The Construction of Democracy

The following sections are included:

• Preface
• About the Author
• About the Translators
• Contents

Democracy has been the most poetic political life ever to capture people’s imagination in the history of human civilization. Its status in human’s political life is like love in human life. So, as almost all litterateurs would touch the topic of love more or less, almost all scholars of politics would touch the subject of democracy. To litterateurs, love is colorful, as there is loyalty in love as well as conspiracy. Likewise, to the scholars of politics, democracy is also in thousands of postures, as there are orders in democracy as well as violence. However mysterious love is, it must be collisions of two hearts. And however profound democracy is, it must come from the interaction of society and state. Democracy is constructed by society and state together, and its political logic stems from the interaction between the society and state.

Democracy is actually a kind of political life involving multiple participating elements, all of which are trying to realize their values through democracy: individuals pursue democracy for freedom and equality; all sorts of social organizations pursue democracy for the interests they represent; the state pursues democracy for its own legitimacy. From ancient times to nowadays, that democracy exists in different forms in different historical times and different societies, lies primarily in whom the democracy serves, and on what grounds it does so. Second, democracy exists in different institutional designs. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political scientist of the 18th century, who spoke highly of the newly born US democracy, also said that he did not think that the governing form the US people found is the only form that democracy can provide. The democracy in different societies must be different in values, institutions and lives. But the essential conditions on which they thrive are the same. The countries intent on building democracy must pay attention to cultivating the essential conditions for democracy, which should be developed in a balanced manner at the same time. Relatively speaking, it is easy to construct a democratic system, and it is difficult to better and consolidate it, because it entails full development of the aforementioned essential conditions…

In China, the biggest difference between modernity and tradition is that the people are now masters of the country. The leading power creating this historical change is the Communist Party of China (CPC). On June 30, 1949, before the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the CPC, Mao Zedong wrote an article titled “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship, Looking Back into the Past and Looking Ahead into the Future”. In it, Mao wrote: “Up to now the principal and fundamental experience the Chinese people have gained is twofold, internally, arouse the masses of the people. That is, unite the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie, form a domestic united front under the leadership of the working class, and advance from this to the establishment of a State which is a people’s democratic dictatorship under the leadership of the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants”. Thus, the founding of the PRC marks the establishment of a people’s democratic dictatorship regime, as well as the complete unfolding of the practices of people’s democracy, which is created by the Chinese people under the leadership of the CPC. It has obvious Chinese characteristics: it constructs China’s democracy with the people as its center.

Under the modern political framework, the institutional party relations, behavioral codes and operating forms that take shape when the party takes part in the political life of the state constitute a country’s party system. The party system, while regulating a party’s position, functions and operations, deeply influences the overall situations of a country’s political life. Nevertheless, any country’s party system cannot be completely decided by parties or the relations among parties, or by the state institutions, rather a party’s existence and development are decided by the society and state together, and are the result of the interactions between the state and society. But in practical political life, this kind of interaction is often embodied in state power or else society’s power raises claims to the party system in a bid to develop an ideal party system. So, people naturally ask: should the establishment of a country’s party system be based on the principles of parties and people’s dreams or on the laws for social operation and the requirements of state building. With regard to such doubts, the author concludes that: Thoughtful state building and political development should choose and establish proper party systems based on the internal requirements of the state and society and their interactions.

The People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949. Modernization, socialism and state building have been the dominant themes in the decades ever since. Modernization has enabled China in the process of development to bid farewell to outdated traditions, socialism has made China’s development go beyond history, and state building has ensured China’s development is always based on its actual national conditions. State building is the internal mission of modernization. But its unfolding is decided by the respective histories, realities, dreams and objectives of different countries, and thus has different characteristics. Until now, modern state building has produced only two kinds of societies: capitalist societies and socialist societies. For Western capitalist societies, modernization has been completed and the modern state-building model of capitalist societies has thus become a kind of standard model. Theoretically, socialism transcends capitalism. But in reality, the practical foundation for socialism is capitalism’s development achievements and contradictions. Therefore, a socialist society should be built on the foundation of a modern state. But in actual historical movements, socialism has mainly appeared in countries where modernization has not yet unfolded. So, these countries’ socialist practices have naturally combined socialism with their pursuit of modern state building. In this kind of practice, although the noble mission and objectives of socialism endow the state building of these countries with higher values, there is a mismatch between the theoretical logic of socialism and modern state building, and the practice of state building and the orientation of socialism in less-developed countries, which has created a series of profound problems and challenges to the practice of state building for socialist societies. After experiencing these problems and challenges, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has explored a state-building path with socialism as its orientation, and its successful practices have promoted the development of the People’s Republic of China. This chapter analyzes how China has gradually integrated socialist construction with modern state building over the course of its development to pursue socialist modernization and state building with Chinese characteristics.

Although the development of human civilization can be divided into ancient and modern societies, its internal foundational structure is consistent: they are the accumulation of wealth, the improvement of order and the happiness of the people. Labor makes the growth of wealth possible; order makes it possible for the wealth to benefit the people. Labor turned apes into humans, and the establishment of order transformed humans from savages into civilized beings. It was in this process that societies were born and developed. So far, the most successful work is the state, a political community. Engels said that state is a summary of civilized society. The mission of politics is to create orderly public life to satisfy individuals and society’s common development. It can be said that humans’ greatness lies in their creation of politics; meanwhile, humans’ happiness also rests with politics. This is true for individuals, and true for societies and states too…

The demands of politics for the development of modernization are dual: first, an effective system of authority needs to be established; second, an effective democratic system needs to be developed. Judging from the final result, the dual requirements can be unified, because an effective democratic system is definitely built on a powerful constitutional authority system. But judging from the process, there are tensions between the two requirements, which on the one hand comes from the tensions between authority and democracy, and on the other hand from the comparative backwardness of democratic development caused by the fact that modernization development’s demands for authority, in terms of strategies, are stronger than the demands for democracy. So, the political development in modernization has to choose its path, which is to start from constructing an authority system, or to begin with building an effective democratic system, or a combination of the two. China’s political development experienced such a choice. The comparatively successful modernization and development of China since the late 1970s indicate China’s option is worthy of reflection and summary.

Modernization is a historical movement formed by the people’s pursuit of autonomous development. It started in the West, and is, in essence, a historical movement in the development of human civilization. The historical movement based on human nature must incur social transformation in the places it affects, and the social transformation necessarily gives rise to the requirements of democratization, and initiates the process of democratization…

Things develop, and so do politics. Any development forms links of logic with historical movement. It might not be able to directly change the reality, as it is indispensable to the whole historical movement, and therefore acquires its meaning. In research into politics, the easiest way is to use a certain value to frame the reality so as to judge whether it is right or wrong, and to calculate its fate. However, practical political development has always progressed according to its own logic, which requires that political research must carefully analyze the reality as well as its possible development trend in wider space-time, so as to explore its nature and actual meaning, and seek scientific coping strategies. The mission of academics is to perceive the essence through appearance. All ought-to-be judgments should be based on factual analysis. This is the basic starting point for this chapter to analyze China’s Party institution…

On China’s state building, the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) expresses such political logic: The CPC led the people’s revolution and founded the PRC; the PRC’s state building has unfolded under the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) leadership; all powers of the PRC come from the people, and the state organs implement the principle of democratic centralism. In the realm of modern politics, this political logic can be further abstracted, which means the Party founded the state and builds it, and the principle is democratic centralism. So, to understand and study China’s state building, democratic centralism must be studied. The operation and development of democratic centralism directly decides the state building. This chapter tries to explain the historical process of China’s state building, as well as the interconnections between party building and state building.

The historical logic of China’s political civilization development indicates that modern democracy and modernization are the same as they are both exogenous. But the consultation is endogenous, and its spirit takes roots on the concept of “harmony” and the traditional thought on that. However, the endogenous consultation in China’s social and political development does not directly constitute the practical basis for China to develop consultative politics at the present time, as it at most provides only the possibility to develop consultative politics. In China’s political and social development today, the foundation of the development of consultative politics is the integral interaction between the economic and social structure transformation and the transformation of the Party’s leadership system and leadership model. How to reconstruct, on the basis of new economic and social foundation, the socialist polity, which has the Party’s leadership as its core, the law-based governance as its strategy, the people’s democracy as its spirit and the socialism as its orientation, is the practical requirement of developing consultative politics. Here, consultative politics is not to limit the construction and development of democracy to consultative democracy, but to comprehensively advance the development of China’s democracy through developing consultative democracy. People’s democracy is the essential rule of Chinese democracy, and consultative politics will explore a more effective and more practical development path for the development of people’s democracy in China.

Sustainable development is the common pursuit of all countries, particularly the developing countries. The sustainability of development not only decides a country’s own development but also casts certain influence on the world’s development. The essence of sustainable development is to maintain the stability, coordination and comprehensiveness of development, which entails the coordination and interaction of politics, the economy and social development. China is a very large country, and is experiencing fast changes. Its economic system has gone through fundamental changes because of the reform and opening-up, and it has instigated the transition from a planned economy to a socialist market economy. The changes in the economy necessarily bring about changes in politics and social life. To ensure the transformations and changes’ overall coordination and stability, China actively explores its social and political construction path with Chinese characteristics on the basis of the socialist market economy. The concrete embodiments are the development of consultative politics and the construction of a harmonious society. This chapter analyzes the exploration and the path of China’s national building.

The values and significance of the government to state building and society are not in question. But for national and social development, “government” is not an objective, but a tool. This is not only based on the logic of modern democracy but also on the nature of governments. Governments are created by the people, and their fundamental mission is to help the people to manage and resolve the problems they face but which they cannot resolve themselves. So far governments have embodied the management of humans and society, and their nature is to supplement the insufficiency of people’s self-governance. It is because of this, Marx realized that when human society realized self-governance, it would be a society made up of a combination of free persons, where government will become useless, fit only for history museums. The purpose of making the government’s nature clear is to scientifically define it so as to reform it rationally. Because after we make it clear that government is not the objective but a tool for state building and social development, we know that the reform of government should start from the logic of the government, and more importantly start from the logic of state building and social development. Although governments of different countries in the same age can be pushed by the same historical trend, their objectives, strategies and tactics for changes and development are naturally different because of different conditions faced by different countries. Therefore, their final forms are naturally different from each other. While observing and thinking of China’s government reform, we must have a clear consciousness that although China’s socialist market economy has integrated into the global economic system with economic globalization, reform of China’s government cannot simply copy developed market economy countries’ government models, it must give full consideration to China’s actual national conditions, which means it must not only abide by the logic of the market economy but also follow the practical requirements of China’s social development. Guided by such thought, the chapter focuses on the transformation of the Chinese government’s functions, which is not a simple adjustment but an overall government reform based on the adjustment of its functions, in other words the remaking of government. The anticipated goal of the reform is to build a government with its responsibility, ability and performance integrated.

In some senses, China’s development since the launch of its reform and opening-up policy has been a process in which the state has gradually become transparent, because no matter whether there is reform or opening-up, its efforts are to prompt the country to better integrate into the world, and better absorb the world’s civilizations achievements. China’s exchanges with the world have not only broken many misunderstandings in knowledge, estrangement in thought and institutional barriers but also let the world know about China’s politics, economy, society, science and technology, culture and military as well as other aspects of its development more conveniently and comprehensively. Reform and opening-up has made China an increasingly open, transparent and vigorous country. In the process of the state increasingly transparency, political transparency is of crucial importance, as it decides people’s trust and recognition of the state internally, and the world’s trust and recognition of China externally. Therefore, as for China, political transparency is the basic requirements for China’s democratic political construction, as well as an important mechanism for China to advance its state building. In 2008, the high efficiency, openness, transparency and amicableness of the Chinese government was demonstrated in its coping with the earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan province, which not only let the people update their knowledge of the government but also let the world realize that it is necessary to get to know about China and the Chinese government. So, this chapter asserts that political transparency is not only conducive to advancing and deepening democracy but also has the function of deepening people’s recognition and trust in the state, government and Party. China’s development practices have fully proven this point.

To any country trying to march to modernization, its transformation or its development needs to face the most basic and also the most crucial issue, which is political reform. The results of the political reform determine the overall national development. Nevertheless, it is not an easy job to define political reform in overall national development, as it involves the political reform’s strategic agenda, basic principle and action framework. One point is that the political reform is by no means an isolated move, as it must be formed in political subjects’ interaction with the economy, society and culture. In this process, political reform can often create new economic or social power; and this power, after its birth, quickly requires political reform to be deepened for its own growth. The appearance and growth of civil organizations in China speak volumes about this political logic. Experience shows that a fundamental challenge the political reform faces is how to face the powers it creates and their requirements for political development. If the practical politics cannot effectively respond to this kind of challenge, the political reform and development might be confronted with crises that will inevitably spill over to the relevant economic and social fields, and when the crises become serious, they throw the whole country’s construction and development into predicaments. China’s reform and opening-up have profoundly changed the Chinese society’s structural forms, organization models and lifestyles, and the civil organizations have prospered because of this, which profoundly shocked the country’s existing political form and political structure while advancing its political reform, providing unique resources and driving forces for China entering a civil society. The transformation and development are still under way. To understand their characteristics and future development direction, and to reveal the prospects of China’s civil society, it is necessary to analyze the interaction relations between China’s civil organizations and political reforms since the late 1970s when it initiated the reform and opening-up, so as to uncover the basic path and logic of China entering civil society.

The modernization development must form two development tendencies — social differentiation and national integration. Social differentiation is an internal impetus of modernization, and national integration is a basic guarantee of modernization. Thus, a basic difficult question any country faces in modernization development is how to organically integrate social polarization and national integration, while fostering their good mutual interaction. There are no more than two solutions to the problem. The first is to use institutions to include, differentiate and consolidate the integration, such as the country’s constitutional system, the second is to use a mechanism to balance all kinds of contradictions and conflicts between the differentiation and integration, such as orderly citizen participation, etc…

That the people are the owners of the country is a direct expression of the people’s democracy that China implements. It means that the people are the subjects running the country and deciding state affairs. In terms of values, the orientation is positive and in line with the core spirit of democracy, or the people’s rule; in terms of instrument or institution, the realization of democracy entails a complicated and effective institutional system, which should not only reflect the people’s mastering of the state’s supreme power but also that the people can make decisions about their own affairs in daily social governance. From the perspective of participating in the affairs of state management, the people’s conditions and their ability to decide on their own affairs are the prerequisite and foundation for the people to take part in state affairs management, and to become the subjects of that management. Thus, no matter to what extent the value and significance of the people’s democracy is stressed, as long as it is put into practice, its fundamental inevitably rests with that the people are able to decide on their own affairs. If this point cannot be realized, the people’s democracy will lose its fundamental basis. China’s political system sees the political life in which the people decide their own affairs as grassroots democracy. And the construction of grassroots democracy is the foundation for the development of China’s democratic politics. The subjects of the operation of the grassroots democracy are citizens, and both theory and practice indicate that the citizen consultation that is unfolded with the citizen as its subject is an important form of grassroots democracy, and developing democracy is an important means of the construction of grassroots democracy. So this chapter starts from the internal logic of the development of China’s grassroots democracy, and analyzes citizen consultation’s status, value and possible prospects in the development of China’s grassroots democracy.

In any political system, the degradation of public power inevitably leads to sickness of the political system. So, to build an anti-corruption system that prevents public power from degradation has become a basic condition for the maintenance and consolidation of any political system. The construction of the anti-corruption system cannot be independent from the building and development of the political system, as it is closely related to the characteristics and maturity of the political system. The building and development of China’s anti-corruption system is closely related to China’s political system and the logic of its state building, and it has become a Party-centered punitive and preventative anti-graft system with Chinese characteristics. This chapter will be founded on the Implementation Guideline for the Construction and Improvement of the Punitive and Preventative Anti-Corruption System (2005) and the Work Plan on the Construction and Improvement of the Punitive and Preventative Anti-Corruption System (2008–2012). It will explore the internal logic, basic structure and development trend of the form and operation of the Party-centered anti-corruption system in China from historical and practical spheres.

The following section is included:

• Index