Deliberative Democracy in China A Sociology of Knowledge Perspective

Economic and Political Studies

Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2013, ??-??

Deliberative Democracy in China: A Sociology

of Knowledge Perspective

HUOSHENG TAN*

Abstract: This paper analyzes from the perspective of the

sociology of knowledge how the theory of deliberative democracy

was introduced into China. This perspective means that the

analysis of this article will not focus on the theory itself, but

rather on the various strategies adopted in this process (strategy

of introducing this theory and the strategy of putting this theory

into practice) and their effects.

Keywords: deliberative democracy, theoretical introduction,

embedded development

I. Introduction

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY AS THE LATEST achievement of Western

democratic theories has only a history of about 20 years. At the

turn of the century, this au courant theory was introduced to China,

where it soon attracted a flurry of interest. This article analyzes,

from the perspective of the sociology of knowledge, how this theory

was introduced to China. As a result, the analysis of this article

will not focus on the theory of deliberative democracy itself, but

rather on the process of selecting various strategies (theoretical

input strategy and the strategy of combining theory and practice),

as well as the effects produced by these strategic choices.

*Huosheng Tan is from the Department of Political Science, Tsinghua University.


Deliberative democracy theory first entered the Chinese academia

around 1998 through the Taiwan Province of China. The earliest

interest in this theory occurred among sociologists rather than

political scientists. Yang Yijing (1998) published “Utopia of Public

Opinion Poll,” which, to the best of my knowledge, is the earliest

Chinese article about deliberative democracy. Soon, China’s

political scientists followed suit, resulting in more systematic

research (Chen, 1999; Xu, 2000; Li, 2000). In contrast, it was the

great reputation of Habermas that helped this theory land in the

Chinese mainland. Thanks to the translation of Habermas’s “The Three

Normative Models of Democracy,” scholars from the Chinese mainland

began to notice this theory. The earliest publication addressing

this theory was Wang Xingfu’s book (2002) A Road to Discourse Democracy: A

Dialogue with Habermas. The following year, the reform of Peking

University sparked controversy. With the theory of deliberative

democracy, Xu Jilin (2003) analyzed this issue in the article

“‘Deliberative Democracy’ in the Reform of Peking University,”

gaining the attention of academia. However, scholars were not so

enthusiastic about this theory in this period despite the

publication of Deliberative Democracy edited by Chen Jiagang (2004) and

the convening of the “International Symposium on Deliberative

Democracy Theory and China’s Local Democracy” in Hangzhou in August

of 2004. In 2004, there were only five papers on deliberative

democracy in academic journals of the Chinese mainland. Two of them

were introductory articles written by the same author, Chen Jiagang;

of another two articles, one was a translation, and the other a

review of Chen’s Deliberative Democracy. In 2005, 16 articles on the

topic appeared, of which seven were the result of the 2004 symposium

in Hangzhou. However, starting in 2006, the number of articles

soared on deliberative democracy. According to an online search

2

Deliberative Democracy in China

(www.cnki.net) by the author on 28 April 2011, 160-180 articles were

found with “deliberative democracy” in the title each year during

2008-2010, and 38 appeared in the first quarter of 2011. From 2004

to the first quarter of 2011, the overall total stood at 760.

FIGURE 1

Number of Articles on Deliberative Democracy in Academic Journalsof the Chinese Mainland: 2004-2010

Similarly, master’s theses relating to deliberative democracy theory

also showed an upward trend. A search in China Master’s Theses Full-

text Database included in cnki.net shows that from 2004 to 2010, a

total of 75 papers were about deliberative democracy, of which in

the two-year period of 2009-2010 alone there were 46, accounting

thus for 61.3% of the total! The academic enthusiasm for

deliberative democracy theory is thus visible and still growing.

FIGUER 2

3


Number of Master’s Theses about Deliberative Democracy in the

Chinese Mainland: 2004-2010

The theory of deliberative democracy was introduced into China

only a few years ago. Nevertheless, there has been enormous related

research up to now,1( and these publications have been relatively

concentrated: 83.6% of periodical articles and 92% of master’s

degree theses were completed between 2007 and 2010. Moreover, in the

few short years, experimentation guided by this theory in China hassparked the interest of the international academic community, where

very quickly there appeared related articles and works (Leib, and

He, 2006; Hess, 2009; Fishkin et al., 2010; He and Warren, 2011). One

can only be curious as to why, after the introduction of this

1 A comparison with studies concerning other Western theories or even otherdemocratic theories reveals that this number is very notable. According to asearch on cnki.net, as of May 2011, only 16 articles contain “elite democracy”in their titles; 7 have “pluralist democracy” in the title; article titles with“liberal democracy” amount only to 76 (of which the first article appeared in1952, and a considerable number of articles merely introduce the LiberalDemocratic Party in many countries, having nothing to do with liberal democratictheory itself); 119 articles contain in the title “participatory democracy”; 80articles include “direct democracy” in the title; 60 articles involve“representative democracy.” All of these articles, taken together, only add upto 358 (of which many are counted repeatedly), less than 1/2 of articles with“deliberative democracy” in the title during the last five years.

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theory, there has been such a striking amount of interest in China

and China’s local experiments has attracted prompt response from the

Western academia. This paper seeks to perform a preliminary

exploration of the Chinese research of this theory from the

perspective of the sociology of knowledge. It will focus on the

following two questions: how was the Western theory of deliberative

democracy introduced to China? And how was this theory incorporated

into China’s knowledge system and even political and social

practice?

II. Sinicization: The Strategy for Introducing This Theory

into China

Ever since the “May Fourth Movement” of 1919, the introduction of

Western theories has become a permanent feature within Chinese

academia. Various Western theories have “sung on the Chinese stage,”

to which Chinese scholars have been accustomed. But why have some

foreign-originated theories vanished quickly after their

introduction into China, while others have been able to stimulate

long-term interest? Why do some theories have a real impact on

social and political practice, while others are merely limited to

narcissism within the ivory tower? These related questions remain

largely unexplored by academia. The dissemination of deliberative

democracy theory in China has provided us with a very interesting

case, through which we may propose a preliminary answer to the

aforementioned questions. In this section, we will try to

investigate further with these two questions: Who introduced the

theory? How was it introduced into China? Of course, these two

questions are closely linked; the choice of the theoretical

introduction strategy clearly influences the composition of

disseminators of this theory. During the process of importing

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deliberative democracy theory, quite a few policy researchers from

government departments and even some government officials have been

engaged in related discussions. This success is largely attributable

to the introduction strategy of scholars, a strategy that stressed

the connection between Western democratic theory and China’s

political tradition.

In order for a theory from abroad to make an impact in a country,

the first task is to translate the basic literature and introduce

the core ideas and important scholars in the process of the theory’s

development; second, the theory must be consciously localized, that is,

be acclimatized to the target country’s conditions. It should be

said that deliberative democracy theory has been relatively

successful in this regard.

Firstly, academia’s translation of deliberative democracy theory

has achieved fruitful results. Since 2004 when the first anthology

on deliberative democracy was published, ten monographs or

anthologies have been translated into China. There are three

anthologies edited by Chinese scholars on deliberative democracy:

Chen Jiagang’s Deliberative Democracy (2004), Tan Huosheng’s Deliberative

Democracy (2007) and The Evolution of Deliberative Democracy edited by Chen

Shengyong and He Baogang (2006). The former two included some of the

core theses in the development process of this theory, covering the

basic stages of evolution, core concepts and controversies. They

have become basic reference material for Chinese scholars studying

this issue. Moreover, Tan’s Deliberative Democracy offers a 17-page

bibliography for further reading on the theme, including references

up to the year 2005, which provides a solid guide for further

research. The Evolution of Deliberative Democracy was compiled from theses

coming out of the 2004 Hangzhou conference, which included recent

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research and several articles from overseas scholars (including

representatives such as James Fishkin and John S. Dryzek).

Apart from this, under the direction of Yu Keping, the Translation

Series on Deliberative Democracy has translated the core literature into

Chinese and played an important role in the promotion of

deliberative democracy theory in China. Up to now eight books have

been included in this series, among which four were published in

2006 and another four in 2009. All these books are the most

important contribution in this field. Some of them are anthologies

playing an important role in the 1990s, including Deliberative Democracy:

Essays on Reason and Politics, Deliberative Democracy and Democracy and Difference:

Contesting the Boundaries of the Political; there are also anthologies

reflecting the latest developments since 2000, for example, Debating

Deliberative Democracy and Democracy as Public Deliberation: New Perspectives.

However, there are some shortcomings in the translation work on

deliberative democracy, of which the biggest regret is, despite the

relatively large number of journal articles on deliberate democracy,

translated texts have been very rare. Almost all the translations

have been organized by the Central Compilation and Translation

Bureau (CCTB) , except Deliberative Democracy (Tan, 2007) which was

published under another translation plan. Within academic journals,

we rarely see deliberative democracy-related translations. The

results of a search on cnki.net show that during 2004-2011, there

are only six translation articles containing the term “deliberative

democracy” in their titles, accounting for only 0.79% of the total

of 760 papers, which seems way out of proportion for a Western-

originated theory. If again analyzing the distribution of these six

articles, one will find two published in 2005 came from the Hangzhou

conference; one article came out respectively in 2004 and 2006, and

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both of them were translated by the CCTB; no translation article was

found between 2007 and 2009; one was published in 2010 in Comparative

Economic & Social Systems, a journal edited by the CCTB; merely the one

article published in 2011 has nothing to do with the CCTB.

The work of introducing deliberative democracy theory has been

fruitful only in the last couple of years. Despite the large number

of deliberative democracy-related articles in recent years, there

have been few real in-depth articles on this theory. Among the 760

articles published from 2004 to the first quarter of 2011, there

have been only 171 articles (or 22.5%) exploring deliberative

democracy theory itself (including six translated texts). It may

seem like a big number, but a closer examination will reveal that

most of these articles are general overviews without going into

depth of any issue inherent to deliberative democracy theory, and the

degree of repetition is quite high, in terms of both topics and

arguments. For example, there are 25 articles comparing electoral

democracy and deliberative democracy. As a result, the range of

introductions is quite limited. Not only are many important issues

basically overlooked, but many introductions of thinkers are

concentrated on Habermas (13 articles). At the same time, apart from

works by He Baogang, Chen Jiagang, and a few other writers, there

are not many related in-depth introductions. However, this situation

has improved in the last few years, as some younger researchers have

chosen deliberative democracy as the theme for their master’s theses

and PhD dissertations. They have published a number of papers

adapted from their dissertations, covering in depth core issues

including civism, reason, equality, consensus, legitimacy,

representative, preference, politics of difference, public policy,

etc. Some of them are quite good (e.g., Zhang, 2008; Diao, 2009; Yan,

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2010; Du, 2009.). Some less important thinkers like Iris Marion Young

were also introduced into China (Ma, 2009).

In contrast with the relatively weak theoretical research, 77.5%

(a total of 589 articles) of articles on deliberative democracy

discuss China-related questions. Two aspects are worthy of our

attention about this clear practice-centered orientation.

First, this is the inevitable result of the introduction strategy.

When the academic community began to introduce deliberative

democracy theory, there was in fact such an intention of putting

this theory into practice. It was not purely to pursue knowledge

when scholars introduced this theory, but to provide theoretical

resources for the construction of democratic politics in China. The

translation of the term “deliberative democracy” was a manifestation

of this intention. According to the author’s reading, since the term

“deliberative democracy” itself entered the Chinese academic

vocabulary, there has been at least seven different types of

translations in the Chinese literature: “审审审审” (or “审审审审审,” “审审审审审”)

(used by Jiang Yihua, 2003; He Mingxiu, 2003; Chen Dongsheng, Lin

Guoming, 2003; Chen Junhong, 1999; Huo Weian, 2004; Tan Huosheng,

2007), “审审审审” (or “审审审审审”, “审审审审审”) (used by Hsu, Kuo-Hsien, 2000;

Xu Jilin, 2003), “审审审审” (used by Chen Jiagang, 2004; He Baogang,

2007), “审审审审” (adopted by Liu Shen, 2004), “审审审审” (used by Tong

Shijun, 2003), “审审审审审审审” (used by Liu Jingyi, 2002).2 (审审审审 2) In

Taiwan, the most commonly seen translation is “审审审审,” while on the

mainland, the most popular translation is “审审审审.”3 (审审审审 3) Among

these, the translation of “ 审审审审” (democracy through consultation)

2 Regarding the respective advantages and disadvantages of these translations,please see Tan (2007, 6-7).

3 Among the 760 articles, only 21 (or 2.76%) used the translation of “审审审审”,and only one article used “审审审审.”

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makes it easier to combine this theory with local resources and

implement it in China. A high degree of consensus has been reached

on this point. The most vigorous advocate of deliberative democracy

in China is Professor He Baogang. He said privately more than once

that the more correct translation may be “审审审审” or “审审审审.” However,

“ 审审审审 ” is more appropriate for this theory to be promoted in

practice. This translation can be connected with the Chinese

People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the “mass

line,” thus providing more space for its development (He, 2008,

114). I agree with this point though I still choose the translation

of “审审审审.” I choose “审审审审” not only for more precise understanding

of the theory itself, but also for the sake of implementing this

theory in practice. The translation of “ 审审审审 ,” though it is more

acceptable for the Chinese people, may make this theory less

inspiring. By contrast, the translation of “ 审审审审 ” deliberately

creates a sense of alienation to prompt us to reflect upon our own

political practice. In this sense, the original intentions of these

two translations are both to promote China’s democratic

construction. It should be said that this strategy has been very

successful. This theory has not only quickly attracted wide

attention of scholars and the public, it also showed vigorous

vitality in grassroots political and social practice. As early as

2006, Vice President Li Junru of the Party School of the Central

Committee of CPC wrote many articles for newspapers and magazines,

stating that “deliberative democracy is an important form of

democracy” (Li,2006a; Li, 2006b). Because of his special status, his

view aroused heated discussions after it was reprinted by digital

media such as people.com.cn and xinhuanet.com. During the National

People’s Congress and the CPPCC in 2010, China Central Television

(CCTV) News made a brief review of deliberative democracy in China’s

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political life under the title of “Deliberative Democracy Blossoms

in Vigorous Practice.” This shows that deliberative democracy has

been accepted not only by the general public, but also by top

leaders.

Second, coverage of the topics. According to this author’s

calculation, these 589 articles discussing Chinese-related issues

can be divided into the following categories (see Table 1).

TABLE 1

Coverage of Articles Addressing China-related Issues with the Theory

of Deliberative Democracy

Type

Number of

articles

Percentage

of the

Total

Contents

Deliberative

democracy with

Chinese

Characteristics

127 21.56% general introduction

Political

institutions169 28.69%

CPPCC: 94 articles;

political party system:

50 articles; unified

front: 5 articles;

people’s congress

system: 5 articles;

constitutionalism: 15

articles

Grassroots

Governance85 14.43%

new village

construction; village

autonomy; grassroots

elections; protection of

the rights of the

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disabled; community

governance; wage

negotiations; town

governance; petition

letter; mass

disturbance;

disadvantaged groups;

democratic consultation;

budget reform

Civil Society and

Political

Participation

61 10.36%

civil society: 12

articles; media: 23

articles; political

participation: 21

articles

Service-oriented

Government and

Harmonious Society

Construction

51 8.66%

harmonious society: 33

articles; ethnic group

issues: 5 articles;

service-oriented

government: 13 articles

Public Policy 41 6.96%

hearings; scientific

decision-making;

democratic decision-

making

Deliberative

Democracy and

Ideology

13 2.21%

the mass line;

scientific outlook on

development; thoughts on

deliberative democracy

of Mao Zedong, Zhou

Enlai, Deng Xiaoping,

Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao

Deliberative

Democracy in6 1.02% during Anti-Japanese War

(1931-1945); the War of

12


Practice in Modern

China

Liberation (1945-1949);

the New Democratic

Revolution (1919-1949);

early years of the PRC;

the Old Political

Consultation Conference

(1945-1946)

Others 36 6.11%

community policing;

hospitals; schools,

Communist Youth League,

etc.

From the table, we can find some interesting phenomena: first,

quite a number of articles interpret deliberative democracy as an

important form of socialist political practice with Chinese

characteristics. The titles of these articles often highlight that

“deliberative democracy is an important form of socialist democracy

with Chinese characteristics,” “deliberative democracy is an

important innovation of China’s 30 years of political construction,”

and “deliberative democracy: the Chinese form of democracy.” The

great majority of articles do not really care about the deliberative

democracy theory itself, the similarities and differences between

deliberative democracy and China’s political practice, or the

theory’s implications for China’s democratic political construction.

They aim at something else. Secondly, most articles discuss

deliberative democracy and China’s political institutions,

especially China’s political consultation system and the related

political party system. This is natural because when Chinese

scholars translated the “deliberative democracy” into “审审审审”, they

emphasized in their mind the connection between the two. Thirdly,

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grassroots governance is the second most popular topic. If most of

the articles stressing Chinese characteristics merely “put old wine

into a new bottle,” then articles about grassroots governance mostly

“put new wine into an old bottle” (this will be discussed in more

detail in the next section). Almost all major issues about

grassroots governance have been covered in these articles.

We will find from these articles that practically all the hot

topics are labeled as deliberative democracy; and almost all top

leaders are regarded as important representatives of deliberative

democracy. Moreover, deliberative democracy has almost become

China’s greatest contribution to the world. One has to wonder

whether deliberative democracy has become some kind of panacea that

can solve all problems in China. This situation reminds us that when

people hastily introduce deliberative democracy to China, some

misinterpretations do exist. Despite some scholars’ warning as early

as 2007 (Jin and Yao, 2007), misunderstanding of this theory has

spread inevitably. It can even be said that the popularity of this

theory among scholars and the public is driven by this

misunderstanding. It is also due to its popularity that a previously

rare phenomenon has been observed: many policy researchers (mainly

in the CPC departments) and even some government officials have

joined scholars and use their magazines or journals to disseminate

this theory. According to my calculation, 35.3% of the 760 articles

are published in these magazines or journals (see Table 2):

TABLE 2

Distribution of Articles on Deliberative

Democracy

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DepartmentNumber of

articlesPublications

CPPCC System 49

Theoretical Research of the CPPCC: 29

Jiangsu CPPCC: 11

CPPCC Affairs (sponsored by Fujian

CPPCC): 1

Boating Together (sponsored by

Guangdong CPPCC): 2

Unity (sponsored by the Revolutionary

Committee of the Chinese

Kuomintang): 6

United Front

Work

Department116

Journals of institutes of socialism:

113

China’s United Front (sponsored by the

United Front Work Department of CPC

Central Committee): 1

Sichuan United Front (sponsored by the

United Work Department of Sichuan

Provincial Committee): 2

Party School

System103

Journals of Party schools: 54

Journals of academies of governance:

40

Party and Government Forum: 6

Public Administration and Law: 3

Total 268

Note: Party Schools and School of Administrations are separated in a small

number of provinces and at the national level, but the two practically belong to

one system. So they are treated as the same thing in my calculation.

III. Embedded Development: Putting Theory into

Practice

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When we say deliberative democracy is somewhat misread when it is

linked with China’s contemporary political practice, this does not

mean that we cannot link the two; on the contrary, we should do so.

However, the right way is not to take China’s political practice as

the realization of the ideal of deliberative democracy; nor can it

be rigidly and literally forced onto China’s political practice,

demanding our political practice strictly implement the ideal

standards set by this democratic theory. Instead, we should, on the

one hand, be aware that consultation is not deliberation (Jin and

Yao, 2007), and on the other hand, in accordance with the principle

of “limited deliberative democracy,” embed skills of deliberative

democracy into China’s reality and improve China’s political

practice gradually but constantly (He and Wang, 2007). In fact, soon

after this theory was introduced into China, it was put into

practice. It can be said that the theoretical introduction and

experiments in practice took place almost simultaneously. However,

despite the emergence of many forms of deliberative democracy—the

citizens’ council, urban resident council, meeting of villager

representatives, hearings and so on—virtually all of these

experiments have taken place thus far at the grassroots level.

Therefore, here we will analyze the interaction between theory and

practice with the relatively sophisticated practice of deliberative

democracy in Wenling, Zhejiang Province.

The practice of deliberative democracy in Wenling is in fact an

integral part of Wenling’s “democratic consultation” (minzhu kentan,

which literally means “sincere heart-to-heart democratic

discussion”) As some commentators have pointed out, regardless of

political results, Wenling’s “democratic consultation” has created a

miracle in terms of the amount of academic literature it generated.

In the period from January 2003 to September 2009 alone, 39 academic

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articles on this topic were published in journals of the Chinese

mainland, and one appeared in an international academic journal (He,

2010). These articles have taken different theoretical approaches to

explain Wenling’s “democratic consultation.” However, as to what

concerns us here—how is theory put into practice—the existing

literature has not given a satisfactory answer. He Junzhi once

proposed that the conjunction of power, idea and governance skills

constitutes a key to understand the whole development of the Wenling

’s “democratic consultation,” and the sequence of appearance of the

three factors and the forms of their combination is the structural

framework determining the timing and ways of Wenling’s “democratic

consultation” (He, 2010). This explanation is very enlightening, but

it fails to illuminate how they are combined. He and Wang (2007)

raised their own views of the forms of combination, believing that

deliberative democracy should be embedded into China’s social

reality. Unfortunately, they just skated over the issue without

going into further discussion. Upon the heels of them, I use the

concept of “embedded development” to explain how the theory and

skills of deliberative democracy are combined with the practice of

Wenling’s “democratic consultation.”

This idea comes from the concept of “embeddedness” in sociology

which was first proposed by the famous sociologist Karl Polanyi in

the year 1944. Facing the compound characteristics of modern

society, he sought to explain how heterogeneous components are

integrated in modern society. He pointed out that the economy is not

autonomous, but rather part of the greater social system. Therefore,

the functioning of the economy was not only affected by economic

institutions, but also by politics, religion, social relations and

ideas (Polanyi, 1944). Forty years later, Granovetter provided a

systematic explanation of this issue in his classic article

17


“Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness.”

He criticized, on the one hand, that Polanyi’s explanation of socio-

economic history with the concept of “embeddedness” was

insufficient; and on the other, he tried to enrich this concept from

a micro-perspective, and to find out a middle way between the two

existing paths: one is the undersocialised explanation, as in neo-

classical economics, which treats people as atomized individuals

detached from the social background; the other is the over-

socialised explanation in sociology, as in Parsons’s structural

functionalism, which regard individuals as puppets of the society

without any autonomy. Granovetter (1985) emphasized that the actor

was not an isolated individual, but was embedded in a particular

social structure; therefore, widespread social relations would

continue to influence the actor’s behaviors. Subsequently, there has

been a large amount of literature using the concept of embeddedness

to explain human behavior and institutional change. They are not

limited to the field of sociology, but have also spread into the

fields of economics, political science, law and other social

sciences. Of course, some scholars have tried to use this concept to

explain China’s development. For example, as early as 1994, Kevin O’

Brien (1994) used this concept to explain the evolution of China’s

National People’s Congress (NPC) in the reform era. Through

interviews with staff and representatives of the NPC, he found that

development of the NPC in this period was thanks to its cooperation

with Party committees and the government. Support and attention from

Party committees and government departments was critical for its

organizational development and increased capacity.

It is worth noting that in the section of concluding remarks of

O’Brien’s article (1994), he warned that we should not extend the

comparison unduly and use signs of embeddedness to outline a Chinese

18


path toward democracy; an embedded Chinese legislature may

ultimately contribute to increased state capacity and a more

efficient authoritarianism. The leap to democracy requires

systematic, non-incremental changes and going beyond embeddedness.

Obviously, according to O’Brien, embeddedness is a negative factor

which needs to be transcended to realize China’s democratization. On

this point, I would like to borrow a subheading in Block’s

Introduction to Polanyi’s masterpiece—Why Disembedding Cannot be

Successful—to express my concerns. If disembedding is not an ideal

choice, then how to face “embeddedness” is an unavoidable problem.

As far as my question is concerned—how does deliberative democracy

theory combine with China’s political practice—there is an important

difference between the issue of this article and that of O’Brien’s.

The NPC system is an existing institution, where legitimacy was not

a problem; instead, the problem is how to give full play to the

potential of this system. Therefore what we need to do is to focus

on the support and attention of other ingredients of the political

system. Nevertheless, as a heterogeneous element coming from abroad,

deliberative democracy should first solve the problem of legitimacy

before winning the support it needs. Therefore, its embeddedness

involves both the embeddedness in China’s ideology and the

embeddedness in China’s power structures. In terms of the results of

the embeddedness, I cannot agree with O’Brien’s pessimistic

conclusion. For China’s democratization, embeddedness may be a

viable option; the result may not necessarily be the strengthened

authoritarianism as expected by O’Brien, but may be updated social

and political structures.

Accordingly, the “embedded development” I propose here means the

embedding of some heterogeneous components into the existing social

and political structures, which will activate or remold some

19


functions of the structures and gradually revitalize the entire

structures through continuous improvement and expansion.

Specifically, what embedded development stresses is to win the space

for development through the means of “embedding.” This means we

cannot force reality to adapt to theory; instead, with the

conditions being unchanged, we should make new elements separately

infiltrate into existing social and political structures. At the

same time, “embedded development” requires that new heterogeneous

components can be “embedded,” which means that it must find a

counterpart in the existing social and political structures in order

to survive; in other words, it must find its connection with the

existing system and ideology. Only after this step will it possibly

activate some existing dormant functions and develop itself through

constant self-improvement. Moreover, its expansion within the system

also follows existing paths to power. During this process, it

reinterprets the original system and resets its functions. The

“embedded development” is easily confused with “path dependence.” In

my opinion, the most important difference between the two is that

while the latter is a passive adaptation, the former is a proactive

choice, which through the form of embeddedness gains space for

development and all kinds of necessary resources (institutional

resources, legitimacy, etc.).

Below is an examination of how much Wenling’s practice of

deliberative democracy and even the entire process of democratic

consultation can by interpreted by the above theoretical assumption.

As we all know, Wenling’s “democratic consultation ” at the earlystages of its creation was not a new form of democracy, but rather a

creative carrier of political and ideological work at the rural

grassroots level. Afterward, it gradually became “an original form

20


of grassroots democracy” (Chen, 2005), and then by incorporating

components of “deliberate democracy” it has turned into deliberative

democracy in practice and Wenling has become a leading practicer of

contemporary democratic theory (He, 2010). Every step has been

realized by “embedding” new governance skill into the existing

frameworks (i.e. power structures and ideological discourses) to

achieve improvement and innovation (Zhang, 2003).

Observed from the point of view of power structures, “democratic

consultation,” when it emerged in 1999 as a new form of political

and ideological work, was implemented under the municipal publicity

departments of Taizhou and Wenling in accordance with the plan of

the Provincial Party Committee. At that time, the municipal

publicity departments selected Songmen Town as the pilot site for

the “Agricultural and Rural Modernization Education Forum” and

agreed on specific operational measures together with the town party

committee and town government. It was the “mutual dialogue between

officers and the public” in imitation of the press conference that

became the initial form of the “democratic consultation.” The whole

process was run within the existing framework of power. After

“democratic consultation” achieved legitimacy within the existing

institutional framework, it became the substrate for developing

“deliberative democracy” and “budget democracy.” The practice of

Wenling’s deliberative democracy is in fact realized by implanting

the technique of “deliberative polling” into the original democratic

consultation. It is also achieved under the leadership of the Party

committee and government of the Zeguo Town. As some scholars have

pointed out, the whole process fully embodies the Chinese

characteristics of China’s grassroots participation through

consultation, that is, the domination of government (Lang, 2005). A

closer look at the procedures will make this clear. For example, the

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town-level democratic consultation goes like this: the township

leading group of democratic consultation gather the opinions of the

representatives of town people’s congress or CPPCC, mass

organizations and individuals → the town Party committee and

government deal with the information →determination of the theme by

the joint conference of the Party committee, government and people’s

congress → the making of the implementation plan by the general

office of the town government → announcement of the time, place,

theme, and the participators generated through random sample →

preparing for the meeting, including delivering discussion materials

to the participators ahead of time, venue layout, and division of

labor → democratic consultation → after the meeting, the township

leading group study the opinions and suggestions brought forward in

the meeting, and map out the project → announcement the project →

town government’s implementation. In the whole process, the Party

committee and people’s congress supervise and solicit for feedback

opinions (Lang, 2009).

It can be said that the success of the strategy of “embedded”

development lies in that it is government-dominated and thus

controllable. “It does not directly challenge the existing power

structures, thus significantly reducing political obstacles and

risks of reform; technically, the Wenling mode is greatly

practicable. For cadres in charge, it is quite controllable; at

least they don’t have to worry about losing their future” (Jing,

2003).

Observed from the perspective of ideological discourses, Wenling’s

democratic consultation has evolved completely within the existing

ideological framework. In the early days, it was smoothly integrated

into the mainstream ideology and the discourse system of the

22


ideological and political work, and was interpreted as reflecting

the fine tradition of “maintaining close ties with the masses” in

the new era. Later, when it became a new form of grassroots

democracy, it was included in the system of interpretation of

democracy by the 15th CPC National Congress. According to this

official interpretation, democracy includes the four major parts of

“democratic election, democratic decision-making, democratic

management and democratic supervision.” Wenling’s democratic

consultation not only covers the last three aspects, but also avoids

democratic election which is too sensitive for local authorities to

touch. It fully meets the requirements of the 15th National Congress,

and is politically safe (He, 2010). Moreover, according to expert

interpretation (Chen, 2005), “democratic consultation” not only

manifests the unification of the Party’s leadership, people as the

masters and the rule of law, it also has implications for changing

the way of governance and improve the capacity of governance of the

CPC as a ruling party. Later, the method of deliberative democracy

was embedded into democratic consultation. Even though this practice

can be explained with Western theories, it still used the term of

“democratic consultation.” This is extremely important since it

gives a legitimate form to the Western-originated theory. Of course,

this is also related to the way deliberative democracy was

introduced: it was embedded in a technical way (new public opinion

survey skills). After its entry, it will inevitably bring with it

the values of equality, freedom, reason, and so on. But in the early

period it was neutral, without any ideological color. Furthermore,

this new public opinion survey skill can even be explained as

institutionalizing the mass line. On the one hand, it can make the

public understand and practice deliberation instead of resorting to

extreme measures to voice their political desires and demands to the

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government; on the other hand, it allows government officials to

know the specific implications of democratic administration.

Therefore, deliberative democracy can be said as an innovative

embodiment of the mass line in the new era (Lang, 2005; Wang, 2005).

It can be seen that from a new method of political and ideological

work to deliberative democracy, Wenling’s democratic consultation

has found in each step its counterpart in the existing ideological

discourses, and gained the ideological legitimacy through new

interpretations. This is an important precondition for its

sustainable development. If we can say that democratic consultation

itself is “embedded” in the framework of political and ideological

work and gains space to grow, then deliberative democracy and budget

democracy are “embedded” in the framework of democratic consultation

and thus gain space for development. After surviving in the

framework of political and ideological work, democratic consultation

has turned into an “original form of grassroots democracy”; then

when deliberative democracy and budget democracy survive, will they

give rise to a mode of “governance based on deliberation and

cooperation” and then facilitate the transformation of China’s

grassroots governance, as expected by some scholars? This needs

further work: activation, institutionalization and diffusion.

Activation refers to the fact that when the heterogeneous

components are embedded in the existing social and political

structures, they may wake up some dormant functions, such as the

mass line, and the tradition of maintaining close ties with the

masses. This requires that the heterogeneous components do not

appear as alien things but as the new form of old components. For

instance, deliberative polling of deliberative democracy is

interpreted as the institutionalized and routinized mass line. This

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is a type of creative work, which requires re-interpreting the

existing functions on the one hand, and localizing heterogeneous

components on the other. Only in this way can heterogeneous

components gradually become an organic part of the existing system.

This creative work requires the participation of experts and

scholars, as well as the combination of power, ideas and the art of

governance (He, 2010). In fact, throughout the entire development

process of democratic consultation, the participation of experts and

scholars and their timely theoretical guidance are key elements. The

transformation of Wenling’s democratic consultation from a new

method of political and ideological work to a new form of grassroots

democracy is the result of the efforts of experts and scholars.

According to Chen Yimin, the chief of the Theoretical Section of

Wenling Municipal Publicity Department , it was in the year 2000

when a summing-up meeting was held that they were enlightened by

experts and scholars: “At the time, we still thought it was a form

of ideological and political work, but experts from the Central

Party School and our province pointed out that the forum has already

gone beyond the scope of ideological and political work. It’s in

fact a new form of democracy.” It is after this meeting that the

Wenling Municipal Publicity Department officially identifies this as

a new form of democracy (He, 2010).

After deliberative democracy as a new technique of governance is

embedded into democratic consultation, it has not only activated the

mass line, but also revitalized to a greater extent people’s

congress, the core of the original political structures. The

experiment of deliberative democracy in the Zeguo Town has two links

related to the township people’s congress. The first is inviting

representatives of the township people’s congress to participate as

observers. The second is submitting the resolution of the meeting to

25


the township people’s congress, and inviting village representatives

chosen by means of sampling to participate in the discussion and

voting process. This design produces two results: one is the

strengthened self-consciousness of the representatives of people’s

congress. In February 2009, I visited the Zeguo Town and talked with

those representatives of the people’s congress. More than one of

them told me that they attended meeting and listened attentively

because they felt pressure: “These village representatives will come

to listen to our discussions in several days. If we cannot do as

well as they did, how embarrassed we will be as their

representatives!” The other result is the revitalization of

functions of the grassroots people’s congress. According to the

institutional design, the people’s congress has the power to review

and oversee the government budget. However, this power has long been

in a dormant state, though this procedure is fulfilled every year.

Thanks to the experiment of deliberative democracy, the township

people’s congress has started to genuinely exercise its power under

the pressure of village representatives who also review the

government budget. At the same time, the experiment of deliberative

democracy by village representatives provides a model for the

congress to understand how reviews should be conducted.

If we say activation is a key step in updating the system, then

institutionalization and diffusion are important conditions for the

sustainable development of the updated system.

Institutionalization provides an important stimulus for the

development of Wenling’s democratic consultation. From 2000 to 2004,

Wenling introduced a series of official “opinions” on democratic

consultation and developed related institutions. This has

institutionalized the obtained results at each stage, and the

26


institutionalization itself has in turn deepened this practice. In

this process, there are two crucial institutional designs: one is

the incorporation of democratic consultation into the assessment

system. Township leaders will get bonus points if they perform well

in democratic consultation. This promotes competition between towns

and the emergence of various forms of democratic consultation. The

other is the establishment of a top-down leading institution (i.e.,

leading group on democratic consultation) from the municipal to the

township (sub-district) level. The office of the municipal leading

group belongs to the Publicity Department. This structural force has

become a powerful force promoting the sustainable development of

democratic consultation. It is because once such agencies are

established, the meaning of their existence lies in the struggle for

the in-depth and sustainable development of democratic consultation

(He, 2010). The demand of self-expansion itself will press it to

consistently seek new forms and breakthroughs. In fact, it is

exactly this force that facilitates all kinds of innovative

practices to emerge at the appropriate time, just as practices in

towns like Zeguo and Xinhe.

Diffusion occurs in two forms. One situation is some sort of

innovative practice spreads between different levels, organizations

or fields. For example, the activation of the function of Zeguo’s

people’s congress has affected the municipal people’s congress. And

the standing committee of the municipal people’s congress has also

become an vigorous supporter of democratic consultation, promoting

the Xinhe Model to another four towns and including it into the

agenda of the municipal people’s congress. Another scenario is some

innovative practices have led to other innovative approaches. For

example, each town has made some kind of improvement of the original

model. This innovative process of mutual inspiration is currently

27


promoting the continuous development of democratic consultation

including deliberative democracy.

It is worth noting that all of these diffusion measures occur

within the existing power structures. Whether the supports came from

the municipal publicity department of the Party committee or from

the people’s congress, they are from the existing power structures.

And specific implementations are always under the leadership of the

Party committees and government departments; actually innovation has

been facilitated by them. Then a question arises: is democratic

consultation including deliberative democracy really “deliberation”

or just another form of government domination (Lang, 2005)? How

should we evaluate this form of deliberative democracy with Chinese

characteristics?

IV. Conclusion

Scholars have different opinions about this question. Lang Youxing

(2005) believes that this government-led deliberative democracy is

essentially dominated and controllable deliberation and therefore is

different from the ideal deliberative democracy. Recently, He

Baogang and Mark Warren (2011) jointly put forward the concept of

“authoritarian deliberation” based on China’s experience. In their

view, deliberative democracy in China is a particularly important

case: though it remains an authoritarian country led by the

Communist Party of China (CPC), its government is now permeated with

a wide variety of participatory and deliberative practices, such as

village-level elections, public hearings, deliberative polling,

citizen rights to sue the state, initiatives to make government

information public. However, deliberation is limited in scope and

focuses on particular problems of governance. This governance-

oriented deliberation is not unique to China, what distinguishes

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China is that the governance-level participation is developing side

by side with the domination of the ruling party, and is combined

with a high degree of experimentalism with consultation,

deliberation, and limited forms of democracy. Therefore, He and

Warren call this “authoritarian deliberation.” It should be said

that their article is very enlightening. However, I still believe

that the term of “authoritarian deliberation” is somewhat

misleading, especially in China where authoritarianism is a quiet

negative word. Moreover, authoritarianism is regarded as a concept

opposed to democracy, thus combining the two seems a little far-

fetched to most (though He and Warren define in their article

“democracy” and “deliberation” in a broad way, and emphasize that

“authoritarian” and “deliberative democracy” may be combined

together).

Compared to “authoritarian deliberation,” “government-led

deliberative democracy” might be a more appropriate expression.

China is “governance-oriented” as some other countries, but it is

different because in other democratic countries democracy is driven

more by civil society organizations, while in China it is led by the

government. However, this government-led deliberative democracy

itself is not necessarily a negative phenomenon as viewed by Lang

Youxing. On the contrary, I believe the dominant role of the

government is one of the necessary conditions for the promotion of

deliberative democracy in China (this is also the inherent

requirement of the so-called “embedded development”). And

government-led deliberative democracy itself is a special kind of

deliberative democracy, as He and Warren remarked, so it is

unnecessary to criticize it according to the standard of the Western

deliberative democracy theory. Instead, we need to think about such

a question: if the dominance of government is an important feature

29


of the Chinese version of deliberative democracy, then which path of

embedded development should we choose, under such a given

precondition, in order to reinterpret the original system and

redesign its functions and finally facilitate the transformation

from the “authoritarian governance” to the “governance based on

deliberation and cooperation” model?

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Deliberative Democracy in China A Sociology of Knowledge Perspective

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