Liberal Gradualism, Critical Theory, Deliberation and New Confucianism Multiple Ways to Democracy in Contemporary China

Liberal Gradualism, Critical Theory, Deliberation and New Confucianism

Multiple Ways to Democracy in Contemporary China¹

 

I. Introduction

 

This article is part of a wider research project on contemporary debates on modernity and democracy in China.

As a political philosopher I have developed my previous work in the area of Latin American debates on democracy and their dialogue with European and North American theories. This dialogue has been characterized, on the Latin American side, by some recurrent oscillation between looking at European and North American ideas as models to be adopted or rejected, and the need to go back to ourselves, in a dramatic bicentennial search of our own true identity.

This oscillation has been frustrating and has reinforced the international division of knowledge between producers of theory and case studies. According to which Latin American Studies, as well as Chinese, African and /or Asian Studies are conceived as fields of application.

To overcome these difficulties, intercultural and comparative studies have to widen the scope of our “significant” others and go beyond the limits of area studies, enlarging perspectives, learning from others´ experiences and developing together new ways of thinking. To say it in Timothy Cheek’s words: to work with China and not on China.

 

II. Chinese Democracy, which Democracy?

 

Chinese democracy is a controversial topic in and outside China. But democracy is today problematic and full of paradoxes and contradictions everywhere. If on the one hand, its principles are unquestionable, on the other its practices are increasingly criticized and objects of uneasiness and disappointment.2 Therefore, it should not be so scandalous to sustain that, for the moment, “western democracy has not a bigger capacity to self-correction more than the Chinese system” 3and that perhaps there is more place to political experimentation in China than in countries with long established constitutional systems.4

But as it is widely recognized Chinese democracy is not only a Chinese concern but a central concern for the international community 5 and to think democracy in China and to think a democratic world society is one and the same thing. 6

As for internal democracy, there is a very wide range of perspectives, going from those who sustain there is no democracy in China to those for whom China is (or is going to be) democratic “in its own specific way”, given the uniqueness of the Chinese experience.

Anyway, the inquiry in Chinese democracy leads unavoidably to some of these questions:

1.      Are Chinese people suited for democracy? Is Chinese political culture compatible with democracy? Does democracy exist in China?

2.      Is talking about democracy in China a Western imposition?

3.      Is democracy necessary? And of which democracy are we talking about?

 

1) Political Culture

 

To question Chinese aptitude for democracy comes mainly from the stereotypes of XVIII and XIX century ´s orientalism, particularly the idea of oriental despotism which had great influence in shaping the image of China and which has also inspired many travelers, writers and politicians to characterize South American institutions in the 19th century.

Curiously, western political culture has been never questioned in that way, even though it has not been a model of democracy all along its history. What for some countries is considered an essential cultural deficit, for others is an accident.

This vision of oriental despotism has been very much criticized by historians, philosophers and political scientists, among them, Joseph Needham, Amartya Sen, and many supporters of deliberative democracy, which have proved that there is enough evidence of consultative, deliberative and remonstration institutions in the past history of China and in other Asian countries which make us reject the hypothesis of the idiosyncratic inclination to despotism. But democracy is not the only topic whose existence or possibility of existence has been questioned in China. Chinese philosophy, the Chinese legal system and Chinese scientific revolution, amongst others, have also been questioned as to their existence or legitimacy.

China is not alone as similar questioning is found in other parts of the underdeveloped world, due to Eurocentric patterns of thought.

In short, these democratic practices (seeds of democracy?) all over Asian history question the European claim to be the exclusive origin of democracy, which legitimated its right to superiority and universality.

 

2) Democracy and Western Thought

 

Democracy and modernity have been systematically debated in China since the end of the 19th century and it would be a very great misunderstanding to say that this was a result of western imposition. This is not to deny ideological and cultural colonialism, but at the bottom of these endless discussions we find again the spectrum of essentialism, which sustains that “foreign” concepts are not “adequate” to give account of native problems. But apart from that, concepts never “mirror” reality, the problem with them is not their origin but the way in which they are redefined in new contextual and historical constellations. Thus, Chinese eclecticism and pragmatism have been very useful to avoid partly these widespread worries of Western thought.

Whatever the case, from 1911 to 1949 there has been an important debate around traditional (Chinese) and modern (Western) thought, and the need to find the Chinese way to democracy. In particular, the very important Movement of the New Culture (May 4th, 1911) gave place to a cultural fever (reborn in the 80´s) around the need to renew tradition without giving up radical western thought. A national cosmopolitism based on science and democracy was proposed, trying to combine the best of both worlds in a new way. The next years led to political frustration, but the idea of democracy was not erased from the Chinese intellectual and political horizon.

In 1978, democracy was again legitimated by its inclusion as the 5th Modernization, along with Agriculture, Defense, Industrialization and Science and Technology and during Hu Jintao presidency it was sustained then that there is no modernization without democracy.

 

3) The Need for Democracy

 

To deny the need for democracy in China on cultural reasons is wrong, but demographic and geographic arguments based on scale are usually utilized to justify the priority of economic growth and well-being to civil and political rights. Even admitting that the question of scale is not a minor one, it has to be remembered that rights are indivisible and that the priority of economy has been frequently used to legitimate non democratic regimes all over the world, as it happened to be with 20th century theories of modernization for underdeveloped countries.

The need for democracy is both a practical and normative issue, as it is the way to legitimate a political regime in absence of the emperor, religious faith or party-based ideology.

Certainly, economic growth and increasing well-being could be a substitute, but what will happen if the rhythm of growth descends and unequal inclusiveness increases?

These questions lead us to another crucial point between the causal relationships of economic development and democracy, which has been one of the most debated points among liberals and New Leftists in the 90´s in China.

In short, Chinese political culture is apt for democracy, democracy is not a western invention, Chinese debates on democracy are neither western impositions nor mere copies, democratic practices can be found both in the past and in the present history of China and there is no proof that the economy could run better without democracy. Democracy is as necessary in China as it is elsewhere.

But if we want to go ahead with the discussions about democracy, we have to move to the question of which democracy we are talking about. It is not that this conceptual move will eliminate theoretical and practical problems, but it will situate them in a different perspective which will challenge us with new questions.

 

III. Chinese Contemporary Debates on Democracy

 

Debates on democracy have increased since the 80´s both in academic and political spaces and in this renewed interest the presence of western philosophers in China has been of the greatest importance. Chinese academy began to be internationalized and Chinese intellectuals, together with European and North American colleagues began to develop the new field of Chinese political science and philosophy.

At the beginning of the 80´s, the Reform and Opening Up gave place to reformist western liberal ideas and critiques to Marxism (a “new Enlightenment”) and conservatist ideas. At the end of the 80´s, Tiananmen´s events and the definitive market-led modernization produced a withdrawal of radical westernization and gave place to important debates among liberals and the New Left.

Cui Zhiyuan, a young Chinese economist at MIT, argued for a “second emancipation”. If the first had been from orthodox Marxism, this one should be from the New Enlightenment”. Gan Yang, another young scholar working in the USA, wrote articles “on township and villages enterprises, as a form of property neither state nor private, but intermediate between the two”7. As Wang Hui remarks, the first break with the consensus came from abroad. It was not that the intellectuals were against the market, but they were against dehumanization and they began to look for political reforms. There was a need to go back to the academy and concentrate on the history of China and on national studies. And that´s was how the “New Left” began.

On their side, liberals began to abandon their concern with socialism and adopted more orthodox ideas. But the main difference amongst them was not about the intervention of the state in the economy, but about the role of civil society and social movements, and mass participation. Legal democracy and social and economic democracy, and their mutual relationships was another big difference.

Discussions on democracy were enriched at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st with the debates among communitarian, liberal and deliberative theories which were going on in Europe and the United States since 1980´s. Habermas, the most important representative of the second school of critical theory and pioneer in the development of deliberative democracy, visited China in the 80´s and had a catalytic effect on Chinese debates on democracy, according to Gloria Davies. He introduced important concepts such as public sphere, communicative reason, deliberative democracy and intersubjectivity.

To this diversity of political thought, it must be added New Neoconfucianism, strongly intertwined with communitarian and deliberative theories.

All these different conceptual frameworks are mixed under the umbrella of nationalism which holds together all different political views, including communists and its critics. As Gloria Davies said, there is a patriotic preoccupation and anxiety in Chinese politics.

In what follows I will deal with:

1)         Theories of transition to democracy and Incrementalism or Gradualism, most on the liberal side of the debate.

2)        Critical Theory, nearer to Marxist and New Left perspectives

3)        Deliberative Theories, which have a strong influence of New Confucianism.

 

1.a. Theories of Transition to Democracy

 

Theories of transition to democracy arose in the 80´s in post-Franco Spain, were applied in Latin America and East Europe and finally landed in China after Reform and Opening Out. In all cases, the goal was to explain the political processes which lead from authoritarian regimes to democracy.

For these theories, nationalism and not democracy is the main political value in China and the driving force of Chinese modernization in the 90´s. While nationalism has turned into an absolute value, democracy is mostly instrumental, a tool used according to the opportunity. Larry Diamond and Shuiseng Zhao8, two well-known representatives of these theories conclude at the beginning of the XXI century and after two decades of following Chinese politics, that there has been a significant liberalization of the State and an increasing pluralism in China but not the kind of democratization that was expected.

Rule of law is still underdeveloped. Though, there are some signs of its emergence, as seen in the changes of retirement age for officials, limits in the periodicity of their mandates, increasing autonomy of local congresses, and the professionalism and critical spirit of the delegates. Since 1990 it is possible to sue governmental agencies and officials in the case of power abuse and, on the whole, there is more consciousness of rights, as proven by the increasing number of claims, protests, and consultative instances.

But in spite of these steps to liberalization of politics, China has not significant competitive elections. It is still one-party based and its weak civil society depends still on the political system, both for its self-organization and for the free expression of ideas.

According to Larry Diamond, Chinese political culture is not particularly antidemocratic nor prodemocratic, but for the moment economic development and political liberalization have not been followed by democratization success. But his prediction is that if CCP does not run for democracy it may run the risk of losing control of the political process, which could be chaotic not only for China but for the world.

According to TTD, democracy has been in recession everywhere in the last democratization wave. As these disappointments have to do as well with the failures of the political systems and some of the presuppositions of the theory, they have recently moved from the more teleological perspective implied by “transition to democracy” to a less sketchy and neutral conceptual space of “hybrid democracy”.9 Assuming that there is no consensus about democracy, they have adopted a wide classification of political regimes which, while it is still based on the criterion of elections, abandons a strict normative perspective and avoids a strict correlation between elections and democracy.

Anyway, according to this “new” classification, China is an authoritarian political closed regime, together with Brunei, Bhutan, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Burma and North Korea.10 However, from a broader perspective, the same theories recognize that China has developed quasi constitutional mechanisms to improve the quality of its political life. In this same direction, Ronald Inglehart11 studies on democratization prove that: a) although there is little formal democracy in China, effective democracy is much more developed to what is expected in relation to the former and, b) that the high levels of Chinese development ( not only of economic growth) and of democracy´s demands are predictors of democratization in the next decades.

Trust and satisfaction in public institutions are other important topics. In reference to the former, Pippa Norris ´studies on “Critical Citizens” in the World Values Survey (1981-2007) show that autocratic political regimes have overwhelming levels of confidence in the public sector, though there are substantial gaps within them, such as the case of China and Russia.12 But the correlation trust-authoritarianism is far from being conclusively proved, not only for WVS, but also for researchers like Wang Zengxua, whose surveys show that direct elections, an important ingredient of democracy, are more important than consultative proceedings in improving trust in the government.13.

In reference to democratic satisfaction with the regime, there is also a big gap between the negative assessment of China provided by Freedom House and Polity IV Independent experts, and the answers provided in the surveys made by the World Values Survey, where China has a 67.4 of satisfaction with democratic government amongst citizens.

Summarizing the Global Barometer evidence, Larry Diamond says that belief in democracy as the best system of government is universal. China has 95% of approval, while the preference of democracy and the rejection of autocracy drop to 67%. According to Norris, these “exceptionally positive attitudes” towards democracy have yet to be explained. The most available explanations are those of communication theories which sustain that the media frame citizen´s perceptions and rational choice theories which emphasize the effect of government delivery of public goods.14

 

I.b. Gradualism

 

Yu Keping, 15 one of the most outstanding intellectuals in China made himself widely well known by his famous article “Democracy is a good thing”. Based on an interview for Daogong Daily of Hong Kong in 2005, the article was then republished and it ranked as one of the most influential publications all over the country in 2006. Yu was nominated in 2008 as one of the 50 most influential people for Chinese development in the last three decades by Chinese media.

Yu´s starting point is the acknowledgment that many political and cultural elites are afraid of democracy (chaos, loss of privileges and power, political conflicts among leaders, demagogy, the threat of foreign powers, explosion of ethnic problems, increasing poverty, resentment against migrant workers, etc.) and that the officials have no incentives as the political risk is huge and political inertia does not promote political changes.

In answer to these objections Yu argues that 1) democracy is something safe for China, 2) democracy is a solution rather than a problem and 3) democracy is a good thing.

Yu focus his defense of democracy in the need for political legitimation and stability in the long run. The central concept is good governance, which is about the cooperative management of public life between the state and citizens and the strengthening of civil society, which goes beyond the traditional Chinese idea that politics is especially about order and good government. 16Yu pioneered the studies of civil society in China and also advocates for civil rights, particularly those of rural migrants to urban areas.

In the sensitive topic of elections, Yu underlines on the one hand, that local elections and local government innovations, legal and administrative reforms and deliberative procedures such as public hearings, opinion polls, written requests, group protests, etc. are the most important political innovations in China. And, on the other, that there is no democracy in China without intraparty democracy, as the country has become too complex to be managed by a group of leaders at the top, and each day more institutionalized ways of political decision making are needed. But this does not mean multipartyism or division of powers as in Western countries. To adapt some western aspects of democracy (elections, constitutionalism, institutional counterbalances, independence of media, certain civil freedoms) does not mean to westernize Chinese democracy. Democracy is a universal value and good for everybody, and one of the benefits of globalization is the awareness that we share a common destiny and common values, such as freedom, equality, justice, rule of law, safety, well-being and dignity.

Chinese democracy has still many pending tasks and one of the most important is to move from the “rule of leaders” to the rule of law or, at least, as Xi Jinping put it, a state with laws.17

Democracy has also a price, which has to be calculated. Its landing must be very soft, according to the criterion of “dynamic stability” which has to give account of sociopolitical tensions avoiding both conservatism and promoting different ways of public participation. All of this based on negotiation and not in repression.

It is understandable that Yu has to walk along a very thin dividing line and it is also understandable that he has been criticized from every ideological corner. For many, he is as an opportunist who plays different games according to the scenery as he wants to please both western audiences and the Party. 18 It has been said that he employs both the “art of oblique criticism” in relation to the slow pace of political reform and “roundabout ways” to express his innovative ideas.19

Whatever the case, he is a public intellectual who has set a theoretical and practical agenda for Chinese politics, capable of active intervention in different spaces of Chinese public life, such as the media, the academy and the party, and also in the international academy.

 

2. Critical Theory

 

Wang Hui is another very well-known Chinese intellectual, both in and outside of China. But unlike Yu, he has been a dissident of the political regime and had a strong presence in the Tiananmen events, after which he was imprisoned and sent to the countryside where the social and cultural differences led him to change his perspective, especially in relation to Maoism and to be more interested in Chinese history.

First editor of Dushu (Reading), a very influential literary journal, he is at present Professor at Tsinghua University, at Beijing. Specialist in Chinese intellectual history and in modernity, he has been ranked as one of the most important 100 intellectuals in the world. Although usually considered a member of the New Left, he prefers to be considered a critical intellectual, as he rejects their acritical support to nationalism and Maoism, and their neglect of international issues.

Wang´s starting point is the end of revolution (one of his book´s title), but neither the end of history nor the end of socialism. But if socialism has to be developed, its main obstacle is nationalism, as its authoritarianism is one of the great obstacles to build a democratic world society. To criticize capitalism without criticizing nationalism in one of the most important mistakes of the New Left, altogether with its insistence in the search for autochthonous ways of political construction as we live in a global world and global solutions must be sought.

Wang has dedicated especial attention to the links between modernity and democracy. To think democracy in China and to think a democratic world society is for Wang one and the same thing. It is not enough to create a system of global juridical –legal institutions, as some western authors propose; it is needed to go beyond western experience and to include other experiences, which means the creation of a thick legal net for transnational integration which could not only be based in national states and which should include historical diversity and

rescue the experience of socialism. To deepen democracy will take decades and includes the construction of a new Welfare State, as European welfarism is in crisis everywhere.

As far as the crucial issue of free elections, Wang shares mainstream Chinese political thought, though his arguments are not those of the New Left or those of New Confucianism. Democracy cannot be reduced to free elections, but it is not possible to have economic rights without democracy and political rights without economic rights, as they are indivisible.

Today the Chinese State can no longer be considered socialist and it is part of the market system. To avoid a rich oligarchy controlling political life while the majority of the population goes without voice and representatives, social agency, social movements, deliberative proceedings and respect for fundamental rights are necessary. But Wang Hui is very far from considering China a totalitarian state. China did not go through shock therapy as Russia did, it was more competent in economic regulation and it did not follow wholly the neoliberal way. And not because of the action of social movements or socialist tradition but conscious planning.

The big problem for China is its orientation to developmentalism rather than to social services and the intertwining of State and Party under market conditions. State and Party should be separated and renewed through popular participation. But how can this be done, especially when depoliticization, marketization and neoliberalism are scattered throughout the whole society?

China faces the tension between opposite forces: those of openness and self-confidence and those of authoritarian nationalism and ethnocentrism. How this tension is to be resolved given the universal crisis of democracy and the need of a new critical internationalism?

Solutions must be sought within modernity. Modernity is neither liberal nor socialist, conservative nor revolutionary, though there are elements of all of them in it.

It is not possible to be antimodern (as the New Left) or postmodern, or an “enlightened” modernizer (as some liberals) in China; it is not possible to solve political problems through abstract discussions or appealing to conceptual etiquettes. Liberalism, new left, social democracy are intertwined traditions and not abstract doctrines. It is not that they are right or wrong, each of them has its strength and its limitations. Relationships between right and left are complex and it is always necessary to explain which socialism and which liberalism we are talking about and to avoid the appeal of different kinds of fetishism.

 

3. Deliberative theories and new Confucianism.

 

The increasing importance of deliberative democracy in China may be seen as an answer to the restrictions of voting or, on the contrary, as very serious effort to widen its understanding. During the 80´s and 90´s, a very vibrant discussion about liberalism, communitarianism and deliberative theories of democracy took place in the West. China is now taking active part in

these debates proposing new views of communitarianism and deliberative theories based on Chinese experience and Confucian traditions.

He Baogang20, one of the most well-known representatives of the deliberative turn in Chinese democracy, said that China is the biggest deliberative laboratory in the world, that Chinese deliberative practices have developed with independence of western models and that westerners should learn of Chinese deliberation, as it has 2000 years of practice while western deliberative theories, though more sophisticated, started only 30 years ago.

In The search for deliberative democracy He affirms that democratization processes do not need to begin with elections and that they could rightfully evolve through participative ways of democratic governance. He remarks that the lack of a well stablished rule of law in China enables flexibility in political experiments at local level and that the 18th Party Congress endorsed the term deliberative democracy

He is quite ambiguous in many of his assertions. He sustains that deliberative democracy is not a complement of liberal democracy but a true alternative to it, and at the same time this does not mean to get rid of elections. The results of fieldwork reveal that many local deliberative experiments require and strengthen electoral mechanisms21 and this has to be understood in the sense that China challenges the dichotomy representative/deliberative democracy 22 and that there are other kinds of representation than the political one.

Statistical, family-based, public opinion collected from visiting neighborhoods, and proxy representation, by means of signatures, surveys, submissions, etc. are other forms of representation which are utilized in deliberative procedures.

Elective representation is good, but the size of public forums and levels of government are also to be taken seriously. While at the village level it is possible to vote after discussions it will probably not be possible at the national level, especially because there is no legislation for it.

He is in favor of a hybrid political model, composed by a 30th of public opinion and experts each and a 40% corresponding to the government. A mix of voting, bargaining, social presence, traditional authority, local government, communal persuasion and deliberation, based on practical considerations and prudence, a middle way methodology and a pragmatic philosophy, very far from populist models and to appeals to “popular sovereignty”, not suitable in the age of globalization.

This hybrid model has Confucian roots and has to be differentiated from western deliberative democracy, as its aim is not people empowerment but good government,23 a political consultation system under the leadership of the Party which looks for effectiveness, as in the end the government decides. For this model, even if deliberation is good, too much deliberation has to be avoided.

This leads to the much-debated question of the relationships between democracy and Confucianism. In reference to these debates, He disregards the models based on conflictive or compatible relations, as they both think from western perspectives, and also the critical model, which though based on a Confucian perspective, could run the risk of being coopted by nationalist forces. According to him, the hybrid model is the only one which could creatively mix both currents to produce something new adapted to local conditions.

But in spite of his strong defense of this authoritarian Confucian deliberation bottom –top model, finally based on government decision making, a true Chinese product, he has to concede the benefits of democratic deliberation on account of its universal legal and moral predicament.

In a way, Confucian deliberation seems to combine the nostalgia of the past with utopian expectations for the renovation of politics.

Anne Cheng provides a critical view of some of these claims, questioning not only the democratic bias of Confucianism but also its presence in Chinese society. Following David Camroux, she is inclined to characterize it as a culturalist program to rewrite history or to make fiction history in order to support a contemporary state of affairs. This kind of attempts are not new, as each time China had a cultural or a national crisis, and depending on the circumstances, Confucianism has been considered either the cause of backwardness or the saving force of modernity.

But its spectacular come back in the 80´s transcended Chinese frontiers. New Confucianism plays now in the international stage, promoting itself as a solution for political problems all over around the world, as do Bostonian Confucians, led by Tu Weiming and Daniel A. Bell. For Cheng, new Confucianism is an alliance between the academic elites of Chinese origin outside China and the government, a kind of revenge after so many years of being postponed by a “communist peasant revolution”. But the real question is not if Confucianism will survive when the society it infuses has disappeared, but if the Chinese society was ever Confucian or even confucianized. She concludes that only a completely ahistorical vision could give credit to a Chinese society identified under Confucian values such as communitarianism, rituals, hierarchical order and harmony spread throughout family.

But Confucianism is also a grassroots movement which includes emancipatory and redemptive dimensions as well as global market orientations.

Anyway, the pending question is if popular or elitist or both, if invented or not, Confucian tradition will attain its major goal of infusing virtue in the social life and will be once more a useful tool for political legitimization.

 

IV. Some other pending questions.

 

How will democracy be combined at the global and at the national level?

How would the contradictory trends of the “Chinese Dream”, international cooperation and global harmony be made compatible with Chinese nationalism?

How will the different political traditions (liberal, Marxist, deliberative, New Confucianism) be combined?

How would it be possible to achieve socialist equality in a capitalist market economy? And good governance and civil society agency in a top –bottom model of politics?

Will good governance (without extended elections and the persistence of one-Party based politics) be enough to legitimate the political system, particularly in the case of decreasing economic growth and increasing inequality?

How are human rights going be redefined within the limits of sovereignty and national frontiers?

How is Confucian virtue in Chinese society going to be revived, reinvented or reinjected? How is education being changed to promote innovations?

How are the undesirable effects of development going to be reversed?

 

V. Notes

 

1 This paper was presented at the Seminar of Chinese Studies, coordinated by Dr. Adam Yuet Chau and Prof. Hans van de Ven, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (FAMES), University of Cambridge, UK, 2016

2 Larry Diamond (2008) suggested that the first century is an era in which democracy has experienced little further advance (at best), or even the start of a new reverse wave (at worst), in The spirit of Democracy: the struggle to build free societies throughout the world, New York, Times Books.

3 Bell, A. Daniel,”Democracy with Chinese characteristics”, p.156, in Leib, Ethan and He, Baogang , The search for deliberative democracy.

4 Bergrueen, Nicholas y Gardels, Nathan, Gobernanza inteligente para el siglo XXI, p. 42.

5 Shuisheng, Zao, (ed.), China and democracy. Reconsidering the Prospects for a Democratic China. Introduction.

6      Wang, Hui, The End of Revolution.

7   Wang Hui, The New Criticism. Interview”, in Wang, Chaohua, One China, many paths, p.89.

8   Zhao, Suisheng, Op.Cit.

9   See Diamond, Larry (2002), “Thinking about hybrid regimes”, Journal of Democracy, 13 (2), 21-35.

10  According on global studies on democratization Wang predicted in 2008 that China will would be by 2015 - 2020 a hybrid regime and not a “politically closed system” which, from his point of view, is a consequence of not taking into consideration that elections are conducted in almost 90% of Chinese counties.

11 Inglehart (2005)

12 Norris, Pippa, Democratic Déficit. Critical Citizens Revisited, p. 87/88.

13 Deyong, Ma & Wang Zengxu, “Governance innovations and citizen trust in local government electoral impacts in China´s townships”, Japanese Journal of Political Science, vol. 15, Issue 03, set.2014.

14 Norris, Pippa, Op.Cit., p. 146-147

15 Director of the Chinese Center for Comparative Politics & Economy, Chinese Government Innovations, PKU and Director of the Center of Compilation and Translation of the Bureau of the CCP, Yu is one of the more influential scholars in China and a strong promoter of political science and political philosophy.

16 Lloyd, G., “A critique of democracy”, Oxford Scholarship Online (2205), Ancient worlds, modern reflections: philosophical perspectives on Greek and Chinese Science and culture, 2004.

17 But this requirement must not lead to sustain that China lacks of a legal system. Mireille Delmas-Marty has proved that China has a sophisticated science of law and a very important codification of the penal law since 1740, which allows major and minor revisions of the legal system in a way that could contribute to the construction of a hybrid global legal system, a socialist harmonious society, more Marxist than Confucian. For the moment, the problem with Chinese legal system is the lack of and independent judicial sphere.

18 Qinghua Wang and Gang Guo, “Yu Keping and chinese intelectual discourse on good governance”, in The China Quaterly, 224, December 2015, 985.

19 Ibid., p. 989.

20 He is Head of the Public Policy and Global Affairs Program at Nanyang Technological University at Singapore and Professor of the International Studies Program at Deakin University, Australia. He also develops field work at different Chinese villages and towns, and is in charge of capacitation programs for Chinese officials.

21 See Deyong, Ma and Wang ,Zhenxu´s, surveys conclude that direct elections are more important than consultative proceedings in improving trust in the government, which is an important ingredient of democracy. See “Governance innovations and citizen trust in local government: electoral impacts in china´s townships”, Japanese Journal of Political Science, vol. 15, Issue 03, set.2014.

22 He, Baogang, “Reconciling deliberation and representation: Chinese challenges to deliberative democracy”, in Representation, 2015, 51:1, 35-50. He has lectured on deliberative democracy for over 1000 local officials in the last 10 years. He has conducted field work in several cities in Surf Coast, Geelong (2007); Burwood, Melbourne and Huizhou, China. In Zeguo township, in Wenling city, Zhejiang Province were utilized, from 2005 to 2009, deliberative polling techniques whose results had direct impact on the township budget process. From 2005 to 2013, thousands of thousands of consultative, deliberative and evaluative meetings have been made from 2004 to 2012 in the village level in Wenling and Chendu, in cities like Hangzhou (from 1998 to 2001) and at the National level, in relation to the National Health Reform (2005-2009) in which participated ministries, provinces, medical staff, migrants, peasants and worker. Also there were consultative proceedings in relation to property law and labour contracts law, demolition of old buildings, compensations, etc.

23  He, Baogang, “Deliberative culture & Politics: the persistance of authoritarian deliberation in China”, Political theory, 2014, vol. 42, 58-81, Sage Publishers.

 

VI. Bibliography

 

Bell, A.Daniel,”Democracy with Chinese characteristics”, in Leib, Ethan and He, Baogang, The search for deliberative democracy (2006), New York, Palgrave –Macmillan, pp.149- 161.

Bergrueen, Nicholas y Gardels, Nathan (2013), Gobernanza inteligente para el siglo XXI, Buenos Aires, Taurus.

Cheng, Anne, “Seeds of Democracy in Confucian Tradition?”, in Delmas-Marty, Mireille and Will, Pierre Etienne (editors) (2012), China, Democracy and Law, Leiden-Boston, Brill, pp.87-117.

Deyong, Ma and Wang , Zhenxu, “Governance innovations and citizen trust in local government:electoral impacts in china´s townships”, Japanese Journal of Political Science, vol. 15, Issue 03, set.2014.

Diamond, Larry, “Elecciones sin democracia. A propósito de los regímenes híbridos, Estudios Políticos N| 24, enero-junio 2004, 117-134.

Reigadas, Cristina, “Ethan Lieb and Baogang He (editors), (2010), The Search for Deliberative Democracy in China”, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Comentario Bibliográfico, en Erasmus, ICALA, Río Cuarto, Córdoba, 9 páginas, 2017.

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