In the Chinese context, the use of the documents issued by the Central Committee of the CCP is a gesture of appropriating authority to support ideas that are deemed politically correct. Hence, the documents issued by the Central Committee of the CCP become the basis for making the existence and recognition of xieshang minzhu in China. Nevertheless, the deeper the development of xieshang minzhu in China, the more this idea seems to turn into a strange thing, which although originating from deliberative democracy has grown into something quite different from the theory of deliberative democracy in general. When Chinese scholars note that deliberative democracy in the Western context is a substitute, supplement or alternative, the rediscovery and development of xieshang minzhu shows itself, in reverse, as a supplement to deliberative democracy.
6.6 Xieshang: The ‘Dangerous’ Supplement…
A common argument is sometimes put in the following way in China: each country has its own unique culture, so China would not directly copy or apply a Western idea into China. The operation of this argument is a gesture of taking control and power of interpretation. When deliberative democracy was translated as xieshang minzhu, Chinese scholars invented a Chinese idea with cultural particularism. However, this cultural particularism is not without any universal aspect. Rather than treating universality as a fixed and normative idea, Chinese scholars tend to view universality as an arena of hegemony. Consequently, they treat the discourse of deliberative democracy as having a hegemonic effect, and xieshang minzhu as not just a defensive idea with cultural particularism. When universality is an arena of hegemony, Chinese discourses on xieshang minzhu fight for the hegemonic position. This also explains why the discussion of deliberative democracy in China has the tendency to mix the normative and the empirical, and the discussion is always surrounded by the imperative to build xieshang minzhu with Chinese and socialist characteristics. The belief that the Chinese scholars have is that they can export their cultural influence to the world, so xieshang minzhu can potentially go beyond China to demonstrate China’s soft power.
As discussed in this section, xieshang minzhu serves as a supplement to deliberative democracy. One the one hand, Chinese scholar have repeatedly expressed that xieshang minzhu is different from deliberative democracy. On the other hand, using xieshang minzhu as the translation make the two terms inseparable. In the Chinese context, although it is understood that xieshang minzhu draws heavily on deliberative democracy, Chinese scholars
168 refuse to recognize that the two ideas are similar. The officials never admit the connections between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy. Xieshang minzhu as a supplement exposes this binary split between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy and further illustrates that these two concepts are inseparable.
Apart from the split on the use of xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy in China, another division exists between the idea of deliberation and democracy. Before deliberative democracy was brought to public attention in China, deliberation was tied to democracy in the way that democracy is grounded in the idea of deliberation. The case of China challenges this assumption and shows the possibility that an authoritarian regime can also adopt deliberation. In this way, scholars are forced to ponder about the separation of deliberation from democracy, but this separation does not exhaust the potential power of deliberation. This is also why John Dryzek (2009) attempts to treat deliberation as a capacity and envision deliberation to hold a more profound power when it is dissociated from democracy. He writes:
In a deliberative light, the more authentic, inclusive, and consequential political deliberation is, the more democratic a political system is (Dryzek 2009, 1380).
Thus, deliberation is not equivalent to democracy, but it is in a sense more ‘democratic’ than democracy. For a similar reason, Baogang He and Mark Warren (2011) not only dissociated deliberation from democracy but also established an ideal type of the authoritarian deliberation. Despite this, He and Warren envisioned deliberation as a driving force for deepening democratization, which is regarded as a more democratic force than democracy. They wrote:
If authoritarian elites increasingly depend upon deliberation as a source of legitimacy for their decisions, then it is also possible for the democratic empowerments to grow incrementally, driven in part by the fact that deliberation provides legitimacy only if it has the space and inclusiveness to generate influence. This kind of development would have the effect of layering new institutions over old ones for the purpose of enhancing their effectiveness, while also transforming their character in democratic directions. Deliberation might then serve as a leading edge of democratization… (He and Warren 2011, 283).
169 Their idea of deliberation corresponds to Dryzek’s deliberative democratic capacity (2009). In He and Warren’s views, deliberation is an empowering force driving democracy to be more democratic. Even though the authoritarian regime may take advantage of deliberation, an ideal and normative deliberation may serve as a force to break through the current regime, leading to democratization. However, the real issue here may not be between deliberation and democracy but rather, between deliberation and liberal democracy. In fact, when we say the dissociation of deliberation from democracy, this dissociated democracy referrs more specifically to liberal democracy. In relation to this, discussions in China have posed various issues, including what is being separated is the two forms of democracy—deliberative democracy and liberal democracy. The case study of China exposes this split and problematizes the relations between these two forms of democracy. Related questions remain: Are these two distinct or related forms of democracy? Which form of democracy should have the higher authority in claiming power?
These discussions in China are associated with another issue that has existed in the Western context. Almost every theorist of deliberative democracy supports the idea that a fair and regular system of elections would be the pre-condition for deliberative democracy. However, in China’s case, their version of deliberative democracy or xieshang minzhu seems to be able to exist without the precondition/existence of electoral democracy. A question thus emerges: Can deliberative democracy do without liberal democracy?
Finally, while scholars envisioned that this empowering force may trigger a political change in China’s authoritarian regime, for the purpose of this study, we may ask another question: Is it possible for China to redefine the theory of deliberative democracy by expanding the concept of xieshang? What will emerge if they succeed in redefining the discourses of deliberative democracy? The exceptionality that China’s example is embracing may be another paradigm for deliberative democracy, and its direction may push deliberation farther away from liberal democracy.
170 6.7 Concluding Remarks
Inspired by Agamben’s ideas of example and paradigm, I focus on the process of how deliberative democracy has been translated, understood and practiced in China. From this investigation, I found that before the idea of deliberative democracy was introduced to China, the term xieshang was generally understood and translated as ‘consultation’, but it acquired a new meaning—‘deliberation’ after the idea of deliberative democracy was introduced into China in the early 2000s.
Chinese scholars have established different positions on how to develop deliberative democracy in China and position xieshang minzhu in relation to deliberative democracy. This adjustment has made the meaning of xieshang swing between deliberation and consultation, and further caused a bigger split between China and the West. However, all of their differing viewpoints must work on the premise of the CCP's doctrine, which treats China's democratic form as 'the organic unification between Party's leadership, people as the master of this country, and the rule of law’.79
As deliberation becomes the goal for China’s political reform, established principles in liberal democracy, such as regular and fair elections with competition, the rule of law, the separation of powers with checks and balances, freedom of speech, human rights, and etc., are no longer part of the focus. In addition, Chinese scholars (Lang 2009; Tan 2012) also argued that the Party-State will always play the dominant role in realizing deliberative democracy regardless of which strategy is adopted. The development of xieshang minzhu must follow the framework given by the Party’s traditions and order.
The CCP's political doctrines have made the development of deliberative democracy in China different from its precedents in the United States and Europe. As Chinese scholars decided to use xieshang minzhu to translate deliberative democracy, they are adding elements that are not directly related to deliberative democracy in the Western context. Later when the CCP claimed that it wants to take xieshang as the first priority for political reform in the report of 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, it represented the move that the Party actively engaged with the interpretation of xieshang. This engagement largely influenced how deliberative democracy should be practiced and interpreted in Chinese
79 The original text is here: 党的领导、人民当家作主和依法治国三者有机统一.
171 context. Eventually, Chinese style of deliberation is not only adding new content and meaning to our understanding of deliberative democracy but also potentially redefining what deliberative democracy is. Redefining deliberative democracy in China’s own image will be a future challenge for both China's political reform and the scholarship on deliberative democracy in general.
172
173 Chapter 7 The Experimental Point as the Zone of Indistinction: The Exceptional Example of Wenling’s Experiment
7.1 Introduction
In this chapter, by using Agamben’s concepts of example and exception, I would like to analyse how deliberative democracy in Wenling serves as the experimental approach for political reform in China. The Wenling experiment is significant in that it influences how deliberative democracy develops in China. This chapter tries to demonstrate two main points. First, the example of Wenling’s deliberative experiment is not just an experimental point for political reform but also a tactic that creates a zone of indistinction. It also serves as an operation of exception. Second, as Wenling’s experiment is based on the operation of the exception, deliberative democracy in China is working on the suspension rather than the application of deliberative democracy.
To illustrate these points, this chapter will first introduce Agamben’s idea of the zone of indistinction in relation to his concepts of example and exception. Through the application of Agamben’s concept, I will demonstrate how Wenling functions as an experimental point for deliberative democracy and is situated in zones of indistinction, including a series of binary ideas such as the central and the local, the institution and the non-institution, consultation and deliberation, as well as authoritarianism and democracy. By showing how Wenling’s experiment exists in a liminal condition of indistinction, I will demonstrate how the development of deliberative democracy in China is effective through the suspension of deliberative democracy.
174 7.2 The Zone of Indistinction & the Politics of Shidian
The modern state of exception is instead an attempt to include the exception itself within the juridical order by creating a zone of indistinction in which fact and law coincide. (Agamben 2005, p. 26)
In Agamben’s works, the “zone of indistinction” represents a liminal condition when exclusion and inclusion are indistinguishable. It is also the juncture where example and exception intersect. On the one hand, a zone of indistinction means this zone is excluded from the general rules and suspends the rules; on the other hand, the zone represents the rules by standing outside the rules and therefore including the rules by exclusion. That is to say, exclusion and abandonment constitute this liminal condition. The double intersections of exclusion and inclusion in relation to the general rules form the basic understanding of how exception works. When Agamben uses the general rules, they are presented in an abstract form to indicate multiple forms of rules. Consequently, the general rules are not just laws but cover a range of rules in various areas. Once the meanings are derived from the collision of facts and rules, the zone of indistinction becomes the site that generates meanings. Through the investigation of how the zone of indistinction works, the changes and formation of meanings could be revealed.
The zone of indistinction I would like to discuss is called “the experimental point (shidian, 试 点),” which is the name and unit for any political or economic experiment in China. The idea of “the experimental point (shidian, 试点)” has been extremely important since the policy of reform and opening up of China commenced in 1978. Economically, it corresponds to the idea of “special economic zone (SEZ)” extensively experimented in many places in China to help the Chinese economy fit into the global economic system. There are several SEZs in the coastal areas of China such as Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, Xiamen, and the most important and prominent example was Shenzhen, which had been transformed from a small fishing village to a metropolitan city with over 10 million people. Politically, apart from the Special Administrative Regions in Hong Kong and Macau, administrative reforms in other Chinese provinces and cities also follow a similar approach. This strategy is usually called the experimental approach for political reform.
175 For the Chinese political system, each experimental point, regardless of whether it is a political, economic, or administrative experiment, is always conducted in a specific administrative unit with clear boundaries. Furthermore, due to the nature of an experiment which means doing something new, different, and unique, each experimental point is unique and different, including differentiating itself from other administrative units. Such an experiment also deviates from the rules that the central government mandates. Therefore, every experimental point is an exception in relation to other administrative units and the central government.
By adopting the experimental approach for political reform, the local government can implement different strategies or policies, and scholars can bring new ideas or schools of thought from outside China through the role of consultation (Almén 2016). Hence, the experimental point embedded in the experimental approach for political reform becomes a zone where new ideas, new theories, or new policies may collide with the established system and the political culture. In the name of experiment, the collision creates a zone of intersected indistinction which is an exception to other administrative units, and this indistinction is what this chapter will like to engage in the discussion of political developments in China, particularly Wenling.
When a zone of indistinction is the creation of exception covered under the juridical order, the “experimental point (shidian, 试点)” suffices the conditions of being outside and inside the law at the same time in its operation. On the one hand, the experimental point being part of the political experiment represents the logic of political reform. On the other hand, this example creates a zone of exception which contains the development of deliberative democracy within this zone of indistinction. By containing deliberative democracy in the zone of indistinction, the example represents deliberative democracy in China, not only in the form of exception, but also according to the logic of political reform. As mentioned in Chapters Four, Five, and Six, the development of deliberative democracy in China works on the theory of suspension rather than application of deliberative democracy.
There are two reasons for situating deliberative democracy in China as the operation of exception. For studies on deliberative democracy, China is an unlikely place (Fishkin et al. 2010) and so it is regarded as an exception. The case of deliberative democracy in China is hard to categorise as a typical case of deliberative democracy because of the authoritarian
176 rule in China. Nevertheless, it is difficult to refute that Wenling’s case is an example of deliberative democracy as the case incorporated a broad range of participants and used dialogue and discussion in the process of decision making. Deliberative democracy in China therefore stays in a grey area so that it is hard to affirm or deny whether deliberative democracy can happen in China.
When the development of deliberative democracy runs according to the experimental approach for political reform, this political experiment created a form of exception by situating deliberative democracy as a form of exclusion. According to my study on the political experiment in Wenling, there is interaction between example and exception as well as the dynamics of political reform and deliberative democracy. The Wenling experiment thus exhibits manifold zones of indistinction and this is where Agamben’s concepts can contribute to our understanding of how this political experiment works on sets of binary divisions. In the next section, I will discuss these zones of indistinction in Wenling’s experiment. As Wenling’s experiment is not an isolated case, the exploration will provide us with a clearer context of how xieshang minzhu works.
7.3 Zone of Indistinction between the Central and the Local
When the discussion of deliberative democracy was brought to Wenling’s context, how and why it works does not lie in the application of the theory of deliberative democracy in the Western context. Instead, it relies on the logic of the experimental approach to political reform. By understanding this logic, we can comprehend how China’s experimental approach to political reform is also the operation of exception. In this section, I will use Wenling’s case to illustrate how the dynamics between the central and the local has created a zone of indistinction for each experiment site. Moreover, by demonstrating Wenling’s experiment as a zone of indistinction, I hope to analyse the characteristics behind this experimental approach to political reform in China through the operation of exception.
The reason for focusing on the ‘central’ and ‘local’ aspects is that the political experiment of Wenling is not solely a local product, nor is it a direct mandate from the central government. To be more precise, each experiment involves the dynamic interaction between the central and the local. The process of policy making from the central to local represents the development of policy making in China. At first, the central government would issue orders or guidance in the form of the Central Party Documents. The orders, opinions, and guidance
177 in the documents would become the basic framework of how the local government should follow. Conversely, the local government would seek inspiration of policy innovation by reading between the lines in the documents. By following these orders as the framework, the local government can conduct various kinds of experiments as long as they fall within the boundaries of the framework. The central government will then redefine strategies and orders according to the feedback sent by local governments. A successful policy may be expanded according to specific models, or with adjustments if not withdrawn or stalled. In Chinese terms, the process of policy-making that emerged from an experiment in a small city which eventually became a national policy is called “from point to surface (you dian dao mian, 由点 到面).” Sebastian Heilmann (2008a, 2008b; Heilmann et al. 2013) has a clear and concise explanation of this process:
The tried-and-tested novel approaches emerging from this process are integrated into national policies after further revision. Thus, the point-to-surface technique gives room to local officials to develop models on their own, while ultimate control over confirming, revising, terminating and spreading model experiments rests with top- level decision-maker.80 Importantly, the mode of experimentation practiced in the PRC is focussed on finding innovative policy instruments, rather than defining policy objectives, which remains the prerogative of the Party leadership. (Heilmann 2008a, pp. 2-3)
There are some points to take note of in Heilmann’s summary above. First, only top-level decision makers can decide which policy should be implemented and in what way. Second, the goals of experiments are aimed at policy instruments instead of objectives, so it corresponds to the fact that the likely institution that may emerge is always missing in the discourse of incremental reform through experimentation. Deng Xiaoping’s famous saying of “Crossing the river by feeling the stones” not only epitomises the spirit of reform and openness but also summarises the basic predicament of reform and openness. To put this metaphorically, many tools can be developed to cross the river but we never know what the other end of the river looks like. Objectives are missing, and the tools are the only certainty in the process of this experimental approach.
80 Emphasis added.
178 This background and logic of the experimental approach largely decides how the Wenling experiment will turn out. From the process of policy making in Wenling’s case, the beginning of Wenling’s experiment in Songmen Town was neither at the will of local leaders nor an imposed mandate from the top leaders. To be precise, it was a balance between following orders from the central government and using the order to solve the issue of local governance. Compliance with the given power structure was the main motivational force for this initial experiment (He 2010).
In the first experiment, the local officials changed the way they usually ran previous events. In the past, events were usually run in a one-way propaganda from the local leader in the name of “socialist education”. This time in 1999, under the name of “The Educational Forum for the Modernization of Rural Agriculture (农村农业现代化教育论坛)”, the local officials converted the event into a Q&A forum (Chen 2012c, p. 4). Its unexpected success attracted much attention from provincial level officials and scholars. The main reason for such massive attention was the way the local officials conducted this experiment. Its success was not only made possible by following the central government’s principles and guidelines but also the tradition of “linking closely with the masses (Tan 2012, p. 95)” 81 in the history of the PRC, which gives this initial experiment a stronger legitimacy (Tan 2012, pp. 92-9). A similar strategy was adopted in the following developments including unifying the similar practices into the same name as “the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity” in 2001, bringing the idea of deliberative democracy to Zeguo in 2005, and the adoption of participatory budgeting in 2005, etc. (He 2010). These developments were not simply the demonstration of the local leaders’ will. They are also the negotiation and balance between the central government’s policy and the local needs.
Therefore, from the analysis of the above scenario and the initial success of Wenling’s deliberative experiment, we can see that if the local government has the intention to conduct any experiment, they would need to make use of the central government’s principles, guidelines, policy, and regulations. The success of this experiment also arose by exploring the gap in the central government’s policy. The gap here means what is allowed or at least not prohibited by the central government. In other words, this gap is where the rules from the central government cannot apply. Such an experiment serves to bridge the gap by balancing
81 The original Chinese is: 密切联繫群众
179 between the central government’s policy and local needs. Eventually, due to the initial success in Songmen, the local officials in Wenling had stronger incentives to actively find possibilities in the central government’s policy to conduct experiments. By following the central government’s policy, they can conduct trials as long as they do not violate or contradict the central government’s policy. This concept of non-violation further forms a relationship between the central and the local.
First, it is also important to take note that the main drive for such local experiments comes from the support and encouragement of the central government. This encouragement comes in the form of an incentive for promotion and a chance to try out different mechanisms in order to solve the issues of local governance. By releasing documents and other extensions of legal documents, the Central Committee of the CCP provides the framework and orders to the delegated governments, from provincial to township governments, to conduct various kinds of experiments. The rule of thumb is that the mandates in the documents issued by the central government should not be violated, and under such conditions, local governments can do whatever they want. The eventual success will help local leaders in their promotion in future.
Linking promotion with political experiments does not mean any synergetic cooperation among different administrative units would easily happen. On the contrary, the logic of experimental approach is based on competition rather than cooperation. In order for an experiment to gain the recognition of the central government, the local government cannot merely copy or repeat other successful experiments. Instead, the strategy of having a unique and different experiment with success is crucial. This means that although leaders can learn from the experience of other cases, copying other models will not lead to either success or promotion. Every local leader needs to come up with a unique experiment. In cases when the experiments were not regarded as unique, local leaders had the tendency to deny similarities and repeatedly stress their difference and uniqueness. If political experiments are conducted in this way, a direct consequence is that political experiments in China become fragmented and operate in an administrative jurisdiction with many imposing boundaries.
The fragmentation of political experiments reflects that the nature of political experiments is based on competition encouraged by the central government. This nature of competition and fragmentation would reduce any chances of a spillover effect. In the meantime, fragmentation also means that each experiment is not only unique but also exceptional in relation to other administrative units. Eventually, the fact that the central government controls the direction
180 and pace of the experimental approach further prevents any spillover effect or bottom-up movement from happening. Every exceptional experiment can therefore be contained in a given administrative unit. Under this circumstance, although the local leaders hold the power in deciding which kind of political experiment to conduct, the central government makes the final decision to execute or abort it. This is an indication of the current dynamics between the central and the local governments which turns each site of experiment into an exception to the rest of China.
Whether it is a general overview or handling a specific situation, Wenling’s case shows a similar tendency. By following the experimental approach to political reform, four possibilities of Wenling’s deliberative experiment in the future may be foreseen: The central government may 1) deepen and broaden the scope of the experiment; 2) change the direction of the experiment; 3) ignore the experiment; or 4) abort the experiment. The central government controls not only the direction of the experiment, but the pace and progress as well.
Rather than envisioning a separation of powers between the central and the local, the experiment lies in the place where the central government’s rules cannot apply. According to Schmitt’s famous definition, the sovereign is “he who decides on the exception (Schmitt 1985, p. 1)”, the site of experiment does not fall outside the jurisdiction of the central government. By showing the obscured overlap of powers between the central and the local, Wenling’s deliberative experiment also comes under the control of the central government. This is to say, this obscured space for experiment is a zone of exception created by the central government in response to the suspension of deliberative democracy in China. The fact that the central government holds the final power of the experiment’s direction shows the ability of the sovereign power to decide the exception. To paraphrase Agamben’s words of Homo Sacer as “the life that can be killed but not sacrificed (Agamben 1998, p. 83)”. From the perspective of the central government, the local experiment is also something that can be (not physically) killed but not sacrificed. Eventually, the dynamics between the central and the local constitutes the exclusive inclusion in Wenling’s experiment.
From Wenling’s experiment, we now know that there is no specific local model as the models in China’s experimental approach to political reform are bounded in a specific administrative unit and executed under the guidelines of the central government. Each experimental point is a unique, special, and exceptional site. In each site of experiment, the political experiment
181 stays in a liminal condition bounded by several binary concepts. Wenling’s example is included in this logic of political reform not because Wenling’s example can be applied to the rest of China but because Wenling’s example can only be contained in its own place. The logic of political experiment and the relationship between the central and the local forms the fundamental core of how deliberative democracy is run in China.
7.4 Zone of Indistinction between Institution and Non-institution
While deliberative democracy in China is executed through the experimental approach, one of the challenges faced by the local government is how to institutionalize the experiment or incorporate the experiment into a part of a local institution (Fang 2012, p. 25). That is to say, once Wenling’s deliberative experiment is linked to the experimental approach for political reform, it means the experiment is something neither inside nor outside the routine of given institutions. The experiment would not be viewed as an experiment if it is already a part of given institutions. Nor can the experiment be totally outside given institutions as the success of the experiment relies on being linked to given institutions. Eventually, the experiment is always conducted somewhere in-between inside and outside of given institutions. This feature puts the experiment on a non-institutional track rather than a predictable path toward institutionalization.
The study of institutions has been a fundamental and crucial topic in political science from the very beginning (Immergut 1998). As many approaches have explored how institutions are formed and transformed, I continue my interpretive approach and follow Bevir’s path to pursue my investigation. The topic of my investigation is how political experiments in Wenling’s context can be transformed from a non-institutional practice into a path of institutionalization. This brings my attention to the connection between institution and non- institution, and Bevir had a clear elaboration on researching institutions. In an article discussing Foucault’s contribution to political science, he understands institutions in the following way:
Institutions are conceived as existing as a consequence of being constantly recreated through a series of activities and processes which are themselves contingent and so in a state of flux (Bevir 1999, p. 352).
182 Institutions are understood as part of a dynamic process consisting of practices and activities. This definition basically summarises how political scientists understand institutions although various approaches might engage in the study of institutions differently.82 The idea of institutions is therefore related to customs, traditions, rules of the game, patterns of behaviours, practices, organisation, and structure. I am focusing here on the conventions of how the Chinese political system works. Practices, activities, and processes which are related but not fully incorporated into the conventions would also be included in my discussions as they are also a part constituting what institutions are in the Chinese context. They represent something before new institutionalization. Only when they are included in my discussion, the connection between institution and non-institution can be illustrated clearly.
Understanding the connection between institution and non-institution in this way, this leads to a basic challenge to Wenling’s deliberative experiment. This challenge concerns how local government in Wenling can make the experiment sustainable. As a result, conducting non- institutional experiments or aiming to institutionalize political experiments is the goal of the government in Wenling. To ensure that the experiment remains sustainable or does not suffer from abolition due to the transfer of power in local areas, the political experiment has to transit from a non-institutional practice to an institutionalised setting.
In Wenling’s case, the initial experiment in 1999 was following orders from the provincial government in correspondence with the provincial government’s project on the educational reform of the modernization of rural agriculture (Chen 2012c, p. 4; Fang 2012, p. 23). A project like this falls outside the given institutional channels. In other words, this is a temporary project made by the provincial leaders and technocrats. It may be institutionalised
82 The studies of institutions span across various disciplines in social science and humanity. According to Ellen M. Immergut (1998), in recent years, how scholars study institutions can be categorised into three approaches, which are deeply connected to various schools of thought and affiliated disciplines. The three approaches are rational choice, organization theory, and historical institutionalism. The rational choice approach is deeply connected to behaviouralism and economics, so this approach views the institution as rules of the game and investigates how rational actors interact with each other by making the best use of rules of the game. In contrast, the approach of organization theory is linked to sociology and treats institutions as social facts. Consequently, this approach focuses on the evolution of institutions and how institutions shape actors belief and behaviours. As the advocate of the historical institutionalism, Immergut tries to develop her approach by critically examining the other two approaches and adding historical dimension into her study of institutions.
Mark Bevir basically follows Immergut’s historical institutionalism, but he focuses more on bridging the discussion of the historical institutionalism with his version of interpretivism. As this discussion is not the focus of this chapter, a more detailed elaboration on this debate is unnecessary here.
183 in the future, but before it is institutionalized, it remains outside the given institutional settings. The project-oriented and order-driven experiments give both the central and local governments the flexibility for trial and error. Once the experiment is successful, both levels of government can benefit and take credit for the success. If the experiment does not go right, the central or provincial government would not be affected as the local government takes the responsibility. Eventually, the hierarchical structure of the Party system overrides the success or failure of each experimental site. Taking promotion as the reward for local leaders reinforces this hierarchy.
Nevertheless, these temporary projects are not totally detached from institutional settings. The mission behind the experimental approach to political reform is to shift and coordinate successful experiments into given institutions. Since Deng Xiaoping’s rule, official discourses have described this process as a path from the point to the surface or even the body (you dian dao mian, 由点到面). This discourse of “from points to surface” not only signified how economic reform has been conducted in China over the past 30 years but also represented the basic strategy of policy making in China after 1978 (Heilmann 2008a).
What is missing in this discourse is how the points appear and expanded to the broader areas. By applying Agamben’s idea of exception (1998, 2005), we may understand this discourse in a different way. Rather than thinking of a progress from point to surface, every experimental point was created as an exception at the beginning. Controlling the process from the point to surface ensures how the central government normalises and governs through a created exception. It is important to understand this process as it can be seen in the following experiments in Wenling.
As mentioned in the Chapter Four, in 2005, the city government of Wenling conducted two different experiments in two towns under the help of two groups of scholars. One was in Zeguo, and the other was in Xinhe. For the experiment in Zeguo, with the help of scholars, the officials ran a deliberative meeting and incorporated the method of deliberative polling. The discussion was about which items of the infrastructure plan in the annual budget should be prioritised. By contrast, the experiment in Xinhe differed from Zeguo’s experiment in two aspects. First, it bridged the deliberative meetings with a given institution—the annual meeting of the Township People’s Congress; second, the topic is focused on the annual budget plan rather than specific items. Whereas Zeguo’s experiment is an experiment
184 external to the given institution, Xinhe’s experiment can be regarded as a bridging experiment. Its aim is to gain the sustainability of the experiment and reactivate the dormant function of the Township People’s Congress. Given the difference between the two experiments, both can only run their experiments in a non-institutional channel. This also shows the characteristics of doing experiment in a non-institutional channel, which ensures the flexibility and the hierarchal structure of the Party system.
After the city government adopted Xinhe’s experiment as the model for the second stage of development, the following experiments still used the non-institutional strategy to either test new experiments or deepen the established experiments. To remain sustainable or to seek changes, experiments conducted after 2005 adopted the strategy of bridging the non- institutional practice with the institutional setting (the Annual Meeting of the People’s Congress at the city and township levels). Under this line of thinking, the possibility of systemic change is not from written rules and institutions inside the system, such as the People’s Congress. Instead, it is the success and influence of non-institutional experiments to push the government to make the change. In addition, the space for experiment is given or even encouraged by the central government, and the direction of the overall reform is also channelled and controlled by the central government as well.
Consequently, the non-institutional approach in Wenling’s case points out the importance of local experiment and exposes the challenges behind this model. In a democratic system, any social change or political change will be embodied in a specific policy or bill passed by the parliament, and the new policy will be executed by different executive departments. To use Rousseau’s words in the Book III, Chapter One of The Social Contract, the legislative body is the will, and the executive body is the physical force to realize the will (Rousseau et al. 2002, pp. 193-7). How the will is formed on any specific issue relies on a competition among political parties and communication in social and political associations. That is to say, different interest groups in civil society would use lobbying, petition, or social movement to influence the political parties and members of parliament to promote the policy or support the bill. In the Western context, the importance of deliberative democracy is to establish democratic politics on the idea of rational communication during policy making (Habermas 1997). This is why scholars working on deliberative democracy are inspired by the Habermasian two-track model (Hendriks 2006; Habermas 2015) that includes the informal and formal public spheres and emphasizes how rational communication can activate
185 empowerment in the informal public sphere and have consequential influence in the formal public sphere. To apply this model to my study of Wenling’s experiments, I revised Hendriks’ theory (2006) of how the dynamics between the informal and the formal public spheres decide the process of policy making in the democratic system. This is illustrated in Figure 7-1:
Figure 7-1. Demonstration of how the two tracks are integrated and how the democratic state makes decision83.
By contrast, if we situate the Wenling experiment into a broader process of policy making in China, a very different process from the Western model emerges. In the case of Wenling, as the local government opens up their decision-making process to a broader range of participants through the non-institutional experiment of deliberative practice, the local leaders,
83 This Figure is adapted from Carolyn Hendriks’ elaboration (Hendriks 2006) on the integrated model of deliberative democracy.
186 especially the township or city Party secretary, holds the power to make the final decision on local issues, especially issues in relation to the annual budget combined with the practice of participatory budgeting. It is under this circumstance that it can be claimed that deliberative democracy and participatory budgeting are used strategically and instrumentally. To illustrate how these experiments are embedded in policy making and its implication for a revised understanding and application of the Habermasian two-track model in Chinese context, see Figure 7-2:
Figure 7-2. The Two-Track Model Adapted into China’s Experimentation-Based Policy Cycle
187 In Western academia, deliberative democracy is viewed as a school of thought. To accommodate a Western idea into Chinese context, from the perspective of the Chinese scholars, is to institutionalise and embed it into the Chinese political system in order to gain the acceptance and recognition from the higher ranked officials. The fact that the Xinhe model was adopted is based on its original idea of bridging with the existing institution whereas the Zeguo model was simply applying the theory of deliberative democracy from Western academia. Consequently, the theory of deliberative democracy was forced to integrate into the experimental approach for political reform. This is why it is hard to dissociate the development of deliberative democracy in China from the policy process, the experimental approach to political reform, and the political tradition of the CCP. With such a context in mind, it seems inevitable that deliberative democracy has to be reinterpreted or twisted in order to fit into the Chinese context.
However, how deliberative democracy can be further institutionalised will depend heavily on a policy-deepening process from the higher-level mandate, which is controlled and channelled by the CCP. During this process, the policy process is not limited to the city level and has to go up to the central level. At the central level, CCP would gather results of nationwide local experiments related to deliberative democracy and further propose guidelines through the CCP Central documents. CCP would measure the progress, performance, and achievement of the documents they issued, the contents of these documents would be further incorporated into the White Paper or the actual policy by the State Council. Eventually, the White Paper, the actual policies, or legal bills would be passed by the National People’s Congress. If we only focus on the life cycle of experiment and ignore the difference between the party and the state as well as the departmental difference, Heilmann’s (2008a) Figure 7-3 clearly portrays the life cycle and the figure of how experiments go to the national policy in an interactive process.
188
Figure 7-3. The Experimentation-Based Policy Cycle84
While Figure 7-2 is an adapted version of how the two-track model is accommodated into an experimental approach in China, Figure 7-3 is focusing on the life cycle of how experiments and policy support and generate each other. Although Figure 7-3 clearly demonstrates how local experiments are turned into national policy, this figure cannot illustrate how the experiments and policy making are embedded in the Chinese political system. Neither can it show the process of communication and consultation between government and civil society as well as the interaction among different departments and levels of governments. Therefore, if we put figures 7-2 and 7-3 together, we will have a better understanding and a bigger picture of how deliberative democracy works on the premise of the experimental approach. Under this circumstance, for a further development of deliberative democracy in China, the only way to gain its eligibility and vitality is to get local experiments recognized by CCP and wait for the central government to impose further guidelines or implement as actual policies. Under this circumstance, the local government would look for signs to interpret their connection with the CCP Central Documents. The officials would also have the tendency to design their experiments by balancing local needs and central guidelines as well.
84 (Heilmann 2008a, p. 10)
189 Applying Wenling’s case into this experimentation-based policy cycle, there are two events that could be viewed as the most important sign in the development of deliberative democracy in China. The first one was when Wenling won the Award for the Innovation of the Local Government in 2004, and the second one is the use of the term xieshang minzhu in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012. The local elites treated the first achievement as recognition from the central government. The second achievement is viewed as a milestone for deliberative democracy in China because the terms written in the report of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China entail several important messages which will be further explained below. First, it means deliberative democracy was recognized and adopted by the CCP. However, this adoption and interpretation was done in a specific way. Second, it represents that deliberative democracy is set as the goal for political reform for the next few years. Third, as deliberative democracy is adopted by the central government, it gives more legitimacy and space for local governments to do related or follow up with relevant experiments. Consequently, the experimentation- based policy cycle not only links the central with the local but also summarises how a non- institutional experiment can turn into an institutionalised policy. Once the experimentation- based policy cycle is bridged with the development of deliberative democracy in China and Wenling’s experiment, the engagement of Agamben’s concepts can further shed light on how Wenling’s experiment works as a zone of indistinction between the institution and non- institution.
As the non-institutional approach depends on the will of the local government, again, non- institutional experiments fall outside the rules of the given institutions. However, this does not mean that the experiment is fully excluded from the rules. On the contrary, the non- institutional channel is regularly working outside the institution and therefore becomes the created exception. It is this created exception that allows the space to accommodate new and foreign ideas. When the local government’s will in conducting political reform is authorised and encouraged by the central government, the former not only coordinates with but is also included in the rules of the central government. Even so, the central government’s rules are neither issued by the state council nor passed by the People’s Congress. The order and rules of the central government are released in the form of the CCP Central Documents. As the CCP Central Documents are more like a system of order delivering and communication among party members, these documents stand in an ambivalent legal status. The quasi-legal effect of the CCP Central documents makes the CCP the source of law-making and policy-
190 making. If Agamben’s State of Exception (2005) is seeking to see how the government becomes the law-making machine that overrides the legislative body, then the Chinese political system is demonstrating a different image of how a Party can be the monopolising source of the law-making machine.
In the Western context, deliberative democracy basically follows the Habermasian two-track model and envisions the social and institutional change pressured from the consensus through deliberation in the informal public sphere. The power of deliberation would be consequential, authentic, and inclusive if deliberation is not determined (Dryzek 2009). With this model, the social and institutional change can be expected to be legislated in parliament and put into action by the executive body. By contrast, deliberative democracy in the Chinese context is channelled by the Party. The Party stands across and channels between the informal and formal public spheres. Rather than pressuring influence from the informal public sphere to the formal public sphere, the Party actively absorbs public opinions from the informal public sphere and imposes its decisions from the formal public sphere to the informal public sphere. The Party stands outside but also merges into the political system. The Party with its experimental approach to political reform determines the direction of institutional change when both the Party and the experiments are included in the system by standing in the zone of exception.
Eventually, putting Wenling’s experiment in the context of the Chinese political system, the status of Wenling’s experiment remains peculiar: what is outside the rules decides how the rules are made, changed, and implemented. As the given rules and institution coexist with the non-institutional experiments, which is channelled through the documents issued by the Central Committee of the CCP, Wenling’s experiment is forced to stay in the zone between institution and non-institution.
7.5 Zone of Indistinction between Consultation and Deliberation
In recent years, apart from the systemic turn (Mansbridge et al. 2012), the cultural turn is also another emerging and important development in the discussion of deliberative democracy. Scholars focus on the role of culture in deliberative democracy and the question of whether political deliberation in deliberative democracy is universal or culturally particular. Min (2009) stresses deliberative democracy as a cultural product with Western bias that may be incompatible with Confucian culture in East Asia. On the other hand, Sass and Dryzek (2013)
191 envision that the practices and understandings of political deliberation in different cultures will eventually enrich our deeper understanding of deliberation. Under this circumstance, although Sass and Dryzek (2013) admit the Western and liberal connection with deliberative democracy, they treat culture as a residual category which is “an intersubjective conception … understood as the webs of meanings, symbols, and norms in terms of which action is constituted (Sass & Dryzek 2013, p. 7)”. Culture is therefore not a static process but a dynamic interaction between elements of tradition, institutions, language, symbols and norms. Holding similar opinions, Pedrini (2015) uses her empirical tests to question the distinction between analytical culture and indexical culture made by Gambetta (2000) and prefers a contextual understanding of culture to a holistic understanding of culture.
Nevertheless, in the scholarship mentioned above, scholars tend to treat political deliberation as a concept with corresponding practices. With regard to the connection between deliberation and culture, what they are interested in is whether corresponding practices or activities can be found and assessed in different cultures, especially in non-Western cultures. This strategy of engaging the relations between culture and deliberation did not approach the issue from translation, which is the most direct element in cross-cultural intersection. Therefore, by focusing on the Chinese translation, xieshang minzhu, I intend to investigate the connection between deliberation and culture from another perspective so that our investigation can serve to enrich the emerging discussion of the cultural turn on deliberative democracy.
However, in the Chinese context, the issue of translation is not simply a switch between two languages. Nor is it about questioning whether there is any equivalent Chinese term in relation to English. The issue of translation can be seen in the official use of language and again embedded in the process of policy making and the experimental approach for political reform. As scholars have pointed out (Schoenhals 1992; Fewsmith 2005; Esarey & Brady 2009), the use of language, or the proper formulation of formal speech, is an extremely important aspect in Chinese politics. This use of language is not only closely connected to political mobilization but also embedded in the policy making process. That is to say, whenever the officials wish to conduct an experiment or pursue a policy, no matter which level of the officials, they would give the experiment or the policy a name to run it. The power to name and the use of the name would correspond to the hierarchical structure of the party system. If a term for the policy or the experiment is named by the central government,
192 this term contains the power of the central government over the delegated governments. Under this circumstance, the delegated governments cannot use the same name but follow the instructions of the policy accompanied with the name. In the meantime, the delegated governments would try to bridge the name of their own experiments with any given term issued by the central government in order to gain the legitimacy and recognition of their experiments.
As illustrated earlier in this chapter, Wenling’s experiment is embedded in the dynamics and the gap between the central and the local as well as the institution and the non-institution. The use of language also shows a similar tendency and creates another zone of indistinction at the level of discursive formation. This use of language is related to the term xieshang minzhu (协 商民主), the official Chinese translation of deliberative democracy. To Wenling’s officials, xieshang minzhu is a term belonging to the central government, so they do not have the power to interpret the meaning of the term. Nor can the local officials say that xieshang minzhu and Wenling’s experiment are the same thing. What they can do is to follow the interpretation and guidelines from the central government and work on those ‘grey; areas where the guidelines cannot be applied. In correspondence to xieshang minzhu, the term Wenling’s officials use to refer to the deliberative practice is “Democratic Talk with All Sincerity”.
From the perspective of the central government, the Democratic Talk is one important embodiment of xieshang minzhu and local governance. It represents xieshang minzhu to a certain extent, but it does not represent the whole picture of xieshang minzhu. From the perspective of the local officials, how they view the terms of xieshang minzhu and the democratic talk basically follow the logic of the experimental approach for political reform. That is to say, they recognize and brand democratic talk as their local characteristics, and what they try to do is to achieve success by solving the problems happening in the local area, gaining recognition from the central government, and making the local experiment sustainable or more ideally, being incorporated into the central policy. Therefore, the different uses of the term to identify deliberative practice also works the same way as the experimental approach for political reform and policy making process.
In the Chinese context, it is seemingly reasonable for the central government and the local government to have different terms to describe their version of deliberative practice.
193 Nevertheless, as the use of term is connected to the experimental approach for political reform and the policy making process, the use of language is no longer neutral. From the perspective of the central government, using different terms and monopolizing the interpretation of xieshang minzhu could allow the central government to hold the power to detach the connection between xieshang minzhu and the democratic talk if anything goes in the direction not accepted by the central government. The central government does not only have the power over the continuation or abortion of the experiment but also hold the power to decide what terms to use or not to use. In this way, the democratic talk is included in the discourse of xieshang minzhu in the form of exclusion.
As Wenling’s democratic talk with all sincerity is included in the discourses of xieshang minzhu in the form of exclusion, deliberative democracy shows a similar logic of exclusive inclusion and creates a zone of indistinction between consultation and deliberation if we look at the issue from the perspective of translation. In Chapters Five and Six, discussion has been made about the confusion between the English translation of xieshang and the Chinese translation of deliberation, it is not just confusion but also replacement by using xieshang to represent deliberation. Nevertheless, at the academic level, scholars are aware of this issue of translation, but they tend not to problematize the issue.
At the early stage of introducing deliberative democracy into China, some Chinese scholars (Jin & Yao 2010; Tan 2015) pointed out that the Chinese translation of deliberation confuses the meaning of deliberation with consultation. The Chinese translation, xieshang, focuses more on the aspect of consultation and its related tradition in Chinese history and the Chinese political system instead of deliberation. Nevertheless, in their later works, Chinese scholars tend to ignore this issue of translation and view the introduction of deliberative democracy as a trigger to reactivate the relatively unnoticed and forgotten tradition and history of xieshang minzhu. For some who know the confusion, they would regard the difference between consultation and deliberation as the level of ability of participants to discuss and debate. Some envision a transition from consultation to deliberation would happen if more similar practices like Wenling’s experiment are adopted. Others ignore the difference and focus on what could be developed through the Chinese version of xieshang minzhu.
Under this circumstance, in Wenling’s practices, the officials and participants cannot make a clear distinction between consultation and deliberation when the Chinese translation they are using cannot express the nuance. Whereas some scholars are expecting a path from
194 consultation to deliberation by enhancing the “deliberative capacity” (Dryzek 2009), it is not known whether this progression toward deliberation would exceed the limits set by the given political system and political doctrines, which emphasises the priority of the Party’s leadership.
In Chapter Three, I talked about how Agamben elaborates the idea of signature (2009). The signature is what we could find in the signifier in our linguistic activity. A signature could be a symbol, a sign, a picture, or a voice, or a translated word. When a signature is put in different contexts, it repeats the original meaning and recreates a new meaning at the same time. As a signature recreates the process of signification and makes the sign meaningful, it plays the role of a trigger and a drive when a sign is made sensible through linguistic actions. Also, as the signature changes the meaning in different contexts, this highlights the importance of contexts. Looking at the issue of deliberative democracy from this perspective, conditions and contexts are what make deliberative democracy sensible and practicable in different places. Tracing back the contexts and the possibility of conditions is to point out how signature works. To bring this line of thinking into the Chinese context, one would find that it is impossible to understand deliberative democracy without referring to a Chinese translation. It is thus impossible to understand deliberative democracy in China without xieshang minzhu.
Nevertheless, the term xieshang minzhu is not an empty signifier, it is a term connected to a given political tradition and institutions in the history of the CCP. Channelling between the theory of deliberative democracy in the Western context and the political tradition of the CCP, xieshang minzhu becomes the signature which makes the discourses of deliberative democracy workable and sensible in China. Without xieshang minzhu, deliberative democracy is not going to work and be understood by the Chinese people. At the same time, since xieshang minzhu is not a neutral term, the practices and interpretation can recreate a new meaning to both xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy. This idea is reinforced when scholars attempted to treat deliberative democracy as a trigger to “reactivate” the history of xieshang minzhu which had largely gone unnoticed. Many of them believe that the reinvestigation and development of xieshang minzhu in the Chinese context could be linked back to the theory of deliberative democracy in general. Although they recognise the free discussion among equal participants/interlocutors as the commonality shared between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy, they acknowledge that deliberative democracy
195 emerged from the socio-political and cultural context in the West, which is very different from the Chinese context. By interpreting deliberative democracy in this way, scholars include deliberative democracy by negating and excluding so-called Western democracy. Consequently, if there is any deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics, xieshang minzhu should be the core while deliberative democracy is secondary. Deliberative democracy in China is thus inclusion (being secondary) and exclusion (not core) at the same time.
Therefore, as the corresponding translation, the term ‘xieshang minzhu’ and the meaning, history, institutions, and practices that it is associated with constitute the development of deliberative democracy in China. Nevertheless, from another perspective, xieshang minzhu is also the exception of deliberative democracy because its development in China is outside the normal cases of (Western) deliberative democracy, which often existed in democratic regimes. The dialectic of example and exception thus makes xieshang minzhu remain in the indistinguishable zone between example and exception. This indistinction is reinforced by the meaning of xieshang, which is often confused between consultation and deliberation.
As previous chapters have shown, within the development of xieshang minzhu in China, Wenling’s experiment demonstrates itself as another creation of exception when the experiment is embedded in the experimental approach for political reform. Although the democratic talk belongs to a part of xieshang minzhu, the practice “may be killed but not sacrificed” (Agamben 1998, p. 83) as it works within a space where the rules cannot apply. By creating an exceptional zone, this practice of deliberative democracy may have survived in Wenling, but this deliberative practice is eventually merged and included in the logic of xieshang minzhu, which does not differentiate deliberation from consultation and the political tradition of the CCP. Consequently, xieshang minzhu is the suspension rather than application of deliberative democracy.
196 7.6 Zone of Indistinction between Authoritarianism and Democracy
Although the implementation of democratic talk is a created zone of expectation, theorists (Dryzek 2009; Warren 2009; He & Warren 2011) are hopeful and have the expectation that the ideal and the practice of deliberation can be realized and that the political system of authoritarianism can transform to democracy. To reinforce this expectation, democratic implications appeared in the democratic talk, such as including more people in the process of decision making and allowing different voices to gain access to and influence policy making. Consequently, Wenling’s example is envisioned as a case that can inspire similar cases in future and create a bottom-up movement promoting a systemic change.
Nevertheless, in terms of assessing the potential of deliberative democracy for democratic transition, one example has a limited significance in explaining or predicting any possibility of a systemic change. From the literature of deliberative democracy, one mini-public may be meaningful, but more cases are needed to make meaningful comparison and see the systemic effect. Moreover, as Wenling’s example is not an independent and isolated case, this thesis focuses on the contexts that serve to enhance this experiment rather than measuring or assessing the quality of deliberative practice 85 . That is also the reason why this thesis attempts to bridge Wenling’s experiment with the broader political system and the national process of policy making.
Once we shift our focus from the example to the embedded context, which is the political system and the political doctrines in the CCP, a different formation and discourse of deliberative democracy in China is apparent. On the one hand, the central government is actively engaging with the discourses of xieshang minzhu and using the term under the experimental approach for policy making and political reform. On the other hand, as in the example of Wenling which receives incentives from the central government and to meet local needs, the experiment of the democratic talk constituted a created zone of exception. Aihwa Ong (2004) talks about a governmental practice called “zoning technologies” in the East Asian context, especially its development in China. She argues these zoning strategies were used in post-Mao China to create exceptional areas and rules. With the use of zoning strategies, the Chinese government has the ability to demonstrate a new form of variegated
85 In addition, out of practicality and the issue of censorship, this thesis does not have the access or permission to conduct data collection similar to the deliberative quality index (DQI) or deliberative polling.
197 sovereignty and absorb things and ideas “foreign” to China by putting them to use in the exceptional areas. She thus writes:
By invoking exceptions to normalized forms of political control and economic activities, post-Mao state strategies have displayed a flexible and creative approach to the diverse regulation of spaces and civil society. (Ong 2004, p. 74)
Ong cited two examples to illustrate the type of flexibility used by the Chinese government. The first one is the Special Economic Zone, which was first used by Taiwan86 and widely adopted by the Chinese government later; the second one is the Special Administrative Region, which creates separate rules and governance in Hong Kong and Macau under the ‘One China’ political principle. The two cases above are demonstrations of how the Chinese government is capable of using the zoning technologies to integrate huge regional differences into the sovereignty and fit itself into the neoliberal economic order (Ong 2006, pp. 97-116).
While Ong mainly focuses on the economic and administrative aspects of zoning strategies, I have extended her focus to the field of political theory and the related practices. As mentioned in the previous chapters, I have illustrated the zoning strategies and the logic of exception can also be applied in the use of language at the official and scholarly levels. These uses of language are closely connected to the issue of translation, discourses of scholarly works, specific terms used in official documents, and the actual experiments at the local level. Once the discussion of zoning strategies is extended from the economic and administrative spheres into the political sphere, China’s zoning strategies have another implication for the relationships between authoritarianism and democracy.
In the systemic turn of deliberative democracy, scholars (Mansbridge et al. 2012) are expecting the respective governments to go beyond individual mini-public participation and see more sites of deliberation interacting with each other. If there is any systemic or systematic change, the change would be brought about by the synergetic effect of countless mini-publics. The theoretical assumption behind the systemic turn is based on the ideal deliberation and its spontaneous development across the system. However, in Wenling’s
86 Specifically, although the Chinese government learnt the experience from Taiwan, the Taiwanese government did not use the term “the Special Economic Zone (经济特区)”. Instead, the exact term that the Taiwanese government used was the Export Processing Zones (加工出口區).
198 example and the embedded socio-political contexts, another mode of systemic development is emerging, and it is related to the zoning strategies and the created exception.
As mentioned before, Wenling’s example as the created zone of exception does not exist independently, so a question comes into being: Is it possible to foresee spill-over effects due to Wenling’s success? The short-term answer will be it is not possible. Under the model of the experimental approach for political reform, the horizontal influence or imitation is hard to foresee for two reasons. First, as the officials’ promotion relies on creating something different from the previous state of affairs, copying existing models may not be a strong incentive. Moreover, the nature of the central-local relations gives the central government more power to decide the direction and the scale of the related reform. The zoning strategy is a top-down model which integrates with bottom-up experiments and gives the Party state the flexibility to contain or even insulate any experiment with democratic implications in a specific area. The expectation of more active deliberations does not exist in this case.
Furthermore, paradoxically, in this created zone of exception, experiments with the democratic implications are allowed to happen on the condition that the party line is followed. This means democracy may seem to have the chance to emerge, but on condition that it must come under the political system of authoritarianism and be contained in a “special area” in the name of experiment. Wenling’s experiment thus remains in a peculiar position of indistinction between democracy and authoritarianism. On the one hand, practices with democratic implications were found in Wenling’s experiment. On the other hand, this experiment with democratic implications could not go beyond the zone of exception without the central government’s mediation. The experiment is therefore not encouraged to articulate different forces for democratic transition. By absorbing the bottom-up vitality through local experiments, the purpose of the experiment is to strengthen the legitimacy and the capacity of governance at both the local and central levels. From Wenling’s experiment, democracy and authoritarianism may co-exist, but practices with democratic implication are included in the rule of authoritarianism as a form of exclusion.
Consequently, although the democratic talk contains many meaningful aspects with democratic implications, the empowerment of included participants is not separated from the existing institutions, political system, and political doctrines. This means that the level of inclusion is also limited. In the meantime, the empowerment of participants also indicates that the government empowers itself through the appropriation of the deliberative practices.
199 In this sense, democracy is included in the authoritarian system in a form of exclusion, and the authoritarian system evolves through the absorption of the deliberative practices. This corresponds to Elizabeth Perry’s (2012) idea of “illiberal challenge” where she proposed a seemingly paradoxical argument. She maintained that in China, the more vibrant the civil society, the more it would strengthen the government’s capacity to rule rather than fostering chances for democratic transition. Whilst Perry’s work is propositional, Wenling’s example and the development of deliberative democracy in China resonate with her concern.
As the scholarship of deliberative democracy does not offer any roadmap or blueprint beyond principles and normative schemes, its introduction and development in China shows a very different path of reception. First, its reception of deliberative democracy pays very little attention to the normative investigation of deliberative democracy. While the ideal speech situation occupies a crucial role in the scholarship of deliberative democracy, the only normative idea Chinese scholars accept is the idea of “rational discussion among free and equal citizens” without giving any concrete meaning or elaboration. This is to say, Chinese scholars and officials are pragmatically embracing the part of feasibility and instrumentally using deliberative practices to solve challenges of local governance.
Second, as deliberative democracy is translated into xieshang minzhu, it is quickly linking with the political tradition of xieshang without seriously referring to the scholarship on deliberative democracy in Western academia. A direct consequence is that deliberative democracy has been immediately viewed as a cultural product based on the socio-political and historical contexts in the West. In response to this way of understanding deliberative democracy, Chinese scholars adopt xieshang as a corresponding and parallel term with its own cultural resources that can compete with the Western model. This tendency brings another consequence of translation. As xieshang has its own tradition in China, the development of deliberative democracy in China is destined to closely follow the political tradition of xieshang. The Chinese political system, the policy making process, and the experimental approach to political reform eventually dominate how deliberative democracy, or xieshang minzhu to be precise, can develop. This development therefore deviates from the scholarship on deliberative democracy in Western academia. Eventually, the development of deliberative democracy in China is not based on the theory of deliberative democracy created by Western academia but built on its suspension where Chinese scholars and officials tailor the concept to suit the context in China.
200 In answering the question of “What is a Paradigm?”, Agamben (2009) proposed a strategy to see the formation and the redefinition of a paradigm at the same time. Rather than using either the inductive strategy or the reductive strategy, he prefers the abductive strategy, which articulates the particular aspect of each example and links the particular examples to a dominant discourse in order to see the double movement of both paradigm formation and its possible points of reformation. This thesis followed this line of thinking and used the concepts of exception and example to show the complicated development of deliberative democracy in China. Deliberative democracy in China is located outside the conventional understanding of deliberative democracy and therefore constitutes an exception to deliberative democracy. By using xieshang minzhu as the translation to mediate deliberative democracy, its development in the Chinese context turns itself from “the exception to deliberative democracy” to “xieshang minzhu as the exception”. The exception of xieshang minzhu is therefore normalised as a part of Chinese characteristics and incorporates deliberative practices by creating the zone of indistinction. It is under this circumstance that Wenling’s experiment remains in a zone of indistinction between democracy and authoritarianism. However, just as the exception to the conventional understanding can be appropriated as an idea with Chinese characteristics, deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics as an exceptional example potentially has the ability to rewrite and redefine deliberative democracy as we know it. Although this potential may not be actualised, its possibility cannot be ignored.
7.7 Concluding Remarks
At the beginning when the theory of deliberative democracy was introduced into China, scholars were expecting that the theory could serve as a kind of catalyst to foster the administrative reform of governance and promote a socio-political change of the system. However, with the mediation of translation, the path does not go as far as the theory prescribes. Elements we called “the Chinese characteristics” such as China’s political culture, political system, and existing institutions dominate the interpretation and practice of deliberative democracy. Against this broader background, Wenling’s experiment has demonstrated how the democratic talk is linked to a broader policy making process and the political tradition of xieshang.
201 Using Agamben’s thoughts and concepts, I was able to further analyse how Wenling’s experiment is not just an application of deliberative democracy but an embodiment of xieshang minzhu, or a “shidian” in the experimental approach for political reform. Wenling’s example presents itself as a created zone of exception and stays in the zone of indistinction between the central and the local, institution and non-institution, deliberation and consultation, as well as democracy and authoritarianism. By appropriating the zoning strategies, the Party state is not only able to turn its exception to deliberative democracy into xieshang minzhu as an exception, but also potentially foresee that the development of deliberative democracy in China may redefine the theory of deliberative democracy in general (including in the West).
As given scholarship in deliberative democracy tends to either measure the level of deliberation in each site of mini-public or argue a different normative model, most studies fail to notice that the political system and political culture in non-democratic or non-Western regimes hold strong powers in shaping a different understanding and practice of deliberative democracy. Although Sass and Dryzek (2013) optimistically look forward to an enriching understanding of deliberation due to the dissemination and appropriation of deliberation in other cultures, their optimism cannot exclude the possibility of deliberation turning into a governing technique by the authoritarian regime.
The implication of Wenling’s case and the development of deliberative democracy in China remind us that another path with negativity is possible. The given political system, political doctrines, political culture, and the policy making process are not only engaging with but also shaping the discourses of deliberative democracy in China. Deliberative democracy in China is therefore practiced as the suspension rather than application of the theory developed in the West. Wenling’s example has exhibited another development of deliberative democracy formed by the creation of exception.
202
203 Chapter 8 Conclusion
8.1 Introduction
As the investigation of this thesis has reached its final destination, this chapter will discuss the findings of this doctoral research and where this investigation may lead to future exploration. I will first give a concise review of the previous chapters and address the main findings of this thesis. Once the main findings of this thesis are addressed, I will talk about the implications of the findings and some of limitations that emerged during the process of investigation. Finally, by going through everything I have discussed in this thesis, I will proceed to the prospect of future research.
8.2 The Main Findings of This Thesis
Global interconnectedness has resulted in the inflow and outflow of money, goods, and people, including ideas. We have seen how concepts can travel around the world and take on a different meaning in another context, which differs from its ‘birthplace.’ This also explains why political theories have developed differently in non-Western contexts.87 Although this phenomena has become increasingly important, this topic is still relatively understudied. As this research field is an emerging area, non-conventional approaches and trans-cultural dialogues are significant for the understanding of this new area.
With the inspiration of this line of thinking, this thesis deals with the development of deliberative democracy in China. In Chapter Two, by focusing on the issues of translation, the topic of deliberative democracy in China is categorized under two groups of scholarship. One is the discussion of democratization in China, and the other is the study of deliberative democracy. In the former group, apart from reviewing the development of discussions in this field, I mainly point out that these studies tend to ignore the scholarship in Chinese contexts. Most studies have failed to address the Chinese literature, and as a result, the studies of democratization tend to view China as an exceptional case. This thesis suggests that this
87 The statement here does not assume that in the Western context, the meaning and development of political theory are always the same and homogeneous. Highlighting the non-Western contexts is because it is the main focus of this thesis. Therefore, the idea of travelling theory can also fit the established tradition of political theory in the western context. Susan McWilliam’s work (2014) has demonstrated this possibility, and I believe more studies on similar topics would greatly benefit in this emerging field of inquiry.
204 exceptional position is usually appropriated and turned into a form of cultural exceptionalism by using the expression “Chinese characteristics” in the Chinese context.
For a similar reason, the development of deliberative democracy in China is not a simple application of Western theory. Instead, as the discussions and application in China are written in Chinese, the mediation of the Chinese translation has largely reinterpreted the idea of deliberative democracy in a different way. The Chinese characteristics are brought into the discussion of deliberative democracy in China, and the relevant discourses have indicated an inclination toward building a unique version of Chinese deliberative democracy. This explains why this thesis consistently uses xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy to highlight the difference despite their connection.
The direction of investigation starts with the question of why xieshang minzhu was chosen as the official translation. This question not only emerged from the issue of translation but also brought me to the path of investigating the subjective understanding. In order to deal with the issue of exceptionalism from the process of subjective meaning-making, I resort to several developments of interpretivism and establish a version of interpretivism that would fit the investigation of this thesis. In the beginning, I reviewed the interpretivism that Bevir and Rhodes developed. Their version of interpertivism focused more on the formation of meaning through actors and institutions, whereas the formation of xieshang minzhu relies more on the production of discourses. That is how their version of interpretivism is brought into dialogue with other developments of interpretivism inspired by Foucault’s works.
Extending from Foucault’s influence, I paid particular attention to the interpretivism developed by Giorgio Agamben and Edward Said. As the development of xieshang minzhu is not a simple application but an appropriation of the Western theory to build a version of deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics, Agamben’s elaboration of exception and example offers an insightful approach for my investigation. His approach sheds light on the development of xieshang minzhu in relation to deliberative democracy not as a relationship between the empirical case and the theoretical framework. Instead, xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy are two singularities that influence and articulate with each other.
Once Agamben’s concepts treat xieshang minzhu as a subject-matter that has its own development in relation to deliberative democracy, Edward Said’s Traveling Theory (1983) moves this topic forward. From the perspective of post-colonial studies, Said’s Traveling
205 Theory (1983) points out a fact that the meaning of theory and ideas are not fixed. They could be disseminated to different regions, and the meaning could be transformed through a reinterpretation in a different context. Putting Said’s elaboration of interpretivism in literary studies, his focus was on the readers’ ability to re-interpret and recreate the meaning of the texts they receive. By applying Said’s thought from literary studies to xieshang minzhu, officials, scholars, and practitioners in China have recreated the meaning of deliberative democracy in the Chinese context. Eventually, Said’s concept worked hand in hand with Agamben’s concepts of exception and example. These two approaches extend the version proposed by Bevir and Rhodes and constitute the version of interpretivism that I use for the investigation of this thesis.
By formulating the interpretivism for this thesis, three types of material were collected and analysed. The first type was the ethnographic data collected between 2015 and 2016. I focused on the development and practice of the Democratic Talk with All Sincerity in Wenling City, Zhejiang Province. Apart from attending some of the deliberative practices, I also interviewed relevant participants, officials, and scholars. The second type of data was official documents. By following the information gathered from the interviews, I traced related official documents and did a thorough review on the content and development of these documents. The third type was scholarly discussions and media reports. In addition to information gained from the interviews of scholars, I also systematically collected scholarly discussions and media reports related to Wenling’s experiment and xieshang minzhu. The three types of collected data were organised in Chapters Four, Five, and Six.
In Chapter Four, I mainly focused on the development and the current practices of Wenling’s “Democratic Talk with All Sincerity.” Wenling’s deliberative experiment shows a unique interaction between Western theory, the Chinese context, and the basic structure of Chinese politics. From a mere Q&A forum in 1999, similar practices were unified under the name of the “Democratic Talk with All Sincerity” in 2001. In 2004, this form of deliberative experiment underwent a series of transformations. This transformation gave birth to the practice of participatory budgeting in Xinhe and the first trial of a deliberative poll in Zeguo. Based on the competition between Xinhe and Zeguo, they gradually developed similar but different models. These models eventually influenced other towns such as Ruoheng and the city government. In the informal public sphere, the idea and the practice of the democratic talk was also borrowed to solve the issue of labour wage.
206 Although Wenling’s experiment has been going on for over 15 years and became the most sustainable practice of deliberative democracy in China, many of its limitations lie in the given political structure that any experiment in China must encounter. Some challenges come from its local contexts, whereas other challenges are directly from the established structure of Chinese politics. This is why I was engaged with the official documents covered in Chapter Five. In this chapter, through the leads sourced from scholarly works and interviews, I reviewed the official documents related to xieshang minzhu. These documents include the Party Central Committee Documents, the White Paper, and the reports of major meetings. The report of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party marked the official recognition and elaboration of xieshang minzhu, and the official documents could be categorized into two groups. The first group was the pre-development of xieshang minzhu, whereas the second group was about the establishment of xieshang minzhu.
The two groups of documents show more continuity than discontinuity. Their main difference is the second group of documents which was more systematic while the first group of documents was less systematic and even fragmented. This continuity does not imply that proposing xieshang minzhu as the goal for political reform is a planned idea. Instead, the fragmented inclination represents the fact that the officials, the party intellectuals, and scholars retrospectively traced the historical archive to justify that a genealogy of xieshang minzhu exists. Through retrospective articulation, some common themes could be summarised in these documents.
The first theme is the emphasis and elaboration of the multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP. Scholars and officials constantly claimed that China’s political party system is a multi-party system. Its difference from democratic regimes is that no power transfer would happen when the CCP is the only ruling party. Under this circumstance, the number of other political parties is fixed. Participation, discussions, and monitoring are three main tasks that the other political parties have. The revolutionary legacy and the subsequent establishment repeatedly confirm this multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP. When the multi-party cooperation under the leadership of the CCP becomes the basic structure of China’s political party system, this becomes the framework of how xieshang minzhu should be conducted.
Furthermore, proposing and establishing xieshang minzhu as the future goal for political reform deepens the confusion of xieshang between consultation and deliberation. Although
207 deliberative democracy was translated as xieshang minzhu in Chinese, the official version never recognises the connection between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy. Originally, in the official understanding, xieshang was translated as consultation. The direct consequence is xieshang stays in the indistinct zone between consultation and deliberation. Another consequence is that for any scholarly discussion on deliberative democracy in China, the basic framework must be taken into consideration. The framework becomes the necessary sources for any further elaboration of xieshang minzhu, and its connection with deliberative democracy is by differentiation rather than articulation.
This brings us to the operation of exception in official documents. In several official documents I reviewed in Chapter Five, when the documents were referring to anything related to “the West”, the standard response was that “we will never copy a Western political system88 (tCC 2012)“ However, using an expression of rejection and negation does not mean the disappearance of the “Western idea” or “Western political system”. On the contrary, three strategies can be identified when viewing from the concept of exception. They were adopted and worked hand in hand to reinforce one another.
In the first strategy, the West was totalized as one entity, and the uniqueness of Chinese characteristics was emphasised as something entirely different from the West. Nevertheless, again, this does not mean the West is ignored. Nor does it imply that the uniqueness of Chinese characteristics is isolated. This takes us to the second strategy. By using the expression of “borrowing useful results of political civilization89 (tCC 2006)”, the West was included by exclusion. Under the operation of the previous two strategies, in the third strategy, the official documents were able to control the interpretation.
Under the leadership of the CCP, these themes and the multi-party cooperation constitute a framework that cannot be challenged and changed easily. This framework not only determines how scholarly discussions should be conducted but also dominates how the political experiment should be conducted. These influences and interactions entail the content
88 The English translation is from here: http://language.chinadaily.com.cn/news/2012- 11/19/content_15941774_6.htm
In addition, the original text in Chinese is here: 绝不照搬西方政治制度模式.
89 The original paragraph in Chinese: 借鉴人类政治文明的有益成果.
208 in Chapters Six and Seven. When the three elements were put together, a more complete picture of xieshang minzhu in China is presented by revisiting Wenling’s experiments.
In Chapter Six, the focus was shifted from Wenling’s experiment and the official documents to scholarly discussions. The importance of scholarly discussions is that these discourses demonstrate how the Western theory and Chinese contexts, which include the framework set by the official documents and the local experiments, are in a constant process of negotiation. The first topic in the scholarly discussions is the choice of translation when deliberative democracy was introduced as the latest development of political theory in the international academic community. Once xieshang minzhu was settled as the official translation, a series of discussions emerged.
The first debate was the indistinct zone between consultation and deliberation, which already existed in the Chinese translation found in the official documents. In the scholarly discussions, scholars struggled with the consequences after xieshang minzhu was chosen as the official translation. By contrast, the official documents do not have this issue when the officials never directly recognise the connections between xieshang minzhu and deliberative democracy. The main struggle is the fact that Chinese speakers cannot clearly identify which version of xieshang minzhu was being articulated when xieshang minzhu was used. When xieshang minzhu is uttered, it could be deliberative democracy, the CPPCC and the related political tradition, or a random mix of both. Therefore, the use of xieshang minzhu has caused an indeterminacy of meaning. This indeterminacy represents a renegotiation of meanings when a foreign idea was introduced to fuse into an idea loaded with given meanings. Apart from the lack of distinction between consultation and deliberation, the process of renegotiation can also be seen in other aspects brought about by the translation of xieshang minzhu. Similar to its operation in the official documents, scholarly discussions tend to create an exclusive inclusion to absorb the idea of deliberative democracy and establish xieshang minzhu as the socialist deliberative democracy with Chinese characteristics.
On the one hand, the difference between deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu in scholarly discussions would be stressed as the difference between the West and the East. According to these discussions, the difference is so great that many of the contextual conditions in the West and the East are not the same. Consequently, scholarly discussions also share some of the assumptions of the official discourses and accept that Western theory cannot be simply applied in Chinese contexts.
209 On the other hand, to bridge Western theory with xieshang minzhu, scholarly discussions demonstrate another operation of exception. After emphasising the differences between the East and the West, discourses in scholarly discussions show that a commonality could be found between deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu. This commonality is that both stress the importance of rational discussions freely and equally among citizens. Nevertheless, when addressing this commonality, it is not treated as common ground to bridge the gap between the East and the West. Instead, by claiming the commonality, the scholarly discussions tend to highlight the fact something similar also exists in the Chinese context. The revolutionary legacy and the Chinese political framework have made xieshang minzhu more extraordinary. In addition, as the discussions have been conducted in Chinese, the process of merging deliberative democracy into xieshang minzhu is to take the meaning in Chinese as the core and include deliberative democracy in a form of exclusion.
After reviewing the development of Wenling’s experiment, the official documents and scholarly discussions, a more integrated perspective was formulated and adopted to revisit Wenling’s case and analyse its implication. In Chapter Seven, inspired by Agamben’s concept of “the zone of indistinction”, I was able to connect the content from Chapters Four to Six and use this idea to review and analyse how the logic of shidian, or the experimental point, worked in the Wenling’s experiment.
In Wenling’s case, the experimental approach to political reform has been the strategy adopted in China. At first glance, the experimental approach represented dynamics between the central and the local. In this model, the space for the local experiments can only be conducted within the framework mandated by the central government. The central government would collect feedback from every experiment and readjust the direction of future policy. This model shows a top-down characteristic, but it is not a simple mandatory system. Every shidian maintains a unique connection with the central government in the sense that every shidian is a created exception for the central government to try all types of experiment. If a shidian is successful, both the central government and the local government would benefit from the success. If a shidian is unsuccessful, the failed shidian would not be troublesome for the central government. The central government can move forward to come up with a new plan. The fact that the central government controls the pace and direction of the experiment corresponds to the logic of biopolitics, which means that each shidian potentially “can be killed but not sacrificed. (Agamben 1998)”
210 As a created exception, Shidian does not just correspond to the zone of indistinction between the central and the local. The created exception also entails the zone of indistinction between institution and non-institution as every experiment is always conducted in a non-institutional channel. This feature of the non-institutional channel further reflects how political reform is carried out, and this connects to the function of the Party Central documents. Different from the experience in democratic regimes, the Party Central document plays a significant role in mediating experiments and actual policies. As the Party state system uses the Party Central documents to control and mandate the pace and direction of experiments, the ambivalent position of the Party Central documents makes the legal enforcement of the documents even more powerful than formal legal bills.
In State of Exception (2005), Agamben highlighted the state of exception as the unique status of law in times of emergency and crisis. As this legal condition was thought to be rare and extreme in legal history, Agamben’s elaboration is to stress its function as the void of the law-making machine and to expose its normalization in our daily life. The idea of legal exception he elaborated has shed light on the topic of governmental practices of creating exception and suspending the given legal order. To apply Agamben’s thought to the Chinese case, I find that the Party plays an important role in declaring the exception by creating a space of shidian and releasing the Party Central documents. In comparison, in democratic regimes, the state of exception is often created by the executive body. By investigating how the Party Central documents work with the experimental approach to political reform, the powerfulness of the Party Central was found to embody the state of exception with Chinese characteristics.
The zone of indistinction does not just appear in relation to the central/local link and the connection between institution/non-institution. The zone of indistinction also casts light on the confusion between consultation and deliberation. This confusion originally derived from scholarly discussions when the idea of deliberative democracy was introduced and translated into the Chinese context. Nevertheless, in the later stages of development, this confusion suddenly became less problematic because it was linked to the logic of the experimental approach to political reform. Once the scholarly discussions are bridged with the experimental approach to political reform, the scholarly discussions tend to cohere with the official tone. The distinction between consultation and deliberation was then viewed as a matter of degree rather than an essential difference. The use of language in academic
211 discussions also corresponds to the politics of language and tifa in Chinese. Under this circumstance, the Democratic Talk in Wenling and xieshang minzhu were viewed and used as two distinctive ideas. The former represented the case of xieshang minzhu run by the local government whereas the latter is the idea monopolized by the central government. Once the use of language follows this order, the central government potentially holds the power to delink the connection between Wenling’s experiment and xieshang minzhu if they sense something is amiss with the experiment.
The use of language and its link to the experimental approach to political reform eventually contribute to the connection between authoritarianism and democracy. Theorists of deliberative democracy expect that the cultivation of deliberative capacity (Dryzek 2009) could establish conditions for democratization. The same expectation can be seen in the discussions of China’s future political landscape. Nevertheless, this deliberative hope might disappoint researchers. As this thesis demonstrates, Wenling’s case stays in the zone of indistinction, and this particular experiment is also deeply linked to the experimental approach to political reform. Under this circumstance, Wenling’s case is unlikely to have a spillover effect without the mediation of the central government. As a created exception, the Wenling case ensures any political reform with democratic implications can be contained and controlled under the central government’s supervision. Eventually, countless experiments with signs for democracy could be found in China, but they can only survive in a contained and created exception. For the same reason, as any reform related to deliberative democracy can only be embedded in the logic of the experimental approach, this makes deliberative democracy in China the suspension of deliberative democracy rather than its application.
8.3 Implications of the Findings
In this thesis, by following the interpretivist approach developed in Chapter Three, I attempt to investigate the development of deliberative democracy by beginning with the issue of translation. By situating xieshang minzhu in the scholarship of democratization and deliberative democracy, the process of translating and practicing deliberative democracy in China is viewed as a relationship between the particular and the particular. That is to say, rather than taking the theory of deliberative democracy as the universal form and viewing China as a particular case, this thesis would treat the development of deliberative democracy in the Western context and Chinese context as two singularities.
212 While this approach is inspired by Said’s Traveling Theory (1983) and Agamben’s concept of exception (1998, 2005, 2009), the engagement of this thesis also corresponds to the comparative political theory proposed by Warren and Williams (2013). From another perspective, this thesis is also a deliberative enterprise attempting to make sense of deliberative democracy in China by bridging the discussions between the two sides. Consequently, the development of deliberative democracy in the Western context would not be a universal theory that can fit in all contexts but a set of discourses with a particular context of development that has to be adjusted accordingly.
This approach is different from the conventional way of studying deliberative democracy. In the conventional approach, researchers either treat China as a particular case under a general theory of deliberative democracy, or accumulate empirical cases in China in order to find generalizable rules from the empirical data. However, in the Chinese context, the discussions develop differently from the discussion in the English context. The process of translation shows that deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu have been two particular singularities that collide with each other. These two singularities include each other by excluding each other. At the level of empirical test, two things have proved that the status of China as an object of knowledge in deliberative democracy has been excluded from its rule due to its inability to be applied to the Western theory without difficulties.
First, when the empirical cases of deliberative democracy first appeared in North America and Europe, most cases were conducted or experimented in democratic regimes. The implementation and emergence of deliberative democracy in an ‘unlikely place’ (Fishkin et al. 2010) like China has violated the conventional knowledge about deliberative democracy. A second phenomenon thus emerged. In the beginning, when the idea of deliberative democracy was introduced, scholars from China and the international community began to question: Does China have deliberative democracy? This question has shown the situation that the theory of deliberative democracy cannot be simply applied in China. The difficulty of directly applying theory to China’s context proves China has been excluded from the general rules of deliberative democracy. Nevertheless, that does not mean China is fully excluded from the general rule of deliberative democracy. On the contrary, as this thesis tries to demonstrate via the lens of Agamben’s ideas, China exists as a liminal case intersecting between the developments of two directions. On the one hand, China may have a democratic transition by fostering a healthy growth of deliberative practices. On the other hand, China can make use
213 of the theory and practice of deliberative democracy and turn it into a tool for its authoritarian regime. This is also why the idea of ‘authoritarian deliberation (He & Warren 2011)’ was brought out. This ambivalent tendency appears in the work of He and Warren. While they attempt to build the ideal type of authoritarian regime and imply China as an important source of this idea, they hold a positive prospect on the outcome of more deliberations (He & Warren 2011).
Instead of seeking to build another ideal type of authoritarian deliberation, this thesis begins a similar investigation from the perspective of Traveling Theory and ends up with a different conclusion. The main reason is that the development in China has demonstrated a strong state of ambivalence. This ambivalent image of theory traveling to China has turned China into the exception to the theory of deliberative democracy. Under this circumstance, China makes use of this position of exception and reverses it as the uniqueness of Chinese characteristics. This gives the development in China leverage to defy and change the conventional way of how we understand deliberative democracy.
Moreover, once deliberative democracy is embedded in the experimental approach, any experiment with democratic implications would be contained and controlled in a created zone of exception. This operation of exception tends to neutralise the deliberative capacity and lower the chance for any democratic transition in China. In addition, another consequence brought by the experimental approach is that the central government can abort the investment in this idea. As the pace and the direction of how to develop xieshang minzhu is controlled in the hands of the central government, it can promote the advancement of this idea or on the other hand, stop investing any resources to support it. If the central government decides not to develop xieshang minzhu, the idea of deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu would lose its importance and relevance in the Chinese context.
As China plays the role of an exceptional example in relation to deliberative democracy, the Chinese translation of xieshang minzhu establishes itself as a Chinese version of deliberative democracy. In many aspects, the exclusion created by the translation can be seen from its development after the early 2000s. This development is triggered by the introduction of deliberative democracy, and I have traced this development through three forms of discourses.
In sum, deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu influence and change each other. With Agamben’s methodological assumptions and theory, this thesis has attempted to build a
214 theoretical argument through the engagement of the collision between deliberative democracy and xieshang minzhu. By clarifying their respective trajectories and articulating the collision of the two terms in China, we can have an enriched understanding about how our understanding of deliberative democracy have been redefined due to its extension to the Chinese context and also gain an insight into the political landscape in China. Before going to the final destination of this thesis, I will give an illustration below on the limitations of this study.
8.4 Limitations
After several stages of readjustment, this thesis has finally reached its conclusion. Every stage represents the turns, detours, and adjustments made when I encountered challenges and limitations during my research. These traces of detour not only constitute the journey of this thesis but also represent some basic limitations that I have not been able to overcome in a given period of time. In the following paragraphs, I will talk about these limitations. I believe these limitations are not only drawbacks of this thesis but can imply possible paths for future study.
The first limitation is time. In Chapter Four, I traced the development of Wenling’s deliberative experiment that had been conducted over a period of 15 years. By understanding its historical context, I was able to trace the change in practice. During the fieldwork conducted for this thesis, I spent six months in total to collect the relevant data and put the information together. The more I invested in this fieldwork site, the more I felt how little I knew about Wenling and its deliberative experiment. Therefore, the argument I made in this thesis is a temporary theorisation. I believe Wenling’s deliberative experiment requires a longer period of observation. A longer, deeper, and continuous engagement with participants, especially local residents, is necessary for future studies.
Moreover, as I mentioned in Chapter Three, the reason I chose Wenling as the case study is because of its sustainability and the accessibility. This accessibility represents the basic limitation of this thesis and the openness of the Chinese political system. While this thesis argues that Wenling’s deliberative experiment is a created zone of exception, it does not exclude the possibility that other sites of experiment could also offer insights. Consequently, although I only introduced Wenling’s deliberative experiment as the exceptional example in China, it does not exclude the articulation of other examples in China. On the contrary, in the
215 ideal scenario, more examples can give us a fuller picture of how xieshang minzhu works in China. However, due to the time limit and accessibility, I was only able to conduct a deeper study on Wenling.
Finally, although this thesis adopts a different approach to engage with the topic of deliberative democracy in China, it does not mean the conventional approach cannot work. The current status of this thesis represents a personal journey of how I engaged with this topic. What I hope to achieve in this thesis is to enrich the discussion in the field of deliberative democracy and China studies. I do not mean to deny the conventional approach of studying deliberative democracy in China and other places. On the contrary, I look forward to other studies of deliberative democracy in China using more conventional approaches.
8.5 The Prospect of Future Research
Apart from the limitations of this thesis and the implied research agenda, more thoughts emerged on the prospect of future research during the process of thesis writing. As this thesis adopts the perspective of interpretivism and engages with a cross-cultural dialogue between the Western and non-Western traditions, I found this field to be ripe for further investigation.
In the Chinese speaking world, China is not the only place introducing and promoting the idea of deliberative democracy. About the same time, scholars in Taiwan introduced the idea of deliberative democracy with a different translation and under a very different socio- political background. As mentioned in previous chapters, the academic community adopts shenyi minzhu as the translation of deliberative democracy. Furthermore, the background of introducing deliberative democracy to Taiwan is to deepen the given democratic politics after a peaceful power transfer during the 2000s. Different translations and socio-political contexts in Taiwan play the role of promoting the idea of deliberative democracy to scholars and other civil associations. In Taiwan, the original idea of introducing deliberative democracy was to strengthen and consolidate the emerging democratic politics by cultivating citizens’ ability to discuss and engage in public affairs. Under this circumstance, although China and Taiwan share a seemingly similar culture and language, different socio-political contexts and translations have led to different paths of development. This gives a very interesting resource for comparative research to be conducted in the future.
216 Moreover, within the Chinese speaking context, scholars in Hong Kong and Singapore also introduced the idea of deliberative democracy though the developments in these two places are not as advanced compared to the cases in China and Taiwan. Nevertheless, apart from the comparative studies between China and Taiwan, a broader and extensive comparison in the greater Chinese area will be a significant project to conduct. By engaging the contexts of the greater Chinese area, a rich and diverse development of deliberative democracy is expected. Some scholars (Min 2009) tend to claim that Confucianism is incompatible with the idea of deliberative democracy. However, bearing the work of Traveling Theory (Said 1983) in mind, a future investigation may not only demonstrate the different developments of deliberative democracy in the greater Chinese area but also present diverse views on Confucianism from a fresh perspective.
As Confucianism is not limited to the greater Chinese area, this cross-cultural project can also lead us to an even broader comparison in Japan, Korea, and other countries influenced by Confucianism. These comparative attempts are not just aimed to see different developments after the idea of deliberative democracy was introduced. The intention is to see a more diverse and heterogeneous elements inside an imagined and supposedly homogenous view on Confucian thoughts.
The above mentioned is a rough sketch of the possible comparative works based on the developments in East Asian contexts. The list of comparative cases can be endlessly extended, so the goal is not simply about comparison. Eventually, every comparison would lead back to the question of what deliberation is and how it works in the real world. Instead of assuming deliberation is the same anywhere in the world, this thesis partly tries to expose and answer a simple question: what will happen when deliberative democracy is applied to a non-English context that does not have a corresponding term in another language? This simple question has led to a dialogue between Western traditions and non-Western traditions. This question is not merely about the meaning of the word in another language. It goes deeper to the related socio-political and historical contexts which appear when traditions collide together. This division of Western and non-Western traditions also implies another issue that has not been dealt with in this thesis—the issue of colonization. As the discussions of deliberative democracy has been challenged by scholars from the feminist and anti-racist perspective (Young 1996; Mansbridge 1999), a challenge from a post-colonial perspective may
217 contribute to the field of deliberative democracy and push the boundary of deliberation forward to a more critical and promising area.
It is to my belief that only when the question of how deliberation is understood in other cultures and languages is seriously engaged, can we begin to understand and answer what deliberation is and how it works.
8.6 Concluding Remark
In this chapter, I have given a brief review of what has been written in previous chapters and discussed the possible future directions from my research experience. Starting with the idea of travel, this thesis has gone through a long journey to arrive at this final destination. I hope the investigation of this thesis has made this subject matter clear enough to show the transformation of meaning after deliberative democracy was introduced to China. I also hope this thesis can enrich the fields of both China studies and deliberative democracy.
In addition, as it is the idea of travel that sheds light on the process of investigation in this thesis, it has proved that there is great potential for further study of the concept of travel. Moreover, as the idea of travel suggests, the final destination of this thesis may not be the end of the investigation but the beginning of a new journey to explore more transformations of meanings through the dissemination of ideas in this globalised age.
218
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Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne
Author/s: Lo, Li-chia
Title: When deliberative democracy travels to China: an example of cultural exceptionalism
Date: 2018
Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/207898
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