Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China: Multiple Deliberative Democracy in Policy-making (Understanding China) 9819957826, 9789819957828

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Understanding China

Fuguo Han

Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China Multiple Deliberative Democracy in Policy-making

Understanding China

The series will provide you with in-depth information on China’s social, cultural and economic aspects. It covers a broad variety of topics, from economics and history to law, philosophy, cultural geography and regional politics, and offers a wealth of materials for researchers, doctoral students, and experienced practitioners.

Fuguo Han

Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China Multiple Deliberative Democracy in Policy-making

Fuguo Han Department of Political Science Fudan University Shanghai, Shanghai, China Translated by Fumin Tan Doctoral Adviser in translation studies at Foreign Studies College of Hunan Normal University Changsha, Hunan, China

Yuehai Xiao Applied linguistics Hunan Normal University Changsha, Shanghai, China

ISSN 2196-3134 ISSN 2196-3142 (electronic) Understanding China ISBN 978-981-99-5782-8 ISBN 978-981-99-5783-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5 Jointly published with Fudan University Press The print edition is not for sale in China (Mainland). Customers from China (Mainland) please order the print book from: Fudan University Press. Sponsored by Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences Translation from the Chinese language edition: “A Handbook of Multiple Deliberative Democracy in Policy-making: Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China” by Fuguo Han, © Fudan University Press 2017. Published by Fudan University Press. All Rights Reserved. © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publishers, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Foreword by James. S. Fishkin

Deliberative Democratic Decision-making beyond Political Systems: Hearing People’s Voices and Making Correct Decisions

Janet M. Peck, chief professor of international communication at Stanford University, concurrently professor of communication and political science, director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wenling City of Zhejiang Province is China’s first private enterprise registration place and the place for the first light of New Millennium Sunshine in Mainland China. Its development of private economy and government innovation have already formed a local ideology.

Since 1994, the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University has practiced various projects of deliberative democracy in 22 countries around the world, including the ’Participatory Budgeting” in Zeguo Town, Wenling City of Zhejiang Province, which developed from the original “Heart-to-heart Discussion”. Later, v

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through the practices of various towns, and even at the municipal level, it has become a prominent “Wenling Case” in the grassroots practices of consultative and deliberative democracy in China. Chinese leading cadres several times including the General Secretary of the CPC Central Standing Committee have confirmed it as a good example. The study of electoral democracy is still the mainstream of international political sciences, but criticism of it is on the rise; meanwhile, worries about the popular “tyranny of democracy” are also the mainstream just as the tyranny of dictatorship. We cannot over-exaggerate one form of democracy or criticize another due to a particular point of view.

In 2015, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the document of “The Document on Strengthening the Socialist Consultative & Deliberative Democracy” from the perspective of the ruling party. This provides an opportunity for China to continue its consultative and deliberative democracy experiments1 . We hope that these measures can help China realize the “modernization of national governance”. As we are in the age of “democratic experiment”, the government should be neutral in the policy-making process. If we can use scientific means to ensure that the participants should be randomly selected and be given full and comprehensive information, ordinary people will also make rational and objective decisions: People’s voices must be heard.

The Method of Deliberative Democracy Suitable for all Political Systems Deliberative democracy has already played an important role in some issues in the Western world such as the United States, Australia, and the whole Europe. More thoughtful deliberation would also be good for the electoral system. Nowadays, election democracy dominates the United States and the entire Western society. Political parties always deliberately manipulate public opinion for election and other purposes, and the public often have difficulties in obtaining the most accurate information and only learn just part of the fact. At the same time, we find that the American people have not responded positively to most public policies although many scholars believe that deliberative democracy can indeed play a role in helping Europeans and Americans participate in decision-making. In Texas of the United States, we conducted deliberative discussions on energy, taxation, and other policies. People are willing to consider more on their electricity

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Professor Fishkin prefers the combination of consultative and deliberative democracy. It is very interesting that CPC only uses the consultative democracy in its official documents because it believes that as the ruling party, it just needs consulting public opinions from top to bottom. We use the deliberative democracy in the book from the perspective of bottom to top, while the local governments such as Wenling City used the deliberative democracy. There are many consultations without democracy in China. We should pay attention to this confusion and difference in China.

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bills. A large sum of financial support has been distributed to help the implementation of environmental protection policies, such as providing clean energy and helping air purification, etc. In California, through consultations, people put forward more in-depth opinions on the reform of the political system. This strongly proves: Not only electoral democracy, but deliberative democracy can also generate considerable policy influence. In Japan, the same experiment has also been carried out. For example, the deliberative democracy experiment on the reform of the pension system and the energy policy after the explosion of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Therefore, in addition to elections, the government can make a series of policy decisions based on deliberative democracy to play its practical role. Moreover, we will perfect the deliberative poll before the local or the entire federal election in the United States with a totally random selection, which will significantly improve the quality of public opinion during the election process. All in all, deliberative democracy can play a good role in both elections and non-elections. Give all powers to the majority and they will oppress the minority. Give all the powers to the minority and they will oppress the majority. Therefore, both parties should have power so that each party can protect itself from others. —Alexander. Hamilton

Honestly speaking, the idea of deliberative democracy is widely accepted by the vast majority of countries around the world, because we do not wish deliberative democracy to become a substitute for Western competitive democracy, but rather as a supplement. Deliberative democracy could be practiced in China with no question and can bring the same effect. For example, increasing policy transparency, cultivating mature-thinking citizens who can contribute advice to the government, telling the government what they really want, and improving the rationality of government decisions. This method is conducive to decision-making under any political system. In court, jurors who make up a group will make a verdict that they would never pass as individuals. In parliament, members of the group will implement laws and measures that any one of them will oppose. In France-in the French National Convention, every committee member is an enlightened person who is knowledgeable in mind and moderate in behavior, but once these tolerant people form a group, the situation turns immediately the opposite. —Gustave Le Bon, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”

Political discussion has a long history in China such as “Qing Yi”2 . We were invited to China in 2005 to assist in practicing a deliberative poll. The local cadres believed that the “Heart-to-heart Discussion” they were doing was not perfect because the “public opinion” they received was not very representative. “Public opinion” is dominated by the people with local influence, people in better economic conditions, and the well-educated elite. At the same time, the Chinese election system only lets governments know what the elected representatives talk about in the conference room, but they do not know what those non-representatives think about. 2

“Qing Yi”: A term used for describing the scholars and officials proposed their comments on the government work so as to resist the rule of eunuchs in Eastern Han Dynasty.

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Many people think that such a deliberative democracy cannot be realized in China because of its unbalanced development: Poverty combined with unequal participation and massive rural–urban mobility, with a transformation similar to England’s industrial revolution lasting half a century long which occurred widely in China in a short period of time. Because there is no system of party competition or other supporting institutions, people are not clear how public deliberations could take place with sufficient trust from the society as well as the government. The “deliberative poll” solved the methodological problem, so the “Heart-to-heart Discussion” based on local traditions was promoted, and people quickly understood and accepted the “Heart-to-heart Discussion” as a mode developed from a new modern scientific method. In Wenling of Zhejiang Province, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong, and Macau, it seems that we have found a way for deliberative democracy to be accepted and seriously discussed in different regions of China. The Chinese people in many different places are very interested in deliberative democracy. This concept is of great significance in the context of local practice in China. It scientifically and effectively invites people to participate in the decision-making process and promotes the scientific design of the system. This echoes China’s national policy. People can learn a lot from history, but this does not mean that we have to act like our ancients. The basic ideas we advocate indeed originated from ancient Greek democracy, but these ideas have gradually been scattered in the history of more than 2400 years, but modern social sciences have made these ideas better, and we can do much better than the ancients. Ancient Greek democracy included civic consultations with random sampling and its democracy relied heavily on it. We are not proud of accessing the experience from long-standing traditions. We just noticed that the ancient Greeks invented such a democratic model that did not include party competition. It taught me and my American colleagues as well as collaborators around the world: It is not just the democratic model of party competition that is considered as democracy. Many people believe that the 1787--1789 Constitutional Convention in the United States was the result of a long and careful discussion and the result of deliberative democracy. On September 17, 1787, when the 81-year-old Franklin signed his name, he pointed to the half-round radiant sun engraved on the back of the chair where Washington, who was the chairman of the conference, once sat with tears trickling down his cheeks and he said: I often wonder if this is the sunrise or the sunset. Now I know that the sun is rising.

Democracy in ancient Greece should not be idealized. A randomly selected citizen jury convicted Socrates. This act delayed the democratic process by about 2500 years. However, the uniqueness of the Athens practice is that it combined two important ideas together—“random selection” and “prudential deliberation”. Thereafter, both of these have been downplayed in the design of the democratic system. Therefore, the basic idea of our deliberative democracy experiment is random sampling: We have followed it into ancient Greece, but we need to use scientific methods to improve it and lead it into the practice in different countries with an equal attitude.

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The Ordinary People Should Be Participating in the “Deliberation & Consultation” Many scholars believe that the “elite corruption” in Western representative democracy is becoming serious and that deliberative polls with random samples can guarantee citizens’ equal rights to political participation. Deliberative democracy is translated as “consultative democracy” in Chinese official documents. I am not very sure about what “consultative” means in China, because the Chinese government always has the power to decide how to present something to the people. Therefore, the Chinese government believes that they have been “consulting” with the people. However, what we are concerned about is how the government conducts this kind of “consultation”—whether the Chinese government can truly recognize what the Chinese people think and talk about, how to treat them in a fair way and enable them to obtain more information to participate in the discussion. This is “Consultative Democracy”. Literally speaking, the Chinese and foreign meanings are very similar. There are many things that can be counted as “deliberative democracy”, which could be found from the distinction between these two words: One is “elite deliberation”, while the other is the public participation. The US Congress is a kind of “elite deliberation” because all members involved in the deliberation are congressmen and senators. Its theoretical premise is that Madison advocated that “elite representatives can better express their opinions on justice and public interest than the people convened for a specific purpose”. Like competitive democracy, it has an evasive attitude toward public participation, and public opinions need to be “filtered” and “refined” by elite representatives. But I am interested in the deliberation being defined by the people. When I was writing the book “When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation”, I hoped it could be translated into a Chinese version, for China needs more deliberative democracy experiments. Some leading figures in the Western political and ideological circles have expressed their support for deliberative democracy, like the famous American political philosopher John Rawls, the famous British social and political theorist Anthony Giddens, German ideological leader Jürgen Habermas and others---they are all active advocates of deliberative democracy.

I agree with Habermas’ statement that deliberation exists in both the formal public sphere (political system) and the informal public sphere (civil society). Deliberation can exist in both the non-public sphere and the level of national governance, but it mainly plays a role in the non-public sphere. For example, we sometimes cooperated with TV and online media in certain countries to carry out projects. These projects belong to the non-public domain, not at the government level. If you are interested in deliberations involving public participation, you would want to enhance the power of the public so that they could have more information in discussing, so that their doubts about decision-making issues could be answered. From this point, we encourage them to understand what the party with conflicting interests in the policy may choose and what will happen next, so that the conflicting parties can reach a compromise under the premise that they are fully informed.

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Deliberation not only gives people the right to know all kinds of information. What’s more, if people know that their own opinions would be valued, it can also prompt people to make thoughtful considerations on each other’s dilemmas and clearly weigh the pros and cons of different policies. People need to know that their views will be taken seriously, even if the government does not want to do these things. More importantly, the government must show its will to listen to people’s opinions and gain more public trust through deliberative democrat procedures. I believe these procedures have good prospects in practice; it will be applicable to different political systems not only in China but also in other countries. After all, why don’t consult those people who depend their lives on policies? If the Chinese government can listen to the voices of its people, it can not only improve management, but also promote policy implementation more effectively, which will benefit everyone. As a political decision-making mechanism, discussion and deliberation are a substitute for voting. --Jon Elster, “Deliberative Democracy”.

Scientific Voices Could Be Heard by Decision-makers The Hearing is different from the deliberative poll: Many people participating in the hearing are voluntary, but participants in the polls are invited from random sample from the whole population. If you organize a poll, the most important thing is to ensure that most of the sampled participants can attend. Therefore, we always strive to pay the active participants some money for their cooperation, such as for their time spent on the polling, because this marks their contribution to the public interest. All the exquisite designs of the US Constitution, such as the separation of powers and checks and balances, federalism, and power bills, are designed to allow us to fully discuss and implement ‘consultative democracy’. Through it, all citizens need to participate in a political process. Test various ideas about reality, persuade others to agree with their opinions, and form a consensus alliance. --Barack. Obama’s “Fearless Hope: Reaffirming the American Dream”.

In a deliberative poll conducted in Wenling of Zhejiang Province, the local government planned 30 possible infrastructure projects, but the budget only supported 10 of them. Therefore, the local officials must remain completely neutral during the poll. Surprisingly, after the members had gradually obtained comprehensive information, public opinions were not controlled by the influential people, nor did it become polarized, but changed in the opposite direction of the originally estimated opinion. Our practices in Pudong New District and Minhang District in Shanghai have shown the same point. Even in the deliberative democracy of competitive projects, the Chinese people could well find public interests for the collective benefits. In actuality, we did not rehearse for this, and the participants were free to make their choices.

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Sometimes it is necessary to ensure that the results of the deliberative poll are confidential, because specific policies are involved but the hearings are public. We were never able to match what the people who participated in the deliberative democracy said with themselves, and we could not let the public know what specific matters had been discussed. These are all confidential and ensure that participants can speak freely. If a deliberative poll is to be conducted, the government as the organizer must remain neutral on the results, and the government can also choose whether to release the final integrated results upon the collected opinions. If the Chinese people think that the scientific procedures of deliberative democracy especially the meta-procedures in deliberative polls are effective, we will be very happy to provide full method and technical assistance and support in scientific public deliberation, and it can be easily duplicated in China. But the key to the problem is that the local governments must have the confidence to promote deliberative democratic experiments, so that the remarks on deliberative democracy in the ruling party’s “18th National Congress” can be implemented, and even finally ascend to the provincial and even national experiments. After all, deliberative democracy can be used for transnational groups like the European Union with a population of more than 500 million, which is almost half of that in China. People may not realize that a large population does not mean that a large number of samples must be taken. People think that conducting Deliberative Polling in China means that many people must be involved. This is a very complicated matter, but these problems can obviously be solved by technology. Therefore, if there are important, national issues, the central government can support them. If the country is not ready for this, it can actively promote practices at the local level. Note that, in our view, deliberative democracy, as one of the specific forms of modern democratic operations, can connect the will of the people with the final result, that is, every decision-maker wants to know what the will of the people is. For most of the time, the people themselves do not know what their willingness is. This is the same case in China and the United States, because they do not have enough complete information, and they do not think it is worthwhile to spend too much time on these matters. Western democracy always has too many forms of party competition, and it has often become the main way to advertise themselves, so the situation is becoming worse. As far as I know, if the will of the people can be connected with policy-making, this is a very advanced democratic model, at least on the topics we select, and this model is easier to be technicalized and duplicated.

Possibility of China’s Specific Deliberative Democratic Method What makes me very gratified is that my book “When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation” was finally published in China. When China needs more experiments on the operation of deliberative democracy, Dr. Han

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Fuguo from Fudan University came to Stanford University for one year as my visiting scholar, and we communicated and discussed in the Center for Deliberative Democracy many times, and also held workshops together to openly discuss practical cases all around the world, especially in China. We have many common views on methods and procedures. The book of “Participatory Budget: We Decide Our Budget” (by Zheng Lijun, Chen Dongsheng, etc.) introduces the global cases of deliberative democracy in the budget.

In the past 10 years, I have attended many academic conferences and we have completed several experimental projects in China. When I went to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Tianjin, and other places to give lectures, I was often touched by the sense of responsibility and enthusiasm of Chinese officials. On the basis of our past cooperative operation of deliberative polls, Han Fuguo and his team proposed a new method that was more suitable for China’s specific social structure. The Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach is based on the combination of the stratified sampling of ordinary people and appointed participants to better fit China’s diverse social decision-making structure and it tries to embed the deliberative democracy into Chinese political system not only budget and project experiments. At the same time, he advocates the performance review, and some places have conducted the deliberative review of participatory budget. China’s specific social structure needs to invent its own specific deliberative democratic method. We have had good exchanges with many Chinese researchers and practitioners in the past, and we are willing to provide theoretical and technical assistance for this. James. S. Fishkin believes that deliberative democracy can be practiced in any political systems. This is different from the scholars who emphasize that deliberative democracy couldn‘t be practiced without competitive democracy. However, he insists on the original meaning of deliberative democracy and had discussed with many scholars on the basis of this, but he does not agree to distort the deliberative democracy into Chinese “consultative politics”.

The Center for Deliberative Democracy Research at Stanford University has also signed a research cooperation agreement with the Center for Comparative Urban Governance Research at Fudan University. Dr. Xiao and other staff from our center have visited China and Fudan University to discuss specific projects for many times, forming a good case of cooperative research. Many outstanding scholars and practitioners in China have innovated a variety of cases of deliberative democracy practices. Diversified practices have brought space for scientific decision-making. We hope that China’s future deliberative democracy practice will continue to have more experience and enrich the theory of international deliberative democracy and provide a stage for communication and practice. A key question is whether deliberative democracy can only be embedded in the existing competitive democratic system? Or can it happen in a regime lacking modern developed democracy? This book provides a vivid description of Chinese possibilities and many examples. What impressed me was that when I came to China for the first time, local officials in Wenling said that from the central government to the local level, China proposed that Chinese decision-making system must be scientific, democratic,

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and legitimate. I think if we want to prove that the scientific process of deliberative democracy is the most scientific and correct way to corporate public opinions so far, more experiments are necessary, but the most important thing is that people’s voices must be heard by decision-makers. (Li Dabai of “Tencent Culture” interviewed me during my meeting at Nankai University, on December 19, 2015. This preface is rewritten based on this interview.) James. S. Fishkin

Foreword by Jing Yuejin

Open Technological Channel for Chinese Political Evolution

Professor from Department of Political Science, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University. This summer, I went to Fudan University to participate in the “Sixth Research and Method Workshop of China Political Science”. After that, I had a chat with Dr. Han Fuguo and he mentioned a manuscript he had just completed about the method of Chinese deliberative democracy, saying that Professor Fishkin had already written a preface for the book and hoped that I would also write one. Although Fuguo and I belong to two generations of scholars, we have similar research topics over the generation. For recent years, he has been engaged in the grassroots political research and practices. Our connection has not been interrupted, so my response to his suggestion is to write a review after reading it. While reading the printed manuscripts provided by Fuguo, my first impression is that the layout technology is quite exquisite. The book takes into account the

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feelings of Chinese readers and appears very comfortable. In addition to the author’s intentions, we must also thank the publishing house for its support. The book is not thick, and there are two clues that originate from the author’s inner passion. One is the author’s democratic ideal, which can be seen in the introduction and the provocative text of the first part; the other is the rational thinking of democratic development. In the language of deliberative democracy, the link between the two is the procedure: “Therefore, in addition to the Chinese strategic determination to promote democracy, the scientific procedure is a core element. The practicability of the procedure is the key to combine the common scientific approaches with the indispensable local problems. This is precisely the direction we must always persist with in Chinese efforts” (Quotation from the introduction of the book). When the author summarized the previous conclusion, what was in his mind is an important turning point in the development of China’s grassroots politics. Using a certain formula, this turning point can be roughly described by a short sentence of “from election to governance”. The extraordinarily excited election research before gradually faded to silence, and the “governance” with all kinds of prefixes is everywhere. As an alternative (compensation), Chinese people’s interest in deliberative democracy flourished in the first decade of this century, and within a short period of time it became the mainstream of Chinese academic circles. How should this important change be explained? It seems that this has not yet entered the field of academic attention, but this background is very important for our understanding of current academic activities. As a witness to this change, my insight is that research of Chinese political sciences has undergone a process of “landing”. “Landing” is not an academic term, but it reflects the fact: At the beginning, political science research started more from ideals which means the so-called “value” is higher than “facts”, and “should” is better than “is” (phenomenon). Correspondingly, the characteristics of the papers‘ text are generally more critical than descriptive, with more norms than experience, or even more sensitive than rational. The so-called “landing” process is to gradually descend from the sky, or from top to bottom, and begin to land on both feet. As the level scale changes, the subject’s problem awareness, research methods, essay format, and development style have also begun to change. Once you touch the world of experience and answer real questions, the relationship between value and fact becomes complicated, and people need new research “equipment”. The same is true for concerns about democracy. One of the biggest changes in recent years is that the Chinese people’s understanding of democracy has broken through the limitations of elections. Therefore, the transition “from election to governance” should not be understood as the end of “democracy” in China, but as a shift in focus “from electoral democracy to governance democracy”. From Dr. Han Fuguo’s manuscript, we can clearly see the historical traces of this shift (When discussing deliberative democracy technology, we can find a lot of content about electoral democracy). After realizing this turning point, we can understand why civil participation, equal representation, multiple deliberations, information sharing, adequate communication, public opinions, public interest, and procedural protection constitute the core

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concepts of this manuscript. These concepts all focus on the same goal: Use deliberative democratic technology to optimize the decision-making process in grassroots governance to improve the quality of public policies formulated by the government, and better reflect and meet the needs expressed through improved public opinions. Deliberative democracy and its related methods and techniques are quite universal and can go beyond the boundaries of political systems. On this point, I agree with Professor Fishkin’s view. At an academic seminar held in Changsha, China, a few years ago, I once asked him a question: Some people think that the deliberative democracy in the West has emerged as a supplement to electoral democracy, and that there is no Western electoral democracy in China at all, so it is wrong to talk about deliberative democracy in this context. What is your opinion? Professor Fishkin’s answer was very succinct. He pointed out this could be practiced in other democracies undoubtedly. He has done such experiments in many countries without Western electoral democracy. This characteristic of deliberative democracy is closely related to the issues it deals with. Since the establishment of the country in the world, the relationship between the government and the people has been running through the history of human society. The difference is that this relationship has undergone earth-shaking changes. Today, in a world of increasingly fierce global competition, whether and how the government can respond to the needs of the society and the people timely, adequately, and accurately have become an important foundation of the legitimacy of governance. Looking at it from another perspective, whether and how a pluralistic society can reach a consensus on solving problems is also a core indicator for measuring the national power. The reason why deliberative democracy can be popularized worldwide is because it helps solve these problems. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons why Professor Fishkin was able to conduct deliberative democracy experiments in many countries without encountering too much resistance (Professor Fishkin once mentioned that he and Professor Larry Diamond are good friends and are both at Stanford University and their work are dedicated to promoting democracy on a global scale. The difference is that Larry promoted electoral democracy, and he promoted deliberative democracy. I guess that there should be differences in how they were treated in other countries). In this context, a question to be considered is whether the technology of deliberative democracy can be standardized? Is there a universal technology of deliberative democracy? In other words, even at the technical level (with a high degree of universality), do we still have to consider the issue of Sinicization/localization? The author’s answer is “yes”: Western “deliberative poll” is operated in the context of competitive democratic systems and politics of interest groups, which often emphasize the random sampling method. However, after this method was introduced to China, it was faced with a completely different political environment, and corresponding procedural adjustments were needed. Therefore, the author proposes a Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach to make it suitable for China’s specific social stratification and political decision-making structure, forming a Chinese localized deliberative democratic decision-making method.

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It can be seen that “multiple procedure” is the keyword of the book, and it is also the core of the book. Thus, all the light is focused on the word “multiple”: What is “multiple”? Throughout the book, the author does not give a clear definition of “the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach”, but in the author’s description, we can roughly identify the meaning of “dual-entry”. Considering that the author’s main reason for proposing the approach is the limitations of the random sampling method, it is necessary for us to carefully examine what these limitations mean. In this regard, the book mainly involves two aspects: One is the factor of participants of deliberation. The author believes that although simple random sampling demonstrates the principle of equality, it cannot properly express the opinions of Chinese government officials and community cadres who play an important role in the process of community governance. The second is the integration of public opinion. The author’s question is how to scientifically integrate different opinions, instead of simply displaying and ranking the project scores. In fact, the second point has gone beyond the scope of the method of random sampling. Based on the principle of logical consistency, the following description will cover these two dimensions. In order to solve the two problems above, the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach has two corresponding prescriptions:

A Combination of Different Methods to Select Participants in Democratic Deliberation Specifically speaking, the author uses two methods: The first one is simple random sample from the population of whole community. In view of the fact that other groups have always had more opportunities to express their opinions in public decisionmaking, the author suggests that randomly sampled participants from all residencies should be given more weight. The second is to adopt the stratified random sampling to overcome the limits of simple random sampling. Taking the actual situation of grassroots governance in China into consideration, the author differentiates three important groups, which are community officials, voluntary participants, and expert participants who should still be randomly sampled except for some politically appointed participants such as local leading cadres. The expert group for plenary session includes professionals, scholars, and cadres (it should be noted that the experts in charge of the deliberative democracy experiment cannot be sampled because they are the precondition for the experiment itself). “The multiple deliberative democratic approach can effectively realize the comprehensiveness of expression by multiple selection”. In this way, “it is able to effectively achieve general participation, through an improved and broader stratified (group) random sampling. At the same time, it can also help the planning guide of CPC and governments at all levels interact with the public opinions in advance”.

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Considering Comprehensively the Opinions from Democratic Deliberation This consideration can be divided into two different levels: The first level is how to value the different groups generated by the multiple approach. How should their opinions be handled? The author’s suggestion is “what weights of these opinions of different groups in the final integration should be empowered according to the specific project, and we can integrate these weights by designing a reasonable formula. This depends on the experience of local officials and the specific social hierarchical structure in the region”. The second question is that what role the integrated consultation opinion plays in public decision-making. In this regard, the author does not believe that the consultation opinions can be directly regarded as the output of public policy. Because of the complexity of public policies in modern society, the decision-making system must carry out a series of policy transformation and balance after considering the input of public opinion. Considering the overall and continuous interests, they should provide reasonable results. Of course, the more scientific the integration of public opinion is, the greater the possibility of input into policies would be. Finally, the motive of officials to implement scientific decisions will be correspondingly improved. In summary, “the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach” is meaningful both in form and content. The so-called “form” refers to the expansion of the representativeness and inclusiveness of deliberative democracy through two random sampling methods which promise that the composition of participants can reflect the basic characteristics of China’s political structure. The so-called “content” refers to the integration of different types of opinions in a cooperative and compromising way, and then embed such opinions into the government’s decision-making process, so as to reach a kind of dynamic balance among different interests, and between public opinion and government planning. We can find that “the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach” not only contains the common technology of deliberative democratic, but also reflects the characteristic of China’s societal system. This relationship between similarity and particularity is equally valid at the domestic level: The author believes that the procedures of approach not only contain the core modules (common features), but also provide a flexible space for local governances. In terms of methodology, we might as well regard the approach as an ideal type. Its application is open, and the local governments and communities can flexibly practice it according to their particular conditions. Of course, one principle must be adhered to somewhere between changes and unchanged. In the words of the author, “only insisting the ‘localization of problems’ and the ‘scientificalness of procedures’ can we form democratic deliberative method with Chinese local characteristics, and make contributions to the world politic civilization. The two factors are equally important”. Generally speaking, I would like to give a fully affirmative review of this manuscript and propose an academic and realistic question: In the process of combining the representative public opinion with the existing political system, are

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we touching a grand topic in different languages, which it is the organic combination of the leadership of CPC, the rule by people, and the rule of law? In other words, can the macro-level topics of political philosophy be transformed into an operable technical issue? Different from the path that democratic theory entered China in the past, deliberative democracy found its peculiar way to China through political experiments. The budget reform experiment conducted in Wenling of Zhejiang Province is a classic one. What does this mean? An intuitive feeling is that the scientific method is important for deliberative democracy. Here, Mr. De (Democracy) and Mr. Sai (Science) are no longer two gentlemen, but combine to be one. Using scientific methods to practice and promote democracy is indeed a new interesting phenomenon. Perhaps it can be boldly predicted that whether it is domestic politics or international politics. The selection of indicators and the assignment of weights will not be the only key issues in social science research, but will also become the core of interest games and political competition. In the process of deliberative democracy, the technicalization of politics, or the politicization of technology, has provided us with a key to understanding future politics. Looking at this manuscript from this perspective, its meaning has a new dimension. I want to wrap up this writing by echoing the scene in the opening. We find many research papers and books about Chinese local governance, and they are presented to me at the same time and at the same place, which makes people wonder that whether it is just an accidental coincidence, or it reflects a certain trend in Chinese political studies. It is worth thinking twice. One of my experiences from this is: As long as it takes root in China’s political reality, the research of political sciences will maintain its fresh vitality so as to keep pace with the times. On August 26, 2016 at Eslite Bookstore, Peking Jing Yuejin

Foreword by Chen Mingming

“Martial Doctrine for Strategists, Formula for Chemistry”:The Technical Operation of Grassroots Democracy in China

Professor and dean of Department of Political Science, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University. One hundred years ago, Dr. Sun Yat-sen wrote “The General Plan of Nation Construction”, the third of which was “Social Construction”, also known as “Civil Rights Preliminary”. What is “preliminary civil rights”? They are the people‘s elementary democratic rights of election, impeachment, creation, and referendum. Dr. Sun Yat-sen defined the “preliminary civil rights” as a set of rules for people’s meetings, saying that his book was “the martial doctrine for strategists, the formula for chemistry, a book not just to be read, but to be practiced, rehearsed and tested. If people treat this book only for reading purpose, it will taste like chewing wax, and you will get nothing. If people apply the knowledge of this book into practice, they

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will have to go through it and get on well”.3 As we all know that Sun Yat-sen’s “Social Construction” (“Civil Rights Preliminary”) was written based on the early version of “Robert’s Rules of order” by American Henry Robert in 1876. Modern public decision-making, whether by means of voting or deliberation, must obey the specific procedures and processes, so that all members can get the opinion of majority through free expression with sufficient information. Nothing can be accomplished without rules. There can be no growth and development of democracy without the guidance and restriction of the basic rules of discussion (or debate), and voting (or expression). As a result, industrial-market countries have gradually developed a set of mature and cumbersome rules and their corresponding beliefs. The book of “Robert’s Rules of Order” reflects this trend in the Western World. If Dr. Sun Yat-sen regarded the rules of order as the initial stage of democratic politics and the important task of China‘s social construction, his enlightening voice was not understood by many people in the chaos created by warlords in the early years of the Republic of China. After that, until the early 1990s, “Robert’s Rules of Order” was translated and published for the first time in Mainland China (The Commercial Press, 1995), it still did not have widespread and sufficient attention (Nearly 80 years have passed since then). It shows this fact: Democracy in contemporary China is generally recognized in value and has gained some experiences, but overall it is still in the process of gradual national identification. Democracy is a good thing. There is no problem. However, all good things need to be learned and trained to make them not only the attitudes and ideals of life, but also the skills and habits of life, in order to realize its “good” in theory, to benefit from its “good” in practice. In this regard, the publication of “Deliberative Democracy: Technology of Grassroots Governance Series” undoubtedly has pioneering and practical significance for Chinese democracy. As the opening of this series, the unique practical value of Dr. Han Fuguo’s “Practicing Democracy in China: Multiple Deliberative Democracy in Policy-making” is self-evident. This book focuses on deliberative democracy and provides procedures for its practice. As one of the important paths for the development of democratic politics in China, deliberative democracy has received more and more attention from officials and academic circles since the 1990s, and it plays an increasingly important role in grassroots social governance. Of course, this does not mean to belittle or underestimate the value of electoral democracy to China’s democratic politics. The 2006 “Documents on Strengthening the Work of the People’s Political Consultative Conference” has clarified the coexistence of electoral democracy and deliberative democracy: “The people exercise their rights via elections and voting, and all parties within the people conduct full consultations4 before major decisions and reach 3

Sun Yat-sen: “Strategies for the Founding of the Country”, “Selected Works of Sun Yat-sen”, People’s Publishing House, 1981, p.385. 4 We should pay attention to that the translation of “deliberative & consultative democracy” in CPC documents only is “consultative democracy” as we have discussed in advance. Professor Chen‘s preface has used the concept of “deliberative & consultative democracy” as Professor Fishkin. So we translated it as “consultative democracy” in official documents but as “consultative & deliberative democracy” in the specific texts.

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consensus on common issues as much as possible. These are two important forms of socialist democracy in our country”.5 But from the perspective of political development strategy, the consultative & deliberative democracy has such a prominent position at the moment because it is the most suitable form of democracy for China‘s current economic and social development. It is slightly different from the competitive institutional arrangements of electoral democracy and the deliberative democracy is more conducive to settling social conflicts and seeking common ground while reserving differences and expanding consensus. Its intrinsic function and value orientation are to resolve social conflicts, reduce the transaction cost of compromise, and promote harmonious symbiosis in Chinese society. In addition, experiences show that elections may be the bottom line of democracy, but they are not all of democracy. James Fishkin of Stanford University has done “deliberative poll” experiments all over the world, including Zhejiang Province which has been mentioned many times in this book. Fishkin randomly selected one or two hundred citizens based on telephone numbers and other information from some places, and first recorded their opinions on a certain topic through questionnaires, and then provided them with pros and cons and a large number of background facts for them to listen and discuss in the live debate, and finally let them complete the same questionnaire. The experiment found that the results of the two questionnaires were quite different, and this difference was caused by the exchange, discussion, and communication of different information and opinions. The opinions reflected in the second questionnaire were obviously more reasonable, wiser, and more careful than the first. Therefore, democracy is indeed not only electoral democracy, but also “deliberative democracy”.6 Han Fuguo’s surveys also found that most of the existing public opinion surveys were mainly one-off, static presentations of public opinion, and they were basically conducted under conditions of insufficient information and lack of careful communication and thinking. It was easy to be guided and manipulated by local cadres and experts, and is not suitable for many specific public policy decisions. Especially in many key projects, even if the random sampling was carried out, there were no public opinion surveys without presenting the necessary information and basic communication, so it is difficult to integrate the real public opinion, which led to the passive decision-making. Therefore, he adopted the method of conducting two rounds of questionnaires before and after the deliberation and even three rounds of questionnaires. “In our findings of multiple practices, there remains no essential difference between the first poll result and a decision by a minority of decisionmakers with overwhelming subjectivity. This one-off survey on public opinions is always as destructive and extreme as the effects of large-scale political campaigns”. 5

“Documents on Strengthening the Work of the People’s Political Consultative Conference”, February 8, 2006. The General Office of the CPPCC Consolidated Committee and the Literature Research Office of the CPC Central Committee: “Selection of Important Documents of the People’s Political Consultative Conference” (Part 2), Central Document Publishing Ceremony, 2009, page p.762. 6 Zhang Qianfan: “Democracy is Discussion According to Rules” (Chinese Version Preface Two), “Robert‘s Rules of Order” (10th Edition), Truth & Wisdom Press, 2005, p.1.

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The 18th National Congress of CPC formally accepted the concept of “socialist consultative democracy”, proposed to improve the consultative & deliberative democracy system and working mechanism, and promote the development of extensive, multiple levels, and institutionalized deliberative democracy as the focus of China’s democratic political construction in the future. Expanding the scope of consultative and deliberative democracy and improving the quality of it are the keys to the future development of democracy in China. Among them, the objective, accurate, and comprehensive integration and reflection mechanism of social conditions and public opinion is important for developing and improving the quality of consultative and deliberative democracy. With increasing policy transparency, cultivating mature citizen representatives to give opinions to the government, telling the government what they really want, and at the same time improving the rationality of government decision-making, it is conducive to decision-making under any political system. Honestly speaking, compared with electoral democracy, deliberative democracy has a relatively weaker expressive mechanism. Therefore, in order to develop Chinese deliberative democracy, it is urgent to accelerate the construction of China’s social opinion polling system. In this process, providing practical procedures for consultative and deliberative democracy is the most important part of improving its quality. This is exactly the purpose why this book is titled “Practicing Democracy in China: Multiple Deliberative Democracy in Policy-making”. Fu Guo believes that the deliberative democratic procedures are to try to understand and solve problems, and they are the endogenous parts of the modern democratic system. The deliberative democracy tries to meet the needs of public expression, communication, and integration in the decision-making of most public matters by providing practical democratic procedures, so that the most people have equal opportunities to participate in decision-making. The “detailed practical design” means the vitality of the system, otherwise the deliberative democracy will lose its vitality and the possibility of institutionalization. Undoubtedly, if deliberative democratic decision-making becomes necessary for the good interaction between the state and Chinese society, and necessary for the ruling party and Chinese government to build public life, the best way is to practice it. The procedures of deliberative democratic decision-making can well train and cultivate participants‘ mature citizenship awareness through continuous participation, and cultivate their civic spirit to be responsible for themselves, others, and society, so as to realize the orderly discussion of issues and reach the most possible consensus, and truly realize the continuous decision of “seeking common ground while reserving differences”. Throughout the book, it is not difficult for readers to find that “detailed practical design” is the main line of the book, and it is also the arrangement of the author’s deliberate efforts. In this manual on “How to practice the deliberative democracy”, there are at least four characteristics throughout each chapter of the full text.

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Characteristic I: Being Practice-oriented The purpose of academic research is nothing but two—the first is to explain phenomena and reveal the laws to satisfy the impulse of “seeking knowledge”; the second is to learn from the experience and then govern the country to meet the requirements of “action”. Whether be “knowledge” or “action”, they fundamentally unify in the theory of practice, which is called “unity of knowledge and action”. In contemporary China, to a large extent, the democracy (including consultative & deliberative democracy) is not a theoretical issue, but a practical issue, that is, whether to do it and how to do it. The author points out that many Chinese democratic decisionmaking systems have not been replicated and sustained. One reason is that the CPC cadres often pursue distinctive political achievements in their tenures, and the other reason stems from a top to bottom phenomenon that the policies are immediately canceled after the leading cadres are transferred or retired. Another major reason is the lack of practicability in many systems and the procedures focus too much on local issues and are not universally promoted. In addition to the strategic determination of the leading cadres, the promotion of democracy also depends on the scientific nature of their procedures. While the procedures‘ scientific nature is manifested in the feasibility, its essence is “the practicability of the procedures”. Putnam said, we should “make democracy work”. He placed great hope on civic community formed by the elements of social trust, win-win rules, networks of civic engagement, and mutual cooperation, whose underlying meaning is to let democracy be implemented in citizens’ social lives and turn democracy into the lifestyle of the community.7 Only in this way can the value and persuasion of democracy be clearly distinguishable, and the performance of the democratic system has an inexhaustible source. Based on the practical philosophy of “no steps in practice, there can be no democracy; without a trickle of procedures, there can be no system”, this book aims to provide a scientific and feasible procedure for the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach from multiple selection, so we can completely regard it as a program of action for the construction of contemporary Chinese civil society.

Characteristic II: Being Problem-oriented Deliberative democracy has a long tradition in people’s democratic politics led by the Communist Party of China. Since the Reform and Open-up Policy, with the increasing social mobility and the diversified social interests, the urban unit system led by the CPC organizations cannot fully deal with the conflicts of interest among the existing social groups. In rural areas, the “Two Committees” (CPC Village Committee & Village Self-governance Committee) system of village governance cannot fully solve the problem of people’s effective participation in democratic decision-making. 7

Robert Putnam: “Making Democracy Work” (Chapters 4 and 5), Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 2001.

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However, social organizations outside the system may face more dilemmas, because if the direction they guide the public to deliberate is not consistent with that of the government, the grassroots government will be worried. On the other hand, if the results of consultation and deliberation are too representative of the local governments‘ views, they will be partial to some extent, thus losing the ability to represent and coordinate the social interests. The author realizes that relying solely on the political consultation dominated by the local CPC committee and the Chinese government may return to the traditional model of government management, which is no longer suitable for the increasingly complex and diverse governance in China. Faced with the complex social background, it is necessary to cope with the challenges of various apparent and potential problems and seek solutions through the analysis of specific practices. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the driving forces and ways for increasingly developed urban community organizations to practice deliberative democracy, to study the needs and modes of rural villagers‘ self-governance for the development of deliberative democracy, to promote the common development of urban and rural community organizations and deliberative democracy, and to organically combine community governance with political democratization. Based on the timeline (the path of development and the corresponding stages) and the structure (institutions and its relations with others), this book is more problem-conscious and makes the reading journey meaningful and interesting.

Characteristic III: Being Technology-Oriented Another distinctive feature of this book is to put the concrete operation of deliberative democracy on the basis of strict quantitative analysis. The existing theory believes that random sampling of the whole population can produce an unbiased sample of participation. For example, the random sampling of “deliberative polls” has realized scientific quantification and the orderly progress of discussion procedures, but its premise is based on the existence of a competitive democratic system in a region, and the expression is diverse so as to ensure that the random sampling population has a certain degree of homogeneity of participation consciousness. The book believes that after this method was introduced in China, it faces a problem of unbalanced social structure of random sampling in grassroots practices. In addition to the randomly sampled representatives, how to consider the changes in the opinions of the deputies to the People’s Congress and the most working staff of related government departments; how to consider the community and village cadres‘ opinions who have a better understanding of the society; how the active participants to express their opinions. Even if the PC deputies have insufficient or even lack of opportunities to communicate with voters, what is the relationship between the opinions of the randomly sampled representatives and the PC deputies‘ legal voting powers? How do we further integrate these public opinions scientifically instead of simply ranking the project scores? For these reasons, the author proposes

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the “Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach”, which is based on the Chinesespecific social structure and allows decision-makers to obtain the public opinions in a reasonable and comprehensive way. It can also help CPC organizations and their governments‘ plans interact and integrate with public opinions at all levels in advance. This is a deliberative democratic decision-making method with Chinese characteristics. In the book, the author demonstrates some cases, and strives to provide references for practicing the deliberative democracy, such as “Multiple Selection of Participants beyond Random Sampling”, “Sufficient Materials: Informed Policymaking”, “Three Polls: Before, During and After Deliberation”, “Group Discussion: Skilled Moderator”, “Plenary Session: Interaction between All Participants”, “Release of Results: Feedback to Participants”, “Performance Review: Achieving Continuous Decision-making”, “Choice of Topics: A Combination of Politics and Technology”, “Supplementary Procedures: Replacement and In-depth Interview”, “Validity of Approach: Duplication of Procedures”, etc. These definitely demonstrate the author‘s efforts to scientifically and technically make the deliberative democratic decision-making in practicing. Needless to say, this technique is the guarantee that the deliberative democracy can be replicated and promoted in Chinese urban and rural communities.

Characteristics of Grassroots Orientation The 1999 Wenling “Heart-to-heart Discussion” in Zhejiang Province was an important event in the history of China‘s deliberative democracy. It has various sub-models such as “Democratic Dialogues”, “Participatory Discussion”, and “Collective Democratic Negotiation on Wages”, which initially constructed a local system of deliberative democracy. After the 18th National Congress of the CPC promoted the consultative & deliberative democracy from a form of grassroots democracy to an integral part of the national system, gradually expanded from the consultation between political parties to consultation and deliberation between the government and social groups and citizens, forming a “political consultation” at the national level, the “consultative & deliberative decision-making” between the state and society and “citizen deliberation” at the social level. Chinese cases show that the main performers of deliberative democracy include various types of social organizations, People‘s Congresses and CPC organizations at all levels, community self-government organizations (including rural and urban), migrant populations, etc. Of course, the standing committees of CPC and governments at all levels are important actors in all practical models. However, comparatively speaking, the self-governance projects of communities (urban and rural) are the most suitable field for the multiple deliberative democratic approach, because it can effectively integrate the existing procedures and methods of community autonomy, or in other words, it is the standard procedures for community self-governance methods. The current consultation mechanisms in China mainly

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include civic conferences, deliberative polls, consensus talks, civic forums, mediation, creativity and referendums, civic groups and civic advisory groups, democratic councils, democratic forums, and Internet public forums. Some scholars even call the “Heart-to-heart Discussion” a “Chinese-style Civic Conference”. In addition, it also includes various forms of common practice at the grassroots level, such as Citizen Forums, the “Three Meetings” system of urban communities (hearings, coordination meetings, and councils), Public Opinion Communication Day, Legislative Hearing, and Participatory Budget. This book uses a large number of cases to introduce the process and status of the consultation and democratic decision-making procedures in urban and rural grassroots communities. In this regard, the author has long-term in-depth observations in grassroots society and in-depth interactions with various social organizations. The survey data is mainly derived from the grassroots community. On the other hand, it should be connected with the author’s perception that the vitality of Chinese democracy and the prospect of consultative and deliberative democracy are rooted in grassroots society. As Fuguo said, any form of democracy, from an ideal perspective, is to better solve problems in social development, coordinate interests, and achieve the greatest possible fairness in people’s development. The development of deliberative democracy at the grassroots level in China is precisely the answer to the needs of China’s social and economic development and the emergence of a large number of people’s livelihood issues. The improvement of the Chinese people’s economic development level will indeed bring about an increase in the level of knowledge and opportunities for participation. At the same time, in order to solve the problems of people’s livelihood, the society itself will continue to innovate the way how Chinese participate in deliberative democracy. This is similar to Putnam‘s judgment, “democratic reformers must start at the grassroots level”.8 In fact, the development of consultative democracy at the grassroots level has also formed a kind of “pushing mechanism” for Chinese local governments, which makes them have to accept, try, and gradually become more proactive whether they are passive or from “leadership instinct” to carry out the experiments of deliberative democracy, so as to realize the democratic governance of the entire society. Finally, let’s return to the “Civil Rights Preliminary” chapter of Sun Yat-sen’s “The General Plan of Nation Construction”. Dr. Sun Yat-sen taught the people how to move, discuss, vote, and carry out referendum, and so on. He earnestly believed that “teaching the first step in the exercises of civil rights in our country” was to be gradually reaching “the excellent development of civil rights must have a peak day”.9 Today, 100 years later, as the opening of this series of “Deliberative Democracy: Technology of Grassroots Governance Series”, the book of “Practicing Democracy in China: Multiple Deliberative Democracy in Policy-making” can be said that it adheres to the belief that “if you want to build one democracy, you

8

Robert Putnam: “Make Democracy Work”, Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, 2001, p. 2. Sun Yat-sen: “Strategies for the Founding of the Country”, “Selected Works of Sun Yat-sen.” People’s Publishing House, 1981, p.385. 9

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must not ignore the first step of practices”.10 Deliberative democracy is an important exploration of contemporary Chinese democratic politics and our effort to design the practical procedures would be the most important for China. I‘d like to end this short preface within three sentences: “There is no real freedom without practical procedures”. “There is no real democracy without practical procedures”. “There is no real efficiency without practical procedures”. That is all, how could it be otherwise? These ideas in this preface are also the intention of the book series. Chen Mingming

10

Ibid.

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 More Time and Space for Chinese Democratic Participation . . . . .

1 1

2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Communicative and Informed Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Democratic Institutions and Informed Citizens . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 Define Public Interests Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 Deliberation Other Than Simple Compromise or Suppression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 The Pros and Cons of the Principal Accountability System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Falsehood of Decisions-Making by Experts . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.3 Biased Forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.4 The Dilemma of Representative Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.5 Case Study: The Council’s Policy vs Civil Protest in Urban Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.6 Designated Autonomous Committees or Councils . . . . . . 2.2.7 The Biased Opinions in Cyberspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Equal Participation from Different Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 The Need of Expressing Opinions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Avoid Biased Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Selection Procedures: Participants of the Masses in Budget-Making at Dousha Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.4 Possibility of Transcending Individual Interests . . . . . . . . 2.3.5 Possibility Beyond Elite Decision-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Simple Methods and Procedures to Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 Procedures to Ensure Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 Social Self-Governance Is Orderly Participation . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 The Challenge of Re-Adaption to Procedures and Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 19 19 22 24 25 26 28 28 30 30 34 37 38 38 39 40 41 42 47 48 49 50

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3 “Deliberative Polling”: A Practicable Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Random Sampling: Participants with Equal Opportunities . . . . . . . 3.2 Projects Instructions: Make the Information as Well-Balanced as Possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Polls Before and After Deliberation: Quantify Public Opinions Scientifically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Small Group Discussion: Discussions with Trained Moderators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Dos and Don’ts About Training of Moderators (Guide for Moderators in Small Group Discussion) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Plenary Session: Interaction Between Decision-Makers and Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Release of the Results: Feedback for Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making: Procedures for Chinese Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Multiple Selections of Participants Beyond Random Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 Multiple Random Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Participants in Random Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.3 Random Sampling of Community Officials . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.4 Voluntary Participants in Random Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.5 Experts Participants (Professionals, Scholars, and Technical Officials) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.6 Randomly Matched Small Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.7 Appropriate Remuneration for Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.8 A Deliberative Democratic Decision-making Project: “Residents’ Self-governance Fund” on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Practical Cases of Random Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Computer Random Sampling on Puxing Road . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Computer Random Sampling of Representatives to Participate in a Renovation Project of Pingyangliucun Community on Gumei Road, Minhang District, Shanghai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 “Table Tennis Random Sampling” in Zeguo Town, Wenling City, Zhejiang Province . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.4 Comparison of Selecting Methods at Zeguo Town . . . . . . 4.3 Cases of Multiple Deliberative Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Table Tennis Lottery Random Sampling on Representatives at Zeguo Town, 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Sufficient Circulation of Decisions: Making Participants Informed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Pres-Deliberation of Project Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55 56 58 59 59 60 61 62 65 70 70 70 72 73 74 75 75

76 76 76

78 78 80 80 81 83 84

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4.4.2

Return Visit for Deliberative Democratic Polling on “Residents Self-Governance Fund” on Puxing Road Sub-District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.3 Distributions of Project Materials in Advance . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.4 Invitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Three Polls: Before, During, and After Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.1 Double-Blinded Trial: A Questionnaire Survey Before Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.2 Self-Judgment: A Questionnaire Survey After Exposure to Materials but Before Deliberation . . . . . . . . . 4.5.3 Cognitive Judgment: A Questionnaire Survey After Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5.4 Informed Decision-Making: Comparison of Opinions Before and After Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6 Group Discussion: Skilled Moderator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.1 Compliance With Rules of Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.2 Formation of Focuses of Opinions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.6.3 Avoiding Polarization of Attitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Plenary Session: Interaction Among All Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.1 Plenary Session for Further Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.2 Deepening the Second Group Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.7.3 Composition of “Small-Plenary-Small” Deliberation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Release of Results: Feedback to Participants of Various Statuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8.1 Announcement of the Results of Deliberative Democratic Poll on Residents Self-Governance Funds on Puxing Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9 Performance Review: Achieving Continuous Decision-Making on Long-Term Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.9.1 Agenda of “Heart-To-Heart Discussion” on Financial Statement in Zeguo Town, Winling City, Zhejiang Province, 2014 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.10 Choice of Topics: A Combination of Politics and Technology . . . . 4.11 Supplementary Procedures: Intro-Structure Substitution and In-Depth Amendment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.11.1 Intro-Structure Substitution of Representatives . . . . . . . . . 4.11.2 Amendment of In-Depth Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.12 Combination of Reliability and Validity: Duplication of Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85 88 89 96 98 98 99 99 105 107 108 109 115 115 118 119 119

120 121

125 126 128 128 128 129

5 The Operational Space for Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 5.1 Decision-Making on Community Self-Governance Matters . . . . . . 132 5.2 People’s Congress’s Voting Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

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5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8

Contents

Collection of Proposals of the CPPCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Decision-Makings of Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 Seminar on Projects of Residents’ Self-Governance . . . . . Democratic Consultation of Social Organizations (Enterprises) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CPC Intra-Party Democratic Decision-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Major Social Planning Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civic Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6 Comparison of Political Participation Methods: Practices of Deliberative Democracy in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Mass Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.1 Text Broadcast of 49th Standing Meeting of Hangzhou Municipal Government . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1.2 Working Method of “1 + 1 + X” in Puxing Sub-district . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Citizen (Villager) Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 “Four Meetings” System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Measures of Hearing, Coordination Meeting, and Appraisal Meeting in Residential Areas in Shanghai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Sitting-In Announcement of the Fourth Session of the Thirteenth Guiyang Municipal People’s Congress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Community Network Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Government-Society Communication Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 “Open Space” for Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.7 Open Space Discussion on the Planning of the Functions of Old Service Stations in Jinqiaowan Residential Area . . . . . . . . . 6.8 Scenario Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9 Robert’s Rules of Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9.1 Gubei Civic Council Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9.2 Meeting Rules (Referring to Robert’s Rules of Order) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.10 Citizen Jury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.10.1 “12 Angry Men” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.11 One-Off Poll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

135 136 137 145 146 150 150 153 155 156 157 159 160

160

165 167 168 168 169 170 171 173 173 174 174 175

7 Adequate Communication: Make an Informed Decision . . . . . . . . . . . 177 Appendix I:

Deliberative Polling on “Residents’ Self-Governance Funds” on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Appendix II: Materials of Practicing Deliberative Democracy on Gumei Road, Minhang District, Shanghai . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Contents

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Appendix III: Deliberative Polling on “Open Party Build-Up” on Gumei Road of Minhang District, Shanghai . . . . . . . . . 217 Appendix IV: Practices of Deliberative Democracy in Big Picture in China: Characteristics, Structures and Problems at Grassroots Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Appendix V: Procedures of Chinese Participatory Budget—Comparative Analysis of “Yanjin Model” and “Wenling Model” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253 Appendix VI: “The Document on Strengthening the Socialist Consultative and Deliberative Democracy” Issued by CPC Central Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281 Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 More Time and Space for Chinese Democratic Participation What kind of democracy is necessary for the twenty-first-century China? How can Chinese people specifically practice the existing democratic documents in China? Or are there any specifically workable and scientific procedures to ensure the big democratic issues in documents? Practices hold equal importance to the democratic reforms in the Chinese upper-level political system, even more important than CPC’s macro-system design. The democratic system emerged from the constant democratic practices in solving particular difficulties, rather than “a constitutional sandcastle through a giant leap forward” overnight. Democracy needs practice and practice takes time. The idea of the book is triggered by these questions. City dwellers and peasants in remote villages have all gone through the mobilizations for major campaigns, the blaring of loud-speakers, the political meetings and study sessions, the dependence on low-level cadres. —Patricia Buckley Ebrey, “The Cambridge Illustrated History of China”

We have never opposed the idea of the theoretical preparations and guidelines for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, but we simultaneously believe that practical procedures and sustainable practices are more important for China’s current institutional development. Also, this is the path that most democracies in the world have been following, that is, a bottom-up process of evolutionary democracy. Without the consolidation of the basic democratic procedures, we would see none of the integrated democracies. Faced with specific problems, many Chinese people invariably adopt the attitude of ‘there’s no need to fight for something on little sparkle of stones, or to take it seriously when it comes to snail’s horn’. (People live in the world, as if constrained on that small snail horn, the space is so narrow, what is there to get? Life is short, as a flash of fire from the moment stones collide, and life passes.) However,

© Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5_1

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they haven’t realized that, without a specific procedure design like the ‘snail’s horn’ or practices as the ‘stone’s sparkle’, there would be no overall institutional transition. Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. – Winston Churchill

The Communist Party of China and its government claim to promote ‘people’s sovereignty’—its modern democratic procedures are by no means the intellectual patents in the experts’ study, nor the exclusive power of the officials in the office, but a set of participatory methods that every Chinese ordinary individual agrees, understands, and can master. At the beginning of the development of modern democracy, the people, based on the simple idea of ‘sharing public power’ and ‘guaranteeing individual rights’, created democratic rules that gradually limited the traditional monarchical power, and eventually overthrew the whole autocratic system and established democratic regimes and states one after the other. Therefore, the democracy starts with the protection of every specific right, making of every practical rule, and participation of every person. They (KMT) believe it will take many, many years for China to reach democratic politics. They believe that China will not achieve democratic politics until Chinese education is enhanced to a level same as that of the Western democracies. …… However, the fact is that it is easier to educate and train people under a democratic system. —CPC Central Committee, Xinhua Daily, February, 25, 1939

Although the intellectuals are responsible for theoretically interpreting what Chinese democracy is, any ordinary individual in our society is very concerned about the democratic rules of decision-making. The rules themselves need to be identified by the people, otherwise democracy is “null and void”. Basically, its history and development demonstrate that the specific practice of the democracy is unrelated to the people’s literacy, the identification of the democratic procedures not related to the people’s social origin, and the diverse practices of democracy are not unrelated to the region’s socio-economic status. Although the above-mentioned factors would have impacts, to some extent, on Chinese people’s participation in democratic decision-making, yet they are different aspects of the problem. By making reference to the development of world democratic politics and the experience of the United States, CPC seriously criticized the “strategy of military and political tutelage” once implemented by the Kuomintang Government at that time. The CPC believed that “it is a very absurd pretext to reject democracy because of people’s low literacy”, as well as “it is unacceptable to postpone the election on the excuse of war and the like”. In the controlled bases during “the Period of the Red Army” and “the Yan’an Period”, the CPC evaluated the local conditions and correspondingly invented several ‘bean-voting methods’ for practicing democracy. It also applied the ‘incense-voting method’, using lighted incense to burn holes in the paper with a candidate’s images on, to democratic election. Those diversifying ‘bean voting’ methods, practiced in the liberated areas during 1930s–1940s, are described vividly in the book of Bean Voting (Emerson Niou and Youlu Mi):

1.1 More Time and Space for Chinese Democratic Participation

3

Golden bean, silvery bean, No casual is bean voting. Right bean, rightly done, Right bowls with the beans in. Even in the early twenty-first century, the Chinese people from a village in Yunnan Province still used the ‘bean-voting method’ to select one poverty-alleviation project to be carried out. Thomas Jefferson said, “I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion”. We agree with this very much. Like the democratic developments in all the other countries, democracy at the community level in China also finds a gradual process. “How to avoid the weaknesses of the democratic system and promote its advantages are the problems we must face” (Zhao Dingxin). Compared with other countries, China has confronted more dilemmas in democratic development instead of what has been called ‘easier manipulation’. However, it remains clear that Chinese people are easily adapted to democratic practices. The winter in Vermont is chilly and long which needs extreme endurance. Afterwards, the flower-blooming spring approaches. I have always been thinking: people should never allow your imagination doom even in the darkest time. —Tasha Tudor (a renowned American illustrator, picture book artist and rural-life lover)

When teaching at Zhejiang University (2004–2011), I heard the story of a ‘dog meat election’. A student from Zhejiang University, who was born at Niansanli Town in Yiwu City in Zhejiang Province, took several days off to attend the election of a village headman. Because of the fierce competition, the villagers studying or working outside were all required to go back to vote. Some candidates were even paid their fees for the airplane tickets. Later, many people were astonished at the phenomenon of ‘Taiwan businessmen chartering an aeroplane to return Taizhou to vote’. However, many of my colleagues at Zhejiang University were familiar with this phenomenon, for they have seen too many similar cases. This phenomenon is quite common in some coastal developed areas, such as Zhejiang Province, Guangdong Province, Southern Jiangsu Province, and Shangdong Province. The student told me what was happening after he was back home. In Yiwu City which is quite prosperous in economic development, to be elected as leaders in local communities has far surpassed the bribery of gifting several packs of super expensive Chunghwa cigarettes1 or hundreds of yuan to the voters. After having undergone several times Chunghwa: (simplified Chinese: 中华, traditional Chinese: 中華, pinyin: Zh¯onghua) a premium brand of Chinese cigarettes produced by the Shanghai Tobacco Group, a subsidiary of China Tobacco. Due to its popularity in the Chinese market, it is considered the most representative brand of Chinese cigarettes and is known as the “national cigarette”. The cigarette package design is a bright red color with the Tiananmen and its Huabiao pillars in gold on the front. “Chunghwa”, or Zhonghua (中华/中華), is one of the common names for China. The Chunghwa brand can be considered a status symbol, and the cigarettes are often given as gifts.

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of elections, people have realized the unreliability of the money-driven elections. Besides, villagers are becoming wealthier. Therefore, candidates who bribing voters to vote again would not easily touch people. Then, how did the candidates make successful “election campaign”? Two village candidates competing for the director of peasant’s group made an agreement of cooking dog meat publicly on the same day at a crossroad of the village (maybe eating dog meat is a local vulgar custom, but we don’t make moral comments here). They invited the local support groups to enjoy the dog meat. I felt so regretful for not experiencing the event myself, but I could imagine how they competed with each other while eating hot dog meat. On hearing this news, I burst into laughter and felt very excited: a Chinese democratic election at the community level could transcend the money-driven model and evolved into a local election phase. Undoubtedly, eating meat also requires money. I heard another story when I was working in a county-level city in Taizhou City in Zhejiang Province. It was actually an election of “Director of Village Self-governing Committee” with ‘gangsters’ involved. Specifically, a veteran entrepreneur always felt an urgent need to be a village director. He also heard of a drinking-water project that would expropriate the village’s land. Therefore, he decided to return to his home village to compete for the position. He had always run his business in cities and thus was worried about his social network in the village. On Election Day, he arranged two buses of employees to pretend as the gangsters to back him. I did not know what the situation was like on the spot, but he succeeded. One year later, he was upset because the old-age people in the village persuaded him to contribute to building a certain village road as his predecessor did. He had no choice but to build the road. Consequently, many public affairs were thirsty for financial commitment. Before the municipal drinking water project was to be implemented, he had to constantly spend money on village affairs. His fulfillment of the position was really at the cost of his own money. Although this is just a case of a small entrepreneur, many similar cases have also been reported. For example, entrepreneurs return to their hometowns and take up positions as the village committee directors or the village party secretaries. They have to solve most public affairs of the whole village with their own money. I sweet-talked at him: “You are elected by the people. You can’t quit until you complete your term. Be a new village gentleman and pay back your hometown”. I didn’t know how he tackled those smart villagers after that, but I know Taizhou Area has an advanced economic development and one tough folklore, so its democratic development has also got through a phase of rent-seeking by directly resorting to power. One of the reasons for the birth of ‘heart-to-heart discussion’ in Wenling City is that some village affairs are difficult to be settled down by the local government. By the chance of ‘the Forum of Agricultural and Rural Modernization Education’ organized by the Zhejiang provincial government, the local government innovated a democratic form of “Heart-to-Heart Discussion”, which directly led to today’s deliberative democracy and participatory budget. I interviewed many cadres and believed this was one of the real motives for practicing deliberative democracy. Wenling’s case of deliberative democracy is very famous in the world and we have discussed it in the following chapters.

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Our experience proves that Chinese people understand democracy and need democracy. They do not need long-term experiences, education, or political tutelage. Chinese farmers are not fools. They are smart enough to care for their own powers and benefits as other people do. —CPC Central Committee, A dialogue between Mao Zedong and John S. Service in 1944.

There was another “capital-driven election” case. It was about the competition of town directors in another economic-developed area of Zhejiang province. A local official of the Organization Department of Municipal Committee told us when we were conducting research there, “To be a local cadre, you must be rich, or the local people won’t believe in your ability to lead the local region to develop”. He told us a story of two local cadres arguing defiantly in front of the leaders of the Organization Department of Municipal Committee. One spoke loudly, “I have assets of several hundred million. You even don’t have one hundred million. How could you compete for the position?” It sounded gross, but it was a true mirror of social reality. It’s real that the people need spiritual construction beyond the economic accomplishments. However, these ordinary people also know what the ‘cadre’s competence’ means to them. The work at grassroots level is anything but piles of reports, or big ideas. They believe that the cadre who can bring economic benefits is qualified. This local cadre commented, “The ordinary people are smart enough”. When I joined the research team by the Prof. Zhou from the former Central Compilation and Translation Bureau (CCTB) on innovation of democratic development in Rushan City in Shandong Province, we interviewed an assistant who was working for CPC Secretary of the City. The assistant once offered to join in an “Open Recommendation, Open Election’ Campaign for Town Party Secretary”. He was young but his competence was beyond all doubt. The local Inner-party Democracy was relatively advanced in this region at that time, so cadres had to compete for the town party secretary positions after a series of conditional screenings by the local Organization Department. The young man told his boss that he wanted to join in the election. The boss was reluctant to let the young assistant leave him although the boss himself was in charge of “competing for title”. So, the boss persuaded him not to take the risk. This young man told us that he wished to be elected this way although he could obtain the same position in two years without election. He thought it was rare to have such a chance in his life in today’s China. His opponent was a cadre who had been a town director and had done an excellent job for five years. To our surprise, this young man won the campaign. During our interviews with the voters who had been in that election to explore why they had made such a choice, because we were wondering why the young assistant could win the election without proper experience of managing a town. As our assumption, his opponent should have won. Those voters told the truth which sounded surprising yet reasonable—he was an assistant of the party secretary and must have social capital (Guanxi in Mandarin) with all the local government departments. If he were elected, he would obtain different resources for town’s better development. This case really touched us. The villagers were really smart to choose the right type of leaders when they were given such a chance. The above are real democratic practices in some economically developed areas. If we stop here, we may not be able to argue against such a popular statement: “the

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people in economically developed areas surely are at higher level of democratic engagement and receive good education. It means that they have more public affairs and money issues to care about. Therefore, it is easier for them to make democratic decisions at the grassroots level”. According to Carl Christian Schurz, “The idea that people who have not experienced autonomy are not suitable for self-governance is an old-fashioned trick to be advocated by the dictatorship all around the world... (But) freedom itself is the best school for learning freedom”. We have conducted field research in Yanjin, a statelevel poverty-stricken county in Yunnan Province, which coheres with the practice of democracy in developed areas because the local town innovated the Mass Participatory Budgeting. Their “peasant participants” were chosen by the combination of “Random Sampling” and “Quota Recommendation/ Election” from the “Selected Personnel Pool”. It was as complicated as the election of Members in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the United States. It would take many scholars quite some time to figure out this system, while the local people soon accepted and mastered this scientific and reasonable method. When introducing the case of deliberative democracy developed at grassroots level in China to the students at Stanford University, I felt really hard to explain this case (possibly because of my accent when I speak English). The American students were surprised at this method after they understood it, because it went contrary to their image that “there is no grassroots-level democracy in China” (Of course, I also told them not to embrace another extreme view that China’s grassrootslevel democracy is very well). Not like some villages and towns in Zhejiang Province, which have a public budget of up to several hundred million Yuan (RMB), the towns of Yanjin only have several million Yuan. But for Yanjin people, they have to depend on this sum of money. Free from any doubt, they know exactly how many plants of “Xiaomila” (a very spicy pepper native to Yunnan) can be planted on an acre of land and how much financial support they can expect from the government. “Xiaomila”: a small but very spicy pepper native to Yunnan, which is now quite common in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. It is used as an ingredient in most cases or ornamentals in some areas. Rod chili is one famous type of “Xiaomila”.

Many intellectuals hold that if the ordinary people lacking the necessary knowledge are mobilized to get involved in politics, “the tyranny of the majority” and “the vicious competition in which the public interests are ignored” will come into being. Of course, it will! However, we have accepted the fact that some people manage to get themselves the title of National Academician through the back door, and professors like to debate at the administration meeting. Why can’t we give more time and space to the people at the grassroots level? Most people in today’s China have gradually realized that politics should be no longer a ‘winner-take-all’ game as it used to be, but it is about compromising, gaming, and yielding. The naïve idea that the practice of democracy can result in chaos is a slanderous statement against the historical development of democracy. It is because of the mad idea of dissolving all the disputes that politics are turned into struggles

1.1 More Time and Space for Chinese Democratic Participation

7

for political power and group or private profits with aggressive propaganda and it has caused ‘sad results’. At its birth, the United States was not a democratic nation—far from it. The very word democracy had pejorative overtones, summoning up images of disorder, government by the unfit, even mob rule. In practice, moreover, relatively few of the new nation’s inhabitants were able to participate in elections: among the excluded were most African Americans, Native Americans, women, men who had not attained their majority, and adult white males who did not own land. —Alexander Keyssar The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

Many decision-makers have listed some confusing facts. “Things went better in the past without endless democratic debates when the decision-making process did not go public”. Some Chinese ‘scholars’ share the same opinion because they “discretely” summarized many cases in democratic-developing countries and regions and they believe that it is democracy that has caused turmoil and concludes that it would be better to “make decisions by cadres instead of the people themselves’. Some “youngsters” with innocent, patriotic hearts claim to have overviewed all political history, and believe that ‘good government is better than good democracy’ in China. Of course, we are against the aggressive “Color Revolution” as the oligarchy of the USSR after its ‘Big bang Plan’. Meanwhile, we must clearly reject the “opportunist politicians” in China. Some of the above ideas make sense to some extent, especially when many people cite (‘dissect’) international literatures which challenge the democratic decisionmaking which seem to have justified the conclusion that “the democracy is not necessarily a good thing”. However, they have deliberately ignored the truth that the premise of those researches is to find out the possible limits of democratic participation, instead of negating the democratic participation itself. These questions are easy to answer if we have knowledge of the brief history of modern democratic politics. It is impossible for Chinese to agree with Jefferson’s, ‘I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude’ or Rousseau’s clamor, ‘I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery’. But, in the history of CPC we can find the documents for a free, orderly national structure, and also sufficient arguments for the construction of the modern democratic political system. Otherwise, the modern Chinese revolution would not be described as the New Democratic Revolution and Socialist Revolution of CPC. The purpose of these two revolutions is to overthrow autocracy and reform the undemocratic system in two steps. An old man from the countryside once said that Chinese people would feel dizzy in the cars, proving that cars were only for foreigners. But nowadays, those who are used to riding in the car clamor that democracy may get Chinese people in trouble since it is only applicable to foreign countries yet not in line with China’s national conditions. They are ridiculous in the same sense, aren’t they? —CPC Central Committee, Xinhua Daily, May 17, 1944.

Many Chinese officials can’t understand the ruling party “representing the people’s interests” in general is different from “letting the people take the lead” in

8

1 Introduction

specific decision-making. They equate the political leadership “simply” with leaders’ decision-making, as if they were not leaders if they couldn’t call the shots. However, this ultimately damages the authority of “the party’s leadership” and distorts the essential meaning of “the ruling party”. It is because of the misconception and fear of democratic decision-making that many of us, though full of emotions and beliefs, unconsciously lower ‘the prestige of the party and the government’ in the process of tackling daily affairs. In the field of local innovation in democratic decision-making, there has also been a trend of ‘innovation’s involution’. As some ‘classic’ office sayings go, ‘The more work you do, the more mistakes you may make and vice versa’. So, current Chinese bureaucratic sloppiness demonstrates to be conservative in the decision-making, ingratiating themselves with their boss and reporting only the good news while concealing the bad ones. In the end, they get promoted, because their aphorism is: ‘Flatter more, speak less and do nothing’. Some Chinese scholars often sneer at the democracy and question like that, “Is democracy omnipotent?” Of course not! Democracy cannot solve all the problems, especially some crucial conflicts. However, this is the eternal power that inspires us to keep exploring democracy, rather than retreating from it. Hence, we particularly emphasized here that the deliberative democracy is not the only choice to replace all types of democracy. It is even not the ‘magic key’ to some important problems which can only be solved by competitive democracy. This is exactly the issue that China should be cautious about deliberative democracy theory from its establishment to the maturity of deliberative democracy. If one claims one type of democracy is to be the solution to all the problems, it would be nothing but the omnipotent ‘God’. Then a religious cult will be formed. Democracy, however, is opposed to the theory which claims to be capable of solving all the problems, because this may lead to the opposite of democracy: Autocracy under the disguise of enlightened Monarchy or Meritocracy, because it will corrupt democracy’s core values, such as freedom, equality, and self-independence. Many classic theories have alerted us at different levels that you should not exaggerate the democracy can solve lots of problems and then attacked democracy’s incapability. It is just like when Karl Marx refuted the compliment that ‘Marx has discovered the universal truth in his book Capital’, he said that they conferred too much honor as well as too much insult on him. In 1930, Einstein and Nathan Rosen proposed that space travel or time travel could be made through a ‘wormhole’. A ‘wormhole’ can be visualized as a tunnel, connecting distant locations (or times) in the universe and also linking parallel universes and the baby universe. The trip of traveling across the universes is depicted in many movies.

Of course, China cannot copy the Western democratic system. In fact, every time we did so, something went wrong. Copying the system of the Soviet Union or the United States did not work. If it works, Chinese history will be simplified. If Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Zhejiang University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University could just copy the modes of Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge, then Chinese mission of creating a group of world-class universities could be accomplished in no time. Every theory and knowledge are

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either deviating or localized and internalized during the process of being practiced, since there is no way that a living person could be simply duplicated like the Agent in The Matrix and one society can find a ‘wormhole’ of democratic development. Why China does have to worry about copying problem of democracy? Social structure can only evolve instead of being copied, so is the issue of democratic participation. It is difficult to innovate any system or theory since this purpose cannot be easily achieved by writing several papers or shouting some slogans. The so-called Chinese theoretical framework, which is explained in the modern academic language, can only be appreciated by researchers themselves. In the end, it couldn’t solve any real social problems. Theories and systems should be tested by history and then named by others, rather than being “something claimed to be mature from the very beginning”. Otherwise, a small number of Chinese would have successfully constructed most of the theories in today’s world. As William Faulkner said, ‘Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself’. What matters most to China is what is being planned for its democracy during such a specific period, so what the deliberative democracy in China would grow into depends on the concrete action in social practices. Most CPC cadres really worry about the issue—‘If Chinese people are not allowed to participate in decision-making, they will criticize CPC and its government. However, once we offer them the opportunities of participation, they won’t value the opportunities’. This is actually the reality that the bigger a city is, the less motives its citizens have in democratic participation. The officials at the grassroots level have to take great pains to mobilize the citizens to participate in daily democratic decision-making, while the mass protest is an exception. The participation rate of the deliberative opinion polling conducted in Shanghai was much lower than that of Wenling, just like the case in international megacities. (Among the 120,000 local people in Wenling, the local government randomly selected and invited 275 participants. 269 of them filled out the first questionnaire and would like to take part in the deliberative opinion polling. In the end, there were 235 on-site participants.) Reportedly, a PX plant was to be set up at Haicang District of Xiamen City, China. In June of 2007, some residents joined a protest in front of Xiamen Municipal Government, which was in the form of sanbu (taking a walk collectively). In January of 2008, some Shanghai residents living along the west-extended maglev line went for a walk to protest the construction.

After all, a mega city is a mobile society and everyone gets used to dealing with their own business without asking for help, thus strong mobility triggers the general indifference among the city people. When people complain about how indifferent the people in Shanghai and New York are, I like to tell them ‘When you meet someone only once in your life and in a circumstance of mobility, will you choose to believe the person or not?’ The deliberative democracy got a good performance in Gumei Sub-district of Minhang District and Puxinglu Sub-district of Pudong New District in Shanghai, mainly because of the mobilization efforts by the local cadres there as well as the good interactions between the masses and the cadres in their community governance. By reflecting the history of Chinese democracy, we find that the innovative policies bogged down when the officials in charge left their

10

1 Introduction

positions. Due to the authoritarian regime and lack of participation mechanism, it’s natural that Chinese people have a doubtful attitude toward democratic participation in decision-making. The key point, of course, is that even when there is democratic participation, the final decision is still made by cadres so it seems to people that deliberative democracy is just like traditional in-door meetings during which the cadres and participants discuss, communicate, and take notes, but there is nothing coming out in the end. At last, except those community cadres (mostly) and some enthusiastic retired old residents, the working young persons are reluctant to ‘play the game of democratic participation’. Only when their own interest is harmed severely, they would resort to Group Walking or Group Shopping while keeping the tolerance with some grievances in their daily political lifestyle. This is a usual phenomenon in China’s grassroots governance. During my years of experience at the Chinese grassroots level, I’ve never found any ‘stupid’ cadre. Instead, many of them are creative and intelligent and they are my true mentors from theory to practice. However, I also find those who are inclined to making complaints are ‘lazy’ cadres. Proud intellectuals find grassroots cadres are conceited everywhere, while those business-minded cadres believe they always meet bookish scholars and professors. Just relying on academic meetings and paper materials, some scholars consider themselves as high-level leaders; on the other hand, some local cadres regard themselves as experts after reading some documents and reports. In some places, intellectuals and cadres look down upon each other. The socalled social surveys turn into shortcut to collect materials for writing articles while the so-called think-tank’s papers form theory models. Before the ‘Eight Regulations for CPC cadres’, both sides had a lot in common ‘on the dinner tables’ and it was easier to build closer relationships, but now it’s more difficult to communicate. In fact, except for factors of unpredictable macro-policies and cadre transfers, both sides have needs and expectations on each other: theoretical frameworks are based on front-line practices, and they can’t be constructed just in the office, watching news and data processing. In the meanwhile, the practices at grassroots level need to be designed and improved theoretically. It’s quite obvious that a lot of cadres want to achieve something and the same is true of scholars doing research. Both share the same basic motives and interests. What is the shared motive for both sides? It is still the critical word of the problem: consciousness. Whether it is socialist democracy or capitalist democracy, there is a universal need of practical procedures and easily understandable approaches to dealing with crucial problems so as to realize its ideal design of democracy. As for procedures, techniques, and approaches, Western countries have undergone many years of real practice and summarized systematic experiences of playing games between the governing and the governed in several hundreds of years with scholars’ constant criticism and people’s social protests. Although a few insist that Chinese democracy is superior to Western democracy, a majority of reasonable people realize that Chinese socialist democracy, in fact, urgently needs to design more procedures. Otherwise, the essential superiority of socialist democracy is just one beautiful ‘democracy ceiling’, which cannot be reached without ladders of procedures, so it is there but ‘inapproachable’.

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The report of the 18th and 19th CPC National Congress has improved the deliberative democracy from grassroots to a national democratic strategy and a CPC ruling policy of grassroots governance. Subsequently, a series of documents and measures have been issued and exact requirements put forward. Undoubtedly, it is a higher political requirement. But how to practice it? In a large-scale state, the economic and social difference among provinces is no less than that between North America and Africa, which especially requires each region in China to practice according to its own conditions. Surely, the policies in documents could be issued out of the central government in Beijing, but the key is how to carry them out at the local and grassroots level. The spirit of deliberative democracy was partially tried during the ruling of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China, and it also played an important role in the nation-building of PRC. And it was also the endogenous part of European and American democracy. For example, many people think that the US Congress is a typical ‘elitist deliberative democracy’ for Western competitive electoral democracy needs deliberative democracy to support. Chinese socialist democracy also needs deliberative democracy to support its political reform. Moreover, its socialist democracy is also defined as the “coexistence” of electoral democracy and deliberative democracy. Many Chinese democratic decision-making approaches have not been replicated or sustained because different officials chasing after different political achievements during their term of office so that a policy bogs down when the officials practice it to leave their positions. This is a normal Chinese political phenomenon from top to bottom. Another major reason is that many approaches are not replicable, for their procedures pay too much attention to local issues instead of focusing on universals in practice. Some people joke, ‘Democracy is so complicated that it is the only thing the Chinese have not succeeded in duplicating’. Therefore, in addition to the Chinese strategic determination to promote democracy, the scientific procedure is a core element. The practicability of the procedure is the key to combine the common scientific approaches with the indispensable local problems. This is precisely the direction we must always persist with in Chinese efforts. It will never rain roses. When we want to have more roses, we must plant more trees. —George Eliot

So, we insist that there must be a basic structure of different practices of Chinese deliberative democracy while we can ‘combine’ the specific procedures of it, choose the step-by-step operation according to our specific needs, and even we can ‘wear’ our own innovation ‘hat’. For example, Zeguo Town of Wenling City adopted the method of random sampling, while Xinhe Town adopted voluntary sign-up, and two towns in the same city adopted different approaches to choose representatives to participate in budgeting, which have been practiced for many years. However, when it was improved to the Municipal Department Budgeting, due to its large population, although the cadres of Wenling did not want to appoint people as representatives as usual, they were still afraid to sample randomly because it was the first time in the history of CPC, so they adopted other scientific methods. I always remembered

12

1 Introduction

that several leaders of Wenling PC had several rounds of discussion with us (once we discussed until midnight at one tea house on Moganshan Road in Hangzhou). Eventually, they decided to establish different population pools and make random sampling from each pool. I was so impressed by their persistence because their answer to the countless difficulties was not simply “we can’t do it”, but “what can we do about it?” Beyond all question, except their own different backgrounds (such as famous cases of Weling and Yanjin), a consensus regarding two practices can be reached that the specific procedures for both are identical. Comparisons of these specific procedures are in the Appendix. How deliberative democracy operates at the Chinese national level seems to be something scholars should not discuss deeply but many Chinese scholars are dedicated to the study of ‘reconciling’ modern deliberative democracy with Chinese political consultation although the consultative and deliberative are used together, such as Fishkin’s book—‘When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy & Public Consultation’. However, this book focuses mainly on the practicable procedures in public affairs beyond the arguments. We simply expect it to be a ‘modular assembled and disassembled procedures’, an approach for every practitioner as a local practice reference, and an operational technique that allows Chinese democracy to become a real participatory process. Therefore, this book is not a typically theory study, although it is supported by theory; nor is it a complicated model design, although it has detailed procedures. Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs. —Karl Marx, “Critique of the Gotha Programme”.

Based on the Chinese practices in several years, we propose a set of procedures of Chinese Multiple Democracy in Policy-making, which is founded on the actual multilevel structure of Chinese society and get the participating groups by the stratified random sampling. Even if it is a little bit advanced for every Chinese practice toward democratic decision-making, this is worth promoting and duplicating. Every official and scholar devotes themselves to democratic practices, even if he or she promotes a little bit of Chinese democracy, who deserves respect and praise. Anyway, whether it is international experience or domestic practice, as long as it is practiced enough, it will form its own concepts and characteristics. If Chinese state and society need deliberative democracy for decision-making, and the ruling party CPC and its government need deliberative democracy for decisionmaking, the best way is to practice it. Democracy is like a play of life, in which every citizen is the actor, not the audience. ‘No practice of small steps, no progress of democracy; no accumulation of streams of procedures, no rivers of democratic systems’. As the time passes by, the ambition of China’s democratic construction maybe grows with each real democratic practice and public ideology. We need to be patient with and have confidence in the sustainable democratic development. As Karl Marx referred to ‘there is pain before childbirth’, the disorder and chaos in the early period of democracy are the necessary costs before a democracy

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grows mature. One Chinese traditional poem said, ‘a pile of jumbled grass is kindled with its flame soaring into the sky and disappearing abruptly; it had better to be like the tree stump burning in the stove, slowly but warmly’ (an anonymous poem found on a wall). No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent. —John Donne

The former CCTB was the first to systematically translate contemporary theories of ‘deliberative democracy’ (Yu Keping, Yang Xuedong, He Zengke, Chen Jiagang, Zhou Hongyun, etc.), but later it was over-extended by the Chinese people even the Chinese public consultation including deliberation to some extent, just like many other concepts such as ‘community’. I always oppose over-extension, but I don’t quite agree with such a view which is too worried about more inaccurate innovations under the local competition mechanism of innovation. They insist that now that the Chinese want to promote, they must be exactly in accordance with classic deliberative democracy. What is a genuine deliberative democracy? In fact, the over-innovations is an inevitable phenomenon in the early period when thousands upon thousands of people try to explain and apply these concepts at local and grassroots levels of governance, each with their own purposes: some people do misuse them, and some people cling to their understanding of democracy. Whether it is a fake model or not, it is really unclear at first; otherwise, at the beginning of the practice, too much attention is paid to adhering to the ideal type, and, the final procedure will not spread at last in an authoritarian regime. The Wenling case has been practiced for more than 20 years, and it is still being discredited repeatedly. Since China’s Reform and Opening-up, many specific local innovations have involved the deliberative democracy. For example, before the introduction of the method of ‘Deliberative Polling’ in 2005, the ‘Heart-to-heart Discussion’ had been put into practice in Wenling City in the year of 1999 in order to solve the problem of social problems at the grassroots level. In 2005, an approach based on Deliberative Polling was ‘embedded’ in the Herat-to-heart Discussion in Wenling, resulting in the innovation of ‘Public Participatory Budgeting’. Xinhe Town of Wenling is exceedingly renowned for its ‘Salary Negotiation in the Woolen Sweater Industry’. Since 1999, a multi-party deliberative model of ‘Socialized Protection of the Migrant Labors’ Rights’ was created by the Trade Union in Yiwu City in Zhejiang Province. The basic requirements for China’s contemporary modernization are as follows: citizens have enough freedom; the society is fair enough; the state has sufficient authority; all of the three are indispensable. To ensure the freedom of citizens, we need to build a strong order of the rule of law. To ensure the social fairness, we need to build the autonomous form for people’s spontaneous participation. To ensure sufficient authority of the government, we need to build a public management system for civil rights and accountability. All ‘doctrines’ should be included in the view of governance. While maintaining the tension of thought, we should overcome the fierce spirit or limitation resulting from each other’s attack and disagreement, so as to provide constructive criticism and guidance for China’s sustained and steady reform, including the one in political sense. —Chen Mingming, Prof. of Political Sciences, Fudan University

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1 Introduction

And then, the innovations of the deliberative democracy bloomed all around China. I participated in the Wenling practice since 2005. At that time, Jiang Zhaohua, the party secretary of Zeguo Town, jokingly suggested, ‘Now you are working at Zhejiang University, but in the future, you can take a temporary post in Wenling Government to deeply observe the grassroots development’. In 2007, I really had the opportunity to work one year in Wenling as Assistant mayor, and I observed and understood these cases more carefully. It was such a ‘coincidence’ that astonished me till now. In 2011, I returned to Fudan University and began to help several street governments and communities in Shanghai to practice deliberative democracy. In 2014, I gave one lesson on deliberative democracy cases to the cadres from Yanjin County in Yunnan Province and then I went there to research the ‘Mass Participatory Budget’. Therefore, thanks to the opportunities provided by local governments, I joined all the projects in this book. In 2013, I met Prof. Fishkin at an International Conference of Deliberative Democracy at Nankai University after the 2005 International Conference of Deliberative Democracy at Zhejiang University. He is a scholar who does not like to criticize the macro systems of other countries but rather focuses on the practices at the technical level no matter what democracy or authoritarian regimes. I agreed on his tireless local practices around the world, and therefore, we two agreed with each other that the Center for Comparative Urban Governance (CCUG) at Fudan University and the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University have established an academic relationship which aims at communicating and co-working at practices (so I visited Stanford University for a year in 2015–2016). In his view, if Chinese people think that the deliberative democracy is effective, academic institutions need to offer full support in science and public consultation so that it could be replicated throughout China. The key is that the local government should push forward the experiment of deliberative democracy and implement the concept of deliberative democracy raised at the 18th CPC National Congress. Those stories don’t indicate that we are ‘orthodox’ in designing procedures and academic research for deliberative democracy, but we want to state clearly that the practices of deliberative democracy in China come from the many professors’ academic support and from many local governments and communities’ ‘constant innovative pursuit’. Here I’d like to cite what Mr. Fei Hsiao-Tung said in the year of 1946—“Sinophiles should concern and confirm all the China’s progresses! As long as no regression happens, China is promising” (Fei Hsiao-Tung: Speech· Freedom ·Honesty). The story one chooses to talk about one period depends very much on what one thinks of the next. —Patricia Buckley Ebrey: The Cambridge Illustrated History of China

China also needs to bear some historical costs. It is unique, but we still have to adopt the general principle of democracy in action. Geography is not destiny and history is not fate. Countries continue to do well or badly according to the political choices they make. Costa Rica is a relative success story because during the 20th century its politicians got the big decisions right. Argentina has squandered

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many of its advantages because its politicians got them wrong. All this takes time to play out, however. Even the US needed the best part of a century to get its house in order. And time may no longer be on anyone’s side. (David Runciman)

If you read this book, we hope that you know something that really happened in China. If you are Chinese, we wish you will soon become an operator, observer, and participant of deliberative democracy; through continuous practices, local cadres can choose the practical module personally, and then they can constantly improve your own ‘amended version’, thereby innovating their own deliberative approach. Instead of just worrying about what will happen in China after it practices deliberative democracy, we should concern about how we could practice democracy. The multiple procedures of deliberative democracy are only the cornerstone for the start of democratic decision-making, not the end of the Chinese democratic practice. No matter how rocky the road is, the destiny of China’s democracy is, after all, in the hands of the Chinese people themselves. China has too many political ideals and democratic ideas. Now is the time to practice them. Do not let the ideals rust, and do not let the ideas become fantasy.

CPC and its government have talked too much about China’s political expectations and democratic ideas, and it is time to practice them. Never leave their commitments to democracy in vain. If the day really comes when the democratic practices become Chinese people’s customs in every corner of China and become the approach of decision-making of the CPC and its government, the ship of Chinese democracy will sail on the sea of social support. “The vernal water rose by riverside last night; A stranded heavy boat became a feather light. Before the flood, all effort’s vain to push it go; Now with ease it may move in midstream to and fro” (One traditional poem of Zhu Xi: The Floating Boating).2 It is difficult to classify democracies. In Western democracies, the relation between electoral democracy (competitive democracy or representative democracy) and deliberative democracy is not mutually exclusive. Instead, they seek to increase citizen participation, rational dialogue, and information sharing under the democratic structure. Elitist democracy and citizen participation both require deliberation and consultation before decision-making which to better demonstrate the public interests.

2

One part of the Introduction was published in Social Science Weekly in the Paper “Leave more Time and Space to Chinese Democratic Participation” on September 15, 2016.

Chapter 2

Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

Within the domain of democracy theories, ‘deliberative democracy’ is by no means equivalent to ‘democratic consultation’. On the level of China’s social governance, ‘deliberative democracy’ is not the same as ‘political consultation’. And in collecting Chinese opinions for public policy-making, ‘deliberative democracy’ is much more different from ‘Mass Forum’.1 Although these concepts share some points in describing characteristics, the core of ‘deliberative democracy’ is always ‘replaced’ by other Chinese political concepts. It is very interesting that CPC only use the word “consultative democracy” in official documents. We use both of the word “deliberative democracy” and “consultative democracy” in this book. The model of deliberative democracy comprises four ideals. Inclusion. All those affected by democracy should be included in the process of decision-making. Political equality. All citizens ought to have an equal right and effective opportunity to express their interests and concerns. Reasonableness. Participants should have an open mind and be willing to listen and change opinions and preferences. Publicity. The public-speaking context requires participants to explain their interests and choices. —Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 2002. People say it (democracy) comes from outside China, never fitting in with our country … science is for truth and truth has no national boundaries … there is no diehard against science, especially the laws of natural science, by resorting to the special conditions in China. They, in an old-fashioned manner, only turn a blind eye to the truths of social phenomena …… democratic system is better than undemocratic system, which is analogous to the comparison between mechanized production and handicraft production; this is true outside China, so is in China …… Some people say that although democracy is necessary in China, the democracy here should be tailored, which grant no freedom to its people. This clamor is as ridiculous as that the solar calendar is only for foreign countries, lunar calendar for China exclusively. —CPC Central Committee, Xinhua Daily, May 17, 1944.

All forms of democracy require several basic procedures to help the involved people to communicate and to make them get informed and to decide reasonably. All 1

Mass Forum is one meeting proposed by CPC cares to collect public opinion in China.

© Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5_2

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

attempts to use administrative orders or coercive measures to remove incompatible opinions and different choices have proved to be not only ineffective, but also harmful. A society, where political attitudes and options are homogenized, is not necessarily stable. The crucial problem is how people reach common ground in a pluralistic society, so this is precisely the important meaning of deliberative democracy in current China. Government’s decisions can be more scientific and democratic by reforming and improving decision-making mechanism. We should perfect major decision-makings’ rules and procedures and concentrate people’s wisdom through various ways and forms, so that decisionmaking can be truly based on science and democracy. On major matters relating to the overall development of economy and society, we should have widespread opinions, full consultation and coordination. For those strongly professional and technical major issues, we need experts’ argumentation, technical consultation and decision-making evaluation. Major matters that bear on the interests of the people should be based on systems like publicity system and hearing system to expand people’s participation. Meanwhile accountability system for decision-making misplay and error-correcting mechanism also should be established and improved. Furthermore, various decision-making consultation mechanisms and information support systems need to be established through organized extensive contact with experts and scholars. —Decisions of CPC Central Committee on the Strengthening Party’s Governing Capacity (the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee, September, 2004)

With the ambition of understanding and solving problems, deliberative democracy isn’t a redundant structure, but an endogenous part of modern democracy. “It’s the procedure that distinguishes a government by law from a government by men where rulers can do whatever they want and change minds whenever they like. The principal security for us to achieve equality under the law is the firm adherence to strict legal procedures” (Douglas). Likewise, strict democratic procedures can secure democratic institutions basically; otherwise, democracy will be replaced by idealist illusion or smothered by popular democratic practices. For this reason, Chinese deliberative democracy tries to provide practical procedures for rational communication; it also commits to supplying a platform by which the public can express themselves and aggregate their needs upon most of public affairs during policy-making. With these measures, most people could equally participate in decision-making. Practical detailed design contributes to an institution of vitality; however, deliberative democracy, if impractical, will be deprived of vitality and the possibility of being institutionalized. Participation, opportunity, and change are three key components for any democratic institution in any society. Practical democracy is essentially a self-governing movement and a growing social trend, securing the process in which a democratic institution is gaining its stability and consistency in China. The only chance to improve the quality of policy-making in China is public participation, otherwise the evolution of democracy will be ‘unavailable’.

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2.1 Communicative and Informed Deliberation The most desired goals of modern democratic policy-making are as follows (Fig. 2.1). To fulfill these goals above, modern democracies in different countries seek to invent multiple participation approaches and procedures, chief among which is sufficient communication. In this way “informed decision-making” is achieved: the participators are capable of receiving the messages about the projects themselves as well as knowing others’ opinions.

2.1.1 Democratic Institutions and Informed Citizens The individual forming part of a crowd acquires, solely from numerical considerations, a sentiment of invincible power, which allows him to yield to instincts, which, had he been alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint. He will be the less disposed to check himself from the consideration that, a crowd being anonymous, and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of responsibility which always controls individuals disappears entirely. —Gustave Le Bon, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”.

Today’s world has achieved all kinds of democratic institutions along with uninformed citizens. Even ‘the elected government’ is stranded in specific policymakings: they can neither overtax the rich nor damage the welfares most ordinary citizens are sharing. On this occasion, the elect may prioritize a short-term “buying out policy” as an approach to satisfying each party. Thus, the policy-making process, which ought to be deliberative, is inevitably reduced to the decisions by simple majority voting. On many occasions, people tend to make their judgments upon the first impression. Moreover, they are not accustomed to admitting in public that “they themselves know too little”. Therefore, “blind obedience to public opinions” would take place on a “raging” public occasion. ‘China’s Great Cultural Revolution’ is a good case in point. Continuity of Policy-making Equal Opportunities for Participation Transparency in Policy-making process Shared Community Interests

Equality of Policy Outcomes

Sufficient communication of Opinions

Balanced Information in Policy-making

Modern Democratic Policy-making

Fig. 2.1 Goals of modern democratic policy-making

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

The participants lost their “deliberation and calmness” during that period, though they have regretted about their wrongs after the event. Public consensus, therefore, can’t be drawn from discussions absent in deliberation or the outcomes of a random survey, but it should be drawn from sound deliberation and sufficient communication, which will also keep policy-making opinions free from being distorted. In other words, the ultimate policy-making can’t be the result of the simple “mass obedience” or “blind mobilization”, but it should be a long-term supply as a result of striking a balance between some citizens’ short-term needs and long-term growth of the public interests. Regularly, citizens vote freely to elect a certain number of political elites to manage, which is the core of the democratic election. The explanation can be manifested from two aspects: One is ‘deficiency in knowledge’—some theories regard the mass to be cold, emotional, vulnerable to instigation and hoax, and lack in professional knowledge. It can explain why many citizens can’t comprehend policies and issues, and then election becomes one of the popular ways to be adopted (Schumpeter, Sartori, et al.). The other is ‘rational ignorance’— When citizens feel hard to influence the decisions after rational thinking, they are discouraged to engage in politics. (Downs, Fishkin, et al.)

The other extreme is that many people sincerely believe that they themselves are incompetent to make a judgment on public policies and hence agree that ‘experts are better at decision-making than the ordinary people’. So, ‘technological democracy’ and ‘meritocracy’ have become the decision-making models many people are ready to accept. At the same time, for ordinary citizens, public participation means more of “an individual side gig” in which pains and gains are not in proportion. Individual opinions are nothing compared with the large crowd, and hence they would rather rely on experts’ decision-making if it is not directly relevant to their own interests (such as job loss or house demolition) But the problem remains that in the decision-making process “experts and elites”, as they cannot always uphold a neutral position on every occasion, likely come to form “self-interests”—“opinionated cognition” and “interest rent-seeking”, which has been repeatedly confirmed in practice. Under the system of representative democracy, confined to the large volume of the population and the affairs required to be represented, representatives are unable to make sufficient communication with all the public and its affairs. Moreover, this is often the case at home and abroad, with non-professional representatives having less access to close communication and contact with the public. Without adequate information, careful thinking, or attentive listening to others, policy-making participants tend to reach the final consensus based on “a simple majority of statistics”, which virtually deviates from the original intention of Majoritarian of democracy. This also seems to be one of the primary reasons why the CPC cadres and participants at the mass forums both feel very discouraged: the policymakers consider the opinions discussed on the forum to be biased, the participants take other’s opinions to be biased, and in the end, all the people think of the opinions reported on the forum as biased. However, if public consensus is reached after consultation and deliberation, we can eliminate “public noise”, elaborate “public opinions”, and improve “public interests”, and in this way, the public will approach more to the “public opinion” instead of “mass opinion” in the end.

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In each deliberative democratic policy-making, participants are to be surveyed on their attitudes toward deliberative democracy, i.e., by way of consultation and openminded talks whether or not they think their own opinions have been highly held by the government and others, or whether or not public policy should be made by the officials and technical experts. Despite the fact that the results of each survey are encouraging and the participants also approve of being improved in their participation, there is a very striking phenomenon that many participants still think of experts’ opinions as a sound choice (Table 2.1). When more complicated technical projects are discussed, especially concerning specific interest sharing, the public will affix more value to the experts with neutral position, who are thought to represent public interests, though on the whole they still think that their own opinions should be more valued by the government. This “dilemma” is just a good case in point demonstrating the Chinese public has long lacked in democratic participation. Chinese people want to participate and to be valued; meanwhile, they are used to count too much on the government and experts when disputes fall on them. If their own interests are not satisfied, they like to appeal to the authority for help and stand up for themselves. Hence, they always swing from one extreme to the other. This is precisely because they are deficient in Table 2.1 Statistical results of attitudes on deliberative polling of 2015 residents’ self-governance fund distribution at Puxing Street in Shanghai t1_5_b

t1_5_c

t1_5_d

t1_5_e

t1_5_f

Subject Government officials value my opinions

Most public affairs are too complicated for ordinary people like me

People like me have no weight in public decision-making

My opinions is valuable to government

Government officials would accept my opinions

The experts and officials should decide public affairs because the mass could not understand them

1st N = 114

107

108

109

107

106

108

Mean

2.72

2.98

3.15

2.41

2.59

3.17

Code

t2_5_a

t2_5_b

t2_5_c

t2_5_d

t2_5_e

t2_5_f

2nd

N = 116

109

105

108

107

107

108

Mean

2.06

3.13

3.08

1.99

2.15

3.08

Falling agreement

Rising agreement

Rising agreement

Rising agreement

Rising agreement

Code

t1_5_a

Change Rising agreement

NB: A 5-point scale is used, where 1 means “strongly agree”, 5 means “strongly disagree”, and 3 means “exactly in the middle”

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

Table 2.2 Statistical results on “Public affairs should be decided by the experts and officials because the mass could not understand them” Results of the 1st survey Option

Number

1

6

Percentage (%) 12.50

2

9

3

2

Results of the 2nd survey (post-deliberation) Number

Percentage (%)

9

20.45

18.75

9

20.45

4.17

1

2.27

4

22

45.83

14

31.82

5

8

16.67

6

13.64

Abstention

1

2.08

5

11.36

Subtotal

N = 48

100.00

N = 44

100.00

Note Deliberative Polling on Pingyang Regeneration Project at Gumei Sub-district, Shanghai in 2013

both adequate information of the projects and the necessary deliberative consultation, thereby provoking a lack of confidence and trust in participation (Table 2.2).

2.1.2 Define Public Interests Effectively Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. —Laurence J. Peter

“Public interest” is the primary issue considered in all public decisions. Public interest does exist, though people do not reach an agreement on the criteria and ways of judging the public interest. Everyone is different, even family members have different views and opinions on domestic affairs, not to mention public affairs. People will speak out their opinions when deliberating and discussing, which roughly seems ‘a dispute of opinions’. But if the participants are given the same floor to express their opinions freely and openly, we will arrive at some understanding after everyone listens to others with patience and every different attitude has been given a “deliberation”, even though there is still disapproval and even objection. Only in this manner can a consensus, concentrating more on public interest be reached and public decisions be achieved on the basis of “wholehearted commitment”. Truth doesn’t necessarily become more clarified with more debates. However, as Thomas Jefferson put, truth, without interference, is great and it is easier to win; mistakes lose their danger when they are allowed to be freely refuted. The ultimate test for a free state is whether the state permits seemingly rebellious ideas (as long as they are legitimate) to be freely expressed. The spirit of free expression is the utmost

2.1 Communicative and Informed Deliberation

23

appeal of deliberative consultation, which is also well expressed in Fei Hisao-Tung’s words: if there is only one choice between ‘the chaos of action’ and ‘the chaos of speech’, the ‘silence in the chaos of speech’ could bring the ‘silence’ of action. Francis Fukuyama insists that democratic institutions are only ever one component of political stability. In the wrong circumstances, they can be a factor contributing to instability as well. He further proposes three building blocks required for a wellordered society, ‘a strong state, the rule of law and democratic accountability and you need them all together’ (David Runciman). So democracy is an indispensable part in any case, so the question lies in how to preclude the chaos from obliterating the merits of democracy while working our way into democracy. A classic word of Mr. Fei Hisao-Tung has captured the essence of “deliberation & consultation”: Without consensus, action cannot be concerted. The external power can’t change the internal motive. If we just use power to maintain the uniformity of actions, it can’t be lasting, nor profound. …… Everyone has different backgrounds, experiences, concerns and hopes, so their views on any issue are likely to differ. A person’s opinions never fail to one-sided, based too much on personal experience and standpoint. People, thereby, may initially encounter different voices upon the same thing. However, those living in groups cannot behave individually. The main point of group life is to get a fully acceptable opinion from a pool of opinions. How to make it happen? Hence, everyone has to know what others’ experience and standpoint are and where the common interests are, so as to promote accommodation and coordination in the group. The common opinion leads to concerted action. ……If you want to win respect, you must respect others first. Provided that you feel superior to others, people’s judgments are not correct and you are solely capable and qualified to tell between the right and wrong, then there is no necessity for you to take others’ opinions into account. Democracy means respecting others; democracy also implies that people understand their interests best, so democracy also means respecting yourselves. In this sense, you are reluctant to entrust others to anything critical to you.

Essentially deliberation is intended for a careful, discreet consideration of an issue. It is not only the “elites’ closed-door deliberation” represented by the minority, but the open “democratic participation and deliberation”. Hence, deliberative democracy is to make people discuss the public affairs carefully and participate in democratic deliberative decision-making afterward. Participants have greatly improved in two aspects after deliberation: One is that agree more about what the social (community) interest is, and the other is that they attach more importance to social (community) interest (Fishcam). Only by deliberation can one clarify his own views and judgments; only through rational communication, can one accurately explain different opinions, transcend the ambiguous controversy, and discard relevant arguments. Only by scientifically quantifying public opinions can they be convincing only.

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

2.1.3 Deliberation Other Than Simple Compromise or Suppression The opinions by deliberation are not necessarily weak, nor do they lead to a middleof-the-road policy. There are always concerns that people may compromise during deliberation and communication and then opt for a so-called “compromised” “mass opinion”, rather than a real integration of various opinions. But, actually, all the specific procedures of deliberative democracy are designed to help avoid “extreme attitudes” as they try to ensure that the participants listen to others’ opinions attentively, make inquiries and answers to the proposed projects, read the materials of proposals carefully and discuss with those randomly chosen public instead of “acquaintance”. To think justly, we must understand what others mean; to know the value of our thoughts, we must try their effect on other minds. —William Hazlitt

Just as is shown in the quantifying questionnaires, changes take place in the participants’ attitudes toward the specific policy-making issues. Even if, ultimately, the public cannot reach an agreement on all the issues, they will likely arrive at ‘integrated’ policy-making by the majority’s views, which is not the result of the “simple accumulation of individual interests” or the result of “kidnapped public interest”. Throughout the history of democracy all over the world, relatively radical political actions were taken to ensure the establishment of a democratic regime or country. For example, America experienced two wars, Britain had several revolutions in its history and China underwent People’s War of Liberation. Apart from this, some basic guidelines, such as compromise, negotiation, and communication, must be followed to maintain a truly democratic society, just as is manifested in the saying that a state can be conquered by force but it can never be ruled by force. With aggressive tactics adopted, we are liable to fall into the struggle pattern of “zero-sum game”. In recent years, many “mass events” usually began with a group of people furiously coming to the government for justice, but during negotiation or conversation, the petitioners showed a lack of negotiation rules and discussion ability. Despite worries about being punished afterward, the emotional masses, often resorted to rude and rough manners as they deeply hold to the belief that only by creating disturbances severely can the problems be resolved thoroughly. As a result, the government officials were thrown into such confusion and panic that left them no choice but to appear to police forces or armed forces to maintain social stability, for instance, Huzhou Mass Disturbance had been rated as a riot. Their confusion and panic derive from the fact that they are deficient in negotiation rules and skills in the daily work, actually they were put in a dilemma: there is no deliberative democracy in policymaking or there is no democratic policy for them to employ when confronted with the

2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs

25

specific problems. Therefore, a common suicide can quickly evolve into a large-scale riot in the local society. There are times when men are so different one another that the idea of a single law applicable to all is almost incomprehensible. There are other times when it is enough to show them the vague and distant image of such a law for them to recognize it instantly and hasten after it. —Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Régime and the Revolution

Corresponding with the mass events are some debates on social hot issue on the Internet. Apart from the ghostwriters’ well-organized posts and words, the online debates are nothing but illogical ‘cursing’, personal abuse, or attacks on each other’s political stands. Contrary to be reasonable, peaceable, and objective, a great many people are obsessed with taking sides with their hierarchy, patriotism, region, and nation. Agreements made by deliberative democracy are not simple compromises among different interests of individuals, but desires for an integration of different opinions. Those whose opinions are not adopted also expected to know why they are rejected through deliberations. Participants should learn how to decide or reject different interests based on a better understanding of each other. If a sustainable deliberative democratic decision-making mechanism is created in a region, the participants involved will automatically find a system of mutual compensation and balance for decision-making resources. Namely, the participants will not allow the specific social group to monopolize all the resources. Instead, they will set up a policy-making mechanism of “showing understanding and care for each other”, which is more than identify with the policy just made by the simple votes of the majority. Under the circumstance where competitive democracy is absent, deliberative democracy offers an effectively integrative policy-making system to local People’s Congresses and governments in China, which enables different social groups to communicate their opinions openly and hence both policy-makers and participants can keep up with each other. Deliberative democracy has been applied to practice in several areas in China, such as decision-making in village and urban community’s self-governance affairs, local public budgeting, inter-party-building at the sub-district level, major public construction projects, etc. All the practices have produced good performances.

2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs It will never be emphasized too much that the public decision-making of common power at all levels needs supervision and drawing on useful opinions. Thaddeus Stevens once said: “All free governments are managed under the combination of wisdom and stupidity of the people. It is not a free government if any government does not allow all its citizens to participate in the formulation and implementation of laws”.

26

2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy We must not regard the rule by law as a tool for governing the people and dealing with the people. We only want the people to abide by the law, but we can defy every law and regulation, or even act arbitrarily. Governing the country by law is based on controlling the powers by law and governing cadres and officials rather than governing the common people by law. (The Selected Works of Tian Jiyun: Democracy and legality. He was the former vice prime ministry and then the former vice chairman of Standing Committee of NPC of PRC)

Here goes an ironic story in China. Someone asked Wu Song, former mayor of Baoshan City in Yunnan Province, “Mr. Wu, you were the president of Yunnan University and now you are the major. Is there any difference between being a university president and a mayor in China?” “Yes! Of course”, Wu Song smiled and continued, “as a president, even though what you say is truthfully right, the professors may object to it because the truth is relative; but as a mayor, even though what you say is unforgivably wrong, they will agree with it because power is absolute”.

2.2.1 The Pros and Cons of the Principal Accountability System In addition to simple majority ‘voting’, principal accountability system is a classic model of policy-making of public affairs. At the level of specific administrative implementation, efficiency is the priority, and the ability to judge and decide is needed to realize it: to achieve the goals of policy-making to the maximum extent possible within a limited time, money, and manpower. What stands at the center is still the efficiency, though the criteria to evaluate the decision-making is becoming more and more diversified and complicated. The administrative principal can make the final decision by conducting brainstorms with the support of think-tank team and studying feasibility of multiple plans with able assistants and hired experts. Of course, under the system of collective leadership, centralized democratic decisions can also be made by each policy-maker on the basis of voting by a show of hands or expressing opinions. From the perspective of Chinese traditional culture, there is a kind of ideology in Chinese blood and bones that “planning should not be made by a great many ordinary people, but by a few leaders”. We could find the exact expressions of such belief in History As A Mirror: Zhou Ji, “it is undesirable to share with the ordinary until your goal is accomplished. The good do not reconcile with the evil, and the great do not identify with the ordinary. A sage who can make his country prosperous will be a rare exception to the norms”. What an idea of “a family of a thousand people, one person in charge”. Telling people who want democracy to hold off in order to strengthen their state won’t wash, because having to live under a strong state in the absence of democracy is often a miserable experience. It is the basic tension in Fukuyama’s oeuvre: if we live in an age where democracy is the best idea but discover that democracy will only work if we defer it, then politics is going to be a horribly messy business.

2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs

27

—David Runciman, Reviews of Francis Fukuyama’s ‘Political Order and Political Decay’, 2014.

In the meanwhile, the principal policy-making power is closely associated with its responsibility. Under the system of modern democratic politics, the degree of policymaking power must be in proportion to that of its responsibility. As one Chinese film of Examination 1997 indicates, “Those with the official seals are not only entitle to have the final say, but also to take the responsibility once something wrong arises”. Another priority is the reliability of decision-making. To exercise the principal responsibility system in public policy-making, there needs a prerequisite that the policy-makers should be only empowered under the conditions of unobstructed expression of public opinions as well as proper democratic supervision. Otherwise, there will be a lack of valid accumulation of social opinions as well as valid integration of social multi-interests. Accordingly, the system of centralized decision-making will be at the great risk of becoming arbitrary, because a giant gap lies between the finite integration of social interests of several assistants and advisers and the infinite social needs. Assuming that all officials are faithfully devoted to serving the people, it is not wishful thinking that how they could serve the people and whether they do serve the people or not in the end. In a competitive democracy, policy-makers buy off prospective voters to get reelected while policy-makers pursue performance in a non-competitive system in order to gain promotion and advancement, which makes the principal’s responsibility system always at risk of “variation”. “In the past practices of Chinese democratic decision-makings, there were some ridiculous and weird events: the officials do investigate the civil situations but keep an blind eye to them; they do listen to the civil opinions but keep a deaf ear to them, They do collect the civil wisdom but refuse to adopt them; and even the personnel involved disguise themselves as the public to attend the price hearing. Oddly enough, the known information rather than the unknown is released in some announcements. Sometimes, these conducts have even become a kind of common sense within the system. Therefore, it is desirable to pay much attention to the perfection of democratic decision-making system by replacing the bad systems with the good ones. Much more importance should also be attached to the seriousness and authoritativeness of the system so as to cope with a series of bureaucratic sloppiness in practicing democracy”(Xin Ming). However, China should change this situation only by introducing democratic procedures and involving stakeholders in policy-making to improve the transparency, and then the principal officials may well select out the best possible plan based on the people’s opinions. This policy-making process could thoroughly change the past pattern that policies are formulated in compliance with the leadership’s intentions.

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

2.2.2 Falsehood of Decisions-Making by Experts Due to the lack of ‘independence of think tank’ and ‘market competitiveness’, there are two fatal drawbacks in the experts’ decision-making models, especially in a government-dominant society: First, if the researchers could not provide planning according to the decisionmakers’ will, the decision-makers would ignore or eliminate the disobedient researchers from the think-tank list which will finally lead to a ‘screening effect’ in the end those independent researchers will lose the demand market. Secondly, if the researchers make the plans according to the officials’ will, it means that their implementation is invested with the scientific basis and the researchers’ endorsement, and then it will be simply attributed to the scientific errors made by the ‘think tank’ when something wrong arises. California’s “Silicon Valley” is located in the “Bay Area”, where housing prices are soaring highest in the United States, as it is surrounded with some big cities, like San Francisco and San Jose, and prestigious universities including Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley, etc.

As a result of the deficiency in the independence, the researchers will produce the policies to the officials’ tastes instead of those based on objective social analysis. This should be responsible for the falsehood in scientific analysis of decisionmaking. If there happens to be a wise official, some truly scientific opinions will likely be adopted. Otherwise, the experts’ suggestions would be nothing but a “scientific disguise”. On one hand, we are envious of the think tank in other countries. On the other hand, we are inclined to treat our think tank as “policy research office”. Even in the United States where the liberal democracy has a long history, the ‘advisory committee’ which lacks reasonable rules to regulate discussion is also unable to reach a consensus or make a sound decision. For example, the housing price hearing of “Special Advisory Committee” in San Joséis composed of held six landlords, six tenants, and one executives of the San José Municipal Housing Management Department in California. In 2015, over 10 hearings were held in an effort to hold back the soaring rentals in San José, the biggest city in the Silicon Valley. However, these representatives were too emotional to settle down with the discussion at the hearings, and hence it is hard to reach somewhere. Apart from the concerns about the core economic interests, one of the chief problems is that there is no rational rule or mechanism for information communication between the the two parties involved.

2.2.3 Biased Forums We should not shut the door to democracy just because of the people’s inadequate educational level. Instead, we should educate the nation with democratic politics.

2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs

29

—CPC Central Committee, On Democratic Politics (an editorial) in Xinhua Daily, Feb. 25, 1939.

Biased opinions will arise if the conveying of public opinions and interest appeals only resort to the forums of delegates designated by the policy-makers themselves, or those of volunteers by via social collection. Generally speaking, if most participants are to be designated subjectively by the government, the thoroughly acquainted and relatively reliable ones will be chosen, and as time goes on, they are all the “old faces”; the voluntary participants are self-chosen, and as a result, whether they come from the real notices or from the online registration, they tend to the mass group share the same behavioral characteristics or the common social interests. The above factors lead to a phenomenon: the policy-making plans, based on those people’s opinions, are seemingly subject to the demonstration of public opinion, but, actually, they are made on the basis of partially public opinions. So, these forums are just the same as what Lv Yitao, the director of 2016 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, said: “Due to their support, the audiences are willing to praise or criticize us. We can accept the good suggestions while we can choose to ignore the critical ones. Thus, the choice is of the greatest importance”. If the decision-makers’ motives are “innocent” enough to simply decorate the policy-making with democracy on the surface, such approaches would be used frequently. In addition, it may be the favorable explanation of the phenomenon that, with so many forums and hearings, the public is still filled with complaints and indignation, and even social protests takes place from time to time. Some ill-informed decision-makers think that it’s ‘some disobedient’ people that reject the democratic decision-making. A great number of cases have revealed that such forums before decision-making could not effectively prevent conflicts from evolving into certain meaningless social protests. American constitutional representatives disagree on many things, but agree on some points: they want to protect basic human rights and freedoms; they want to provide the government with laws that are “agreed by the ruled”. They want the people to rule through their representatives, which makes us republics. They solve the problem of power in two ways: checks and balances, and the constitutional power over any president, Congress, court or state, so that they make the constitution the supreme law in this land. —Joy Hakim, Freedom: A History of US.

With a lively atmosphere of direct democracy, the Chinese Villagers’ Plenary Meeting or Representative Meeting at Township looks like the Western “Town Hall Meeting”. However, due to the large population of participants as well as lack of orderly discussion rules, no valid opinions can be reached nor can a complete basis be provided for the integration of public opinions. Thus, it has the form of democracy and freedom but no consensus of democracy—with different opinions but no consensus. In many cases, the traditional ‘Herat-to-Heart Discussion’ of Wenling was stuck in such dilemmas. Personally, I think, in most cases, this kind of aggregated public opinions is the same as the above-mentioned forums, which only leads to policymaking-based unbalanced opinions, unable to solve the basic disputes that modern democracy is supposed to cope with.

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

2.2.4 The Dilemma of Representative Democracy The direct democracy is a way in which the public participation can be achieved to the best possible as it is based on orderly communication of our opinions and ideas, such as the villagers’ plenary meetings, referendums, direct elections, and so on. However, on many occasions the population of the participants makes it impossible to do so in the way of direct democracy, and hence representative system grows to be a more realistic and feasible choice. Apart from ongoing discussions about its term, proportional representation VS regional representation, the representative system is still facing another critical problem that almost all the representatives are committed to the integration of public opinions during the election campaign period but they are not as keen to it when in office. Besides, the way they gather public opinions mainly depends on the citizens’ voluntary reports, so its scientificalness and comprehensiveness are still open to discussion. “Democracy is a way of deciding by the decision-makers, not the replacement of decision-making” (Anthony Blair). It is imperfect democracy if the representative system is only finished with the first step of election and then ignores the integration of opinions in the policy-making.

2.2.5 Case Study: The Council’s Policy vs Civil Protest in Urban Development 2.2.5.1

Normal Development or Barbaric Expansion? Residents in Cupertino of Silicon Valley Protest the Controversial Urban Planning

The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less. —Zeno

Cupertino is the home to a number of high-tech company headquarters, including Apple, Zend and Symantec and more than 100 companies specialized in software, communication and medical products. This makes Cupertino “the heart of Silicon Valley”. Additionally, its population has exceeded 60,000 with a top-10 ranking for per capita income. In 2012, Cupertino peaked 27 th among the most livable smallsized cities in America, second in California. But by the end of 2014, the controversy over the high-density construction of thousands of homes in Cupertino, an innovative city in the Silicon Valley, had sparked concern and even worried several neighboring cities. Many councilors are in favor of urban expansion. But residents, one after another, expressed their concerns about the repercussions caused by overbuilding residences in high density and feared that more 10-storyed gigantic buildings would descend

2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs

31

on quiet Cupertino. They hope the city would be constructed and developed at a direction of health, rationality and balance. Cupertino is situated at the place where many roads of South Bay join, so the residents from nearby cities worried that once Cupertino’s traffic was paralyzed by congestion, immeasurable consequences would spread to the whole region.

2.2.5.2

Welcome No Change to the Current Life!

Ms. Zhao Liang settled in Cupertino two decades ago. She said, “I like Cupertino and the warm, tranquil town life here. Behind the houses are pitches of greenery that allow me to walk along Stevens Boulevard. It is easy to go shopping and park cars. At that time, children played football in the streets, not fearing being knocked by a car”. In recent years, people in and around the city have been increasingly aware of the worsening environment in the region. Declining air quality, water scarcity, shrinking parkland, crowed traffic during the rush hours, frequent traffic accidents and soaring crime rates. Besides, it is becoming more dangerous for children to ride bicycles or walk to school. Even children’s needs cannot be well catered for at school: children’s activity area is occupied by makeshift mobile classrooms, students stand in long waiting lines only to get a lunch and basketball courts are used on a first-come, first-served basis.

2.2.5.3

A Huge but Insane Plan

It was in 2005 when Cupertino had its most recent general plan of urban construction. It not only included the perspectives of park greenery and leisure places, traffic planning, air quality, urban safety, water and electricity utilities in the next 15 years, but also guidelines for the number and distribution of residential housing and office facilities. However, the city government of Cupertino had fulfilled these targets 8 years ahead of schedule by 2012, and began to consider a revision to the general plan, namely General Plan Amendment (GPA). According to an investigation released by ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments), it is projected that the city’s population will increase by 30% by 2035 and its office area will see a growth of 156,000 square feet (in proportion to its population) by 2020. However, totally different from this market prediction, the GPA issued by Cupertino Government wrote that, by 2020, the area of office buildings could be up to 2,900,000 square feet, nearly 20 times higher than the prediction. Residents looked upon GPA as a ‘huge but insane’ plan — it showed no consideration of the negative impacts of the high-rises on other aspects of the city, no corresponding countermeasures, or no interest in residents’ expectations on the city. ‘The GPA is like a workaholic who just works on no meal, completely insane!’.

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

2.2.5.4

Tension: ‘Community Vision’ vs ‘Property Vision’

In liberal democracy, there is a wholesale alienation of political institutions, or at the very least, indifference to politics. (Anthony Giddens) Especially in the late twentieth century, according to the principle of majority voting, the interests of the voters were simply aggregated, and there was no guarantee of the real public interest which was actually controlled by a few representatives and elites, and the general public was excluded from the political agenda except for voting.

Cupertino residents initiated a non-profit organization (CRSZ: Cupertino Residents for Sensible Zoning) and a website (www.crszaction.org), and publicly appealed to residents to be present on Mar. 17, Apr. 7&12 (time for Town Hall Meeting) to protest against GPA. Meantime, CRSZ produced posters that showed the details of GPA. Residents believe that every city should develop along an exclusive pathway, one that is healthy, reasonable and well-balanced to promote growth. In Cupertino, the GPA, driven by interest and seen as irrational urban expansion, is deviating from a path of right need and speed, all of which will result in destructive consequences. In turn, the potential problems may not be tackled in several decades. Mr. Lv Zhiqiang, a resident of Cupertino, said the Plan should be decided by the residents here. He further added that Cupertino City Council excluded its people and never sought to get input from the people when drafting the GPA. The Amendment was later renamed “Community Vision 2040” and Ms. Ying, another Cupertino resident, took this as an irony. She commented that “Community Vision 2040” should be called “Construction Vision 2040” literally. CRSZ pointed out that the GPA program was actually funded by property developers and was gradually mutating into a banquet menu of profit for builders to carve up. According to the residents, Cupertino has always observed the Californian legal procedures to make an urban development plan at a certain stage. Why do we need to make an exception to add supplementary articles (GPA) to the approved plan? The sheer aim of GPA is to make room for high-rises on many of the urban lands so as to alter the way the lands are currently used and increase the density of living. In addition to that, GPA doesn’t demand any specific development business plan from the developers.

2.2.5.5

Councilors Failed to Represent Their People: Why Did Citizens Protest Directly?

The problem of high-density buildings in Cupertino caused another stir — citizens found that the city council passed the new GPA (also called ‘Vision 2040’), permitting large-scale house-building, at 1 a.m. of December 4, 2014 when no citizen was around. The city council also covered up the fact for more than 5 months, making it impossible for citizens to overturn the plan through November’s referendum. The shocked citizens decided to sue the councilors as soon as possible. On May 19, 2015, when Cupertino City Council were discussing over the high-density housing plan,

2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs

33

a big crowd of residents came to protest, against the deed that the GPA was passed secretly. They declared, ‘You fooled us around and passed the plan furtively!’. “Eat dumplings behind closed doors”, Cupertino citizens used this Chinese proverb to describe the fact that the councilors secretly passed the GPA lest their act was exposed to the public late last year. Shortly, citizens referred to a western idiom “opening the Pandora’s box” in fear that the councilors’ above act would be as unpredictably detrimental as the GPA. On the night of December 3, 2014, around 300 citizens assembled at the City Council to protest against the revision of the existing urban construction plan. At 11 p.m., they were informed by the City Government that the discussion and ballot about the GPA would be postponed. After citizens left in succession, a team of only about 10 people continued to stay at the hearing, made of councilors, government employees and several representatives from building companies. But no one expected that the vote would not be postponed, only be “delayed” to 1 a.m. on December 4, just more than an hour later. After a brief deliberation, five councilors voted 4:1 to pass the mysterious Proposal (14–211), which was confirmed by a city hall video lasting 5.5 min. This had circulated on the Internet for days. The proposal document is 349 pages long and no one has ever known all its contents so far. But what is certain is that a “Community Vision 2040”, also known as ‘Urban Construction Modification Supplement (GPA)’, which covers all the urban construction plans of Cupertino from 2014 to 2040 is included and was approved that night. Although the city government claims that it had announced the plan to the public through various means, the residents think the government didn’t actually communicate with them. In each seminar and opinion poll, the revised plan was taken as a premise and “How many should we build?” instead of “Should them be built or not?” was discussed, which indicates the government’s apparent tendency of supporting developers in building more high-density apartment buildings and confusing or inducing citizens. The city government has always been trying to convince the residents of the ‘Community Benefits’ in this GPA, whose contents are: if the residents allow the developers to build higher buildings and change the height limit from 45 to 160 feet as well as increasing construction area, the developers will provide the residents some community benefits such as green space as a reward. But the citizens doubt the sincerity of this plan due to its lack of specific amount and time of the benefits. They believe that: “These benefit plans have no legal binding on the developers, but giving them too much freedom of constructing buildings. It is just like a mirage to the citizens”. On April 21, 2015, the Cupertino City Council discussed the GPA again. CRSZ called on more citizens of Cupertino to speak their voice at the city council in order to prevent the Plan from being revised. They asked the city government to slow down the pace of expanding the city and take the residents’ opinions into consideration. (Source: The Case is Based upon Related News Reports of Silicon Valley, January, 2016) In a country like the United States where competitive democracy is adequately and fiercely demonstrated, the elected representatives’ betrayal on the public still occurs

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy

from time to time. What is worrying is that if there is no competitive representative system in China, the ‘gap’ between representatives and the public’s opinion will be broader. So, the biggest problem that all the modern countries are confronted with is that how to achieve the integration of public opinions to the most extent on the basis of representative system. This requires China to adopt a more reasonable way and to use scientific, reasonable, and open approaches to elect the representatives under the condition of all groups share equal opportunities in making public decisions. Regardless of how the high levels of People’s Congress of China work, deputies to the local PC, community representatives, and village representatives who have been elected through strict electoral procedures are also facing the problem of how to integrate public opinions. This is why the mission of “activating the National People’s Congress” has been constantly advocated. Tian Jiyun, the vice prime minister and then former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, once emphasized the importance of gradually improving the NPC system, saying that “When a candidate has lost the election for vice-governor in a province, he was arranged immediately to run for vice-governor again in another province for the sake of repaying his loyalty to CPC. Unsurprisingly, he lost the election again. In the future, with the development of democracy and legal system, NPC should play one more important role of making the final checks in promoting cadres”.

When a party secretary in the Zeguo Town of Wenling City was asked why he made the deliberative democratic decision on the basis of that troublesome random sampling instead of directly consulting the local PC deputies, his answer was: the public opinions cannot be truly demonstrated just by consulting them.

2.2.6 Designated Autonomous Committees or Councils Committees and councils designated by the local CPC Committees and the governments also have a great function of integrating public opinions, because it has been fully taken into consideration that they should be representative of the public opinions of all levels at the moment they were set up. But the designated autonomous committees or councils are still the “acquaintance” surrounding the government, who are unable to provide the scientific expression structure of the public opinion itself as they accept the public opinions passively (sometimes even with sincerity) just like the government does. Through the membership, organization, responsibilities, and rules of procedure of a grassroots self-governing organization, we can observe the “committee-dependent paths” which we have been accustomed to:

2.2 Deliberation Suitable for Most Public Affairs

2.2.6.1

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GL 3rd Community of MH District, Shanghai

Regulations of Residents’ Self-governing Committee for Care and Mutual Assistance Chapter 1 General Provisions Article 1 In order to deepen the construction of grassroots democracy, give full play to residents’ subjectivity, achieve the goal of self-management, self-education, self-service, and self-supervision, and perform all kinds of work in a healthy, orderly, and harmonious way, the GL 3rd Community Residents’ Self-governing Committee for Care and Mutual Assistance (hereinafter referred to as “Committee”) in New Era is founded and these articles below are hereby formulated. Article 2 The Committee is a consultant organization to propose, discuss, and negotiate the major issues of the community under the leadership of the Community’s CPC Organization and guided by Community Self-governing Committee. The Committee shall work in accordance with the principles of “residents’ wide participation, voluntary service, compliance with laws and regulations, and democratic management”. Article 3 The committee shall implement a compulsory system whereby the community Party organization and the Community Self-governing Committee should ensure the necessary materials for the Committee. As the fundamental part of China’s political system, deliberative democracy contributes greatly to the development of democracy and the improvement of democratic system based on China’s socialist electoral democracy. In western countries, deliberative democracy mainly aims to overcome the incompetence of the liberal democracy and restore the traditional practice which attaches importance to direct democracy, citizens’ virtues and rational governance in an era of pluralism, difference and diversity. —Chen Jiagang, Comparative Advantage of Deliberative Democracy in China, 2014.

Chapter 2 Organizational Structure Article 4 The Committee shall have 9–13 members in principle, with one president to take charge of the Council’s overall work, one vice-president to assist the president and act on the president’s behalf when the president is in temporary absence, and one secretary-general to assist the president to perform the daily work. Article 5 The Council members shall be composed of directors of specialized committees, correspondents, and deputies from party members and the masses. Article 6 The Committee members’ term of office is in principle the same as those of the Committee Self-governing Committee and they could work consecutively. If there is a vacancy, supplements should be made according to the actual situation. Article 7 Committee members should be democratically elected by the specialized committees concerned; the president, vice-president, and secretary-general should be elected within the Committee members. Article 8 Committee members who violate national laws and regulations and fail to perform the duties shall be advised to quit the job. Chapter 3 Duties & Responsibilities

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Article 9 Committee members shall carry out surveys and research on the work of their own committee: keep close contact with Party members and the masses in our community, learn about the public opinions, collect the public wisdom, gather topics, and submit them to the Community’s CPC Organization and the Community Self-governing Committee for decision, guidance, and implementation. Article 10 The Committee should keep seeking and employing all kinds of talents in our community to establish a talent tank and set up a service platform. Article 11 The Committee should support various social groups’ activities and fully exhibit their specialties and hobbies so as to encourage an innovative cultural platform in our community. Article 12 The Committee should promote charity, respect the elderly, and love the young so as to create a happy and harmonious platform in our community. Chapter 4 Rules of Procedures Article 13 The secretary-general is responsible for the Committee’s daily work such as collecting, sorting out, and submitting all kinds of proposals to the president in time; the president and the vice-president decide the issues for Committee meetings. Committee meetings shall be called and chaired by the president once a season in principle, or be temporarily called depending on the specific circumstances. The committee meetings can be convened under the proposal of more than two-thirds of the Council members. Article 14 Issues for discussion shall be raised by the Committee members jointly or individually, and be released in advance to other members. All members should carefully consider the issues and solicit the residents’ opinions. Article 15 The time, place, and major issues of the Council meeting should be made known to the public before the meeting. The Committee meeting shall be open to other social organizations and individuals, who can express their opinions and suggest but do not have the right to vote. Article 16 The committee meeting should not be convened until two-thirds of Committee members or more are present. After the adequate discussion of all the issues, a resolution can be made by a democratic vote and with the approval of more than half of the members present. For the issues that are hard to reach consensus, re-investigation shall be made and re-discussions shall be held when the good time comes. Article 17 After the resolution is made, the Committee should submit it to the Community’s CPC Organization Party organizations, the Community Selfgoverning Committee, and House-owners’ Committee to implement. The feedback about implementation should be reported to the committee in time. Chapter 5 Supplementary Provisions Article 18 Any change to the Regulations shall be discussed and approved by the Committee. Article 19 The Regulations shall take effect after the committee discusses and passes it. In this document, we can find that the Council is elected by its subordinate specialized committees which are not democratically elected, and hence its partial representativeness is fully displayed. In addition, the discussion over proposals is open

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to everyone to participate but the participants are voluntary. In our investigation, we have found that the Council, along with its 8 subordinate special committees, has played a positive role in governing the community. However, it is still a traditional “Inner Council” of some active participants. Cyber democracy is inclined to form cyber violence and language bullying, which is far from the true public opinions. However, for Chinese society which lacks spaces of free expression, it is difficult to evaluate the pluses and minuses of cyberspace. At present, scientific researches on big data analysis about net opinions, especially about political issues have been carried out continuously. Of course, the Internet in a closed society has become an “inter-net” which is far from the true public opinions.

Meanwhile, as its regulations clearly request that the Party organizations and the Community Self-governing Committee should ensure the necessary materials, it means the council again falls into the old conventions of designating the delegates but in a way of invitation. Undoubtedly, this committee performs well as a governing body at the community level, which allows the community elites to participate in the self-governance. This is a great achievement. What needs to be considered for future improvement is how to achieve the scientific opinion integration and fair participation.

2.2.7 The Biased Opinions in Cyberspace With the advent of the Cyber Society, Chinese people can express their opinions in the cyberspace in some more authentic, diverse, and penetrating way. Compared with the traditional society which lacks an open inter-regional group discussion and a space for free expression, its progressiveness is without doubt. The cyberspace is not only an open space for expression but also a place where the posted views are often screened. Regardless of the conscious censorship of the administrative departments, the internet users hurl their passions at will with inappropriate expression and inadequate communication, which make online opinions deviant from their true thoughts. Therefore, one negative effect from the rise of the Internet, especially the cyber-society is that a minority of people actively express their opinions online or take collective actions online in a short period of time to expand their own interest appeals and hence distract the whole community’s attention from public interests, which may well deny the long-term policy options. The biggest difference about political reform discussion between today and 1980s is that the discussion is not only not confined to intellectuals and political elites but People from the Internet and microblog platforms also have become a very significant force in participating in the political reformation discussion. Appeal for civic rights, maintenance for legitimate rights and interests, pursuit for justice and order, protection for homeland and environment have become strong public opinions influencing political decisions. Compared with 1980s, to a certain degree, today’s political reformation discussion is concerned about society, grass-roots, people’s livelihood, and rights. China has entered an age of requesting civic rights.

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy —Chen Mingming, Why We couldn’t Form a Consensus about Chinses Political Reform: An Observation of Current Situation of Political Reform, 2013

In this way, a “cyber square politics” is formed which also lacks the essential characteristic, the “deliberation”, that deliberative democracy has been seeking after. These actions take diverse forms including “Online Water Army” (be hired to post on the internet as paid posters), “Small Red Hat Expeditionary Army” and cyberbullying. Online opinions of voluntary netizens usually serving as references, cannot be regarded as the real basis to make decisions if certain events are to be evaluated. For instance, to access the audiences’ evaluation of 2016 Spring Festival Gala of CCTV, many parties used the Internet and other modern medias to demonstrate the opinions, but the results shown are just to the contrary. Journalist Du Enhu of West China Metropolis Daily learned from CCTV: From the night of February 7 (the night of Spring Festival Gala) to February 9, 2016, CCTV initiated an exclusive phone-survey program with the overseas audiences and obtained 193 effective ones out of 403 answers. The number of interactions by text messaging reached 190,275. The incoming phone calls about Spring Festival Gala peaked at 1,276, 39% up from last year. Generally speaking, the audience think highly of this year’s Gala. The above news on Sina.com was followed by “384 remarks and 344,172 participants”. One remark from a Cantonese user won most ‘likes’ (4,860), “How were these numbers counted? Who can prove their authenticity? Anyhow, nobody around me watched CCTV Spring Festival Gala, on the whole”. Another remark from a Shanghainese, “How absurd it is! It is like a cat shutting its eyes when stealing cream”, had 432 ‘likes’ and one Tianjin-based user was awarded with 238 ‘likes’ with this remark “The Spring Festival Gala at Liaoning TV is superb!”.

2.3 Equal Participation from Different Groups Strengthened by scientific procedures, China’s deliberative democratic decisionmaking is able to effectively collect public opinions and achieve diversified, open, and fair participation, which will effectively overcome the potential predicaments in the later execution and prevent the public from becoming discontented with policy-making.

2.3.1 The Need of Expressing Opinions Every social group has different interest appeals but the same wish for free expression. The goal of every government is to create a just and fair system for public decision-making. As every individual is the best judge for his/her personal interests and his/her family, it is particularly of great importance for the policy-makers to

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be deliberative with the noticeable interest distribution in the making of the public policies. Many theorists consider “mob psychology (also called crowd psychology)” as a fatal weakness in mass participation and the deliberative mode of democracy an “ideological illusion”. (Joseph Schumpeter and Richard Allen Posner et al.) But the key point lies in the mass’ competence in participating in the policy-making, which may well depend on whether they have reason to pay attention, whether they think their voice will matter, how discussions and interactions are conducted, and how the data of their views is collected. “Who the participants are, how they were recruited, and what kinds of data are available to evaluate claims about their decision-making capacities” (Fishkin). We try to look for a fair solution, but this solution has to be agreed upon by all participants (and people involved) after careful consideration. Only under the fair circumstance of mutual recognition could we acquire approval like this after non-emphasizing dialog. Deliberation and decision-making process must be carried out this way: talking and consultation serve as a filter; only those topics and opinions which would facilitate decision-making will pass the “screening.” —Habermas, Post-national Structure

A famous expert on community research in Fudan University was questioned in 2000 as to whether he had ever attended any community meeting on the spot when he was elaborating on building ‘a community of shared future’ in China. He was immediately speechless. Community is not illusionary but interactive, which is the product of the interactive participation of every participant rather than something expressed and defined by some representatives. Of course, It is impractical and unscientific to ask busy experts to join community activities every day. What we stress here is that the joint participation made by randomly selected participants from all residents, randomly selected volunteers and professional representatives, together with the CPC cadres who are familiarized with and actively take part in local and community affairs, could ensure a reasonable and fair expression of diverse opinions in practicing deliberative democracy.

2.3.2 Avoid Biased Participation Deliberative democratic decision-making adopts scientific and reasonable approaches to choose the participants so as to avoid the aforementioned politically appointed representatives by cadres (I defined it as “mobilized deliberation”) and self-selected voluntary participants (I defined it as “self-selected deliberation”) which led to ‘one-sided opinions’ caused by homogeneous groups or “public opinions desired by decision-makers”. Traditional “Representatives of the Masses” that decision-making departments are familiar with, namely community cadres and active participants in public affairs, are an important body for collecting opinions in China because they have long been interacting with residents face to face. Except for being in full compliance with the government for organizational discipline, most of them

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are permanent residents of the communities and therefore have the advantage of knowing well the public affairs than other social groups. As a result, they have the unique superiority in communicating public opinions at the grassroots level. We should never deny the important function of this group in collecting public opinions, but the scientific design on the specific procedures of participation is expected to ensure the integration and enhancement of the opinions of this particular group together with the truly public opinions. Through the opinions made by both the scientific sampling and the traditional participation, the results of deliberative democracy can form a striking contrast and comparison and hence the differences in quality will be effectively displayed. Sometimes, some seemingly reasonable procedures in choosing participants may also lead to the homogeneity of the participants, namely, the participation of only certain types of people. In Yanjin County of Yunnan Province, the “Mass Participation in Budget” has strict, scientific regulations for all procedures including how to elect ‘representatives of the masses’, the proposal and auditing of budget items, moderators, rules for discussing, voting and counting votes, releasing the results at the spot, etc. I consider that their way of selecting ‘peasant representatives’ is virtually the same as that of the American Senator and House Representative election.

2.3.3 Selection Procedures: Participants of the Masses in Budget-Making at Dousha Town Participants of the peasants shall be selected either by nomination by the Two Village Committees (one is CPC village committee as community in city and another is Village Self-governing Committee) or by random selection according to the population proportion of each village (community). The committee is comprised of a director and two vice directors who are nominated by one-third of all the members of the committee and approved by the town CPC Party committee and town government, and then they shall be elected by the committee meeting. The candidates win the election by a majority of the votes of all participants. Peasant participants shall be elected in two ways: one is direct selection; the other is random selection. Direct selection is to allocate two members of peasant participants to each village, and they are nominated and selected by the Two Village Committees Meeting. Random selection is to calculate the number of representatives in each village (community) according to the proportion of 0–5‰ of its total population. The peasants’ groups of each village (community) shall select one candidate for peasant participants into the village selecting pool, among which the Two Village Committees shall, according to the quota, publicly select the peasant participant of each village at random. After the villages (communities) select the peasant participants, the relevant information about them will be submitted to the Town Work Group of Peasants’ Participation in Budget Reform (TWGPPBR) and whereby the collected information shall then

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be submitted to the Ynjin County OWGPPBR. The selection of peasant participants shall be made by random selection rather than appointment. The outcome should be released publicly at the end of selection. Candidates should be nominated by more than five peasants and then politically approved by Two Committees. The term of each peasant participant is three years. The selection, replacement, and by-election shall be conducted according to regulations. But in case a peasant participant changes his or her Household Registration and receives a dissatisfaction rate higher than 50% in the democratic evaluation of the Village (resident) Representative Meeting which is held at least once a year, TOWGPPBR or more than 10 peasant participants joined together could propose a disqualification. The final result is confirmed by a democratic vote of the committee of peasant participants. However, in this painstakingly designed mechanism of representative selection, ‘nomination’ is implemented at two key steps, and even the so-called random selection is based on the “participants pool” made up by some nominees. Therefore, the basic principle of equality and fairness in selecting participants is not strictly observed. It’s back on the old path again as it has not abided by the fundamental principles of true equality and fairness that he participants have brought forth. The people nominated are most probably sophisticated and greatly capable of expressing themselves, but this is different from the fairness and equality in the representative production. Nowadays, most Chinese people mix them up and wonder at the necessity of election and random selection since the people nominated are already ‘eloquent speakers’ with integrity and can represent the benefits of the general public. Then we can review this question like that: aren’t the CPC and government cadres, People’s Congress deputies and village Self-governing Committee members the eloquent speakers with integrity? Why was a participation mechanism created for budget distribution? Will it end up being a biased institution of participation? And that is where it needs to be modified. Interestingly, the strict randomly sampling measures is taken concerning the presentation order of the project: “Prepare a box of table-tennis balls. Before the presentation, we mark the numbers on balls and then mix them in the box. Select one representative to choose randomly one ball from the box. The item of the corresponding number will be presented in that order”. This is only one democratic procedure in this innovation and Zeguo Case did the exact random sampling of all participants.

2.3.4 Possibility of Transcending Individual Interests But specialists in different walks of life, are not sensibly superior to the decisions that would be adopted by a gathering of imbeciles. The truth is, they can only bring to bear in common on the work in hand those mediocre qualities which are the birthright of every average individual. —Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind.

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In the design of many decision-making institutions, the makers’ integrity is always overestimated while in the specific practice of democracy, the mass’ abilities are always underestimated. Although the individual interests are always in conflict with each other, and the part is also frequently at odds with the whole, the interest conflicts still cannot become a barrier to realizing the common good. As we all know, no one policy can ever satisfy all the expectations of a group, but the public interest still could get the “greatest common” through equal participation of deliberation. Protection of individual interest is the foundation, premise, and guarantee of the public interest; otherwise, it is a kind of illusionary or hypocritical public interest if there is individual interest but without guarantee, or there is public interest but without individual identification. Through equal participation and deliberative discussion, individuals from diverse groups will have a deeper and wider understanding of the others’ appeals and what’s the possible public interest. Therefore, there should be no compulsion or intimidation in the deliberative consultation and thus the participants should voice their different opinions equally, “filter out” the requirements from their interest groups and finally achieve the orderly and equal consultation and expression. During the practices of deliberative democracy, people could overcome “indifference, isolation, uncaring and lack of information. Participants from all social standpoints change in the deliberation” (Fishkin). In this way, confrontation and polarization in attitudes resulting from simple democratic discussion can be avoided. Deliberative consultation is definitely not just to eliminate ‘individual difference’ by virtue of the public interest that some people have imagined, nor is the results of simple votes. If all the people vote to decide how collective property is distributed, the most preferred would be that we divide all the collective property and disperse away and this is the unsustainable egalitarian practice of everybody eating from the same big pot. There goes a story in one college at Fudan University that a professor who always claimed to rate collectivism highly collectivism, once asked his college to divide its development fund, rather than took the future of his own college into account.

2.3.5 Possibility Beyond Elite Decision-Making A question about the Chinese deliberative democracy is like this: compared with the decisions made by the minority of the elites, are the decisions made by deliberative democracy definitely much superior in conforming to the public fundamental interests? To this, our answer is very simple: although we could not definitely conclude all the democratic decisions are better than the dictated ones, at least most of them are valid. In addition, another key point is that the deliberative democratic decisionmaking never excludes Chinese elites from participation but seeks to integrate elitist pioneering ideas into the public and to prevent the elitism from becoming the solid interest groups by the democratic procedures.

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Third, by virtue of political inclusion without effective participation or voice, impoverished citizens often have no real alternative but to comply with political decisions. —James Bohman

We can explicitly observe how Chinese peasants practice deliberation and communication through a record of the famous case of the 2014 financial statement of Zeguo Town, in Wenling City of Zhejiang Province. Most of the participants were peasants. (It has too many words but is worthwhile to be presented as it is.)

2.3.5.1

Meeting Records of Zeguo Town Deliberation on 2014 Final Fiscal Account in Wenling City, Zhejiang Province

Time: 15:20–16:40, September. 12, 2015 Venue: Meeting Room #302, Zeguo Government Building Participants: Town Leaders, Directors of Related Departments, 2014 Peasant Participants, PC Deputies of Zeguo Stenographers: Lin Shuaishuai, Zhang Hao Ruan Haobo (Moderator): Every one of us has reviewed last year’s Finical Fiscal Account and discussed about it in small groups, please present your questions and advices. The cadres will answer your questions and your questions shoul be closely related to the financial issues. 1.Chen Xiangui (Questioner): First, in the statement 2014 Final Fiscal Account, the final returning percentage of land transferring revenue is 44.27% and the final figure is ¥137,233,000. My question is how the data was made as no project of land transfer was implemented in 2014. Second, on page 5, we can find a very high maintenance fees for Zeguo Vegetable Market and Shoes & Leather Mall, with ¥ 650,000 and ¥550,000 respectively. Why are the office supplies so easy to be broken and repaired and changed so often? Lin Haibo (Respondent): Although we did not implement these projects in 2014, the town government started to prepare for all the related projects and reported corresponding data to the upper government. That is how we got data. Regarding your second question, we first need to know that the maintenance fee and office expense are not only confined to the cost of office supplies, and the money spent on Zeguo Vegetable Market has decreased from last year. As for Shoes & Leather Mall, a large sum of money has been spent on rewiring the building, which makes the budget a little bit higher. Besides, the whole project went through a formal open bidding. Both the government and the Mall & Market have reached an agreement that the renewal of yearly lease will be postponed so as to raise the profit from the mall as well as the efficiency of stores. Deliberative democracy is more like a public forum than a competitive market in which political discussions are guided by the public interests. —Caroline Hendrix

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2. Mo Xiaobing (Questioner): The first question is still about our Zeguo Vegetable Market. Page 5 shows that 8 administrative staff and 13 temporary workers are employed to manage the market, with a total salary reaching ¥ 750,000. But we are wondering whether it is necessary to put such a large staff in charge of just one market? Sometimes, there was no presence of them around the market. For example, the Market entrance to the National Road 104 is overcrowded but nobody offers to get it solved. What’s wrong with all these persons? This is a serious problem of their performance. The income of the night market on Shuichang Market is listed. where is the income of daytime market? Hence, the existing problems of the market’s income are not quite clear. Second, is the rental fee listed on page 7 for the state-owned venue too low? It’s year 2014 now. Such rent is no better than giving it for free. The Lianshu Community Hall, the annual rent of which is ¥19,350, has a building space of 880 km2 . The rent of a house in the village is even higher than this. The peasants would not accept such low rent like that for their houses. Page 19 says there will be a subsidy of ¥3,650,000 for the cadres of the village committee and the Party branch, but the items are not clear. Who will be subsidized, the former or the new cadres? Wang Yunfang (Respondent): All the cadres in our town can receive relevant text messages about the rental of our town. The Lianshu City Hall you just mentioned was rented out last year. We sent information out to all the people through the Farmer’s Mailbox. However, obviously they were not very passionate and active so that finally there were only 6 people who signed up for the lease. This could be our ineffective promotion; hence we would pay attention to and improve the situation in our work afterwards. I hope that the representatives and cadres in each village can inform more people of this message and they can raise the rent to a reasonable price. Besides, you can assure that all the rental process is organized by public offices without any procedural problems and underground transaction. And all the subsidies have been distributed by the Supervisory Commissions of every village. 3. Li Zhenglin (Questioner): Questions about family planning. Item 7 and Item 8 on page 15 have overlapping part. What’s more, a large part of budget is always arranged for family planning but the real final expenditure is below that. I don’t think a large space in the budget should be made for family planning every year. Ruan Haobo (Respondent): The budget was ¥1,150,000 but the final expenditure was ¥152,000. To make a high budget. Conventionally, we like to start with a big budget but spend less in the end, so we need be careful with budgeting in the future. 4. Lin Meiling (Questioner): The BIE (Budget Implementation Efficiency) ranges from 10 to 600%. Is the span too large? We can notice that the budget-making was not scientific or controllable. In some cases, the BIE is too high and out of control. Sometimes the BIE was too low. We should reflect why we couldn’t better use the money. The second issue is the huge gap between the budget and final expenditure of Donghe Road project and that of village water-reserving pipes. The relevant department was casual and careless during the actual operation. Third, I think that appropriate explanations should be given for the soaring BIE and low BIE (lower than 50%).

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The participants in deliberative democracy at Zeguo Town in Wenling have gradually enhanced their ability in discussing public issues, which results from the perseverance of local government. The participants started with some irrelevant opinions; however, they built up their competency in discussion with gradual involvement. This is the case that some people, who complain about the low competency of the participants at first time, should learn about when the democracy at the grassroot level is practiced.

Ruan Haobo (Respondent): I agree with you on that. We calculated the final account as the feedback to budget department for next year’s budget. Every department wants more funds in its budget. In the future, the budget will no longer be allocated according to the previous convention. We’ll view this year’s final accounts as reference and make powers in alignment with responsibilities. 5. Li Zhenghui (Questioner): In our small group discussion, we agree that there is too much obscurity in the finical fiscal account, so I propose that government explicitly show how the BIE developed. Besides, page 27 shows the BIE for the category of other commercial services is 256%. Please could you explain this? Chen Rulin (Respondent): The original budget was ¥50,000 which should include more than the above-mentioned four service-based items. I have talked to the finance staffs about ¥50,000. Since I just take the job for several days, I cannot elaborate upon the details for now. But there will be a written version for your question in days. Lin Haibo (Respondent): I would like to say something about the issue that you have mentioned about the gap between budget and final settlement causing the unscientific problems. It is the first time for Zeguo Town to deliberate the detailed final fiscal, hence there are many problems we have to fix. But from this year, our town budget closely corresponds to the National Treasury Trade Credit Index, which is scientifically improved by strict regulations. Some expenditures exceeding the budget by 200% has something to do with the reimbursement submitted by related offices. Back in the days when payment by credit cards is not available, the bills are directly handed over to the financial offices and classified by the staffs who might make mistakes sometimes. The primary goal of public deliberation is not the narrow pursuit of one’s self-interest, but rather the use of public reason to find policies that, as far as possible, answer to the concerns of all citizens. —Jorge Valadez

Ruan Haobo (Respondent): This is the first year that we have held such a deliberative meeting to discuss about the finial statement with all budget items. It once took us ten years to practice the Heart-to-heart Discussion of participatory budget, so we have confidence in making improvements in the future. 6.Chen Suqing (Questioner): Good afternoon! Dear leaders, my question is about the office site of the Community Self-governing Committee. There is a fund arrangement in the 2014 budget, but it is not reflected in the final account. May I ask when the office room could be built? Mao Rongfei (Respondent): I visited the sites you have questioned about. The locations are already confirmed. Community Self-governing Committees will have

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separate office space and shared conference room. As we are at the very early stage, related finance cannot be displayed in materials. 7. Zhang Xiaomin (Questioner): The construction of the public parking lot in Zeguo is similar to that of the Community Self-governing Committee, but it cannot be shown in the material. When will the parking meters be installed? From a certain perspective, democracy can be divided into two categories: ➀procedural democracy, also known as representative democracy, that is, voters choose representatives, and representatives decide the policy; ➁direct democracy is also called pure democracy, that is, citizens directly make decision-making. The two constitute two basic aspects of today’s democracy. But in the arrangement of the electoral process, because there is no deliberative space for the people, the emphasis of the representative democracy lies in the fact that how the procedures of decision-making could better and more effectively integrate the people’s will. Otherwise, the representative would betray the interests of the people. The people could directly carry out the referendum democracy, and form another kind of betrayal of self-interest.

Chen rulin (Respondent): We have provided 280 parking lots in four areas near Fuxing Road, shoe and leather shopping mall, Danya Road and Muyu Primary school, which are assessed by Taizhou Municipal Government. In the case of parking meters, our original plan was to connect Wenling with one-card, and aimed to cooperate with the previous companies. Later, we had a public bidding about ¥1,700,000 million yuan, but the bid failed twice. As the company is in Guangdong, which is far from here and is not willing to accept such small projects. Now with negotiation of the experts, we will start a new plan. 8. A teacher from No.3 Middle School of Zeguo (Questioner): Good afternoon! As we have guests from Zhejiang University and Zhejiang Industrial & Commercial University, I’d like to speak in Mandarin. I received this report a couple of days ago. Of much delight, I find this report excellent in content and professional in style. It is an excellent case of dedicative innovation in Zhejiang Province and around the country. We can see the great efforts and energies the local cadres have put into their work because the work at grassroots level is full of unpredictability and irregularity. So, thank you very much for that! After careful inspections, you make amazing contributions. However, this is the first time we do this. Here come my questions: First, there has been a significant reduction in items in the budget and final fiscal accounts. I find that the public security expenditures include three major items and 24 minor items in the budget were reduced to two major items and three minor items in the final accounts. On page 18, the expenditure on agriculture, forestry, and water resources has 26 sub-items in the budget, but only 9 items in the final account book. This brings difficulties to the supervision of our representatives. The second problem is that the BIE is very unstable. In particular, some of them are 0%. Personally, I think the implementation rate of 0% can be excluded in the list, and we will pay through our government’s reserve fund of ¥15,000,000. The third is on page 25 and 26, there are projects with mid-term budget adjustment which can help us have a better understanding and clarity of the project. But why is the BIE with mid-term adjustment not very high?

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Ruan Haobo (Respondent): Thank you for your wonderful suggestions. We are more confident in mid-term adjustments. What is bizarre is that the implementation efficiency is still so low. 9.Chen Yuchun (Questioner): I have one question for leader of Wang Yunfang of the water & electricity bill at Zeguo Office Building so shocking. 140000 per month. Why? Wang Yunfang (Respondent): This figure consists of the fund for water, electricity, telephone service, cable and Internet. AC consumes relatively more electricity in summer. We also need to be aware that this figure involves Zeguo Office Building as well as One-station Administration Center、and the office space of each Community Self-governing Committee. Frankly speaking, we need such a large financial amount in this respect. If necessary, we can provide open specific figures for you. 10. Lin Peizhen (Questioner): On page 13, I see a reduction in official reception expense from ¥1,250,000 to ¥580,000. We are very delighted to see this change. But there is an increase in the spending of the dining hall,2 which is from ¥900,000 to ¥1,300,000, with the budget implementation efficiency as high as 144.33%. How did this happen? Ye Minzhi (Respondent): Last year, we had a urban redevelopment planning (Sangai Yichai), and we provided meals for a lot of workers that time. The money spent on their meals was counted in the figure you are talking about, so the figure is a little bit higher than expected. But our future goal is to reduce the spending on the dining hall step by step. Thanks! Ruan Haobo (Medorator): If you have no questions, let’s stop here. Thank you for your wonderful participation! AOB: The people’s names above are real, since the whole process of public budgeting at Zeguo was open to all and no privacy was concerned. Appreciation of Mr. Liang Yunbo from the People Congress of Zeguo for the materials. The great length of the content above has not been revised except minor linguistic mistakes.

2.4 Simple Methods and Procedures to Practice One major feature of China’s socialist democracy is a combination of democratic election and democratic consultation. In China, the people’s congress system and the multi-party cooperation system under the leadership of the CPC supplement each other. That the people exercise their democratic rights through election and voting and that consultation is conducted among people of all walks of life to achieve consensus as much as possible before any significant decisions are made are two important ways to realize socialist democracy. The combination of democratic election and democratic consultation has extended the width and depth of socialist democracy. Full political consultation both takes into account the opinions of the majority and shows respect to the reasonable requirements of

2

The dining hall here refers to the one exclusively used by Chinese officials of CPC and its government.

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2 Method and Procedures: The Practical Democracy the minority, thus guaranteeing democracy of the widest scope and promoting the harmonious development of society. —China’s Political Party System, 2007

A lot of people have a “guided misconception” that many Western countries’ competitive democracy is disorderly. Due to the “modern tradition” of demonstrations, assemblies, and protests in their society, social protest has become one of the normal ways to express different opinions. However, when it comes to policymaking, a multitude of processes are very careful, procedural, and slow. Robert’s Rules of Order, a masterpiece widely accepted in China, is a manifestation of the classic rules they are practicing.

2.4.1 Procedures to Ensure Participation It is always advocated by CPC that socialist democracy can overcome the limits of capitalist democracy, but China should establish a system of democratic participation based on equality, freedom, and justice instead of lingering on the traditional propaganda and logical justification, though both of them are also a must. Simultaneously, it should abandon the path-dependence of just propaganda without practices as well as logical justification of merits, though they are essential to the CPC’s ruling stability. No possibility of widespread public participation means no possibility of sustainable development for a democratic system in any society. The participation procedures of modern democracy are not a profound and difficult theory that the majority of the people are ignorant of or indifferent to. On the contrary, the autocracy usually holds back the public participation in the form of mysterious rituals. Political democracy grows out of the social participation. Although the rules and procedures are elaborated by the aristocrats and the intellectuals, they must be some codes of conduct that are understandable and accessible to everybody, otherwise the majority are unable to participate in democratic policy-making, which will make it impossible to achieve the necessary political mobilization. Democracy lies at the top of the building of the social institutions. More importantly, it is the daily practices and opportunities of democratic participation which is relevant to the ordinary people’s routine life, and it is a way of communication comprising of the detailed procedures in the public life.

With the citizens’ consistent participation, the scientific rules of deliberative democratic decision-making can cultivate the citizens’ mature consciousness and spirits and hence make them responsible for themselves, the others, and the society, whereby discussing the issues in an orderly way and achieving the best possible consensus. In this way, the sustainable policy can be made which is characterized by the ideology of “seeking common ground and setting aside differences” (Table 2.3). Those who don’t understand the rules of participation are supposed to be given training sessions while those who use democratic opportunities to engage in factional

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Table 2.3 Program of Deliberative Polling on “Residents’ Self-government Fund Allocation” at Puxing Street in Pudong New District, Shanghai (Duration: 8:30 to 17:00 [May 30, 2015, Saturday]) Registration

8: 30–9: 00

30 min

Opening Remarks

9: 00–9: 30

30 min

Group discussion # 1 Theme: Community Service and Culture

9: 30–10:45

75 min

Assembling

10: 45–11: 00

15 min

Plenary session # 1

11: 00–12: 00

60 min

Lunch

12: 00–13: 00

60 min

Group discussion # 2 Theme: Community Governance & Facilities Construction

13: 00–14: 15

75 min

Assembling

14: 15–14: 30

15 min

Plenary session # 2

14: 30–15: 30

60 min

Filling in questionnaires

15: 30–16: 30

60 min

Collecting questionnaires

16: 30–17: 00

30 min

Source Provided by Dai Min and Chen Donghua

activities for selfish purposes must be disciplined by democratic rules. And that is one of the goals of democracy. Similarly, some kids, even at several months of age, can share their own toys with others when they play together, but other kids like to have all the toys to themselves and they will cry if they are asked to share together. So, we can easily see different people have different dispositions. But their parents will tell them to share if the kids don’t refuse to do it. Why? Because they know sharing is a basic skill for one to survive in the future society.

2.4.2 Social Self-Governance Is Orderly Participation The mature social self-governance has a set of basic rules that everyone agrees to and abides by. Each procedure of the deliberative democratic decision-making is designed to better inform people and facilitate deliberation with balanced information. The essence of orderly participation is beneficial for the participants to be attentive to different opinions, especially those in conflict with their own. Overall, this is neither Chinese traditional leading cadres’ dictatorship nor attacks or contempt among the individuals. Just like all the other participatory approaches at grassroots level, the metaprocedures of deliberative democracy in China also have originated from the traditional interactive ways at the grass roots level. For instance, if the public affairs in the village are to be discussed, each clan should send representative(s) (usually, the elder head of the clan) to attend the meeting, otherwise the final decision would be hard to put into effect. Likewise, inside the clan, each family should send people to join the clan meeting to decide the public affairs. This is the classic academic model of

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Gentre Governance in Fei Hsiao-Tung’s Peasant life in China and Chung-Li Chang’s Chinese Gentre. There are rules of engagement to resolve village affairs, which were ruined by the dictatorship in the form of noisy quarrels, impersonal denouncement, and cruel mass forum in “Great Cultural Revolution”. The rules of China’s urban communities are developed on the traditions of the countryside, and more rules are invented according to the urban complexity. The neighborhood made up of “alleys and lanes” has created an effective self-governance unit after the Open and Reform in 1978. So, the approaches and procedures of the deliberative democratic policy-making have their own cultural tradition and conventional basis in each Chinese community. The ordinary people can easily comprehend these traditional discussion regulations in the concept of modern language because they have their internalized knowledge of these governance procedures. So, democracy, just like Bai Juyi’s poems, will be warmly welcomed and well-received by the society.

2.4.3 The Challenge of Re-Adaption to Procedures and Rules When the Red Guards were given the opportunity to take revenge and vent their anger, the suspicion and hostility that had been hidden behind strong social controls were exposed. In fact, most people, both at home and abroad, see this episode in Chinese history as a manifestation of the extreme cruelty of man to man. —Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China

Due to China’s Cultural Revolution, almost all the traditional regulations of ‘consultation and deliberation’ in China were completely destroyed. In its aftermath, Chinese people became accustomed to following the administration’s decisions until today in the name of socialist democracy. When the market economy and the Chinese society developed to a point where governments’ decisions could not coordinate all the conflicts, there is a lack of democratic procedures of participation in the society. Therefore, the reset button is pressed for the policy-makers and participants, once a set of procedures of participation is put into practice. A Chinese old proverb says, a dirty man wants a bath; a man with something hot in his hand expects something cool. After the first Deliberative Polling on “Residents’ Self-governance Fund Allocation” at Puxing Sub-district in Pudong New District, we paid a return visit to some of the directors of Community Self-governing Committees. As the policy-makers at the grassroots level in China, they had the most genuine feeling and real experience about deliberative democracy with a mixture of excitement, anxiety, unease, and inadaptability. The ordinary participants had a fresh experience while these so-called cadres in community-level showed unwillingness during the practice of deliberative democratic policy-making.

2.4 Simple Methods and Procedures to Practice

2.4.3.1

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Revisit Records of Deliberative Polling on Residents ‘Self-Governance Fund Allocation’ at Puxing Sub-District in Pudong New District, Shanghai

Interviewers: Zhang Kaiping, He Jing, Lu Chen etc. Venue: Puxing Senior Activity Center, Pudong New District Time: Afternoon of June 3, 2015 Group 1: 13:30–14:30 Community Self-Governing Committees of Jufeng, Dongyi, Shuangqiao, Jinqiaowan, Zhongda, Hesan Group 2: 14: 30–15:30 Community Self-Governing Committees of Zhengyi, Hewu, Lingba, Yinqiao Interview Minutes from Group 1: 1. The residents don’t understand how complicated the Community Self-governing Committees’ duties could be. Although the money is spent on residents (e.g., subsidies to the volunteers, travel expenses), they think those projects are troublesome, deceptive and a waste of money. With a strict financial auditing system, the Community Self-governing Committees think it unnecessary to worry about the expenses. The committees thereby expect that future projects should not be listed with too exact or accurate information and some certain sensitive expenses should be hidden up and changed into other forms to avoid unnecessary suspicions of residents. Is there incompatibility between the morality of supporting public interests and the individual sophistication, in particular when there is a competitive relationship for projects? In many cases, we find that an integration of public interests could be achieved through deliberation.

2. The residents are so preoccupied with the budget that they fail to appreciate the value of the project itself. They acted like auditors. 3. Due to the procedure of random sampling, some of the invited participants did not often participate in public activities or did not care about neighborhood affairs. They are expected to pay more attention to public affairs around them after this deliberative polling. 4. The Deliberative Polling is preferable in its process and procedures as it has made it possible for more residents to learn more about the community affairs in a more democratic and transparent way, and meanwhile it has also helped release the residents’ energy and talents. 5. We hope that the random sampling can be conducted on a case-by-case basis because the young people are unwilling to participate and the older want their daily routine homework (eg. cooking) not to be disturbed, so the attendance was relatively low. The tenants were unstable so it would be better to take samples from the permanent residents. Those and lords who felt compelled to participate are unwilling nor keen on such community affairs, which led to some low-quality discussions. Besides, we advise that it should not sample the exact persons, but sample the committee or buildings and then ten persons out of it would be chosen to attend the deliberation. Interview Minutes from Group 2: 1. The Community Self-governing Committee felt it a great pressure to invite the whole random sample of the residents to the spot.

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2. Part of the residents, especially the commodity housing owners, cared little about neighborhood affairs and didn’t trust the polling basically. We should make the residents better-informed with our deliberative polling, which would facilitate the implementation of the deliberative of democracy. 3. Residents did not understand the Self-governance Fund so that they tended to question how the fund would be used. Therefore, expenses like this should not have been listed on the handbook of proposals or the working time and the work type of the volunteers should be clearly specified to keep clear of misunderstanding. 4. The directors of Community Self-governing Committee believed that the project target itself is the most important, and its significance will be a decisive factor for further proceedings and replication of the projects. Therefore, in their part, what the residents need to focus on is the ultimate significance of the projects. Disappointingly, participants focused on the budget plans and neglect the meaning of the projects. 5. The discussion has been conducted in the form of the press conference where the directors of Community Self-governing Committees were overwhelming embarrassed by the residents’ opinions. They were more concerned that the future promotion of projects would be delayed. 6. Residents tend to be self-centered, only caring for the projects of their own community and knowing little about or even being hard on those of the other communities. 7. Deliberative Polling have made it possible for the residents to learn more about the public affairs and solved some unbalanced information which has helped the implementation of projects. 8. From this Deliberative Polling, the directors of Community Self-governing Committees have better understood how to design a blueprint for a project, how to get a project approved, what should be cared in paperwork as well as how to explicitly explain the practical significance of a project. The director of Yinqiao Community Self-governing Committee suggested that the project proposals should show the problems and prospects in clear and elegant words as well as pictures so as to get them across to the public. (Revised by Han Fuguo, Dai Min, et al.) It looks like that we all agree that constructing a modern democratic society needs a high-quality citizen participation. Indeed, if we expect their public participation competence to be improved, long-term training and education should be provided. But we still hold the belief that the training programs cannot be carried out without specific practices. Otherwise, we would go back to the stage of the “political tutelage” of the Republic of China. Consider these typical examples: The House-owner Association of a community wanted to shift to a new Property Management Company, but, due to cliques and factions, the members cannot reach a consensus, only to make the head of the association feel completely frustrated. Parents want to help furnish their children’s classroom with an air purifier, or something else, and when taken into consideration, such simple things turn out to be endless quarrels. Those, who are devoted to the

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residents’ self-governance, have found that a great many residents refused to participate in such activities as the government invested money and the society organized the manpower, which has been emotionally draining to them. All these are really happening in China from day to day, so building a democracy needs a long-standing program and China should keep practicing it rather than expect the participants to be “sensible citizens” from the start. Actually speaking, citizens are made out of the ordinary crowd and they need to adapt to the institutions of democratic participation. But a more common phenomenon in some parts of China is that a well-functioning system of democratic practice may be canceled once the local leadership is changed. If things go on like this, Chinese people are hard to become modern citizens even if we read the democratic books to them every day. In the process of helping the local organization to practice deliberative democracy, regardless of the various difficulties we have been confronted with, all the local officials together with the public, no matter whether they are from the eastern coast or from the Western inland in China, have exhibited some good participation qualities before the scientific procedures of deliberative democracy.

Chapter 3

“Deliberative Polling”: A Practicable Method

Deliberative democracy, proposed by Joseph M. Bessett, “aims to oppose the democracy that is based on rational calculation of selfish individuals. It emphasizes that people should debate, argue and persuade for a common purpose”. Hereafter, “It not only had the support of older generation of the masters of political philosophy such as John Bordley Rawls and Jürgen Habermas et al. but created a group of representative scholars of deliberative democracy such as James S. Fishkin, John Dryzek, Bernard Manning, Joshua Cohen, Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson et al.” —Tong Dezhi. A Comparative Study on the Models of the Contemporary Western InterEthnic Democracy, 2013.

Deliberative Polling (DP), with strict procedures, was first systematized and practiced globally by Professor Fishkin at the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. The advantage of DP is that it summarizes the core elements of the procedures on the basis of various experiences of deliberative democracy and guarantees the equity of participation, the adequacy of deliberative communication as well as the rationality of the opinion integration through scientific processes. In the year of 2005, some local officials and scholars introduced this approach into Zeguo Town in Wenling and innovated China’s participatory budget by improving the practice of Heart-to-heart Discussion with the consideration of local circumstances (Fig. 3.1). It should be pointed out that this method has the theoretical background of the international democracy, which is proposed against the limitations of the Western competitive representative democracy and its democratic participation structure. Our introduction will be made from the perspective of China. Can the “referendum” truly demonstrate the public opinions? Is it valid if the public opinions lack of effective communication? On June 23, 2016, the Brexit referendum was held in the United Kingdom, and according to its result, many British media said on June 24th that Britain had voted to withdraw from the European Union (EU). Cameron, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom, followed with a statement, saying that he would respect the people’s choice to leave the EU, and that he would quit as Britain’s prime minister. He was no longer fit to be the “steersman” for the British people, who had definitely chosen an absolutely different road from the one he supported. It was reported that there were 382 electorates counted in the referendum, and according to the votes of 352 of them, 15.7 million people, accounting for 51.9%, supported to leave the EU. © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5_3

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3 “Deliberative Polling”: A Practicable Method

The Deliberative Polling® process begins with administering a questionnaire on a random, Representative sample of the public.

1

2

A random, representative sample is selected to participate in the Deliberative Poll.

Recruit Participants

Poll 1 At the event, participants are randomly assigned to small groups with trained moderators. Small Group Discussions Participants pose questions– questions are chosen by groups–to experts and policymakers. Plenary Sessions Q & A

3 4 5

Prior to the event, participants receive balanced briefing materials on the topics being discussed. Balanced Information

The event concludes with a final questionnaire capturing participants’ considered opinions.

Results are analyzed and released to the media soon after the event.

Poll 2

Media Coverage

Fig. 3.1 Chart of the Deliberative Polling® (Source James S.Fishkin, the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, https://cdd.stanford.edu/2015/deliberative-polling-1-pager/)

A basically complete method for practicing DP includes the following several major modules and their specific combination and application in the local practices in China will be made according to the specific conditions.

3.1 Random Sampling: Participants with Equal Opportunities How to make everyone have an equal access to the participation is the core issue considered by the Deliberative Polling. The starting point of Deliberative Polling is as follows: (1) Not everyone is allowed to participate in every project, not to mention the participation cost of the whole public. Except the public decisions involving vital interests such as constitutional amendment, wars, and peace, as well as “independence referendums”, the majority of public opinions are not suitable for a referendum every time as the modern public affairs are in great varieties. (2) There is also no energy and interest for people to maintain sustained public participation. (3) There are many limitations in the integration of public opinion in the existing representative system. Because as far as the specific public affairs are concerned, the representatives with limited terms are inconsistent with the specific public opinions and demands; if the representatives are not full-time ones, they won’t have enough time and energy to collect the public opinions. Then the gap between representatives’ decisions in public affairs and actual social needs will be more obvious. (4) Representatives’ participation is one of the most popular, reliable, easy-to-implement institutional

3.1 Random Sampling: Participants with Equal Opportunities

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approaches. The initial hypothesis was that the elected representatives must conduct full deliberation and communication to prevent the biased decisions of representative democracy. Unfortunately, their deliberative spirit would be constantly weakened by the campaign itself. (5) The simple majority voting will make the expression of opinions untrue, resulting in the “tyranny of the majority”. Although random sampling has many limitations, it is not the worst approach to choose participants for it can ensure equal chance for everyone to be chosen. Random sampling ensures that everyone has an equal probability of participation, or at least an opportunity for someone who shares the common interest to participate in. Of course, it entails the question whether the selected person can represent himself correctly, and we set it aside for the time being. What Deliberative Polling embodies is as follows: a random, representative sample based on the overall sample (i.e., the entire population who have the right to participate in the public affairs), characteristic of homogeneity, can ensure that the different social groups will have their own representatives. Random sampling, entirely based on the principle of equal opportunity, is a selection method. Every part of the population has the same possibility to be selected, so it belongs to “equal probability”.

Invitation Letter to the “Deliberative Polling” Dear__________, Congratulations! You are welcome to participate in deliberative discussion about × × ×! Since you are selected at random with equal opportunity, this participation invitation is exclusive to you, so it cannot be transferred to your friends or family members. At the same time, all participants in this deliberation are randomly selected. The Deliberative Polling about ××× is to be held on ××, and we sincerely invite you to participate in the decision-making about ×××. In the next two weeks, you are expected to fill in the questionnaires and will receive the relevant briefing materials about items. We value your opinions after discussion, through which you have opportunity to deliberate, know and discuss with others. All the people who participated in deliberation speak highly of the form. We would like to see you on × × . Are you available on ××? Yes ( ); Uncertain ( ); No ( ) If you could come, it would be great! We will send the materials to you as soon as possible. If you have any question, please consult _______ If you are not sure about it, please leave your telephone number: ____________ _ We hope you can attend. We will contact you soon. If you have any question, please consult _____________ If you won’t come, thank you for your reply. Would you mind our contacting you next week to see whether you change your mind? Please leave your telephone number: _____________. Thank you. (Source: The Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University; Translated & Revised: Han Fuguo, March 2015).

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3 “Deliberative Polling”: A Practicable Method The ways of simple random sampling are as follows: ➀drawing lots — make lots for all the units respectively, and draw them after stirring; ➁random number table — number all units, and then draw from the random number table; ➂computer-based random sampling — simplest and fast.

This method was first applied to the democratic deliberation (the Heart-to-heart Discussion) on the “Public Budget” in Zeguo Town of Wenling City in Zhejiang Province. The “Table Tennis Sampling” was adopted to select participants on the spot and the local people found it completely new to them. Simple random sampling requires a complete sample frame, which is easy to obtain and enjoy good quality as the government departments participate in the decisions related to public affairs or grassroots autonomy.

3.2 Projects Instructions: Make the Information as Well-Balanced as Possible In the process of making public decisions, an important reason why the participants either argue with one another, or keep silent is that they are not well-informed about the projects. The authenticity of the information is very important, otherwise, it would be like what Feng Gong (one Chinese famous actor) once said, “I don’t believe what you said, even one comma”.

Without the necessary information, even the participants in the Western competitive representative system usually argue fiercely about the issues they know nothing about. The traditional decision-making in China is basically as follows: The leading cadres listen to the reports in advance, the staff collect the information, and then the deputies to the People’s Congress and representatives of public opinions who need to vote often receive the materials at the last moment and hence it is impossible for them to have a full understanding of them within the limited time or to have time or chances to learn about many terms. To make the matters worse, many materials are roughly outlined and short of detailed information, which renders the voters “unable to question” and participants “thoroughly confused”. Information constructs the foundation for the participants to adequately deliberate and communicate. As a result, the Deliberative Polling is directed at all the projects of decision-making, in which the government officials and experts are called together to collect, sort, and marshal the in-depth material instructions covering the basic information of all the projects in the plainest language. The materials will be distributed to all participants confirmed to participate in the deliberation one to two weeks (7– 14 days) before this deliberation. Typically, the period is to ensure all the participants have enough time to learn about the project so that they can give opinions after careful discussion and avoid “an empty talk” or “a platitude”.

3.4 Small Group Discussion: Discussions with Trained Moderators

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3.3 Polls Before and After Deliberation: Quantify Public Opinions Scientifically The political legitimacy of deliberative outcomes is based not merely on the will of the majority, but on the results of collective reasoned reflection by political equals engaged in a shared project of identifying policies which respect the moral and practical concerns of all members of the citizenry. —Valadez, Deliberative Democracy: Political Legitimacy, and Self-Determination in Multicultural Societies, 2001.

According to the specific contents of discussed projects, we need to make a quantified questionnaire including the evaluation of the participants’ knowledge of public affairs, the evaluation scores of all items, the democratic evaluation of the participation process, and the evaluation of the participation recognition. It will be conducted before and after the deliberation, respectively. The “meta-procedures” of the Deliberative Polling insist on distributing the first questionnaire to all participants before they contact project materials to evaluate the participants’ knowledge and attitudes toward the materials. And when the deliberation is completed, they will take the second questionnaire to evaluate their knowledge and attitude toward the projects again after deliberation to compare scientifically the two results of changes in their attitudes. At the same time, these two questionnaires will investigate the impacts of deliberation process on participants’ changes in knowledge as well as attitude change and their identification of democratic participation to judge the quality of this deliberative democratic decision.

3.4 Small Group Discussion: Discussions with Trained Moderators Instead of joining groups at their will, the participants chosen by random sampling report on the day of deliberation are randomly assigned to small groups. It is best to confine the members of groups within 10–12 persons so as to ensure that everyone has time to express their opinions, and access other different opinions at the same time. Every group has a moderator and a recorder who can record the discussion with the permission of the participants. The moderators are required to attend training classes to acquire some simple moderating skills, especially the skills such as trying to keep neutral and impartial, controlling the time and progress of discussion, maintaining basic rules of discussion, and making sure that the process is “a deliberation” instead of “a quarrel”. The moderators are preferably teachers in local primary and secondary schools because they have the experience in moderating and controlling the classroom. Other volunteers without related interests are also suitable choices,

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but for the sake of being neutral, the moderators cannot be local government officials or cadres at grassroots communities and villages.

3.5 Dos and Don’ts About Training of Moderators (Guide for Moderators in Small Group Discussion) Before Deliberation: . Read materials with balanced information . Get familiar with the process of discussion Start of Deliberation: . Start discussion after all participants attend . Mute electronic devices . Guide for discussion – – – –

No one needs to be an expert Everyone’s opinions are valuable Respect and listen to others’ opinions No need for consensus; not everyone needs to agree or disagree, because participants will express their opinions in anonymous questionnaires

. Introduce briefly first . Refer to the models . Don’t be afraid of silence during the discussion Moderators in Small Group Discussion: . . . .

Don’t express personal opinions (prejudices) Don’t vote by raising hands Don’t add extra information Don’t correct mistakes in presentations – Turn to the guide for discussion if the right answer is attached

. No need for consensus – If all members in a group agree to the same opinion, then consult those who disagree. Tell them by using materials, especially charts. . Ensure balanced opinions . Encourage everyone to speak – If someone speaks too much, then ask the person to listen to others’ opinions – If someone speaks too little, then encourage the person to express more ideas . Ensure that participants discuss with each other instead of discussing with the moderator

3.6 Plenary Session: Interaction Between Decision-Makers and Participants

61

. The fewer interventions, the better; Maintain a good deliberating atmosphere . Persuade observers who intervene (spectators or research experts who walk around excessively) to leave Prepare Questions to Ask Experts in Plenary Session: Every group needs prepare two questions to ask experts fifteen minutes before the end of small group discussion. . Write down the questions and topics to ask experts . Group members discuss together and select their group‘s questions . If they have so many questions that they cannot select, they can vote——the only voting procedure to be allowed . The questioners will ask in plenary session – If the questioner is shy, then encourage him/her . Write the questions on two pieces of paper: One is for the plenary moderator to prepare, and the other is for the questioners to ask in plenary session. [Source: The Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, March 2015 (Revised by Han Fuguo).

3.6 Plenary Session: Interaction Between Decision-Makers and Participants Government consists of acts done by human beings; and if the agents, or those who choose the agents, or those to whom the agents are responsible, or the lookers-on whose opinion ought to influence and check all these, are mere masses of ignorance, stupidity, and baleful prejudice, every operation of government will go wrong. —John Stuart Mill Considerations on Representative Government

Every group writes down several questions after the first discussion and selects 2–3 important ones to ask the expert team (consisting of experts and officials who are in charge of the projects) in plenary session including all participants. Then the team answers the questions and appropriately discusses them with all participants. After the plenary session, participants return to their own groups for the second small group discussion about the deliberative information gathered in plenary session. The second small group discussion is conducted on a large scale of information and hence it is a further improvement on the basis of the first small-scale group discussion, which is of great importance for the communication of opinions as it can more accurately reflect participants’ “persistence” and “transformation” in opinions after deliberation.

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3.7 Release of the Results: Feedback for Participants The deliberation is completed after the second questionnaire in the second small group discussion. The working staff will finish the statistical analyses of the two questionnaires in time, provide the analysis report of the Deliberative Polling, and submit it to related departments as a reference for making decisions. Once made, the decisions should be released to the society as soon as possible. Feedback to participants is very important because it indicates that the first round of decision-making is basically completed. Feedback is also a positive encouragement for their active participation. If they have different opinions, they can further consult the decision-making departments to learn more about the process of the integration of the public opinions during the deliberation, especially the changes in the opinions during the two questionnaires. Regardless of whether the collecting process is fair and scientific, it is true that public opinions have been collected in the decision-making, but it must be noted that the sincere collecting attitudes always turn out to be nothing afterward and the public has no idea of the results. but it is awkward that the cadres are friendly and sincere to the participants at forums but the participants don’t know whether their opinions are accepted or not after that. This is one of the main reasons why Chinese ordinary people don’t like to participate in the decision-making. Sometimes they prefer to make petitions and protest, because they often can receive the timely attention from the cadres and hence their problems can get resolved in this way. We have discussed this in Chapter 2. In China’s practices of Deliberative Polling, the deputies of local People’s Congress with voting rights, officials of government departments, and members of the CPC committees can be lookers on all the way along and consider the results of deliberation. For example, the government departments may revise budgets according to the results of Deliberative Polling and then submit them to the local People’s Congress as a reference to vote. According to Fishkin’s summary in 2009, the course of development of Deliberative Polling around the world from 1994 to 2008 goes as follows (Fig. 3.2). In the practices of Deliberative Polling in China and other countries around the world, its basic features are as follows (Fishkin et al.): . Participants(stakeholders) are randomly selected; . Participants are in great numbers and the organization is on a large scale; . Materials and the related information of the projects should be released to the public before the deliberation; . Small group discussions are combined with plenary sessions; . Questionnaires about the public opinions are conducted before and after the deliberation; . Small group discussion and plenary session are all moderated by independent third-party.

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Fig. 3.2 Deliberative Polling, 1994–2008 (Note This figure is from Page 97 of the book When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy & Public Consultation written by James S. Fishkin, altogether 8 deliberative Polls were conducted in Texas on energy choices between 1996 and 1999; The DP of Menlo Park in California was held among students in local middle school. We just amended that the China Local Budget only refers to the construction projects of budget in Zeguo Town in 2005, Wenling City while the Zeguo budget in 2008 included the whole budget)

The different projects around the world have accomplished the following goals (Fishkin): . . . . . .

Changes in policy attitudes Changes in voting intention Changes in Getting information Building of good citizens Changes in collective consistency Changes in public policy. After the Rain By Wang Jia Before this rain the flowers could be seen in buds; After this rain the flowers and buds have all fallen. Bees and butterflies swarm is cross the wall thus, Spring is over the neighbor’s yard, they suspect. (The Chinese traditional poem here tells Chinese people that the deliberative democracy is practiced all around the world. China should not just admire the performance in the other countries and forget what they should do in reality.)

Of course, the international practices of Deliberative Polling and deliberative democracy are closely linked to the whole democratic system in Western countries and their history. And they cannot be substituted with each other. This is the key

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3 “Deliberative Polling”: A Practicable Method

point that we must pay attention to in learning the international theories of deliberative democracy: We cannot mix up the different paths of evolution for the sake of innovation, nor can we intentionally exaggerate the different aspects of the problems for the sake of learning.

Chapter 4

Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making: Procedures for Chinese Structure

Once the road is right, do not be afraid of difficulties, because China will eventually achieve its democracy.

Democratic participation has been a very important criterion to measure the political development in China, no matter how its modern evaluation index is defined. In addition to random sampling, there are other factors affecting the quality of deliberative democracy in China. The following eight factors are the main challenges. . Accidental events: The first is the accidental events that occur during the process of deliberative democracy in China. These unexpected events, including amendments of national policies, occurrence of local major events, and the redeployment of leading officials, affect the practices of deliberative democracy. They are featured by not maintaining continuity or honoring commitments, which makes people disoriented. . Communication Time: Second, the familiarity or the length of time among the participants affects communication. How to avoid being unduly constrained by “the acquaintance society” amid deliberation should be taken seriously in China. . Continuity Test: Third, it means the tests conducted in different time and regions, and the previous test result would affect the subsequent one. It is not always possible to implement deliberative democracy in a large region considering the difficulty of gathering all the participants at one location or carrying it out at the same time. Thereby, how to coordinate the interactions between different participants on the same issue is very essential and needs to be taken into account. . Measurement Approaches: The fourth is that the measuring approaches applied to the projects in deliberative democratic policy-making, need to become consistent because non-uniform approaches could result in completely different quantitative deliberative results. . Statistical Analysis: The fifth is the statistical analysis after selecting representative participants. Deviation happens in selecting participants, even by exact random sampling, which may lead to bias to the results of deliberation.

© Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5_4

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. Random Grouping: The sixth is to group randomly given that if the participants fail to be randomly grouped; their opinions are more likely to show the homogeneity. Then there comes the non-equivalence between deliberation groups’ opinions. . Accidental Absence: The seventh is accidental reduction of the population of participants. For one thing, the randomly selected participants sometimes withdraw halfway from the deliberation in progress for private matters. For another thing, the representatives of specific groups refuse to attend the deliberation, also resulting in the imbalance in proportion of various groups. For example, the participation of young people in community is insufficient. So even though the selection equality is ensured by random sampling, there will be absent or insufficient involvement of specific groups in practice, then causing inconsistent participation. . Consistent procedures: The eighth is the adherence to scientific procedures. When implementing many deliberative democratic practices, scientific procedures can be initially adopted, but later on, some seemingly irrelevant but actually important procedures are canceled because of fearing confronting hardships. Correspondingly, the scientific nature of institutional practices is greatly devalued. Maybe one region is able to persevere the scientific procedures, but the other regions might disable the core procedures in practice of replication. Many Chinese scholars strive to construct a deliberative democracy structure with Chinese characteristics, but the first step should be the concrete operation of democratic procedures, rather than the overstatement of political propaganda. Without resolving specific Chinese problems, the Chinese-style democracy would lose its value in discussion.

For fair, the most important is whether the participants have equal opportunities for participation or not. And the Chinese multiple deliberative democratic procedures seek to, based on previous experience, solve the above-mentioned troubles that may lead to deviations and errors in the deliberative behaviors. The democratization of public policy-making is based on the idea that people’s right to participate and develop as equals should be adequately protected. Unequal participation will have a worse influence on government policies. Some “loud voices” in Chinese society will often convey preference information to policy-making, which differs from public interest, public needs, and public choices and from the choice of less active “silent majority” (“the squeaking wheel gets the oil”) But the serious problem is that these silent persons tend not to be “silent” after losing their benefits. Many theories insist that random sampling of interested parties can produce a sample of participants without deviations. For example, Deliberative Polling is strongly conducted on the basis of random sampling. Although it realizes the scientific quantification and the orderly implementation of consultative procedures, its premise is usually the existence of a competitive democratic system in a region where public expression is free and dimensional only then could the random population be guaranteed to have a certain degree of equal participation. However, after being introduced into China, random sampling faced a problem of imbalanced social

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structure at local and grassroots levels which triggers a range of additional issues for follow-up decisions. . In addition to public representatives based on a random sampling, how do we consider the changing views of government staff? . How do we consider the opinions of community and village officials who are familiar with the daily affairs? What are various ways for active participants to deliver their viewpoints? How do active participants and volunteers express their opinions? . Although the opportunity for the deputies to the National People’s Congress (NPC) linking to is insufficient or even lacking, what is the relationship between the opinions of randomly selected representatives and that of deputies to the NPC exercising the right to vote? . In the meanwhile, instead of ranking the projects polls, how could we further integrate public opinions scientifically? Many Chinese public events have been reversed by “leader’s orders”. Officials are used to abandoning legal and scientific procedures but to traditional methods with “prompt decision and action” to implement leader’s instructions and smooth things over, which is the obvious “character” of China’s policies.

Therefore, we design a Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-making Procedure to accommodate China’s social hierarchy and policy-making structure. That is the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach with Chinese characteristics. Our starting point is that the random sampling of participants is the first step and it is an important way for Communist Party of China (CPC) and its government to get information about the public interest and preferences of citizens, and for the public to communicate with policy-makers in the process of participation. The multiple deliberative procedures for democratic policy-making are designed to conduct stratified random sampling, so that the decision-makers can reasonably extract opinions of people at all levels. The direct problem of poor democracy is unable to be practical. Fine democracy involves not only a set of institutional arrangements based on the theories of democracy and the articles of Constitution, but also the belief and conduct of political elites and major political powers. Besides, it is also concerned with whether or not the initial practice of democracy can be regularized, conventionalized and stabilized. —Bao Gangsheng, “Democracy: A Misunderstanding Idea”.

Many operators, on the one hand, are eager for the continuity of innovative democratic system and, on the other hand, impatient with the scientific requirements of methods. They believe that many rules are too cumbersome and that many so-called scientific requirements are unnecessarily useful. In particular, the initial operation of democratic approaches enables people to voice their views and to participate. Therefore, the officials are often super-satisfied with their political achievements. They will have no sufficient enthusiasm for democratic procedures and disregard subsequent scientific rules. However, they don’t realize that it is precisely the democratic procedures and scientific rules that guarantee the consistent running of the democracy;

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otherwise, the lack of them can cause dozens of new problems that may stir up overwhelming complaints of the operators themselves. There is no guarantee of continued enthusiasm for people’s participation just as the outcomes of policy-making fail to keep the innovative model. It is easy for participants to master sophisticated procedures once they know them well and become sensitive to violations of strict regulations. Over the past four decades since Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening-up, many of the democratic rules and regulations, which were initially abstruse, have become basic codes of government conducts. Although some leaders may abolish his/her predecessor’s policies for the sake of their own vanity projects, the system truly adapting to changes of social needs will not be neglected in the long run. And even in case of setbacks, it will make transformations and resettle the problems. Therefore, China’s democratic system needs strict procedure design; otherwise, the sincere wish of the people for democracy will be gradually eroded by selfish gains. Only those who have the patience to complete the simple work perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily. —Schiller

The persistence of scientific procedures will form a platform for common cognition and communication. “What the elderly prestigious monk says to comfort other people is roughly the same, though he never met them before. It’s just like shutting yourself up in a room making a cart on the same track as others in use on the road” (a Song-Dynasty scholar called Shen Zuozhe once said). However, Yan Fu, an eminent scholar in late Qing Dynasty, discussed the issue from another perspective. He said, “Some people feel that the cart they made in the closed room can travel on the street. But is that really true?” He criticized the thought of self-conceit, referring to the “closed innovation” lacking the scientific procedures. As for scientific procedures, if they are willing to face them, Chinese people will find thousands of ways to solve the obstacles; if unwilling, they will also have thousands of excuses to refuse them. Scientific procedures ensure that all people enjoy equal opportunities to voice their thoughts, and their voices can be heard by policy-makers and scientifically absorbed in the process of policy-making. “People have equal opportunities to voice with more scientific content being heard by the government.” Recently, the Chinese domestic “officials, scholars and businessmen”, all highly respect what Tocqueville has said: “What the United States universally recognize is a slow and quiet self-governed society. This society is the normal state established on enlightened citizens. It is a conciliatory government. People talk about it through deliberation and consultation, and only when their opinions are matured will they be implemented.”

We can reflect a phenomenon. Many people assume that democratic procedures are so complicated that they waste much time and energy of government departments. There is a long-time-discussed question: “Many officials often work overtime, but what jobs are really related to public policy-making projects?” Most of them may be “useless” and the servants in governments at all levels struggle to cope with superior checks or write endless files.

4 Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making: Procedures … Step1. Choosing Suitable Issues

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Politically Appointed Participants Random Sampling Representatives

Step2. Beyond Radom Sampling Randomly Assigned Small Groups Proper Payment for Participants Multiple Deliberative Procedures for Democratic policy-making

Briefing Materials before Deliberation Step3. Informed Decision

Demonstration of Projects Deliberation of Projects Poll before Reading Materials Poll after Reading Materials but before Deliberation

Step4. Three Questionnaires

Poll after before Deliberation Comparison of Results of Three Questionnaires Absence of Participants Unpredictable Problem Regulations for Discussion Commons of Opinions

Step5. Scientifically Deliberating

Avoiding Polarization Deep Integration and Communication Step6. Plenary Session

Improving Second Small Group Discussion “Group-Plenary-Group Discussion”

Step7. Release of “Common Decisions” Step8. Following Performance Review Step9. Procedures Duplicated

Fig. 4.1 Multiple deliberative procedures for democratic policy-making

Moreover, once the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-making Procedures (Fig. 4.1) become Chinese public policy-making rule, the following work is more time-saving and energy-saving. Metaphorically speaking, parents raising the first child may spend considerable time in preparing baby-care products. But the cost of raising one more baby will be reduced as the marginal decreasing effect indicates. It is just to add an extra ladle of water to the pot.

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4.1 Multiple Selections of Participants Beyond Random Sampling We propose a comprehensive approach for selecting participants, which is the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach, more suitable to integrate the opinions of various groups. This stratified sampling can overturn the traditional way of appointed participants by officials, and also extricate the survey from simple random sampling and quota sampling. The common stratified variables cover gender, age, education background, occupation, and so on. In the case of the same sample size, the data by the stratified sampling is more accurate than that by simple random sampling, especially in China where people’s will and ability to participate are so different from individual circumstance in the field of biomedicine in terms of scientific uniformity. In addition, stratified sampling is also convenient and efficient, and easy to operate. In current decision-making process of public affairs and policies, the most obvious stratification variable is occupation, which is the structural variable indicating political stratification in China. Although some forms of consultative democracy like Citizen Conferences and Citizen Juries, also select participants by random sampling, their original intentions are different from that of multiple deliberative democracy. The latter emphasizes the representativeness of participants, while citizen conferences and citizen juries pay attention to the diversity of views. There are also different standards for setting number of participants and quantifying opinions. The common random sampling approaches are simple random sampling, stratified sampling, system sampling, cluster sampling, multi-phase sampling, and so forth.

4.1.1 Multiple Random Sampling Multiple deliberative democratic decision-making processes enable us to achieve allround participation through the enhanced stratified random sampling. Meanwhile it makes the policies and guidelines issued by governments interact with viewpoints of the masses in advance (Fig. 4.2). Of course, the approach is still based on strict procedures of random sampling after stratifying the participants.

4.1.2 Participants in Random Sampling People like me mostly say nothing in public, say nothing to the distrusted. At first, I attributed it to the experience in the harsh time of Great Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Later, I found it is just a universe feature of Chinese people. There are all sorts of mirrors to examine

4.1 Multiple Selections of Participants Beyond Random Sampling

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Fig. 4.2 Figure of multiple selection procedures

us ourselves: The Chinese tradition is one mirror; the foreign culture is another. And a bigger mirror around us is the silence of the majority. —Wang Xiaobo, one Chinses famous writer,

To select participants from all the benefit-related individuals remains the top 1 in random sampling, because it can involve individuals without chance to voice in the past. Many of them are benefit-related ones, but not active volunteers or community officials. They may be the “silent majorities”, who tend to take “serious actions” after policy-making and put public policy in a passive situation. Random sampling can ensure that all types of social groups have their own representatives to participate in, like a “non-cheating” lottery that each person is equal to win. In order to let the related parties understand the fairness of random sampling, an early lottery, such as sampling with the table tennis with a number in its surface is taken publicly to select participants while some other places adopt a relatively convenient method—“random number sampling”. Furthermore, the developed computer technology plays a positive role of selecting quickly participants regardless of sample sizes. Individuals are concerned with not only their own affairs, but also the affairs of State; even the busiest are familiar with general politics, and this is our Athenian characteristic: A man who does not care about politics, is not a man caring about his own business. Athenians are free to decide our policies, or to submit the resolution to appropriate discussion. There is no contradiction between speech and action for us. The worst is just to act recklessly before proper consultation, which is the distinction between Athenians and others. We are bold and intrepid in action while we debate advantages and disadvantages of various measures before going ahead. —Pericles’ Funeral Oration, Peloponnesian War, originally written by Thucydides and translated by Richard Crawleyin English

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One dilemma is how to identify sample database. Does it include only the household registered population, or also include the migrant population? The second is how to identify the upper age limit. For example, in some regions, people think residents in their 70s are not eligible to join public affairs, but in many urban areas, residents aged over 70 still have a strong capacity to participate. Thirdly, how to conduct a census of “separation of registered and actual residences”? How to calculate that permanent resident’s population? These issues may be settled down by decision-makers and experts on the basis of specific content of the projects. Many policy-makers worry that some “radical” persons, such as “petitioners” and “hotheads” selected as representatives may take the democratic opportunity to make troubles. That is certain to be the case, but the deliberative procedures have its strict rules of discussion, which can prevent the radical by the random sampling from damaging the entire deliberation. An important function of the moderator is to avert irrelevant issues disturbing the agenda. If a participant continues to break the discussion rules, he or she will be excluded from the deliberation scheme. Another important matter is the participation rate of randomly selected people. At present, many of urban residents in China are reluctant to involve in deliberation. Apart from the long-time lack of democratic participation convention mentioned earlier, many people affirm that it is not worthy spending time on public affairs for their own opinions will be neglected in most cases. Practical experiences in the past showed that the participation rate is relatively higher in an acquaintance society like regions in suburbs or villages than in large cities, where residents need to be mobilized and confirmed many times. For instance, in both the Deliberative Polling on residents’ self-governance funds on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area in Shanghai and the polling on community reconstruction on Gumei Road, Minhang District in Shanghai, and officials in the communities were hardworking to mobilize residents to participate via phone calls or paying them a visit. Therefore, we generally adopt “drawing large numbers” in urban areas to ensure a certain number of participants in the end, and increase the participation rate by detailing project materials and mobilizing actively the locals. The “low participation rate” does not mean “no opinion”, so it cannot be simply regarded as a measurement to judge whether the opinions of randomly sampled population are significant or not.

4.1.3 Random Sampling of Community Officials On the grounds of existing political system in China, community officials and activists work in the front line of social governance. They are undoubtedly responsible for local management as the “second government”, and sometimes they face a dilemma in mass disturbances. But there is no doubt that they have a sound understanding of residents’ affairs, and many of them are “speakers” on behalf of residents in the community, so their opinions are relatively representative. Therefore, in the multiple deliberative democratic decision-making procedures, it’s essential to use random

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sampling to select a few community officials as representatives, so as to ensure that their opinions can be reasonably integrated. It is only through discussion that participants know clearly how to regard themselves as citizens of a country, residents of a region, and heirs of a culture; what traditions they inherited and what traditions they need to break; how they deal with historical changes; how to get along with each other. —Jürgen Habermas

There is an institutionalized problem that whether or not community workers recruited and paid by governments are also the community self-governance members. This is an issue worthy exploring that whether these workers are categorized as government officials or as community masses. According to our research, many urban local officials complained that the community workers they recruit are officials assigned to the Community Self-governing Committee by governments, for their living areas are far from working areas and their employments are decided by Civil Affairs Department or Organizational Department of the CPC. The majority of these groups also believe that they do not belong to neighborhood community. So, in consideration of their concerns, it’s suggested to put this group of workers into government officials for random sampling. Another issue is about secretaries of Party branches in communities. In most cities, secretaries are directly appointed by the superior organizational department, and their salary and other rewards are also paid by the higher departments. Therefore, this group has a special viewpoint. Because most of them are local residents, it’s better to categorize them as community workers and then be selected by random sampling.

4.1.4 Voluntary Participants in Random Sampling More and more Chinese people are increasingly active in public policy-making issues. For instance, in Xinhe Town of Wenling City in Zhejiang province, workers have actively enrolled in collective negotiation on wages for many years, and their townlevel participatory budgets are also solicited for voluntary participants through official announcements. Some social organizations have willingness and abilities to investigate, integrate, and analyze social opinions in public activities. So, they can be invited into public policy-making projects, especially those social organizations that were born with outsourcing of public service by authorities. In the practices of Shanghai and so on, there are citizens willing to participate in the deliberation but unlucky to be selected. Voluntary participants possess more positive motivation out of sheer interest or just enthusiasm for public affairs. And when they are in short of chances, they tend to be “active policy protesters” instead of “active participants”. Hence, we recommend that after releasing public announcements, random sampling can still be adopted if there are too many voluntary people.

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4 Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making: Procedures … “Corrupt Officials” and “disobedient civilians” cannot be separated from one political society. Except for few cases, many disobedient people are the pioneers in the progress of political and social reforms in China.

Reportedly, a few officials dislike active citizens, just like teachers who used not to like students asking too many questions or arguing with teachers in class. It is a cultural phenomenon in China that everyone should be obedient instead of being active, otherwise, it is more likely to be deemed as “the disobedient”, or even be criticized as “the unruly”. But looking back at the political reforms in past four decades, plenty of institutional reforms were initiated by so-called “unruly people”, and knowledge innovation and creation are pioneered by students who are not content with current conditions and dare to question others.

4.1.5 Experts Participants (Professionals, Scholars, and Technical Officials) In existing policy-making system, technical officials in relevant government departments and experts in specialized fields are of great significance for the integration of public interests. Experts’ advice and public opinions constitute the “two supporting poles” for fairly acceptable public decisions. In particular, due to the complexity of modern policy-making, we must insist that the public poll is the foundation. Crucially, experts and technical officials should also play a better role in assisting the public in understanding public matters. In fact, in the preliminary planning of public policy, technical officials’ mission is to serve the society well, but considering the division of departments, only some officials enjoy a chance to participate in the preliminary planning of projects. Thus, it is also important to select representatives for deliberation in this group of officials. Meanwhile, during the preparation of projects’ materials, experts as ordinary participants own different perspectives from those as technical assistants to complicated public policies. The experts could be invited to attend the deliberation and then randomly select some experts as a panel in plenary sessions to answer the questions discussed in small groups. It is also a reflection and promotion concerning public matters of upper intricacy by allowing officials and technical experts to join in the multiple deliberations. It is also an impressive democratic integration of “the truth is in the hands of the few” and “democracy works with a majority on favor of something”.

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4.1.6 Randomly Matched Small Groups Generally speaking, all the randomly selected from above groups can be divided into groups randomly, so that people of different social statuses can interact with each other and achieve the deliberation of heterogeneous opinions. But it’s recommended that participants of the same social status are separately grouped at random, so that the results of small groups of same social status can be refined. And then given different weights, the refined data of various groups of levels of social statuses can be compared with others. The particular weights must be put in proportion to the random sampling of all residents. The reason is that other groups have more opportunities to voice their opinions amid public policy-making. It is important to emphasize that small groups of the same social status must adhere to the random principle that means each participant has an equal chance of being chosen without any regular pattern, so that we can avoid the phenomenon that participants of extreme familiarity make up a group, that runs counter to the original purpose of “deliberation”. Deliberation is a discussion between people with different opinions and a “reasonable talk” between people with different interests. At the same time, most Chinese tend to seemingly agree with the acquaintances, but actually dissatisfied with them when discussing real problems. Some people would be filled with unhappiness when they see others, who are equal to them, had taken advantage of something, and they would try to reach the same level. And someone else are indeed somewhat superior. When seeing those who are not a patch on them saying the same thing as themselves, or even more of them, a sense of injustice would be stirred up in their hearts in an attempt to attain superiority (inequality). As for those who make troubles, their purpose is nothing more than self-interest and honour, and they could be relatively injured and embarrassed because of fear; The intent of some people to make trouble is only to avoid some kind of punishment or shame. The latter eventually incite the public and stage a coup for the reason that they themselves or their friends suffered pains. —Aristotle in Ancient Greece

4.1.7 Appropriate Remuneration for Participants The question of remuneration for participants is very interesting. The enthusiasm for participation is different between the randomly sampled participants in the whole population and those in the voluntary persons. In the practices of some villages and towns such as Zeguo Town, the village committees and the local government provide everyone with an appropriate daily subsidy as compensation for delaying their work. In some places like Puxing Road and Gumei Road, free lunch is offered. There were also some places to give small souvenirs. It is as similar as the “travelling expenses” and “labor costs” paid to experts and scholars for attending a meeting or engaging in a review project. Invited by citizen conferences in other nations, we found that appropriate “subsidies” are also paid for participants, such as free lunch, tea, and pastries. For example,

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on November 16, 2015, residents of Southern San Francisco were invited to attend the Town Hall Meeting about Biotechnology, and went as follows. “Southern San Francisco invites you to attend the Town Hall Meeting for Biotechnology and have deliberative discussions with mayors and city leaders on the frontier of biotech industry at 2: 30 p.m. on November 16, 2015 (lunch offered)…”

4.1.8 A Deliberative Democratic Decision-making Project: “Residents’ Self-governance Fund” on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai

Labor Costs for Moderators and Technical Experts No. Place of work Signature …… …… Project leader on the Spot (signature): Date: May 30, 2015.

4.2 Practical Cases of Random Sampling We cite some sampling cases of Deliberative Polling which are already completed for reference. We insist that surveys need to be founded on random sampling, but the most appropriate and adequate method ought to be adopted in accordance with specific conditions of executable units.

4.2.1 Computer Random Sampling on Puxing Road 400 hundred house numbers among 65,000 householders were selected randomly. Each household chose only one resident aged over 18 and born closest to May 31 to participate in the conference and the selected one mustn’t be substituted. In terms of preliminary statistics, a valid name list of 360 residents was formed to a project team. Community self-governance committee invited these residents to the conference. The director of Home Affairs Department, Dai Min, said “community-self-governance committee will invite in good faith, but it’s residents’ right to decide whether to come or not” (Table 4.1).

4.2 Practical Cases of Random Sampling

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Table 4.1 Computer random sampling list for Puxing deliberative poll on community selfgovernance fund on Puxing road Number

Community

Address

Amount

Gender

Birh date

Name

1

Dong San

Room × ×, No. × ×, Lane 1383, Boxing Road

0

Vacant

None

None

2

Dong San

Room × × No. × ×, Lane 1185, Boxing Road

4

Female

1945.2.19

× × ×

8

Dong San

Room × × No. × ×, lane 1268, Donglu Road

1

Female

1957. 12.6

× × ×

9

Dong San

Room × × No. × ×, lane 1268, Donglu Road

3

Female

1956. 1.6

× × ×

10

Dong San

Room × × No. × ×, lane 1268, Donglu Road

1

Male

1949.3.6

× × ×

11

Dong San

Room × × No. × ×, lane 1268, Donglu Road

1

Female

1931.6.29

× × ×

12

Dong He

Room × × No. × ×, lane 1018, Donglu Road

Real estate transaction in progress

Vacant

13

Dong He

Room × × No. × ×, lane 1018, Donglu Road

1

Male

1948. 12.05

× × ×

93

He Wu

Room × × No. × ×, 384 Lane, Muping Road

Vacant

Vacant

96

He Yi

Room × × No. × ×, Lane 1047, Wulian Road

3

Male

19,892.2

× × ×

97

He Yi

Room × × No. × ×, Lane 1047, Wulian Road

0

Vacant

127

Jiao Yi

Room × × No. × ×, Lane 18, Yangzgao Middle Road

2

Male

1982.5.25

× × ×

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

400

Zhong Da

Room × × No. × ×, Lane 287, Heze Road

2

Female

1985.5.20

× × ×

Total

Vacant/No information/ Number involved in commercial residential building

31

Sex ratio (male/female)

158/242

Note Project staff include Dai Min, Yang Xu, Han Fuguo, Chen Donghua, Zhang Kaiping, Chen Kaiping, and He Jing

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4.2.2 Computer Random Sampling of Representatives to Participate in a Renovation Project of Pingyangliucun Community on Gumei Road, Minhang District, Shanghai A random grouping was carried out immediately after randomly selected 260 participants to reduce the grouping work on the day of conference. But on the day of the registration, due to the aforementioned low participation rate in large cities, the number of participants turned out to be so imbalanced that some groups had only few people as a result. This is why we suggest “draw large number” and “randomly group participants on the spot” on that day (Table 4.2).

4.2.3 “Table Tennis Random Sampling” in Zeguo Town, Wenling City, Zhejiang Province The method of democratic consultation in Zeguo Town, Wenling City was initially a simple random sampling followed by several times of adjustments. Sample to the households of villages or communities in 2005. In 2006, 237 public representatives were randomly selected according to population ratio, accounting for 2‰ of the total population of 120,000 in the town. In 2008, according to the villagers’ election list, 197 representatives were randomly selected by computer. The sampling method of the year of 2008 was used in 2009. In 2005 and 2006, Zeguo Town adopted the method of random sampling among 120,000 residents, which was vividly called “Table Tennis Random Sampling” by the local. In accordance with the principle that four people are selected in each village with a population of more than 1000 and two people in each village with a population of less than 1000. Each household chose one person to attend the deliberative meeting if their table tennis number is drawn. Compared with 2005, Zeguo Town made some changes in 2006: (1) The selection of representatives of Deliberative Polling is not on the basis of villages or communities, and 237 were randomly selected from 120,000 population accounting for around 2‰; (2)12 migrant workers selected randomly from large-scale enterprises; (3) 5 NPC supervisors were recommended by the presidium of the Town People’s Congress. The 197 delegates at the 2008 Deliberative Polling on financial budget were selected randomly from the electoral list of villagers.

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Table 4.2 Computer random sampling list of the deliberative poll on the renovation project of Pingyangliucun residential area, on Gumei Road, Minhang District, Shanghai Group no.

House no. (Omitted)

Name

Gender

Date of birth

Registered residence

Education background

13

× × × Female

19,960,130

Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

College Student

7

× × × Female

19,950,810

Registered

College Student

7

× ×

19,940,114

Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

Senior High School

Male

7

× × × Female

19,900,513

Registered

Bachelor

1

× × × Female

19,780,728

Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

Master

7

× ×

19,770,411

Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

Postgraduate

14

× × × Male

19,761,206

Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

Junior college

10

× ×

19,760,406

Registered

Bachelor

Female

Male

13

× × × Male

19,761,213

Registered

Postgraduate

7

× × × Male

19,450,505

Registered

Senior High School

… 15

…

…

…

× × × Male

… 19,540,128

… Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

2

× × × Male

19,530,824

Registered

8

× × × Female

19,540,216

Registered

Second School

11

× × × Female

19,281,121

Registered

Illiteracy

12

× × × Male

19,270,223

Registered

Primary School (continued)

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Table 4.2 (continued) Group no.

House no. (Omitted)

Name

Gender

× × × Female

2

Total: 262

Date of birth

Registered residence

Education background

19,250,706

Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

Primary School

Separation of Registered and Actual Residence

Note Project Staff Include: Xu Zhi, Du Tao, Qiu Baisheng, Chen Tongwang, Xu Jin, Han Fuguo, Shi Jundan, et al.

4.2.4 Comparison of Selecting Methods at Zeguo Town The deliberative democratic decision-making procedures in villages and towns of Wenling City, Zhejiang Province have been implemented for a long time, from 1999 until now. Wenling City has always encouraged villagers’ enthusiasm for innovative thoughts and behaviors, and has not exercised mandatory restrictions on the procedures. Therefore, the internal samples of population in Wenling City on “deliberation democracy” have diverse methods and rules to select participants. We observe the similarities and differences of their operating methods (Table 4.3):

4.3 Cases of Multiple Deliberative Procedures Many local officials and residents constantly complain that the democracy theory is too abstract for ordinary people to understand. The first reason lies in the uneasiness felt in their first real democratic participation. The other is due to the lack of democratic knowledge. Only by participating in it can we have an opportunity to study the theory of democracy. We should not slothfully wait for the release of national documents and then rush to learn them. Plenty of new concepts often stem from grassroots rather than superior documents. Therefore, Chinese people and administrators should develop the habit of from the practice, instead of merely learning the administrative policies, and in the end know little about policies themselves.

All the above cases using random sampling method were mainly one-offs with specific items such as budget allocation and regeneration projects. The random sampling could not resolve the problem of appointed representatives in existing political system of CPC and its government. As we have discussed, if we could not guarantee all the representatives and officials are elected or random sampling, we should invent one method to keep CPC’s power to appoint most representatives and take democratic progress to select a part of participants by random sampling with the long-term of 3–5 yeas just like deputies to local People’s Congress.

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Table 4.3 Structural comparison of samples on deliberative democratic decision-making process in Wenling City focus

Method of selection

Issues of deliberation

Institutional meanings

Reputability of Budget

Random sampling

From Major Projects to All the Budgets

Acceptance of democratic suggestions

Town People’s Congress

Validity of Budget

Voluntary deputies to People’s Congress

From Partial Budgets to All the Budgets

Activating People’s Congress System

Ruohe Town Town People’s Congress

Validity of Budget

Voluntary deputies to People’s Congress and others from various fields

From Partial Budgets to All the Budgets

Activating People’s Congress System

Municipal Department

Validity of Budget

Voluntary deputies to People’s Congress and others from various fields

From Partial Budgets to All the Budgets

Activating People’s Congress System

Model

Process dominator

Zeguo Town Town Party Committee and Government Xinhe Town

Town People’s Congress

Source Summary According to the government’s official documents of participatory budget of Zeguo Town, Xinhe Town and Ruoheng Town, and People’s Congress in Wenling City from 2005 to 2012

We have some detailed examples of multiple deliberative procedure which are already completed in several places in China. The approach is more suitable for China’ specific structure and depends on the courage of local cadres. Zeguo Town has abandoned the random sampling until 2012 and adopted the multiple selecting procedures to select participants. The Wenling People Congress also adopted multiple selection procedures with several participatory pools like expert pool, entrepreneur pool, migrant worker pool and local resident pool, etc.

4.3.1 Table Tennis Lottery Random Sampling on Representatives at Zeguo Town, 2016 1. 120 Participants Selected to Participate Selecting method: The first representative’s number comes from the sum of the first one of his or her serial number and the drawn ball number. Succeeding representatives come from some former representative’s number and the multiple of each proportion.

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1.1. The × × representatives of villagers are selected: No. 124–No. 4189, 45: 1 1.2. The × × women’ representatives are selected: No. 4190–No. 4563, 62: 1 1.3. The × × representatives of Communist Youth League are selected: No. 4564– No. 14820, 43: 1 1.4. The × × representatives of enterprises are selected: No. 4821–No. 4931, 9: 1 1.5. The × × representatives of new residents (migrant workers) are selected: No. 4932–No. 5115, 30: 1 2. × × Participants Selected on Behalf of Voters120 Participants Selected to Participate 2.1. 36 Representatives were selected from voters: No. 1–No. 200, 5.5: 1 Selecting method: The first representative’s number comes from the sum of the first one of his or her serial number and the drawn ball number. Succeeding representatives come from some of former representative’s number and the multiple of each proportion. 2.2. Select × × representatives through “table tennis random sampling”. For the purpose of ensuring that each village has × representatives to participate, no allocation will go to the villages with less than × × residents, who have already selected × representatives according to specific rules. One more representative will be allocated to villages with more than × × residents by “table tennis random sampling”. Village-by-village selecting method: When the overall population is a 3digit figure, the number on the first ball is the single digit, the second ball is the 10-digit, and the third ball is the 100-digit. For example, for 500 people, we use the figures from 0 to 5; if 600 people, from 0 to 6, and so on. Where the number is a 1000-digit, the fourth ball is the 1000-digit. If the selected representative was unable to perform his or her duties, the next number after that will be out on standby. For the ones who have already been selected as representatives, the next number after them will be put on standby. 3. Moderator Organizing the Selection: Liang Yunbo; Notary Public: 2 deputies to People’s Congress, deputy secretaries of various administrative regions and several staff. Note: The participants here are selected in the above means, rather than voters in the electoral system.

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4.4 Sufficient Circulation of Decisions: Making Participants Informed Deliberative democracy is a kind of democracy with great potential. It can effectively respond to some of the core issues of intercultural dialogue and multicultural social cognition. —Valadez

Although many modern democracies seemingly have perfect institutions, part of participants may get incomplete or insufficient information in policy-making because of cognitive differences of participants themselves or incomplete information provided by decision-makers. In particular, under the circumstance that the decision-makers hold full information but the benefit-related have little or even fragmented information, then the participation in deliberative democratic process loses its initial meaning and function. The sufficient expression of opinions is still the foundation for the policy-making. And there is a famous Chinese saying in Analects of Confucius. “A man of noble character is broad-minded but not partisan, while a man of vile character is partisan but not broad-minded”. It’s information asymmetry that brings out mass incidents in China. Many officials deem that they have done nothing wrong to block the information because it is deeply rooted in their mind that ordinary people do not need to know many messages, and even though people are informed, they wouldn’t make right choices. Owing to the stereotyped mindset of several policy-makers, most Chinese people fail to enhance their participation ability, and stay in the “naive and blind” stage. After the Great Cultural Revolution, many Chinese have lost their sense of mutual respect and the basic rules for discussion and conversation. Confucius once said: “A gentleman never competes in anything except archery. Even then, he wins; he courteously makes his bow before his advance to take his seat among the winners. Thus, even in this case of competition, he acts as a gentleman”. (From the Analects of Confucius)

Strictly speaking, there is no “complete and sufficient information”, being provided to each participant, at a certain time. Even the public policy-making based on sufficient information still faces interest choices, for “knowing” information is not equal to “agreeing” with a project. Someone says that you can never win an agreement from opponents who just seek for what suits their appetites and they may take it seriously only when they want to refute an argument. So, here’s a confusing question. Is the public policy-making more democratic of people are more informed, or vice versa? We need to further research on the relevance, but at least, we need to remain steadfast in our belief that group decision-making dominated by misinformation is the most frightening. In many cases, participants, though informed, are still unable to reach a consensus on policy-making, and even the more information they are given, the more discussions there will be. However, the decisions based on insufficient information are more likely to cause discordance of opinions and intense confrontation of groups, and are prone to trigger disruptive consequences.

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Informed citizens could prevent themselves from becoming impulsive “mobs” which is an unquestionable progress in any democratic society. In order to realize the sincere discussion between the participants, it is necessary to ensure the participants to obtain adequate information before deliberation and let them consider projects in advance, which are the foundation of shaping rational thoughts on individual interests and a prerequisite for thinking over other opinions.

4.4.1 Pres-Deliberation of Project Planning In general, public projects are planned in advance by the relevant departments according to the social demands, which is of due significance for public management. One of the big developments in public decision-making in the last decade is the fact that more and more local governments have set aside an increasing proportion of projects for the public deliberation to make decisions. They portray the change as a process of “the menu order” to “making their own menu”. Many local governments have even fully released the entire government budget to public representatives for consultation and deliberation. In some cases, the local governments disclose their preliminary budget planning of departments to representatives for deliberation. Moreover, more and more Chinese villages and communities get residents involved in public decision-makings. The process of negotiation can build a foundation for reciprocity and relationship, so as to promote the public policy for government officials to re-evaluate themselves. It provides a way for citizens and government to work together in daily life and in public decision-making, rather than just waiting until they are in danger and in deadlock. This will change the way of citizens and officials participating in the practice of governance. —Martha MacCowan and Partrick Scully, Consultative Dialogue to Broaden Citizens’ Participation: What Dialogue Does Democracy need?

The most reasonable budget planning and projects in that area should be a combination of 60% of governmental regional projects and 40% of people’s autonomous decisions. Therefore, if there is public participation in the planning stage of projects, democratic decision-making can be advanced, so that public opinions will become more concentrated and deepened after choosing a specific project. In the process of proposing the self-governing projects on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, the street government united with Community Service Center to invite experts to give guidance to all community officials about project application. It adopted the skill of “Participatory Discussion” and “Open Space”, so that each community official can learn how to better integrate public opinions. It is because many people have learned about how these projects have been proposed, that there comes the competitive phenomenon that during the following process of deliberation, some representatives in various communities’ canvass for votes to support their own community projects. This is precisely the manifestation of the rising passion in democratic participation.

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Through a return visit to these self-governing projects on Puxing Road, we have an in-depth understanding of per-deliberation of project planning.

4.4.2 Return Visit for Deliberative Democratic Polling on “Residents Self-Governance Fund” on Puxing Road Sub-District Returning staff: Zhang Kaiping, He Jing, Lu Chen. Address: Service Center for Senior Citizens on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area Time: Afternoon of June 3, 2015. Group 1:13:30 P.M.–14:30 P.M., Neighborhood Committees of Jufeng, Dongyi, Shuangqiao, Jinqiaowan, Zhongda, Hesan Group 2:14:30 P.M.–15:30 P.M., Neighborhood Committees of Zhengyi, Hewu, Lingba, Yinqiao 4.4.2.1

Group 1. Interview Minutes: How to Choose a Project

1. [Jufeng Neighborhood Committee]: Project of Shanghai Opera1 Salon [Background] The residential population of the community is more than 3600 (approximately 1200 households) including 400 tenants and 600 elderly people. around 150 people take part in each Shanghai Opera Salon. “Idealizing democracy” and “smearing democracy” are the two weapons of Chinese people against democracy. Except for the election of political leaders, as well as the issues of war and independence, democracy, especially the grassroots one, just settles small specific affairs closely related to people’s daily life. Only a democracy based on people’s living is truly meaningful.

[Origin of the project] The fans of Shanghai Opera in this community proposed the project, and then the community officials discussed the project. The old activity room can accommodate 100 people. And last October, the rooms were renovated with a capacity of 100–150 people and with a new formal stage. Many old people like the native Shanghai Opera, wishing to perform on the stage, so the project of Shanghai Opera salon was put on the schedule. At the beginning, it was proposed by fans of Shanghai Opera in the community, and approved by the community officials to improve the facilities of activity room. The project has not been released to public yet, and there was not specified process of soliciting residents’ opinions. [Budget Planning] Estimated by the community officials 2. [Dongyi neighborhood committee]: Project of Good-neighborliness Culture

1

A kind of drama performed in Shanghai dialects.

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[Background] There are more than 5290 residents in the community. [Origin of the project] For cultivating good neighborhood relationship, neighborhood committee has visited many residents and proposed this project according to residents’ needs. The work of Good-neighborliness Culture Project has lasted for several years, including tug-of-war competition and nine compound games (covering playing marbles, rolling wheels, playing hopscotch, skipping rubber bands and other indigenous games in Shanghai), which are updated every year to attract residents to walk out of their homes and build a community of acquaintances. The neighborhood committee often revisited residents and found that residents were curious about the project and hoped to keep it. So officials proposed the project to get the fund from street government. The project was not released to residents for the time being. 3. [Shuangqiao neighborhood committee] Project of Home for the Elderly [Background] It is a community of housing replacement with 6,000 residents, more than 990 people over 60 years old. [Origin of the project] After visiting the activity room for the elderly in Jinqiao Bay neighborhood, the officials of this community decided to learn from it. Shuangqiao community had no space for the elderly. They recently fixed a house and is going to decorate it after several-year-long deliberation with estate developers. Considering that there are a large number of elderly people in the community, they decide to use the activity room for playing chess and cards, showing films, making handicraft art, carrying out legal consultation, resolving disputes and so on. They haven’t consulted with the local, for that the project has not been approved by the superior department. 4. [Jinqiao Bay neighborhood committee] Project of Home for the Elderly [Background] There are many elderly people living alone in this community [Origin of the project] The residents spontaneously proposed the project, and gave advice to the community. Through the renovation of an abandoned garbage house, Jinqiao Bay Community got a leisure room. The officials learned that the elderly were in urgent need of space for activities. Guided by the idea of Pudong Community Service Center, the “Open Space Seminar” was held in May, 2014. A total of more than 80 individuals, coming from the neighborhood, volunteers and related organizations, gathered together to discuss the use of room. The room was officially opened last year on Double Ninth Festival,2 a traditional Chinese festival in the ninth day of the ninth month in a lunar year, and it was managed by residents themselves and assisted by the neighborhood committee to realize residents’ self-governance. The residents regularly hold meetings twice a month, and give feedback on residents’ suggestions. 5. [Zhongda neighborhood committee] Project of Entrance Gate Installation [Background] It is still a community of housing replacement, adjacent to a vegetable market and the gate is always open without any securities. 2

A Chinese traditional festival in the ninth day of the ninth lunar month.

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[Origin of the project] Because the community is near a vegetable market, so more vehicles from the outside parked in after the road widened in 2013, and disordered parking was a common problem in the neighborhood. This caused sharp conflicts between customers and residents over vehicle parking So the Neighborhood Committee, together with Owners Committee, held a general meeting for consultation to put forward a solution. There was an intense split between residents and customers, so they proposed to install an entrance gate to increase public welfare by collecting fees customers’ parking. The self-governance fund will afford 40% and the property company 60%. The Owners Committee held a meeting of all owners to discuss the proposal and eventually more than two-thirds of residents agree on it. Then the staff made efforts to conciliate the owners who disagreed, and started to install the entrance gate. 6. [Hesan neighborhood committee] Project of Reading Club for the Elderly [Background] It is another community of housing replacement with a total population of 7400 people in which a large proportion is the elderly. [Origin of the project] The officials of neighborhood committee put forward the project according to residents’ hobbies. They found that the elderly were keen on sports and writing articles, so they consulted some elderly people.

4.4.2.2

Group 2. Interview Minutes: How to Choose a Project

1. [Zhengyi neighborhood committee] Three Projects: (1) To Build a Harmonious Neighborhood; (2) Self-management of Activity Room; (3) Environmental Protection Team: “Transforming Waste into Treasure”. [Background] The community harbors a population of nearly 5000 people, tens pf whom often visit the room. [Origin of the project] (1) The initiative to build a harmonious neighborhood has lasted for nearly 10 years because it was a commercial housing community in the early period, and there were many conflicts in the neighborhood. The community hopes to set up a “Neighborhood Care Card” to facilitate mutual help between neighbors, and gradually implemented in the whole community. Therefore, the community proposed it as an self-governance fund project. (2) The Self-management and Service of Activity Room resulted from the irregular management, and disordered use of public area and endless conflicts among the elderly. Therefore, some elderly people initiated to make rules for spontaneously cleaning the activity room, and taking care of equipment. (3) The environmental protection team of transforming trash into treasure learned from other communities and then took actions from top to bottom by calling up volunteers. 2. [Hewu neighborhood committee] Project of “Aunt Peng Council” [Origin of Project] At the beginning of 2013, the energy-saving window replacement caused some complaints among people. 11 members including volunteers, directors

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of self-governing buildings and resident representatives actively gathered together to participate in the coordination of the project every week in the name of “Aunt Peng Council”. Aunt Peng was influential and warm-hearted playing a role of the leader of volunteers, the elderly association member, and the woman representative. Later, “Aunt Peng Council” as a CPC party-building brand has absorbed many CPC members, hoping that Party members play a leading role as vanguards and models. In recent years, the council, standing for residents, mediates the conflicts such as the disorderly use of activity room. The Council adopts the mode of “Open Space”: On the 15th of each month, three members will collect discussing topics and determine the meeting agenda for this month together with neighborhood committee. On the 25th of each month, the topics will be released, and then the community invites the related inhabitants and volunteers to attend. On the 28th of each month, a regular deliberative meeting is held and all parties will come to resolve the conflicts. 3. [Lingba neighborhood committee] Project of Voluntary Security Patrol [Origin of the project] This project is proposed and organized by residents themselves. For Lingba is a commercial housing community with many thefts around, residents are spontaneous to join the patrol: two people a day, a total of 14 people participating in the patrol every week. They also advocate the civilized dog-keeping, helping to reduce the theft rate in the community. 4. [Yinqiao neighborhood committee] Project of Harmonious Neighborhood In terms of the political process, deliberative democracy focuses on the long-term formation process of the political opinions and will, as well as their communication in formal or nonformal public field. As a result, the deliberative democracy firmly supports the participation and requires a high level of participation to attain its ultimate goal of rationalizing the power operation. —Partlow De Greve: Deliberative Democracy and Punishment.

[Origin of the project] The officials of the neighborhood committee found that there were conflicts between the commercial house owners and the relocation house owners in this community. There were few neighborhood interactions and lots of barriers among inhabitants. Thereafter, they proposed to build a culturally harmonious community, where residents can make friends upon their hobbies. They even carry out knitting and planting activities and hold a charity sale and recycling activities. (Revised: Han Fuguo, Dai Min, Yang Xu)

4.4.3 Distributions of Project Materials in Advance The description of project materials is of great significance, otherwise, many officials and scholars, not to mention ordinary people, do not understand the government budgets with huge expenses and complexity. It was reported that some heads of the

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National Development and Reform Commission said they did not understand the budget report. Of course, besides the unauthentic translation of international terms, “vague words” can best explain it. The multiple deliberative procedures for democratic policy-making require project materials should be sent to participants for reading at least one week before the deliberative meeting, so as to help participants understand projects in advance. The preparation of materials requires the relevant government departments to provide their budget planning and the applicants to provide their project planning. At last, staff and experts could make a reader-friendly manual of projects. The relevant terminology should be as specified as possible but not exceedingly complicated, avoiding participants’ reading fatigue. Undoubtedly, we could never guarantee that the materials are definite to be read carefully by every participant. Putnam found that social capitals, including trust, regulation and networking, are essential to political stability, government performance and economic development. And social capitals are characterized by accumulation and self-reinforcement. The more the social capital is lacking, (where people are suspicious of each other, rebel against each other, vertically attach to each other, which is full of exploitation, partition, chaos, crimes and backwardness.), the less the people support and strengthen each other, that is the so-called Hobbs End. —Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Tradition in Modern Italy

By reading the project materials, a majority of participants have a clear and deep understanding of the social polling in the region. Many people, after being randomly selected, took the attitude of “having a try” toward the deliberative democracy in decision-making procedures. They were not interested in the matters of the region, and had no idea about the social polling. But once they participated, they would find that they must get some basic knowledge in order to have a voice in the deliberation. Otherwise, their opinions would appear to be “unreliable”. People will have an instinct of not being like a “fool” in public, so they would take the initiative to get to know others’ opinions. In many practices of projects, we have found that participants have obviously known more about basic social polling in the region than before after deliberations. For example, Puxing Road government sent out invitation letters and dispensed materials of the projects at the same time.

4.4.4 Invitation Dear Residents: It is the first time that our neighborhood committee tries to allocate some financial funds for deliberative democracy. You and other participants will be entitled to discuss and decide how to use them in the aspects of community culture, community service, community governance and others. You are one of the representatives selected from 180,000 people on Puxing Road through scientific random sampling. The deliberative democratic meeting is scheduled at 9: 00 on May 31, Sunday at the theatre on the second floor of Puxing Road

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Community Cultural Centre (No. 1473 Boxing Road). Throughout the deliberation, you, together with other selected representatives, are expected to voice your views on each project. And we have invited experts in related fields to answer your questions. Your opinion will directly determine which project could get the fund and be carried out. So your voice matters! People, who have participated in a deliberation like this, all think it interesting and valuable. And we sincerely look forward to your participation! On the day of deliberation, we are going to prepare a great variety of refreshments, a lunch and also exquisite small gifts. We sincerely hope that you could attend this deliberation and express your views on behalf of other residents. If you would like to attend the deliberation, we will send questionnaires and project materials to you ahead of the deliberation. Looking forward to your attendance!

4.4.4.1

Puxing Road Sub-District Office. May 18, 2015 (Official Seal)

On-Site Display of Projects There are too much “secret information” in China, and many government departments often use secrets as an excuse to cover the necessary information citizens should know, which gives birth to numerous senseless conflicts and triggers a plenty of illegal acts.

As mentioned earlier, although project materials were distributed in advance to representatives who decided to participate in the deliberation, many people may not have time or patience to read these materials carefully. Therefore, we are still not sure that the differences in project scores in the first and second questionnaires on the Deliberative Polling are on the basis of a full understanding of detailed information, probably just from “a few words” heard on the spot. If the projects could be displayed on a booth and poster on the deliberation day, the participants could effectively get the sufficient information. At the same time, due to a “check-in” procedure and randomly grouping, there is time to display the materials. It is convenient for participants who arrive early to go through the project information again and avoid the anxiety during the waiting process. On the morning of the deliberation day, Puxing Road Sub-district government set up a display platform for 24 projects at the venue. After checking in, participants were able to visit the display and exchanged their views about the contents, which contributed to reduce the anxiety and discomfort of participants who participated in the deliberation for the first time. In the practices of other projects, we found that some of the participants were agitated while waiting. An aunt said to me directly on the deliberation day on Gumei Road Sub-district: “The meeting should better start early. After that, I need to buy food to cook!”.

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Design of Project Materials As for discussions on public projects or policies, the details of project information are of particular importance. Therefore, we recommend that project materials should have a brief version and a detailed version, helping participants to understand them easily. In the previous records of return visits, it’s found that officials were under great pressure after releasing the financial details of projects. Many officials who have experienced deliberative democratic decision-making become sensitive to the details of financial allocation that they did not care in the past and read project materials more carefully, trying hard to avoid the awkward situations where participants could raise all kinds of questions that they find it hard to answer. The deliberation in Wenling and Yanjin both illustrate it in detail. Officials and other government staff, who experienced several deliberative and democratic decision-making processes, as well as community workers, all have become more confident and the majority of them would laugh at those colleagues who could not even explain the projects clearly. They have been more willing to talk about the projects with many media workers and researchers because they have been familiar with their subjects. Here we simply present the information framework of these projects and considering the length of the record, we have omitted specific financial budgets of the Puxing Projects.

4.4.4.2

Project Introductions of Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making Process of Residents’ Self-Governance Fund on Puxing Road

Project Overview: The first deliberative democracy polling was held on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area of Shanghai on May 31st, 2015. At the initial period, neighborhood committee adopted various ways to collect public opinions, such as mass forum, visiting residents, public announcement, Representatives Meeting, etc. Thereby, 43 projects were proposed to the street government. After examination by the technical group composed of workers from Pudong Community Service Center and Home Affairs Department, 24 projects were selected to enter into the deliberative democratic meeting according to whether the projects match the scope and using standard of the self-governance fund. “Communities are the heart of strengthening social management, the harbor of improving livelihoods, and the foundation of maintaining stability.” —Document of the Ministry of Civil Affairs of PRC on Further Promoting Harmonious Community Construction

Project Categories: 1. Five community service projects. The total budget is 110,155 yuan.

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2. 3. 4. 5.

4 Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making: Procedures …

Six community culture projects. The total budget is 81,031 yuan. Eight community governance projects. The total budget is 112,020 yuan. Five community reconstruction projects. The total budget is 124,555.3 yuan. The total budget in 2015 is 427,761.3 yuan.

1. Five Community Service Projects: A. Home for the Elderly in Jinqiao Bay: From March to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥39,825. Qing Shuiyuan residential quarter is a typical aging community. In 2014, the neighborhood committee, with the help of street government, built the Home for the Elderly to provide food aid, medical care, and other services, which is managed by residents themselves. In order to benefit more elderly people in the community, Home for the Elderly would further improve the services to more than 10 activities in 2015. At the same time, it would expand one-to-one care service for the elderly who live alone in the community. B. Courtesy Card for the Elderly in Jinze Yuan community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget amounts to ¥20,380. Jinze Yuan community is an old commercial housing, with the obvious aging phenomenon and the strong demand for home-based care. In March 2015, the neighborhood committee created the Courtesy Card for the Elderly providing warm-hearted cards for more than 160 spatial nest old persons with regular door-to-door voluntary services and medical services. The community also runs lectures and annual fitness festival for the elderly. C. Convenience Services in Dongsi Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥19,710. Recently, many aged residents report to neighborhood committee the difficulties in haircut and measuring blood pressure, and they spontaneously propose to the recruit skilled craftsmen and organize convenience services in the community. With more than a dozen individuals participating, there came the convenience service team, providing services covering blood pressure measurement, haircut, shoes repair, and so on. In deliberative democracy, citizens make use of public consultation to make decisions that is collectively bending. The attraction of deliberative democracy is derived from the commitment that is able to form into legal decisions with a high level of democracy. —Cristie Anhanod, The Corporatism, Pluralism and Democracy

D. “Silver-haired Mutual Assistance Team” in Lingyi Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥10,240. It is a typical aging community. To respond to the strong demand of home-based care services for the elderly, it is specially carried out focusing on providing 23 elderly people living alone with health consultation, blood pressure measurement, medicine delivering, and free haircuts. Art Performance is offered to old residents on Double Ninth Festival, a traditional Chinese festival. E. Home for Old Friends in Shuangqiao Community: From April to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥20,000. Shuangqiao is a resettlement area, with a lot of problems urgent to be addressed, such as safeguarding rights and property

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division, as well as the spiritual consolation for the elderly. The project mainly includes setting up rooms for chatting, reading, filming and consulting. And volunteers are organized to measure blood pressure, and build a variety of sports and interest groups. 2. Six Community Culture Projects A. Good-neighborliness Culture by Dongyi neighborhood committee (bridge over cultures and create acquainted community): From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥19,476. The problem of aging phenomenon is obvious in this community, and the neighborhood committee found that residents have a strong demand for harmonious neighborhood relationship. Multicultural activities have been planned, including knitting, chorus, dancing, and get-together, tug-of-war competition and some traditional games on big occasions. B. Build a Harmonious Community in Zhengyi Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥19,325. More than 60% of residents in the community are young white-collar workers all over China. Many of them, apart from their hometown, newly settle in Shanghai. In order to familiarize the residents with each other, neighborhood committee has implemented the project of “Neighborhood Care Card” since 2006. This year, the project will continue to fulfill the contents of “Neighborhood Care” including mobilizing 5 to 10 more floors to take part in Neighborhood Mutual Assistance Group and organizing a series of activities for “Neighborhood Festival”. In the model of deliberative democracy, the democratic decision-making is the result of rational public discussion between equal citizens. It is the communication depended on mutual understanding that helps to seek reasonable alternatives and make legal decisions. (Hendrix) The appropriate way to control the bureaucratic discretion is to conduct democratic consultation and implement the deliberative and democratic legislation mode. (Kristina)

C. Reading Club for the Elderly in Hesan Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥4,500. It is a resettlement area with a high proportion of aged people. The retired teachers organize reading salons and regular activities for the elderly. In addition, the club also offers regular medical consultation and blood pressure measurement services to its members. D. Shanghai Opera Salon in Jufeng Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥10,400. The Jufeng residential quarter mixes the resettlement area with commercial housing, and more than 60% of the population is old residents of land expropriation. The aged prefer Shanghai Opera, requiring establishing “Shanghai Opera Salon”. Every week they have a regular performance, and they will perform for locals on big occasions, such as spring festival, New Year’s Day, Double Ninth Festival, and so on. E. Red Sunset Chorus in Fushan Community: From March to December, the total budget is ¥20,000. It is a resettlement area with the aging phenomenon,

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so the residents are eager for diverse cultural activities. With the organization of Red Sunset chorus, the elderly who like singing could enrich their lives. The project contains activities of sing training, maintaining warm relationships on a regular basis. F. Build a Harmonious Neighborhood in Yinqiao Community: From April to December, the total budget is ¥7,330. This community is a mix of the resettlement housing and the commercial housing. Most of inhabitants are retired old people living alone who lack cultural activities. The project includes “Planting Love” group of flower-planting and the “Knitting Love” group carrying out regular exhibitions of knitting works, and it organize charity bazaar, and funds the residents in need. 3. Eight Community Governance Projects Unanimity in diversity is only to seek continuous cooperation in the course of cooperation, even if it is a continuation of the different. In the diverse society, it is not said that unity cannot be achieved by the reasonable public opening; On the contrary, compromise is not the inevitable result of public reason or discussion, but the ldeal of democracy. This idea is also not to seek the agreement of all citizens out of the same reason, but only requires that in the process of public deliberation, citizens can continue to cooperate and compromise. —James Bohman, Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity and Democracy, 1996

A. “Aunt Peng Council” in Hewu community: From May to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥12,600. The community is a resettlement residential quarter. The project aims at building a discussion platform for residents. And the council plays a critical role in mainly collecting public opinions, discussing major issues and reconciling opposite opinions over the key events in the community, and organizing dimensional activities, including repairing building roofs, pruning trees, establishing a new homeowners committee, and selecting the property management company. B. Sustainable Self-governance for Relieving Parking Difficulties in Lingwu Community: From February to November, the total budget is ¥25,000. This community is one old recreational residential quarter. Due to limited space, parking difficulties are intensified. After three-year-long renovation of charging for parking, raising funds by themselves, and increasing parking lots, parking difficulties have once been relieved. The project will solve the parking problems by filing vehicles and completing the vehicle management system to ensure parking orderly. C. Environmental Protection Team: “Transform Waste into Treasure” in Zhengyi Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥5,390. Zhengyi is one of the first to implement garbage classification on Puxing Road. The project has enhanced residents’ awareness of garbage classification and low-carbon environmental protection concept by issuing proposals, organizing activities, and training. Meanwhile, the earnings of recyclable garbage will be used to help the needy in their studies.

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D. Adjustment of Property Management Fees in Jiaoer Community: From January to December, the total budget is ¥20,008. On the basis of extensive consultation with house owners, they plan to adjust property management fees to serve the community better. E. E. Build Harmonious Neighborhood in Jinqiao Community: From April to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥19,740. The purpose of the “Harmonious Neighborhood” is to coordinate with the neighborhood committee to reconcile the conflicts to maintain a good relationship among the residents. Community conflicts can be solved by the residents’ self-governance. Practice sounds louder than everything. If we hadn’t done anything, we would have achieved nothing. There is no shortcut to the ideal life. —An Education

F. Voluntary Security Patrol in Lingba Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥2,570. The patrol consists of voluntary residents in the community and they handle the issues of security, health, environment, neighborhood disputes, parking, and others matters in the community such as raising dogs in a civilized way and cleaning up floating garbage in the fishing pool. G. “Thursday Patrol” in Lingsi Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥19,380. In response to the problems of inadequate property service and environment pollution, the environmental protection team made up of CPC members and volunteers, patrol everywhere and clean the grounds on Thursday morning. H. Self-management and Service of Activity Room in Zhengyi Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥19,380 yuan. Targeted at the orderly and regular management, a new management team is made up through recruiting volunteers to improve management services and finally enhance the environment, maintain public facilities, and reduce conflicts among the elderly. 4. Five Community Reconstruction Projects A. “Woodpecker Group” in Jiaoyi Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥24,500. Aifa Xindu is a high-end commercial housing in Jiaoyi community. The “woodpecker” patrolling group established in June 2013 is composed of community volunteers. The patrol group has received a number of feedbacks from warm-hearted residents that the community lacks resting seats which brings many inconveniences to residents, especially to the old people. The monthly public opinion polls and forums are conducted by the team. After field investigation, the project will mainly fund the installation of resting chairs and pavilions. B. Entrance Gate Installation and Parking Fee Collection in Zhongda Community: From March to September in 2015, the total budget is ¥23,800. The demands for the parking space in the community exceed the supplies. The careless parking brings potential dangers to the residents, especially the

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elderly and children, and most of the car owners refuse to pay for the parking. So the residents urge to reform the entrance guard system and charge for parking. The fund will be used to improve the auxiliary facilities of entrance system, confirm the owners’ vehicles registered and keeping out of external vehicles, and reallocate the parking space. The project calls for the houseowner representatives, volunteers, together with the property management company to obey these rules. C. Renovation of Leisure Area in Lingyi Community: From April to December, the total budget is ¥14,934.5. This community is an aging one, and the elderly hope to renovate the outdoor leisure area. The project covers newly painting the original steel structures, adding guardrails, adding toughened glass wall and two sets of tables and chairs, and implementing special management for the leisure area after renovation. D. Elderly Recreational Corridor for the Old in Jiaosan Community: From June to September in 2015, the total budget is ¥34,600. There is a great number of the elderly who like to sit around the crowded entrance that causes troubles to the movement of vehicles and the old. The project plans to renovate a desolate recreational space for residents, including building a leisure corridor within two months and setting up a few wooden benches, so that the elderly can relax, chat, drink tea, make friends, and enjoy their twilight years in a safe environment. E. Updating Leisure Facilities in Jinpeng Community: From January to December in 2015, the total budget is ¥26,720.8. The central garden square is a collection of exercise, leisure, and entertainment, but as exposed to sun and rain for many years, now it has been damaged that some dilapidated chairs may do harm to the residents at any time. Many residents have reported the problems to the property management company, house-owners committee, and neighborhood committee for many times. And this project will make use of self-governance fund to renovate leisure chairs.

4.5 Three Polls: Before, During, and After Deliberation A scientific analysis on questionnaires can avoid the analysts’ biased judgment and the participants’ distorted expressions to the greatest extent. Polls and media publicity in contemporary society are modern methods for people to voice their opinions. They are good, but they can also distort of public opinions or maybe themselves that lacks careful deliberation. Catherine Hoskins once believed that it was the value, ideas, and procedures of deliberative democracy that could resolve the problems faced by the European Union to the maximum extent. Based on the existing EU members’ fidelity to their own democratic practices and values, deliberative democracy can solve the present participatory problem, and even be open to differentiated viewpoints. The UK’s “Brexit referendum” in 2016, as well as the second referendum thereafter, illustrated that this process embodied

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democracy but no prudent deliberation, so that it made many people, even those who voted to exit, not accept the result.

The reason why we suggest integrating opinions with questionnaire surveys is to prevent public opinions in the heart-to-heart discussion from still being fragmented. At the same time, in the process of recording and sorting out the opinions, analysts may subjectively choose the opinions from the representatives, which cause information distortion. That was a serious theoretical problem when messages were delivered in the past. In particular, traditional forums dominated by governments may also collect a lot of public opinions, but when sorting written materials, staffs often intentionally choose the opinions they favor and tend to highlight leaders’ comments in the final report. Many of the participants felt that their opinions were not well reflected in the government’s decisions. Many leaders were often influenced by the biased summary reports and found that people were not happy with their decisions. The both sides may be trapped in a dilemma. Even in the process of multiple deliberative democratic decision-making, some people do not agree with others, they may still: . be reluctant to express their opposition in public; . give their approval in order to cater to others or not seem too unique; . be convinced instantly at first but regret later. How to figure it out? At this moment, the questionnaire surveys in deliberative democratic policy-making show its importance. The questionnaire can effectively measure the participants’ judgments after hearing different opinions, and remove the selective pressure under the majority advantage in public expression. Meanwhile, filling in the questionnaire can help people make careful and calm consideration. The source program of the deliberative democratic poll requires two surveys, including the first questionnaire before the materials are delivered to the participants, and the second one after finishing all deliberation. The participants’ opinions of projects, when lacking information, can be clearly seen in the questionnaire before they are exposed to materials, that provides a strong contrast with that after the exposure to the materials. But we believe that this is of little reference to the decisionmaking, because the objective of the approach is thoughtful and deep communication and integration of different viewpoints and interests, rather than a simple comparison. In the practices of multiple deliberative decision-making, we emphasize the quality of the deliberative decision-making and we should focus on “the changes of opinions on the basis of deliberation instead of the blind judgment without information”. Therefore, we suggest to take before-during-after questionnaire surveys: A questionnaire survey is now becoming a popular tool for public decisions and academic researches. However, without a scientific questionnaire design and sampling, the random questionnaire survey will be of no difference with traditional forum, which may result in “pseudo-quantitative research”.

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(1) questionnaires before contacting materials; (2) questionnaires after contacting materials and before deliberation; (3) questionnaires after deliberation. The design of the questionnaire can be carried out under the guidance of relevant experts, so as to keep the project materials consistent in the whole stage. The questionnaire should be concise and to the point, and ought to include the perception of deliberative process as well as the judgment of local knowledge.

4.5.1 Double-Blinded Trial: A Questionnaire Survey Before Materials We still advocate conducting a questionnaire survey before participants read the materials, which is a good way to judge participants’ perceptions of projects in the “original information state”. That’s certain that there is no “utter information ignorance”. The participants have their basic overall understanding of the area where they live. However, it is definitely different with that after reading detailed materials purposefully. Meanwhile, the first questionnaire also arouses interest and curiosity of participants in the projects that people heard before but don’t really know when being asked. Then the participants could take a closer look at the projects. This is the difference between the multiple deliberative democratic procedures and the Deliberative Polling.

4.5.2 Self-Judgment: A Questionnaire Survey After Exposure to Materials but Before Deliberation After exposing to the materials, the participants would have a different assessment for projects compared to that when they don’t read the material, which is a self-judgment phase for the participants. This assessment is an important indicator allowing participants to reconsider their own interests prudently. When reading the materials but still no communicating with others, the discussion has not happened yet. At this time, the participants’ assessment for projects is purely based on their own interests and knowledge. This assessment on the first questionnaire is an important starting point of the deliberative democratic process, constituting a consultative foundation for the participants’ changing views. Don’t ask the doctor what you should do; ask the doctor what he would do if he was in your condition. You will be surprised to see the difference. —Nicholas Taleb, “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder”

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99

4.5.3 Cognitive Judgment: A Questionnaire Survey After Deliberation The third questionnaire is the participants’ judgment on projects after the deliberation. It goes through the “Original Judgment” when one doesn’t know the information at all, the self-judgment after reading the materials, and eventually perceived judgment after deliberation. Three questionnaire surveys of the projects can let us quantify the concrete changes of public opinions accurately, and the results will then have a strong scientific persuasion. Many people worry about whether participants will get tired of three continuous questionnaires. We can’t keep someone from believing these questionnaires troublesome, but for most people who are really involved in the deliberative process, they will think that they are answering the questions in different phases, so that they will carefully choose the projects and observe with interest what changes may happen to the projects. Previous project trials have fully demonstrated that most of participants’ strong interests in the questionnaire.

4.5.4 Informed Decision-Making: Comparison of Opinions Before and After Deliberation If participants have consistently insisted on their same opinions on the projects in the questionnaires before and after deliberation, it indicates that those are their core interests. Many projects have shown the “consistency” of assessment before and after deliberation, but the consistent opinions after the deliberation have a real and solid identification. We do not expect radical changes in the attitudes of all the people. In fact, radical changes are neither possible nor necessary. Many worry too much about such issues as “what if people veto all the projects?” This is a lack of fundamental understanding of democracy. We also do not exclude and deny that there are some extreme views, but deliberative democracy is exactly to avoid simple majority voting or “democratic decision-making” on the basis of sufficient information and communication. It is at this point that a distinct definition of deliberative democracy is identified and there is a gap between it and political consultation. In order to make it convenient for local governments to make decisions and for residents to understand easier, it’s suggested that the statistics on the last two questionnaire surveys before and after deliberation is taken as foundation on public decisionmaking, and the first questionnaire should be taken as an explanatory material, or an incentive to mobilize the public (Tables 4.4–4.7). Democracy must always tolerate those people who keep dissenting, because there are no public decisions that can meet the preferences and needs of all. The Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach is different from one-time vote or one-time poll. It relies on prudent discussion and a scientifically quantitative process to ensure the

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Table 4.4 Analysis on comparison of deliberative democratic poll on residents self-governance funds on Puxing road (Projects 1–5) Number

1

2

3

4

5

Statistics No.

t1–1–1

t1–1–2

t1–1–3

t1–1–4

t1–1–5

Name

Jinqiao Bay Community: Home for the Elderly

Jinzeyuan Community: Courtesy Card for the Elderly

Dongsi Community: Serving People

Lingyi Community: “Silver-haired Mutual Assistance Team”

Shuangqiao Community: Home for Old Friends

The first time N= 114

102

98

101

102

95

Mean

8.06

7.07

7.65

7.45

6.81

Statistics No.

t2–1–1

t2–1–2

t2–1–3

t2–1–4

t2–1–5

The second time N = 116

109

106

108

101

106

Mean

7.15

6.55

6.48

7.26

7.35

Variation

–0.91

–0.52

–1.17

–0.19

0.54

Note Analyzed by Han Fuguo, etc., and data input by He Jing, Zhang Kaiping, and Gong Yifei, June 3, 2015

logics and validity of decision-making. When there is something wrong in selecting leaders based on the majority vote, it can rely on the next vote to correct errors. But in the decisionmaking, the expression of opinion in deliberative democracy goes beyond the result of the simple majority vote.

The quantitative changes on the attitudes are good ways to convince those dissenters who didn’t participate in the deliberative democratic decision-making process, or those who participated in but still held opposite opinions. In the communities on Puxing Road of Pudong New Area and Gumei Road of Minhang District in Shanghai, many people voluntarily watched the decision-making required the results to be explained. Local officials showed these quantitative changes and told the residents about the decision-making process. Finally, they showed their understanding to the decision-making process. Although some people did not agree on the results, they still relied on the scientific data. The understanding is exactly one of the biggest bases of policy legitimacy from democracy. Here’s a question to be discussed that how the quantitative results of questionnaire surveys get into the decisions. People put forward different views: Even the previous deliberation process goes through complete procedures, how to ensure the accuracy as scientificity of participants on the last questionnaire as discussed above, the pure and precise public views are the eternal pursuit of public decision-making and seem like a “bottomless hole”. However, the quantitative change in attitudes on projects is at least a possible guarantee of scientificity. The multiple deliberative democratic approaches seek to consider different opinions and to reach a decision-making on

7.26

6.55

t2–2–6

Mean

Statistics No.

t1–2–8

t1–2–9

9

–0.49

6.35

105

t2–2–9

6.84

103

Note Analyzed by Han Fuguo, etc., and data input by He Jing, Zhang Kaiping, and Gong Yifei, June 3, 2015

0.2

7.04

6.66

–0.6

6.49

–0.06

Mean

104

t2–2–8

6.84

96

109

t2–2–7

Variation

The second time 110 N = 116

96

94

The first time N = 114

t1–2–7

8 t1–2–10

10

t1–2–11

11

–0.44

6.12

105

t2–2–10

6.56

95

–0.05

6.3

99

t2–2–11

6.35

96

Zhengyi Hesan Community: Jufeng Community: Pushan Community: Yinqiao Community: Community: Build a Reading Club for the Shanghai Opera Red Sunset Chorus Build a Harmonious Harmonious Elderly Neighborhood Salon Community

t1–2–6

Dongyi Community: Build a Good-Neighborliness Culture

Statistics No.

Name

7

6

Number

Table 4.5 Analysis on comparison of deliberative democratic poll on residents self-governance funds on Puxing road sub-district (Projects 6–11)

4.5 Three Polls: Before, During, and After Deliberation 101

109

6.05

107

6.44

–0.23

The second time N = 116

Mean

Variation

7.9

–1.06

6.17

109

t2–3–14

7.23

96

Zhengyi Community: Environmental Protection Team: transferring waste to treasure

t1–3–14

14

–2.08

5.02

103

t2–3–15

7.1

102

Jiaoer Community: Adjustment of Property Management Fees

t1–3–15

15

–0.91

5.8

108

t2–3–16

6.71

96

Jinqiao Bay Community: Build a Harmonious Neighborhood

t1–3–16

16

Note Analyzed by Han Fuguo, etc., and data input by He Jing, Zhang Kaiping, and Gong Yifei, June 3, 2015

–1.85

t2–3–13

6.67

t2–3–12

107

93

The First time N= 114

Mean

Lingwu Community: Self-governance in Parking Difficulties

Hewu Community:“Aunt Peng Council”

Name

Statistics No.

t1–3–13

t1–3–12

Statistics No.

13

12

Number

–0.76

6.9

104

t2–3–17

7.66

99

Lingba Community: Voluntary Security Patrol

t1–3–17

17

–0.16

6.07

107

t2–3–18

6.23

95

Lingsi Community: “Thursday Patrol”

t1–3–18

18

Table 4.6 Analysis on comparison of deliberative democratic poll on residents self-governance funds on Puxing road sub-district (Projects 12–18)

102 4 Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making: Procedures …

Jiaosan Community: Leisure Corridor for the Old

98

Zhengyi Community: Self-management of Activity Room

94

6.71

t2–3–19

97

5.93

–0.78

Name

The first time N = 114

Mean

Statistics No

The second time N = 116

Mean

Variation

20

21

–0.48

6.95

106

t2–4–21

7.43

100

Jinpeng Community: Updating Recreation Facilities

t1–4–21

22

–2.04

4.8

101

t2–4–22

6.84

97

Zhongdayuan Community: Entrance Gate Installation and Charging for Parking

t1–4–22

Note Analyzed by Han Fuguo, etc., and data input by He Jing, Zhang Kaiping, and Gong Yifei, June 3, 2015

–0.26

7.28

109

t2–4–20

7.54

t1–4–20

19

t1–3–19

Number

Statistics No.

24

6.86 –0.62

–0.96

105

t2–4–24

7.48

101

Lingyi Community: Renovation of Leisure Area

t1–4–24

5.52

105

t2–4–23

6.48

95

Jiaoyi Community: Aifa “Woodpecker Patrol”

t1–4–23

23

Table 4.7 Analysis on comparison of deliberative democratic poll on residents self-governance funds on Puxing road (Projects 19–24)

4.5 Three Polls: Before, During, and After Deliberation 103

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the basis of fully informed discussion. Participants and decision-makers are trusted with chance to think carefully and deliberate equally. We can also measure the quality of the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach by the attitude changes of attitudes on the projects in three questionnaires, that is, participants in the course of participation: . Do the participants increase the understanding of the areas and groups involved in public decision-making projects? . Do the participants feel that there are sufficient opportunities for expression in the deliberative process rather than being controlled by certain persons? . Do the participants believe that governments value the results of the deliberative democratic decision-making? . Is there an enhancement of the participants’ ability to participate in public affairs, both for themselves and other people? In some places, participants vote on the spot right after the deliberation. The voting model is more straightforward and more representative of democracy. For example, in Yanjin County of Yunnan Province, the “Masses Participation in Budget” took the method of on-the-spot vote.

4.5.4.1

Rules of Masses Participation in Budget in Dousha Town of Yanjin County, Yunnan Province

(5) A secret ballot is expected with the assistance of ballot examiner, recorder, and tally clerk selected on spot. After the vote is finished, they shall open the box to record, count the votes, and announce results. One half or more of the votes of each project shall be deemed as approved, and the project shall be included in the budget of this period. Voting results are summarized by the Town Reform Working Group. The approved projects will be listed in the Budget, as the basis of fund arrangement for the financial department. Other projects which have not received half or more votes will no longer be included in the budget. Modern society should remain alert to what claims to be a package solution to the issue of the society development, which is often another political “trap”, rather than “the Gospel”.

4.5.4.2

Rules of Mass Participation in Budget at Zhonghe Town of Yanjin County

(4) On-the-spot voting. After all the project statements and discussions are finished, and revised, the representatives vote on each project in turn. The vote is conducted in a “one person, one vote” manner for each project. (5) Counting the votes in public. When the vote is over, the staffs call out, scrutinize and count balloting.

4.6 Group Discussion: Skilled Moderator

105

(6) Releasement of the results. Projects with 1/2 or more votes are deemed to be approved. Article 12 The approved projects shall be sorted according to the percentage of votes and the funds shall be allocated depending on the total amount of budget in the current year. When the total amount of project funds exceeds the budget amount of the year, the funds for the approved projects may be adjusted accordingly. The other projects will be disqualified in the current year. This method of decision-making by voting, with the deliberative step, goes beyond the simple majority voting in the past. It allows a communication of opinions and inquiry of information, but it is still impossible to draw a precise judgment on cases before and after deliberation. Especially when there are disagreements, simply voting without deliberation is not convincing scientifically, and possibly return to the “voting dilemma” mentioned above. At the same time, it is impossible to judge whether the decision-making outcomes comply with the basic rules and requirements of deliberative democracy.

4.6 Group Discussion: Skilled Moderator The deliberative or special discussion includes the serious measurement of a person’s interests in favor of or against a certain set of proposals, or the measurement of this inner process. —Elster

Collective decision-making and simple majority voting, which lack of deliberation, focus on maximizing individual benefits and minimizing costs and neglecting public interest. It’s the deliberation that let the participants pay attention to public benefits and others’ voices. . What kind of benefits can everyone get? . What’s the price for these benefits? . Is there positive feedback on the price? Only those willing to speak with you in good faith are able to resolve the conflicts, and make both parties benefit from resolution. A skilled moderator can ensure that everyone has equal opportunities to voice and prevent a few persons from controlling the whole discussion. The deliberative procedures “give every citizen equal opportunity to express their opinions and identify others’ views; They ensure the dialogue to be free and open, and agree with ‘the power of the best view’.” —James Burman

Some people argue that the presence of a moderator would negatively affect the participants’ discussion to some extent, no matter how neutral the moderator appears in the deliberative process. Especially those moderators with a strong desire of control

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can’t help dominating other people’s opinions. This is clearly reflected on the moderator in Zeguo Town, who paid too much attention to creating a warm atmosphere, and consequently many participants were often distracted by his humorous and funny words. (There are different views and judgments on this point). Besides the fact that the moderators in the previous deliberative poll have got to abide by the rules, He Baogang and others specially tested the different rules and requirements for moderators. That is, they set up the “regular group of moderators” and “rational group of moderators”. The moderators of the regular group shall do as follows: . The moderator should emphasize on etiquette and politeness of the representatives; . The moderator should avoid the overreaction and rudeness of participants when speaking; . The moderator should ensure that the representatives express themselves adequately in each round, and enjoy equal opportunities and rights to speak; . The moderator should encourage participants to express views from their own perspectives (individual interest, personality). The moderator of the rational group should do as follows: Self-governance and participation are two powerful levers for the development of Chinese democracy. We expect that people have more self-governance innovations, find more “leaders of public opinion”, cultivate more self-conscious and positive self-governance habit, and generate a stronger motive force of self-governance in China.

. The moderator should encourage representatives to discuss on the behalf of the village, town, and other large groups, as well as to take into account the interests of others. The moderator should actively promote the representatives to discuss rationally on public affairs; . The moderators should ask the participants in small groups to state the reasons for their viewpoints with the aid of principles, the facts, and evidence. In our past practices, teachers in primary and secondary schools were generally invited as moderators, for that they acquired excellent skills just like teaching in class. In the practices of other places, some scholars put forward that whether they are the professional moderators or teachers and students, they all lack understanding on the localities. “In democratic deliberations aiming at revolving social conflicts, this flaw is almost irreparable” (Tan Huosheng). In 2009–2010, one district in Huizhou, Guangdong Province held a democratic deliberation on the issue of the petitioning from a woman married to a non-local. During the deliberation, a postgraduate acted as the moderator. Although there was an impartial and neutral result, the moderator did not know the conditions of village or the nature of the specific problem, and thus didn’t know how to resolve the conflicts. Village officials proposed that if the elder in the village were the moderators, it may be more effective.

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Referring to the initial concept of deliberative democracy, moderators can appropriately supplement the basic knowledge related to the projects. And when some people are confused, the moderators should guide them to read the materials, which serve as the basis for discussion. However, they definitely do not undertake the task of “resolving conflicts”, so we do not know how that requirement for the moderator was generated. There may be the stereotype that moderators should work like CPC officials and to solve all the social conflicts.

4.6.1 Compliance With Rules of Discussion “All forms of democracy require certain forms of communication to enable people to understand matters and make decisions” (Fishkin). The practices of the multiple deliberative democratic approaches need to give out the materials and the participation rules in advance so as to concentrate on the particular matters at the deliberative meeting. That is, the “one-topic-one-time”, “not to deviate from the topic”, and strictly follow the “rules of discussion”. Of course, if the moderators of the small groups and plenary session have the knowledge of Robert’s Rules of Order, they can carry out the work very well. Several rules of Robert’s Rules of Order have been consciously invoked in the informal talks on the budget in Zeguo Town for many years: Statements can only be in relation to the projects; One statement raises one question; After one opinion, opposite statements shall be given priority; Each statement is limited to three minutes. ……

Strict training on procedures is indispensable for moderators to learn how to stay neutral and impartial in the deliberation. So are simulated discussions. In the practices of Puxing Road and Zhenxin Road of Shanghai, they specially conducted the simulation after the training for the moderators, and the effect was relatively good. But even so, some moderators still forgot their roles and couldn’t help participating in the discussion, and trying to control the process. There may be two reasons: . For one, the moderator knows more about community’s public affairs, so they can’t help expressing his/her opinion; . For the other, the university students as moderators may ask the participants about their opinions on his/her research topics. Even the trained moderators may still face these problems. Therefore, the organizers should attach great importance to avoid them as far as possible. A mature moderating team is a valuable resource for the local affairs, especially deliberative democracy. From another aspect, if a region has a tradition of democratic deliberation, it is easier for a trained moderator to remain neutral.

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I always think tolerant attitude is more important than freedom, more fundamental than freedom. We can also say that tolerance is the root of freedom. If there is no tolerance in the society, there will be no freedom. This is true all over the world: without tolerance, there will be no freedom. People always believe that their thoughts are correct, their considerations are right, and their faiths are good: it is the source of all intolerance. —Hu Shi, “Tolerance and Freedom”

The small group discussion requires participants to listen to other opinions. Just because they have read the materials in advance, it can prevent the deliberative democratic decision-making from turning into “a meeting of participants grumbling”. The moderators can also prevent some community elites, or some town residents with too many tough opinions from being “microphone hog”. In our early practices, we found that the more grassroot level the deliberative decision-making was on, the more likely “acquaintance society” they were in, so even if the participants were randomly selected, they still tended to gossip about small household affairs. Self-introduction before the small group discussion is also a chance to “say hello” to each other. The experienced moderators can properly adjust the atmosphere of deliberative meeting, but in the discussion of specific projects, they must strictly keep the rules. In fact, even among acquaintances, people have different opinions when it comes to specific projects. The quintessence of democratic decision-making is not simply to oppose for the sake of opposition. By democratic participation, people can learn to preserve their own interests while also show sympathy to others’, and then reach a compromise in a way that would be helpful to all parties. As a result, deliberative rules help everybody express different opinions and a “hurting” quarrel would be averted. What Chinese grassroots democracy needs to concentrate on is to treat a matter as a case of study and illustration without reflection on any particular person guided by democracy rules. What is in contrast to this is political consultation without rules, and discussion without essential respect. That may evolve into a style of “the Great Cultural Revolution”—“Speaking loudly, Expressing broadly and Arguing fiercely”. In the end, society broke up in discord, with manpower and money wasted, and participants lost enthusiasm for public participation in the future. For people in any society, their ability to participate in deliberations can only be strengthened through constant training and gradually reach a state where everyone’s interests coexist, and extensive public interest come true.

4.6.2 Formation of Focuses of Opinions I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. —Voltaire (reputed for the “King of French Thought”, “The Most Excellent Poetess of France”, “The Conscience of Europe” and “The Flag of the Enlightenment Movement”)

In the final quantitative integration of project scores, we can clearly find the different focuses of social groups in the small group discussions. For example:

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Integration of Randomly Selected Participants’ Opinions

Integration of Community Workers’ Opinions Integration of Community Officials’ Opinions

Decision-making Referring to Integrated Opinions

Integration of Experts’ Opinions

Integration of Opinions

Comparison of Multi-group Deliberative Opinions

Integration of Voluntary Participants’ opinions

Integration of Ordinary Officials’ opinions

Chart 4.1 Chart of multi-group deliberative opinions

. The deliberative results of the group based on the random sample of the whole population may focus on whether or not the budget allocation of each project is fair; . The deliberative results of the group of community workers may be more focused on whether the needs of specific group are supported; . The deliberative results of the group of government officials maybe more focused on the integration of government planning and the feasibility of the projects. . The deliberative results of the group of experts and social organizations may focus on whether the future developments are reflected. The comparison of the multi-group deliberative opinions can provide a comprehensive and differentiated opinion bank for public decision-making. It varies from the traditional one-sided interests expressed by the appointed participants or petitioners. As we mentioned earlier in random sampling, how much these opinions of different groups weigh in the final integration should be empowered by the specific project, and we can design a reasonable formula for it. This depends on the experience of local officials and the specific hierarchical structure in the region (Chart 4.1).

4.6.3 Avoiding Polarization of Attitudes Deliberative democracy seeks to prevent the polarization of attitudes in public discussion and participation. Even though an obvious regional interest competition for the projects, the compromise cannot be reached, and the final deliberative results show that the “consensus after deliberation” can still be achieved effectively even facing serious disputes. With good rules of discussion and the orderly guidance of neutral moderators, obvious polarization on attitudes can be basically avoided in small and large group deliberations. Even in deliberative policy-making on competitive projects, we find

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that the “polarization phenomenon”, a common problem in the general competitive democratic discussion without deliberation, is avoided in the final results. We can look at the group records of projects on Puxing Road.

4.6.3.1

Record of Deliberative Democratic Poll on Projects of Puxing Road in Pudong New Area, Shanghai (Records of Group 6)

Moderator: Zhang Yingfu, Recorder: Zhang Kaiping Group Members: 12 people, 5 women and 7 men; Time: May 31, 2015 (starting at 9: 30 a.m.) The core of democratic process lies in the discussion of public interests, rather than arguing over the benefits of individuals. Unlike the calculation conducted from the angle of maximizing the private utility, citizens change their preferences through public deliberation, to conform to the objectives of the public orientation, and jointly demonstrate the nature of these objectives and the best method to achieve them. —Iris Marion Young, Communication and Others: Transcending Deliberative Democracy.

Moderator: Today we have two discussions. In the morning, we will discuss the first 12 projects and raise one or two questions to the experts, and in the afternoon, we will discuss the last 12 projects. After finishing discussions of 24 projects, each person should fill in an anonymous questionnaire to express your views. Your opinion will determine how the street government allocates public funds. Your opinion is very important. In order to ensure an orderly discussion, the rules are introduced first: . This is an opportunity for everyone to learn from each other. Speak freely about the topics; . Respect everyone’s statements, listen carefully, and do not interrupt others; . Everyone’s opinions are valid. There will be different opinions, which needn’t be consistent; . Speak and express your views freely according to your own circumstances. The participants introduced themselves: Ms Gu from Shuangqiao Community (female, about 40 years old, No. 1): The facilities in my community are scarce and need to be improved, and the activity areas for the elderly need to be increased. Mr Le from Shuangqiao Community (male, about 70 years old, No. 2): Living in a big community with more than 1,200 residents, I apply for setting up an leisure room for the elder. Mr Li from Hesan Community (male, 30 years old, No. 8): This kind of discussion is very new. I am interested and support the projects of my own community. …… × × × from Hesan Community (unidentified name) (male, 35 years old, No. 9): I come to study.

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One should preserve his grave bearing, as if deep in thought; His wording should be prudent, showing his calmness. His writing should be concise, And his reply should be considerate. When listening to others’ words, he should think them rational or not; When looking at others’ face, he should observe their countenances. When being consulted, he should give them good suggestions and encourage them to behave well. —“Chinese Classic Thousand Words”, (One Famous Chinese Book of Traditional Culture)

× × × (unidentified name) (male, 40 years old, No. 10): Care for public welfare. …… Moderator: Let’s start with the first project. Have you ever read the materials? (After a few seconds of silence, an elderly representative from Jinqiao Bay Community was the first to speak) Elderly Participant of Jinqiaowan Community: I am concerned about our community’s project. I hope you will also care about Jinqiao Bay Community. There are many elderly people, many living alone. This project is good, and the team is reliable in including officials and volunteers. Mr Le from Shuangqiao Community: There are 1824 households in Shuangqiao Community. The existing space cannot meet the needs of the elderly. The elderly do not have a leisure room. I’m very eager for the street government to help build a place for the elderly. Elderly people like to drink tea, do recreational activities, keep fit and consult. This is good for the physical and mental health of the elderly. However, the old can only exercise in the entrance. As an old person, I have a strong hope that there is a place for us to have a gathering and enjoy retirement. This project has been proposed before, but has been canceled. Today, we will discuss this project and promote the implementation of it. I am over 70 years old. As a representative of 1824 households, I hope to take this chance to do a good deed. (Simple responses from other communities and discussion of project budget in Shanghai dialect) …… A Participant from Hesan Community: (try to voice for his own community) There are a large number of people in my community with more than 2700 households, the situation is complicated. First, the community needs a reading club for the elderly. When I took part in reading club as a child, my spirit can be improved though I was not rich. I felt not being abandoned by the society. The reading club matters on the construction of the community, and it can fight against bad phenomena and enhance positive energy. Second, we contribute to the media and the magazine of our own street. We’ve done a good job in this part. Third, medical advice is needed by the elderly. Communication by reading books and newspapers does accord with Premier Li Keqiang’s thought of “forming the atmosphere of reading for all Chinese people”. I hope you can support Hesan community to improve our level of spiritual and cultural life.

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An elderly Participant: You speak very well. I support you. The reading club is good. …… (Silence. Everyone continues to look through the materials) Moderator: I hope that you can not only voice for your own community, but discuss all the projects. A Participant: Please turn to Page 27. There are materials of Sunset Chorus. The old people’s cultural and art life is necessary, and I support them. The fund is not much, so the demand of spiritual civilization can be supported. (Another participant found that he had a different version of materials, and began to complain about that. The moderator contacted the working staff and said that the project would be suspended and discussed later. ) The moderator once again encouraged everyone to express their opinions: Everyone can express his opinions on the projects, whether you think it is good or not. …… Dialogue is the essence of democracy. It is a kind of common politics, but not a kind of hostile politics. It encourages and values the personality rather than strengthens the people who have been solid in an opposite position. —Beth J. Singer

Participant Zhang: I think the project of “Courtesy Card for the Elderly” on page 4 is quite good. If elders have difficulties, we need to help them well-directly. The other projects are spiritual appeals, but this is a material one. Life of the old men living alone is tough. I don’t live in this community, but I think it’s a good project. One Participant: Some elderly people lack spiritual comfort. We cannot rely entirely on the street government. Some elderly people invest in stocks, and they are very rich. Participant Zhang: They communicate with volunteers about funds. This is a reflection of the virtue “respecting the aged and taking care of children”. But they should make it clear how many people that do need help. …… Moderator: I think the collision of opinions was very good. Let’s continue to discuss the topics. (Everyone continued to look at the materials. The topic on the elderly people’s stock was slightly deviated from the projects. The moderator reminded of participants to focus on the 12 projects, while other topics can be communicated after the meeting) Participant No. 9: In terms of the elders’ chorus, there is no question about buying an accordion. But to visit other communities later, especially four times, really costs too much money. The cost of employing professional teacher is very expensive. After all, we have many amateur volunteers. Spending money on transportation, tea, and that sort of things is irrational. (A lot of participants agreed on this opinion.) Participant No. 7: It makes sense.

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Participant No. 11: The elder people do want recreation. But who will pay the professional teachers if they are employed? Participant No. 3: Just teach yourself. Participant No. 6: But you said just now that the elder people don’t lack money (objection). Participant No. 3: If you really want them to pay, the elder may not come. Moderator: Then let’s go through the projects one by one. How about the Serving Team of Dongsi Community? Moderator: If you have any suggestion, please talk about it later. Now put it aside. Next one. …… Participant Zhang: Some projects are good, but investments on them are not necessary for them. The No. 11 get-together costs ¥3000? Moderator: Today there are no right or wrong views, only different views. It costs ¥2000 for a symposium of Project No 3. The budget is not detailed. Participant Zhang: As long as the elders are helped warmheartedly, and money is spent without waste. …… Moderator: How about the project of building the Good-neighborliness Culture in Dongyi community? Do you have any ideas? What about Zhengyi project? Participant No. 4 (Zheng Yujing): The project of prolonging life has already gotten fund from the government. Please look at page 21, the articles14 and 15. …… Moderator: Let us ask the experts in plenary session. One Participant: The Red Sunset Chorus of Hesan community wants to visit others and learn from experience, but hiring professional teachers may be not worthy. Participant No. 1: What is the training content of the elderly volunteers in Jinqiao Bay Community? Participant No. 4: Repeated funds are used in Zhengyi project. Participant No. 2: The cost of Lingyi project is listed too roughly. Afternoon Session (3 participants absent, starting at 1: 30 p.m.) Moderator: We still discuss the projects one by one. How about the project of self-governance in parking difficulties in Lingyu community? The moderator asked Participant No. 1 (Ms. Gu): You didn’t seem to speak much in the morning. Just say whatever you think, or a word is okay. (No. 1 smiled but said nothing.) Participant No. 4: The money was spent too much. The property management company should have the maintenance fund. Participant No. 1: The maintenance fund is used for housing repairing Participant No. 2: Parking space. (Participants started arguing in Shanghai dialect and the minute-taker did not understand. Although they discussed warmly, it was deviated. The moderator asked them to focus on the particular projects.) Moderator: Is this project reasonable? Are there anything to be improved?

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Participant No. 1: Are the budget, measures, and methods reasonable? Do the residents really need it? It’s a good piece of advice, but the implementation may be a problem. Moderator: What is the problem? Do you have specific opinion? Participant No. 3: Build more parking sheds for electric bicycles. (Then explain to others the project of his community) Moderator: So, what about the project of Environmental Protection Team in Zhengyi community? One Participant: Pretty good. We can allocate some funds to the project. Moderator: Deliberation need us to discuss, and all of you would better express your opinions about the expenditure. Let’s deliberate and learn from each other and build our communities together. One Participant: We can consider the rationalityy and urgency of the project. One point is unreasonable for the cost is too high. Participant from Zhengyi Community: I think we should respect each community. After all, it is the first attempt for us to deliberate our issues. As for the establishment of the project and the residents’ demand for them, we should have full confidence and give space for the new things to grow. On page 56, about Zhongda Community: The property management company is responsible for the entrance in the commercial housing area, so they should take charge of the hardware. The volunteers are organized by neighborhood committee. So the self-governance fund should not pay the project. Participant No. 7: The management of commodity housing is chaotic, but the old community is well managed. (People began to talk about the middle, big and small communities) Moderator: There is no right or wrong. You can speak out on any issues. One Participant: There is a security patrol project on page 43. How about setting up a security patrol in our community? Valadez speaks highly of multiple deliberative democracy. He pointed out: “The establishment of long-standing and fair multiple deliberative democracy is very essential, so that to promote the mutual understanding and cooperation between different cultural groups. Consultation has the function of coordinating the relationship between the multicultural citizens and the state, and realizing the political, economic and cultural self-determination of the minor groups.” (Valadez, Deliberative Democracy, Political Legitimacy, and Self Determination in Multicultural Societies)

Moderator: Do you have any additional comments on the 12 projects in the afternoon? The right of participation will expire. We need to use it properly, because next time you may not be selected. …… Moderator: Thank you for your active participation to help achieve deliberative decision-making. The projects are closely related to everyone, and you all are enthusiastic. I hope that you continue to pay attention to community affairs, make valuable comments and suggestions, and participate in community management. Overall impression on this small group discussion:

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a. The moderator was very responsible and maintained a consistently neutral stand. b. Participants mainly strove for funds, and wanted to canvass for their own communities. c. Everyone keeping silent and looking down at the materials for a lot of time. They should read them in advance and give more time to the projects. d. The discussion was not sufficient and many projects were cot covered. e. Participants paid a lot of attention to the project budgets of other communities. f. Some people spoke more and led the discussion, while other people, mostly women, rarely spoke. Note: Revised by Han Fuguo. The minute-taker, for convenience of recording as well as local dialect, marked those representatives with numbers when he did not remember the names. In order to guarantee the originality of records, we selected some to present here, and the omitted records were replaced by ellipses. We did not revise them one by one according to the records, only paying attention to the smoothness of sentences.

4.7 Plenary Session: Interaction Among All Participants The plenary session is very important in the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach because officials have never experienced being questioned by ordinary representatives in public. They are accustomed to being questioned by the leading body at a higher level. If we regard the modern democracy as the power by people, officials should be responsible for answering people’s questions on public affairs.

4.7.1 Plenary Session for Further Deliberation After the first round of small group deliberation, each group raises 2 to 4 questions, submit to the plenary session (larger group) for further discussion. They can ask the expert panel consisting of decision-makers and technical experts, to further understand the projects, namely “Q&A”. If the group wants to submit more than two topics to the plenary session, a unanimous vote must be taken by all group members. In plenary session of multiple deliberative democratic decision-making, each group can not only raise questions to the expert panel, but all participants interact on these questions appropriately in order to facilitate themselves to further understand each other’s attitudes and opinions. After questions raised by small groups, the moderator in the plenary session shall invite expert panel to answer questions. Experts can be assigned to answer in due course. The expert expresses his opinion only on the technical information of the decision-making, and each participant, with the technical assistance of expert panel,

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can look into information of projects and make his own judgment in the second or third questionnaires and the next small group talks. The moderator in the plenary session should have better ability in coordination. He/she cannot subjectively control the speech, and should pay attention to the deliberative atmosphere, so as to prevent the “attitude polarization” in the plenary session. At the same time, it is necessary to avoid repeating the same questions and views, so as to ensure the equality of free speech and promote the overall deliberative effect. Meanwhile, the urgent questions posed by small groups make the opinions expressed in the plenary deliberation more focused. The plenary discussion provides a larger range of opinions and interaction between officials and participants that allows individual interests to take the second place to public interests after group consultations.

4.7.1.1

Plenary Session of Deliberative Democratic Poll on Residents Self-Governance Fund on Puxing Road in 2015

Group 1: 1. The projects of Zhongda and Jiaoer communites are all the work of the property management company, outside the range of self-governance fund; 2. The project “Build a Harmonious Neighborhood” of Jinqiao Bay community is the daily work of neighborhood committee; 3. In the project “Build Bond of Love” of Yinqiao neighborhood committee, we hope professionals to guide us to plant flowers and do knitting, and the cost of guidance should be covered in the budget; 4. The purchase of books and newspapers in project of Reading Club for the Elder of Hesan community is one-off and there is no long-term intention for subscription and fee in the planning. Democracy does not need absolute equality, but needs the same kind of living to be shared by the nation. What is important is that people with different backgrounds and social positions can meet and interact in the daily life, because only in this way can we learn to overcome and tolerate each other’s differences, and care about the common interests. —Michael Sandel, “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets”.

Group 2: 1. The project of Harmonious Neighborhood in Jinqiao community is very necessary, but the budget is relatively vague. They should refine the budget and tell us how this project can be implemented. 2. How to use and manage project funds? How to make the project more refined? Group 3: 1.

As for the project of Entrance Installment in Zhongdayuan community and “Sustainable Self-governance for Relieving Parking Difficulties” in Lingwu

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community, Adjustment of Property Management Fees in Jiaoer community, the same questions go to who should pay for the expenses of holding the owners committee and installing the security access system are not suitable to apply for the self-governance fund. 2. What is the “Aifa Woodpecker Patrol” of Jiaoyi Community for? According to the budget, most of the funds are used in the construction of leisure chairs and pavilions. How is it related to the patrol? 3. Do volunteer subsidies need to be canceled? 4. The projects are all very good, designed by neighborhood committee according to the needs of residents. The key question is whether all the projects can be funded and whether there is a fund limit. Group 4: 1.

In terms of the project “Adjustment of Property Management Fees “proposed by Jiaoer Community, why should the government get involved in such matters? Why should self-governance fund pay for it? 2. In the project of “Build Harmonious Neighborhood” in Jinqiao Bay community there are officials in charge of mediation in daily work. Why is it listed separately? 3. The funds can be allocated to the communities who propose projects. It’s unfair to those communities without projects and funds for major holidays shall be planned together by the government; 4. Most of the projects are nice, but their budgets are too high. Some budgets are unreasonable and some are dispensable. Group 5: 1. All the proposed projects should be divided according to the community’s responsibilities. Work belonging to the property management company should be done by themselves, not by neighborhood committee; 2. There are some cultural teams and facilities in the community culture projects. How should the cost be balanced, as some communities have long-standing cultural teams and some have just proposed such teams? 3. Is it necessary to budget for certain items in the community service project such as dyeing hair, weeding, etc.? Group 6: 1.

The Patrol is not closely related to the hardware facilities. Is it necessary to build the patrolling team? 2. Please explain why the entrances are paid by self-governance funds; 3. Is there a repetition in the use of funds in Zhengyi Community (project 14.15)? Group 7: 1.

Please explain whether it is necessary to set an environment protection team and how to ensure its implementation? 2. Part of parking fees in Zhongda community can be used to pay for their project, why do they apply for the public fund?

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3.

Is there a unified standard for the voluntary subsidies (some 40 Yuan, some 20 yuan)? And how to use them? There are clothing and other problems in budget; 4. How to ensure fairness in disbursement and management of the funds? Group 8: 1. Why does Zhongda Community only install the entrance system in one residential area? 2. For many projects, such as Lingwu Community to solve the parking difficulties, and Zhongda Community to install the gate entrance,should the property management company or the public self-governance fund pay for them? For projects, we should ask them specifically why they let neighborhood committee, rather than property company to do these jobs? 3. The budget of Dongsi Community is unrealistic: (1) There are too many sphygmomanometers; (2) too many haircut tools; (3) Do they need volunteer gifts? Group 9: 1.

How to reflect residents’ participation in the formation of projects? How does neighborhood committee select the residents with specialties to participate in the project and budget design? 2. The objective of the project “Renovation of Leisure Area” in Lingyi Community is to “polish the original steel frame with new paint”, but the budget of the project is ¥3000 for baking finish, and how to determine the cost of other hardware projects? How to verify the labor cost? The engineering cost standard needs to be refined; 3. Does the project of “Home for the Elderly” need to be invested more, as some funds have been invested before and some effects have been achieved? Why not put limited funds into other communities? Why is there no self-governance fund invested in other communities? 4. Does it appear unfair if the street government funds the “convenient service” of a single residential quarter? Whether a unified “service team” can be organized by the street government? Minute-takers: Dai Min, Yang Xu, Chen Donghua, etc.; Revised by: Han Fuguo. In a democratic society in which real deliberation is encouraged, people’s preferences change when the public gets more political information, and when people know the preference of other citizens and find a policy choice that they have not considered before. —Lyle Carter. Can Deliberative Democracy Save Us?

4.7.2 Deepening the Second Group Discussion After the plenary session, small groups return to their own discussion rooms and hold the second round of group discussion.

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After Q&As and discussions at the plenary session, all participants know more information about the projects. Thus, in the second small group discussion, they will develop clearer choices. In general, the second round can take less time or some discussions may become more intense.

4.7.2.1

Moderator’s Remarks on the Second Group Discussion

Dear participants, at the plenary session we have discussed together and listened to the opinions of experts and leaders, as well as the questions and discussions of other small groups. We will take half an hour to see what else needs to be expressed. Please speak freely. After the second small group discussion, the moderators invite participants to fill in the second or third questionnaire. Thanks to their participation, the whole deliberation would be completed. The rest of the work is to input the data of questionnaire, to review the records of small groups and do technical analysis, to write analysis report, and then to submit to government departments for reference. In some cases, however, the second group discussion was sometimes replaced by filling in questionnaires.

4.7.3 Composition of “Small-Plenary-Small” Deliberation The simple fierce confrontational democratic decision-making without deliberation is often far from people’s real interests. By means of deliberative discussion, with “small-plenary-small” pattern, everyone can not only understand his “individual interests”, but also “individual interests of others” to get “the sharing benefits” and even the “public interest” as far as possible. So, the deliberative democracy could be more suitable for receiving a “win–win” decision-making result. Thus, the policies are formulated on public diversified opinions, rather than the simple “following-the-majority expression”. Meanwhile, public opinions have been integrated in a “filtering” way, rather than the traditional reflection based on blind obedience to leading officials or pure individual interests of people who have a louder voice.

4.8 Release of Results: Feedback to Participants of Various Statuses For any democratic public decision-making, the releasement of results is one of the most important procedures, because the so-called democratic decision-making without the releasement of results is of no difference from traditional decision-making behind closed doors, even there is a democratic participation process indeed, because

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people don’t know which public opinions have been accepted. What is even more terrible is that, if there is public participation in the decision-making, but the results are not released, its democracy will be regarded as “the guise of autocracy”, that finally harms the public’s enthusiasm for participation and increase their distrust to democracy. We often make a joke that “Election and assessment without announcing results on spot are nothing but hooliganism”. Many public decisions and official assessments, their processes were scientifically carried out, but the results have never been released on the spot, and all voters and candidates being assessed didn’t know the results. Finally, the election and deliberative democracy decay into the traditional decision-making by minority. Most sadly, this decay seems to have avoided the undemocratic decision-making and assessment by the minority, but still is the same model by the minority in the name of democracy. Some of the existing political speeches and policy papers keep emphasizing the need to fully activate the ordinary participants’ enthusiasm and initiative, but the officials in all levels just pay little attention to the feedback of decision-making results. If this kind of “dabbling democracy” continues to develop in future, it will make both of the parties, political power and society, distrust each other, and this may be one of the crucial causes why the ordinary people don’t want to participate. The Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach does not require decisionmakers to accept all results of it, but give feedback to all participants on the final result, and informed all the related by means of “official announcement”. The feedback can not only let the participants know whether the results of the deliberation improve the decision-making, but also make them have greater participation interest in the next democratic process, which really fosters people’s participation enthusiasm and initiative.

4.8.1 Announcement of the Results of Deliberative Democratic Poll on Residents Self-Governance Funds on Puxing Road All the theorists and practitioners of deliberative democracy believe that deliberative democracy can encourage citizens’ participation enthusiasm and foster their political quality, responsibility and character. Active participation, compromise and mutual understanding constitute the three basic political qualities of modern citizens. Only with the widespread cultivation of modern citizen can China jump out of the “all-win or all-lose” political stereotype.

After the 18th CPC National Congress Report and a series of documents on deliberative democracy from Central Committee, Puxing Road in Pudong New Area adopted the Deliberative Democracy Approach to select the “self-governance fund projects”, under the guidance of Shanghai No. 1 Issue and a series of policies on grassroots self-governance, and finance the projects that have been approved. We specifically adopted Deliberative Polling, and the third party that is Research Center

4.9 Performance Review: Achieving Continuous Decision-Making …

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of Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University to ensure the fair statistics of projects supported the technique. This method has changed the traditional way of evaluating the projects by a few leaders and experts. After the randomly selected participants reviewed, discussed, and deliberated about the projects carefully, along with two questionnaires before and after deliberation to quantify the opinions, the result of each project was ultimately determined. This is the first time that the people in a community chose self-governance projects on their own. During the whole process, the participants actively participated in the discussion. It reflects the high-quality public participation level on Puxing Road. There were 360 residents randomly selected this time, in which more than 140 people showed their willingness of participation in the first round of invitation, and more than 120 people actually attended the deliberation day, what was in line with the participation rate in big cities. 42 self-governance projects designed and proposed by neighborhood committee of Puxing Road, and 24 projects have entered into the formal deliberative process. The results of this deliberative democracy are hereby published as follows, and all the participants, onlookers of residents as well as all the residents please monitor and give feedback to the government. The scores of 24 projects are as follows. In the course of this deliberation, the participants of Puxing Road showed high self-identity and willingness to participate. And in our evaluation of the participation quality, it can be found that people of our street have demonstrated a high-level democratic quality in the two questionnaires. According to two cross-contrast and reference to the written discussion opinions of each small group and the plenary session, after being reviewed by the related street departments, the community projects would be funded by the self-governance fund of Puxing Road is as follows (Tables 4.8–4.10). The rest five projects are temporarily unfunded, which are listed as follows: Street Office on Puxing Road June 2015 (Official Seal)

4.9 Performance Review: Achieving Continuous Decision-Making on Long-Term Developments Science and democracy are no longer new slogans, but for half a century Mr Sai (Science) and Mr De (Democracy) have still been “walking up and down the desert” in China, just like our great pioneers of democracy! —CPC Central Committee, Editorial on Xinhua Daily, Oct. 19, 1942.

Public decision-making review, which lacks extensive public’s democratic participation, often results in “repeated projects” owing to the changes of leadership, and “innovating for the sake of innovation”. It seems that policies appear to have different formulation, but it’s actually a superficial change. For example, some researches find

109

7.28

t2–1–5

106

7.35

Statistics No.

Second N = 116

Mean

t2–4–20

Jiaosan Community: Elderly Leisure Corridor

Shuangqiao Community: “Home for Old Friends”

Name

2

1

Ranking after Deliberation

7.26

101

t2–1–4

Lingyi Community: “Silver-haired Mutual Assistance Team

3

7.15

109

t2–1–1

Jinqiao Bay Community: Home for the Elderly

4

Table 4.8 List of projects supported by Puxing road self-governance funds

7.04

104

t2–2–8

Hesan Community: Reading Club for the Elderly

5

6.95

106

t2–4–21

Jinpeng Community: Updating Leisure Facilities

6

6.9

104

t2–3–17

Lingba Community: Voluntary Security Patrol

7

6.86

105

t2–4–24

Lingyi Community: Renovation of Leisure Area

8

122 4 Multiple Deliberative Democratic Decision-Making: Procedures …

6.55

6.66

Mean

t2–1–2

106

t2–2–7

109

Statistics No.

Second N = 116

Jinzeyuan Community: Courtesy Card for the Elderly

Zhengyi Community: Build a Harmonious Community

Name

10

9

Ranking after Deliberation

6.49

110

t2–2–6

Dongyi Community: Build a Good-neighborliness Culture

11

Table 4.9 List of projects supported by Puxing road self-governance funds

6.48

108

t2–1–3

Dongsi Community: Serving People

12

14

6.44

107

t2–3–12

6.35

105

t2–2–9

Hewu Community: Jufeng Community: “Aunt Peng Council” Build Shanghai Opera Salon

13

4.9 Performance Review: Achieving Continuous Decision-Making … 123

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Table 4.10 List of projects unsupported by residents self-governance funds on Puxing Road First ranking 24

17

21

11

13

Second ranking

20

21

22

23

24

Name

Zhengyi Community: Self-management of Activity Room

Jinqiao Bay Community: “Harmonious Neighborhood”

Jiaoyi Community: “Aifa Woodpecker Patrol”

Jiaoer Community: Adjustment of Property Management Fees

Zhongda Yuan Community: Entrance Gate Installation and Parking Fee Collection

First time N = 114

94

96

95

102

97

First-time mean

6.71

6.71

6.48

7.1

6.84

Second time N = 116

97

108

105

103

101

5.8

5.52

5.02

4.8

Second-time 5.93 mean

that it is worth further discussion whether the currently popular community project system is reasonable. “As an important means to promote community construction, project system has some problems, such as lack of overall planning, large changes in themes and lack of consistency. Because there are too many types of projects, the use of funds is dispersed, and it is difficult to guide them effectively. Moreover, the project proposal and evaluation procedures were complicated, so the actual completion time was limited, which affected the project quality. In addition, a large number of communities lacked of capacity and motivation, so they could only finish easy works, and even did totally repeated works” (Yang Xuedong, 2016).

One of the key factors here is that many projects are reviewed by a few specialists and leading officials who may be transferred the next year without full involvement of local affairs. Thus, the above-mentioned phenomena appear untypical in China. In the on-site records of Gumei Road and Puxing Road cases, we can see that people who participated in were “well-informed”. Especially in the Puxing Road case, participants in different groups have discussed for several times over whether some of the projects should be supported by the self-governance fund. Therefore, besides the all-round process of democratic participation, we still require a rational assessment of the outcomes of deliberative decision-making: . Whether they are better implemented because they further conform to public opinions; . Whether people have greater motivation to implement the proposed projects they are involved in decision-making;

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. Whether the public is more willing to continuously monitor these projects; . How to form a continuous decision-making based on the performance of early activities; . Whether the projects approved through the approach accord with the long-term interest of the region. A series of procedures can help decision-makers to better fulfill their obligations and form a comprehensive decision-making process. We hope to give periodic performance feedback on all the projects approved by the democratic approach, and do the performance review of the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach. No matter how democratic the decision-making is, once it is put into the implementation phase without the corresponding review, the boundaries between democratic and autocratic decision-making will become blurred. If the deliberative approach is practiced, system became less efficient than that on the traditional decision-making mechanism, then it will greatly undermine the prestige of democracy. After the deliberative democratic decision-making, many officials would not take the implementation of projects seriously, believing that they needn’t bear any responsibility after the democratic decision-making. We therefore emphasize that the performance review for public decision-making is as important as the decision-making mechanism itself. The performance review of deliberative democratic projects may be conducted in the form of deliberative supervision at every stage of implementation. For example, to deliberate on the performance of projects and the final accounts of budget goes ahead of forming a complete chain of the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach.

4.9.1 Agenda of “Heart-To-Heart Discussion” on Financial Statement in Zeguo Town, Winling City, Zhejiang Province, 2014 1. Time: 2: 00 p.m., September 12, 2015 (Saturday) The extreme inequality in the political power and economic wealth, the proximity of the media and the huge differences in the control of information, make some people have more power in the deliberative forum than others. —Amy Gutmann, Dennis Thompson, Why Deliberative Democracy?

2. Address: the old conference room 302, on the 3rd Floor of Town Government 3. 103 Participants: 56 representatives from Middle Connection Station of 2014, 4 representatives from the Wenling City (Ye Jianping, Chen Xiangui, Lin Shilin and Chen Xiping), 32 deputies to Town People’s Congress, heads of representatives, including 5 members from Eastern Connection Station (Wang Fagen, Wang Yingxu, Zheng Xiaoming, Di Dehua and Zhang Xiangen), 3 members from Western Connection Station (Zhong Miaozeng, Li Zhenghui, Jiang Mingguang), 5

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members from Muyu (Lin Meishun, Liu Guoyou, Chen Zhiping, Wang Dongqing, Cai Lingyou), 2 members from Lianshu (Wang Congqing, Mo Xiaobing). Town leading Officials: Pan Renjun, Ye Minzhi, Liang Yunbo, Zheng Yuanyuan, Lin Haibo, Mao Rongfei, Chen Rulin, Wang Junde, Huang Youjun. Directors of relevant departments: Wang Yunfang, Chen Weijiang, Xie Zhengyong, Liu Jieming, Ye Xianchun, Dai Chunfu, Wang Liqun, Gu Haibo. 4. Rostrum: 1. Reporter on financial statement: Zhang Minliang, Huang Youjun and Ruan Haobo. 2. Advisers: Ye Minzhi, Zheng Yuanyuan, Lin Haibo, Mao Rongfei, Chen Rulin, Ruan Haobo. Moderator: Ruan Haobo 5. Agenda: 1. Speech by Zhang Minliang,secretary of Town People’s Congress, 2:10–2:20 p.m. 2. Explanation by Huang Youjun, Mayor Assistant 2:20–2:40 p.m. 3. Group discussion (randomly selected four groups; group leaders: Ruan Haobo, Chen Jianguo, Chen Xiangui, Wang Fagen; conference rooms 108, 510, 710, 910) 4. Question and answer on the conference 3:20–4:40 p.m. 5. Speech by Ye Minzhi,Town Leader 4:40–4:50 p.m. 6. Supplementary Documents: 1. Financial accounts for the year of 2014. 2. Financial statement for the year of 2014. Note: Because the participatory data in Zeguo Town was open and did not involve personal privacy, we don’t omit their names. Thanks for the materials provided by Town People’s Congress. Except for some specific sentences needing to be smooth, we do not make any revise.

4.10 Choice of Topics: A Combination of Politics and Technology As for the deliberative democracy in the context of Chinese politics, the focus of deliberation lies in the process of policy-making to seek the path for citizens’ participation in policy decision-making. This kind of democracy and competitive democracy of the Chinese National People’s Congress constitute two complementary ways of democracy. Therefore, Chinese deliberative democracy acknowledges CPC’s authority and its government’s legality as precondition. It is an available and positive way for Chinese society to integrate public opinions, improve the quality

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of democratic decision-making, and enhance the relations between the CPC and the masses, as well as the relations between officials and the masses. One concept we have always advocated is that decision-makers themselves decide which issues to adopt the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approach, and then technical experts can provide relevant technical training and support according to the selected issues. Finally, the local officials can apply the approach to their own departments. After all, “officialism is the natural outlet for good scholars” is the pursuit of Chinese officials. It would be better if the local officials can “make good sustainable policies when they leave office”. Policy-makers are more aware of their resource, political environment, and social demands than onlookers, and they have a more precise understanding of the scope of democratic decision-making. Thus, it should be the decision-makers to decide how to invent and grasp the sprite of democratic development and how to choose issues and adopt scientific approaches. We hope that if “an ax is in your hand, when and what firewood to cut” is “your business”. Thus, in this book we can see that for the names of many specific policies, each government has an appropriate agenda. We made a proper adjustment of the names for the sake of unification, but in the appendix, we kept the original names, which also reflected the practitioners’ specific ideas at that time. One question that many local officials often ask is that “Whether there are legal rules about the innovation?” Then they sigh with feeling that “if there is no policy and legal rules, we will not be able to innovate”. This is a dilemma that the CPC Central Committee and its central government have issued policies and documents, how can it be called innovation? It’s only implementation. Local innovations lie in not violating existing laws and policies. Although it is impossible to require everyone to do what Deng Xiaoping called “push the trolley bravely as long as it doesn’t roll over”, they should at least be braver in practices. Just like what Yang Juyuan, a poet of Tang dynasty, said in his poem Early Spring East of the Capital (translated by Xu Yuanchong): The early spring presents to poets a fresh scene; The willow twigs half yellow and half tenderly green; When the Royal Garden’s covered with blooming flowers; Here and there the tourists would be.

“Here and there the tourists would be” is the final pursuit for the whole country and society. If the problem remains unsettled, and the local governance and innovation doesn’t purely pursue “political achievements”, it would better “go out early”. In other words, it is an official’s instinct to pursue some reasonable political achievements in line with the needs of social development, just like scholars publishing articles and students striving for good scores.

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4.11 Supplementary Procedures: Intro-Structure Substitution and In-Depth Amendment 4.11.1 Intro-Structure Substitution of Representatives In the past practices, local governments often faced the problem that the participants who were randomly selected were not willing to participate in the Multiple Deliberative Democratic Poll. And the larger the city is, the lower the proportion of participation is. A number of randomly selected participants required other people to replace them to participate, for some reasons such as lack of time, interest, or expression. First of all, we do not recommend that the selected participants choose their own substitution. Instead, we suggest taking more samples at first to ensure the participation rate. Secondly, it is more reasonable to take one household as a participation unit rather than individuals from the whole population. The common way is to select the family first and then select individuals from the family. If the whole family is not willing to participate, will they be allowed to replace themselves with other family members? How to protect their expression of interest if they are not allowed to choose their own representatives? In our view, we can re-select the representatives of the same economic status to replace them. For example, the blue-collar workers or peasants should choose members of the same income level in case a certain group of people control participation opportunities. In this way, the fairness of participation can be ensured. Otherwise, replacing participants casually would cause the shortcomings of the “appointed forum” that we tried to avoid.

4.11.2 Amendment of In-Depth Interview There is another serious question in China’s current social structure: Will pure “atomic-style participation” meet the need of political stability if the democracy does not allow people to form an alliance? Theoretical problems are not investigated here in detail. However, we hope that ordinary people are given the opportunity to participate in public affairs, although they are not accustomed to express viewpoints clearly and freely in public discussions and questionnaires. The projects of deliberative democracy can be matched with the “in-depth interview” as a supplementary procedure, so as to deeply understand the participants’ inner interest, social backgrounds, and motivations, and then analyze records of the small groups. All the procedures will improve the reliability of final decisions and correct possible quantitative errors in questionnaires.

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4.12 Combination of Reliability and Validity: Duplication of Procedures Once there was an opinion that democracy could be given by others. It was believed that a man of good will would give democracy to people, and thus they started to wait for that “democracy”, like waiting for the first prize of two million yuan. But the histories, of ancient and modern, at home and abroad, prove that democracy is gained from the struggle of the people, and is by no means a gift that can be blessed. —CPC Central Committee, Xinhua Daily Jul. 3, 1945.

Any procedure requires the validity and reliability. We shall make critical appraisal of the validity and popularization of the multiple deliberative democratic approaches. The internal validity of this approach is checked in the specific operation of different cases, and it’s certified by the existing research results have certified it. But the external validity of the approach depends on whether the practicing results can be generalized. If the procedures have external validity, the result can be extended to other decision-making situations. Otherwise, the procedures could not be duplicated universally. In our many practices, we find that the threat to external validity of the multiple deliberative democratic approach mainly comes from three aspects, which require the participants’ attention: (1) scientific sampling of participants; (2) regional political environment; (3) scientific rules of deliberation. It’s essentially indispensable that all democratic procedures should be characterized by scientificity and flexibility, and go ahead of flexibility. Otherwise, the duplication or innovations of procedures will lose its institutional significance and become a pure political propaganda.

Chapter 5

The Operational Space for Multiple Deliberative Democratic Approaches

We should integrate democracy into all aspects of our society: politics, economics, culture, party affairs, and international relations. All of these undoubtedly need to be and must be unified. However, we should build this uniformity based on democracy. The freedom of speech, assembly, and association and a democratically elected government enable the most potent unified political system. Economic democracy indicates that the economic system should promote rather than hinder the production, exchange, and consumption of the masses. Cultural democracy in areas such as education, academic thoughts, newspapers, and art can be promoted only by democracy. Democracy of party affairs refers to the intra-party and inter-party relations, which should also be democratic. –Mao Zedong’s Reply to Chinese and Foreign Journalists on June 12, 1944, “The Shortcoming of China Resides in the Lack of Democracy . Thus We Should Implement Democracy in All Aspects of Society” (Liberation Daily, June 13, 1944).

To implement the regulation of the Report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China issued “The Document on Strengthening the Socialist Consultative & Deliberative Democracy” in 2015, which proposed that China’s deliberative democracy consists of mechanisms of political party consultation, People’s Congress consultation, government consultation, CPPCC consultation, people’s organization consultation, grassroots consultation, social organization consultation, etc. However, the key to the implementation of these top-level regulations lies in real practices: . Whether the result of deliberative democratic decision-making can withstand the triple test of fairness, democracy, and science; . Whether a consensus has genuinely been reached instead of an ostensible unanimity; . How has the result of the democratic consultation affected the decision-making rather than being put aside? Another vital concept will be eventually wasted if the democratic consultation becomes a decorative ornament, and the content of the central document will have nothing different in ten years, only with different rhetoric. “Something is destined to © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5_5

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take place no matter how hard you have tried to prevent it”. China needs to integrate the scientific decision-making procedure of deliberative democracy into the existing mechanisms in various fields in a timely, reasonable, and orderly manner, thus gradually improving them with long-term adherence to scientific operation. Except in significant historical periods, we do not concur with “innovative” paths seeking to reshape all existing decision-making mechanisms in disregard of the current development stage. A new procedure should gradually interact with existing ones and keep pace with the development of people’s mindsets. Only in this way can we sustain the ongoing innovation of decision-making procedures. We nonetheless remain agreeable to the earlier mentioned viewpoints about the legitimacy of local officials’ power in decision-making during the process of the grassroot deliberative consultation. Given the complex public policy issues in modern society, the inputted public opinions are less likely to be entirely adopted as the ultimate policy, regardless of the social development pressure and officials’ conscientiousness in realizing democratic engagement in public decision-making. In terms of the decision-making system, it entails a thorough evaluation of the inputted public opinions, a series of policy transformations and balances, and full consideration of the all-rounded and sustainable interests, thus working out legitimate policy outcomes. The more scientific the integration of public opinions, the greater the possibility of their transformation into policy, and officials’ motivation to implement scientific decisions will be enhanced correspondingly.

5.1 Decision-Making on Community Self-Governance Matters Community self-governance in both urban and rural areas is the field most suitable for the practice of multiple deliberative democratic decision-making because the existing procedures and methods of community self-governance can be effectively integrated. In other words, it is a standardized procedure for various community self-governance methods. The most common way of community decision-making is the mass seminar that was mentioned earlier. We’ve always thought of it as an effective method of collecting opinions and one of the main methods of community self-governance in the future because the principle of “one deliberation for one issue” is appropriate for random and diverse community self-governance affairs. The mass seminar not only facilitates immediate communication between residents and self-governance organizations such as community self-governance committees but also provides an accessible platform for the public to reflect social situations and express opinions. This method, however, is not suitable for the decision-making of significant issues in communities, especially when it involves budget allocation, community reconstruction, property management conflicts, etc. Community self-governance involves public affairs in the vast majority at the grassroots level, and there is an urgent

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need for multiple deliberative democratic decision-making procedures to ensure a comprehensive and scientific integration of public opinion. Scientifically quantified and meticulously prepared results of deliberative consultation can be announced directly to the grassroots and then questioned by them. The selection of residents’ self-governance funding projects in Puxing Road Sub-district, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, is fully in line with its deliberative democratic results. The budget results of many other towns, such as the deliberative democratic decisionmaking of budget projects in Yanjin County, Yunnan Province, which is also voted and announced on the spot to be included in the town budget after being reported, questioned, and replied to. In the practice of multiple deliberative democratic decision-making, various mass seminars, open spaces, residents’ forums, online discussing halls, hearings, Robert’s Rules of Order, etc., facilitate the early solicitation of issues to be deliberated and enhance the masses’ engagement in the decision-making process as well as their ability to listen, speak, contend, and discuss during the deliberative consultation.

5.2 People’s Congress’s Voting Procedures Some authorities and their heads engage in formalities to fawn over and win the trust of their superiors. Such a prevailing ethos as the inferior officials blindly ingratiate themselves with the superior to obtain Merit on the performance evaluation results in “information asymmetry” salient in some areas. Whereupon there exist a plenty of cognitive differences on many issues between officials and citizens, superiors and inferiors. –Sang Yucheng, “Standing on the Plain and Looking at the High Mountains”.

The traditional decision-making process of the People’s Congress in some areas has always been accused of “deputies raising their hands and applauding”. As a result, the efficiency of the representative system can be barely achieved, and voting on financial budgets, supervision of officials, and other significant issues end up being a mere formality. Without adequate methods to integrate public opinion, the People’s Congress could barely represent the public, even with a stringent voting system. The deliberative democratic decision-making procedure can effectively help NPC deputies at all levels to extensively collect and scientifically integrate public opinion. The scope of direct election of deputies to the Chinese People’s Congress is at the county level, e.g., deputies to the People’s Congresses of counties, autonomous counties, cities not divided into districts, and districts directly under cities are all directly elected by local voters. However, except for some members of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress, deputies to the People’s Congress are not full-time members. Indeed, there are many deputies with great techniques who invested efforts in communicating with the masses. However, the time and energy required for deputies in gathering public opinion are, on the whole, insufficient. Some deputies have taken the initiative to set up public opinion hotlines. For example,

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Zhou Xiaoguang, a deputy in Yiwu City and an entrepreneur, set up a liaison office. Another example is the first liaison office for deputies to the People’s Congress in Taizhou—the “Jiang Gende NPC Deputy Office” established in August 2008. In both ancient and modern times, in China and abroad, experience has shown that to guarantee and support the people’s position as masters of the country, it is paramount that people’s lawfully elected representatives participate in the management of state affairs and social activities, and it is equally important that the people participate in such activities through systems and methods other than the election. If the people merely have the right to vote but no right to extensive participation, in other words, if they are only active at election time but go into hibernation afterward, then this kind of democracy will only be a formalistic one. Chinese socialist democracy takes two important forms, in one of which, the people exercise their right to vote in elections, and in the other, people from all sectors of society undertake extensive deliberations before major decisions are made. In China, these two forms do not cancel one another out, and nor are they contradictory; they are complementary. They constitute institutional features and strengths of Chinese socialist democracy. –The Meeting Marking the 65th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, 2014.

During the Spring Festival in 2004, a 10-s blessing advertisement was broadcasted on Yiwu TV Channel. It has nothing different from other common New year greeting advertisements except for its lines: “in view of the upcoming NPC meeting, Zhou Xiaoguang, an NPC deputy, is dedicated to soliciting proposals from all walks of life.” In October 2003, the first liaison office for deputies to the NPC in China was built in Room 907 of the Yiwu Construction Building by Zhou Xiaoguang. Her innovative measures to gather public opinions such as setting up a NPC deputy liaison office and soliciting public proposals through media advertisements made her stand out as a NPC deputy. As of 2011, during her tenure as a deputy to the 10th and 11th NPC, Zhou Xiaoguang submitted a total of 232 motions and 198 proposals to the NPC, among which 203 motions and 189 proposals were formally adopted. In addition, her 11 motions and 8 proposals were submitted to and adopted by Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress, 6 motions and 1 proposal were submitted to and adopted by Jinhua Municipal People’s Congress and 45 motions and 17 proposals were submitted to and adopted by Yiwu Municipal People’s Congress. A total of more than 450 pieces! It is rare to see anyone like her submitting motions with such high quantity and quality. Therefore, she has been praised as the “Star Deputy” and “King of Proposals” by all sectors of society. On August 18, 2014, the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress passed the “Guidance on Strengthening the Construction of Contact Stations for Deputies to the Provincial People’s Congress”, which required that by the end of 2014, the contact stations of deputies to the people’s congresses should be built in all town and sub-districts in Zhejiang Province. Contact points could be set up in communities, villages, and groups where conditions permitted. By the end of 2015, more than 3000 offline and online contact stations had been built in Zhejiang, basically solving the problem of the “absence of deputies”. (The above text is extracted from Zhejiang Daily, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress, etc.)

5.3 Collection of Proposals of the CPPCC

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This is decisive progress in China’s NPC system, as NPC deputies begin to actively open doors to voters’ opinions so that voters can at least find their representatives in a non-competitive electoral system. However, in a strict sense, these collected opinions, as discussed earlier, can only speak for those who voice opinions on their own initiative. Moreover, China’s legal system stipulates deputies to the NPC represent the interests of all rather than those of specific groups. Therefore, NPC deputies or local deputies do not need to collect public opinion on many issues, but to conceive proposals based on heated topics of policies at that time, which makes some of their proposals seem “ridiculous”. “The multiple deliberative democratic decision-making enables deputies’ participant observation of public opinion, saving their limited energy and time, thus being “activated” to vote based on the real public opinion under the existing system and effectively oversee the work of the government” (Chen Jiagang, Chen Yimin). Suppose the government was not only the maker and implementer of the market rules but also the overriding player and leader in the market economy—the government would directly control more and more resources. In that case, with the government revenue accounting for a growing share of the country’s income, how could we change China’s economic growth model? Suppose the growth of government revenue was not subject to any substantive audit and restriction by the NPC deputies, and the fiscal expenditure of governments at all levels is not truly transparent and open, how could we fundamentally solve the problem of corrupt rent-seeking of our government officials? Without budgetary democracy, how should we construct the rule of law and democratic politics of the Chinese government highlighted in the report to the 17th CPC National Congress? –Wei Sen, The Construction of Budget Democracy in China is Advancing.

If deliberative democracy can be carried out on the candidates, the power of the People’s Congress can be better exercised, and a sounder deliberative democratic system can be formed in China. This process does not contradict the principle of “the Party supervising cadres”, as it well presents the competitive relationship among the candidates chosen by the Party in an orderly manner, as well as putting the cadres who have passed the inspections of the Party to undergo a test of deliberative democracy. Such a process functions to reduce the likelihood of cadres being dismissed for breaches of the law and disciplines soon after getting promotion through rounds of examinations.

5.3 Collection of Proposals of the CPPCC Deliberative democracy gives the CPPCC plenty of operating space, but the essential difference between the CPPCC and the NPC is that the NPC is a fixed system representing the organ of state power, while the CPPCC is a flexible mechanism for social groups to engage in politics. Thus, the quality of CPPCC proposals is inextricably linked to its capability of gathering and conveying public opinion and even to its position in China’s future political structure.

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If the work content of CPPCC remained the same as in the past, i.e., keeping on “merely listening to opinions and complaining” in seminars with no action, with the excitement of CPPCC at all levels about the deliberative democracy proposed by the CPC Central Committee dissipating, the “consultation” of the “People’s Political Consultation Conference” and the “deliberation” of “deliberative democracy” would become disconnected for the lack of carrier. Up to now, CPPCC’s gathering opinion and putting forward proposals remain reliant on conventional methods of “inspecting, researching, and discussing”. Even if these proposals are “politely replied” by authorities, the CPPCC fails to fully serve its role of “supervision, suggestion, and deliberation”. There have been furious debates in China over the idea of the “bicameral system” of the NPC during a specific period. Regardless of whether the CPPCC itself could assume the function of the “upper house”, as long as it can do an excellent job in integrating the views of various representative social groups and soliciting proposals on public affairs, it can indeed perform the vital function of China’s deliberative democratic system remarkably, which is one of the critical issues for the development of democracy in China. CPPCC members and organs need to move forward to “deliberative democracy” with modern scientific approaches to collect and deliberate public opinion in representative social groups. Also, the qualities of CPPCC proposals and the voting of the National People’s Congress can perhaps become two pivotal pillars of China’s modern democracy.

5.4 Public Decision-Makings of Government What has been proven in practice for many years is that the government can make full use of the deliberative democratic procedure when submitting budgets or decisionmaking plans for some major public projects to the People’s Congress. For example, after the government’s formulation of the preliminary budgets or plans, discrepancies between the initial proposals and the public expectations of those projects can be found through the deliberative democratic procedure. Then the budgets can be revised and the details of the plans can be adjusted according to public opinion, thus ensuring that social needs can be precisely reflected when these proposals are submitted to the People’s Congress for approval. James S. Fishkin often talks on international occasions about the surprising changes in budgetary decision-making by the government of Zeguo town (a small town in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, China) after democratic consultations. Also, regarding major public affairs, the government can adopt a city-wide or a region-wide multiple deliberative democratic decision-making procedure to make collective discussions and decisions. Such major public affairs include the further allocation of budget funds approved by the local People’s Congress; the settlement of demolition and relocation, group disputes, and other social conflicts; the selection of landmarks, the city flower, the main color of a city, and other symbols of a city;

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the planning of a city’s future development, etc. In voting on some significant issues by all local people, deliberative democracy can be used for early communication of information and exchange of views to avoid the dilemma of “democratic lock-in” resulting from a single vote (even if it is a referendum). Also, this deliberative democratic approach harbors practical significance in the government’s inner decision-making, replacing the “meeting discussion” with the leading cadres’ presence, as discussions with their presence often end up being “dictated by the leading cadre”. Even if they intend to hold democratic discussions and decision-making, they are less likely to resist the pressure imposed by the hierarchical system. Of course, there is no need to adopt random sampling in authorities‘ decision-making, as opinions can be sufficiently gathered in the discussion process through simpler methods such as evaluation questionnaires and group discussions. Then the leadership of these authorities can make the final decision on this basis. Even if the final decision does not reflect the result of the deliberative consultations, the leadership can at least have a clear understanding of what the staff thinks of and anticipates. We can make further investigation through analysis of three different modes of how self-governance funds in Pudong New Area of Shanghai have been distributed, i.e., the “phased government funding mode”, the “multiple deliberative democratic decision-making mode”, and the “residents’ independent application mode”. Each of them has its own innovation, as listed below. The following section will articulate the difference between deliberative democratic decision-making and conventional decision-making in public engagement.

5.4.1 Seminar on Projects of Residents’ Self-Governance Work and Funds Date: June 29, 2016. Venue: Room 104, 613 Eshan Road. Sponsor: Civil Affairs Bureau in Pudong New Area Contractor: Community Service Center in Pudong New Area Speaker 1 (Zhang Ming) Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing. –Abraham Lincoln For our generation born in the 1950s, attending meetings and hearing reports on major documents are very common. Conspicuously, meetings and documents are of great significance for everyone living in China’s political system. As the saying goes, “Kuomintang levies many high taxes, while the Communist Party arranges many meetings.” Why so many meetings? The meeting is an essential means of political mobilization for China’s highly mobilized political system. Through meetings, the guiding principles in the documents are conveyed from top to bottom, which makes meetings and documents inseparable. So there is a saying of “mountains of documents and oceans of meetings”. Of course, the communication of

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document contents does not always require meetings, but the irreplaceable function of meetings is that it provides “a sense of presence” for political engagement, just like the difference between watching a football match live and on TV. –-Jing Yuejin, “’Document Politics’ in China”.

Many thanks are to the New District Service Center for providing me with such an opportunity to share our experiences on the self-governance funding project in Sanlin Town. We have been managing our project funds through the “Tricolor Project” since 2012. What does “tricolor” means? These three colors are green, orange, and red. Green symbolizes that a project is still a “tiny apple” that is not yet developed. Orange symbolizes the project has made a step forward, and Red means that the “apple” turns red and edible, which symbolizes that the project is well developed. This is an upgraded innovative mode, and through it, we have solved three major problems, namely residents’ weak awareness of engagement, community workers’ incapability to carry out the work, and the lack of self-governance carriers. By doing so, we have fostered community self-governance abilities and set up more than 100 projects over the past four years, and have thus solved problems such as irregular vehicle parking, indiscriminate vegetable gardening, and disharmonious neighborhood relations in our community. In addition, we have mobilized residents to handle community affairs, and they eventually recognized our efforts. The three main attempts that we have made are summarized as follows. Our first attempt is to highlight the three colors and refine the specific project. We use green, orange, and red to distinguish the development phases of the project. “Green” means the project is still in the initial phase when we grasp the specific questions first with the help of the residents of our community. The community selfgovernance committee can also participate in the project and lead the residents to think about the issues facing them. When it comes to the “Orange” phase, the residents act as the most important and active part of the project, and the selfgovernance mechanism gradually gives a clear response. That is to say, the residents play a leading role in selecting the core members and formulating the main body of the project, implementing the project, and managing the project without committee involvement. In the third phase, i.e., the “Red” phase, we effectively integrate the community’s resources to establish a precise, well-developed, and long-term mechanism, thus enabling the project to be operated by the residents themselves. Through continuous upgrades and establishment, the project can be radically improved. The whole process is highly institutionalized. For example, the indicator system for a project made it clear how many times we should meet for a month, how many activities we should hold, how many residents participated in each activity, and what achievements we obtained. This is our “Tricolor Project” which features its institutionalized design. Our second attempt is to ask for advice from the people. All projects are problembased and demand-oriented, and the proposal of each project requires close contact with the residents from every unit and their active engagement from the bottom up. We need to discuss the project with them, seek advice from them, and handle the issues of their primary concern. From our years of experience, we summarized the seven major

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stubborn problems of our community, namely destroying green plants to grow vegetables, indiscriminately disposing of pets’ feces, breaking walls and boundaries of the community, illegal group renting, throwing objects from heights, disordered parking, and stacking stuff in the corridors. The “Tricolor Project” has been carried out to grapple with these seven stubborn problems in the community for over four years. However, there remain a few problems concerning higher demands, as exemplified by high-end commercial housing communities requiring cultural entertainment, elderly care, cultural education, and other related service projects. Our third attempt is to carry out strict examinations and evaluations on projects to improve their quality. We have organized an evaluation panel composed of staff from the town and community offices, members from community party committees, teachers from social organizations, and superior leaders and experts. We regulated the application process, specified the number of project participants, and standardized the efficiency guarantee system. We also identified the quantitative indicators for the efficiency of our projects, such as the number of meetings and activities we should hold in a year as I mentioned above. In addition, we introduced the mechanism for promotion and demotion. If a project does not progress or fails to meet the standard in the year-end assessment, it will be disqualified or perhaps demoted in the next year. Our fourth attempt is to exercise strict supervision to ensure the operation of the project. The support funds of the “Tricolor Project” is released according to the number of projects each year, with ten thousand yuan for each “Green” project, twenty thousand yuan for each “Orange” project, and thirty thousand yuan for each “Red” project. The support funds are essential for the projects rolled out by a team composed of elected resident representatives and community party committee members. To ensure that the funds are specifically for community self-governance, we set up six supervision groups for the six community party committees in Sanlin Town. These groups conducted cross-group supervision rather than self-supervision to track each project’s planning and progress and gave marks according to the indicators for the green, orange, and red projects. Quarterly meetings were also organized with all supervisor groups involved to appraise the performance of each project and the allocation of project funds. These meetings focus on the management of self-governance funds in addition to the advantages and disadvantages of each project. Practically speaking, it is fairly clear that where and how the funds had been spent. If the supervision groups think that the funds were consumed on project activities, then the expense would be reimbursed; if not, then no reimbursement. The above supervision measures facilitate the assessment of whether the self-governance funds have been applied in specific projects. During our four years of work, we also had much confusion: 1. Dividing the areas covered by our projects. In combination with the project’s needs, we will summarize the lessons we’ve learned from the previous projects and establish project catalogs for the areas of our grassroots community services, thus expanding the scope of community self-governance. Different criteria and

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assessment objectives will be set up for various services to standardize and refine the project. 2. Building our brand. More than four years of exploration in Sanlin Town proves that the success of our previous projects is replicable. That is to say, other communities can apply some methods and mechanisms dealing with specific problems we’ve faced in Sanlin Town, such as our experience in solving the problem of throwing objects from heights, thus saving time and handling similar problems more efficiently. 3. Standardizing project operation. For example, we need to utilize standardized indicators in the project application, inspection, evaluation, supervision, and summary of our “Tricolor Project”, so as to consistently improve the assessment system of self-governance projects. Speaker 2 (Chen Donghua): As the Chinese saying goes, “it takes ten years to grow trees, a hundred years to cultivate people, and a thousand years to build a city”. The development of democracy may require more persistence and the efforts of several generations of people.

What we are going to talk about is the Self-governance Funds Project in Puxing sub-district. Let’s start with the origin of it. Yang Xu just mentioned that the government issued a document in 2013 calling for communities to carry out self-governance funding projects. How to make good use of the self-governance fund? Previously, the community self-governance committee had no funds, but now that the funds are released, will they be able to better carry out self-governance work? We allocated funds according to their scale and then evaluated the self-governance funding projects. We then discovered nine excellent projects and took them to a competition in September 2014. Our projects finally won the first and second prizes, causing a tremendous sensation. At that time, we had 40 community self-governance committees with merely 1 million yuan of self-governance funds at the beginning. How can these community self-governance committees optimize the use of the funds? This is a hard nut to crack. So we tried to get some social support. Finally, we contacted Fudan University and cooperated with them. We decided to launch the projects through a deliberative poll, that is, to take a random sample. As the Chinese saying goes, “it takes ten years to grow trees, a hundred years to cultivate people, and a thousand years to build a city”. The development of democracy may require more persistence and the efforts of several generations of people.

To put it simply, this deliberative poll is designed to collect the opinions of the residents. At the beginning of the project, it was the residents who steered the course of our projects’ development as they viewed and evaluated these projects. We planned to conduct random sampling based on the voluntary participation of residents. Group discussions and plenary sessions were also organized under proper guidance, and questionnaires were used to check whether residents support our projects. There were 200,000 people in our community, and we had never conducted such an enormous random sampling. We had used to select a few people as samples from each community self-governance committee. Nevertheless, this deliberative poll was designed to

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choose some households by lot according to the housing information and then drew individuals from these households according to specific standards such as birthday closest to June 29. We were all stressed when first adopting this method because it was so random that many people who were drawn would be less likely to collaborate with us, and conflicts might occur with the masses given a great variety of samples. Moreover, we were uncertain about how many people would come and who they were. Nevertheless, later, we decided to have a try and made repeated invitations. We sent the project materials to those who were drawn for their reference and then invited them to the meeting, which we had never done before. We respect every participant because they represent broad sections of our residents. More specifically, first, we invited residents to review and evaluate the project plan, give their comments, and then mark the project, as the first impression is essential and credible for appraisal. Then we made the invitation ahead of the meeting. Training is vital for our residents and community self-governance committees. So how to make them have a basic understanding of their tasks? We invited professors from Fudan University to hold meetings in Puxing for a whole day as an introductory lesson. Then there was solid social support from Yang Xu, who assisted residents in writing the project plans and completing the application, instructing them to calculate the project’s cost. Unlike Sanlin Town’s project, the fund for each project was no more than 40,000 yuan as prescribed, and it varied in projects with different demands. We encouraged residents to create projects, and with adequate training, guidance, and support, residents were ready to apply for their projects. Then we collected all the project plans for a preliminary review with specific standards. Whenever you look at the daily work of a city hall, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether it is the power of a pluralist or an elitist. On the one hand, many groups have been struggling for being heard, and mayors must devote plenty of time to the election. On the other hand, the private sector seems to have the upper hand when significant decisions are made. –Mark Gottdiener and Ray Hutchison, The New Urban Sociology.

We provided training for moderators. They moderated the meetings and thus were required to remain neutral on the issues discussed. They should, on the one hand, allow the participants to discuss thoroughly and, on the other hand, avoid giving subjective opinions to guide people to express their viewpoints. We have trained a group of young people with certain requirements: firstly, no straying from the subject, and secondly, ensuring that everyone can speak and everyone’s views are respected. Training was also provided for community self-governance committees who were required to show respect for the residents. To ensure the accuracy of the samples, the residents present should not be replaced. The valid samples of residents for the deliberative poll were more than 300, of which 120 attended the meeting. They were thrilled, some of them were familiar with the procedure, and some were not. They were divided into various groups. The procedure of the deliberative poll was to assemble all participants at first, followed by discussions within each group and then a collective discussion among all groups. A moderate chaired the group discussions with a neutral attitude. When it came to the collective discussion, residents were free to ask questions about the projects, and

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the person in charge of the project had to answer. After a series of discussions, one or two relatively active people in each group expressed their opinions and thus sparked a heated debate over the projects. We were concerned whether people would quarrel over getting a project. However, our concerns were proven unnecessary. We found that residents were wise and enthusiastic. Many residents had read the materials before attending the meeting, and most of them could express their ideas clearly and give constructive suggestions. The questions raised by each group were different and mainly focused on several points, such as whether volunteers should be given subsidies and whether they should be placed on a quota. During the Q&A session, an expert asked some professional questions about the project, which were answered by the project directors. We had two polls, with expert tuition and Q&A in the meeting. Its significance lies in residents reviewing projects after determining the perspective, so as to find the needs of residents. In addition, all projects need professional support to help us plan and design the project well. Speaker 3 (Gao Aiping): When we talk about democracy in the enlightenment stage, we are talking about abstract democracy and how the Western countries are doing. Now people can cut into real life, examine the actual democracy and see how the villagers elect. There is an interlude. At that time, Wang Zhenyao was the director of the rural department of the grass-roots political power construction department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, who was in charge of the pilot work. Now he has resigned to become the dean of the School of Public Welfare at Beijing normal University. At that time, he went to the political scientists who were very popular in the 1980s, hoping to get some knowledge and help on how to conduct elections from them. In his opinion, aren’t you advocating democracy? We can now practice democracy at the grass-roots level. Please tell me how to elect. As a result, the answer was very frustrating. Experts said that we were talking about democratic theory, and how to elect was not our business. – Jing Yuejin, “How to Understand Chinese Politics”.

Hello, everyone. I am from Lujiazui Subdistrict. I will make a communication with you on the autonomy fund project at the neighborhood committee level. Lujiazui autonomy fund program began in 2011 as version 1.0, when the neighborhood committee was set up in the form of awards instead of subsidies. We have a process of gradually understanding and accepting the concept of autonomy of residents, which has laid a solid foundation for the promotion of version 2.0. If version1.0 is the foundation, then version 2.0 is the body of the building; it is a process of promoting improvement and a process of expanding grass-roots innovation. So what are the similarities between the two versions? I think the similarities lie first in the guiding ideology. Both of them aim to strengthen grass-roots construction under the leadership of the Party and under the coordination and promotion of neighborhood committees. We should take the needs of residents as the guide, innovate the form of autonomy, and carry out self-education, self-management, self-supervision and selfservice in accordance with the law. The autonomous funds come from our district finance. The similarities also lie first in the way of determining the project, which stems from the unified demands of the residents and the intentions of the vast majority of the residents, and it is examined and approved by the residents’ congress.

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Differences between version 1.0 and 2.0 1. The biggest difference is that version 2.0 works through third-party social organizations in accordance with the specific requirements of resident autonomy and is carried out entirely in the form of projects. 2. Projects are applied in different ways. Version 2.0 requires residents to apply for projects on their needs and budgets under the guidance of community selfgovernance committees, while projects in version 1.0 are mainly conceived by community self-governance committees. In both versions, community selfgovernance committees engage in the whole process. They organize discussion meetings where residents are informed to apply for projects by themselves and then assist residents in completing their project plans. 3. The project budgets are different. The maximum budget of a project in version 2.0 is 20,000 yuan and fluctuates according to the requirements of the project. Each project lasts for one year with two phases, and we keep up with the projects and express our concerns every half year. Subsidies for volunteers are up to 60 yuan. There are also subsidies for project team members in terms of the actual practice of the projects, with each project subsiding no less than 50% of the funds for its team members and volunteers. The allocation of funds will go through three phases: 50% for the first phase, 40% for the second phase, and 10% for the last phase, during which there will be audit meetings in two stages to monitor the use of funds. If a project is evaluated and affirmed by the mid-term reviewers, 40% of funds will be granted. Upon a completed project passing the second-round review, the last 10% of funds will be granted by community self-governance committees as recognition and reward. In contrast, residents will operate the previous 90%. When making the project budget, each team should hold a group meeting every month to consult on the plans and activities to be carried out, work out a monthly schedule with detailed activity budgets, such as the number of participants in each activity and the funds needed for each activity, and implement these activities as planned. On the contrary, projects in version 1.0 are not divided into phases. It runs directly from the beginning to the end without a monthly plan application. 4. The methods for reviewing projects are different. In version 2.0, a panel composed of staff from sub-district self-governance offices, members of social organizations, and experts will review projects by putting questions to project team leaders face-to-face just like an interview. Each project leader communicates with the team members about the project content, funds, and personnel arrangement. The panel will examine and approve the project according to its specific content and situation. However, we do have regret as a project on conference halls was eliminated in the knockout stage, which was probably due to the lack of proper and clear expression by its team leader during the interview. Therefore, the ability to improvise is crucial, because team leaders need to specify why they roll out this project, how the fund, budget, and personnel are arranged, and what effects this project will gain. 5. The people being trained are different. In version 2.0, training is carried out by social organizations and social service centers for members of the project team

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and residents. They also participate in seminars on self-governance projects. Training in version 1.0 is, however, launched by the community self-governance committee, and then the personnel of the committee offer residents training and actively communicate with them. 6. The appraisal processes are different. In version 2.0, the project supervision group of communities does not contact the community self-governance committee but directly with project team leaders. The supervision is thus more specific, more straightforward, and fairer. In contrast, the project supervision group directly communicates with the community self-governance committee in version 1.0. 7. In version 2.0, residents implement the projects with a clear-cut division of labor and responsibilities, which is more intuitive and easier to operate, and project theme and project management are of greater interest. Increasing efforts have been made in fostering cadres and outstanding projects in version 2.0, and more social organizations participate in self-governance projects. The mechanism of residential self-governance has been long under effective management, leveling up the motivation of residents to participate, and thus residents are better informed about and more satisfied with projects. Our community is an old one with a large proportion of the elderly. We implement projects in response to the voices of our residents, which include the conference hall, regular public classes for residents, the system of self-governance of appointed participants of each unit, the eldercare service center, the residents’ reading rooms, and the residents’ health management center. Specific leaders participate in policy debates and support (or oppose) specific issues mainly based on their specialized knowledge of each issue. –Mark Gottdiener and Ray Hutchison, The New Urban Sociology.

Changes have been taking place among the residents after the implementation of self-governance projects. The most notable change is the growing self-governance consciousness of residents, as they turned from being asked to govern to participating voluntarily. For instance, a resident came to ask for service after a street light in his community had broken. He also kept observing when the repair began and whether any other problems remained. Moreover, he would complement us on our work in community meetings. Now residents will seek help from self-government groups as sewers clog and street lights are broken in communities. The workforce is crucial for resident self-governance and any other project. To sum up the experience of our years of work, we’ve learned the importance of the strength of cadres and the value of spotting talents. First, we should pay attention to the strengths, hobbies, and social circles of the talents we’ve spotted as well as express our concerns for cadres and residents. Second, as they report their work to us, we should make instant responses and show that we do care about them. Third, we should communicate with residents and think about what they think. Fourth, we should stick to our principles and clear-cut attitudes toward work. Fifth, we should fully trust project participants elected by our residents. Sixth, we should maintain a good relationship with residents and not spread rumors. The achievements were

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made by all and not by the community self-governance committee. So, we should invite residents to express their opinions and allow social workers to play their roles. We should improve our EQ (emotional quotient), IQ (intelligence quotient), and WQ (will quotient) and learn to cope with pressure and not be afraid of being blamed. (The above text is from Yang Xu and Lu Chen of Community Service Center in Pudong New Area, Shanghai). Many of the “project systems” we mentioned earlier have fatal defects, because even if the screening of “experts and leaders” with professional eyes is relatively strict, it is challenging to achieve the original purpose of the project system.

5.5 Democratic Consultation of Social Organizations (Enterprises) Many social organizations, such as enterprises, have made outstanding achievements in organizing citizens to participate in democratic consultations. Especially after the introduction of a series of service-purchasing policies concerning public affairs, such as outsourcing, social organizations participate in community self-governance projects more diversely. Social organizations play a unique role in organizing multiple deliberative democratic decision-making and collecting public opinion. They can integrate the interests of the groups they represent and thus tend to be more “accessible. Social organizations still have a lot to do in expressing interests to public authorities and fighting for group rights and interests, providing specific plans for public service projects, and resolving divergence of opinions in group disputes. The “Deliberative Mechanism on Wages” carried out in many places combines the initiative of enterprises, assistance from social organizations, and support from the government. The practice of the above mechanism in Xinhe Town, Wenling City is relatively successful, which is directly related to the large-scale and in-depth application of deliberative democracy in the local public budget. Its experience consists of the following seven steps. (Zhu Shengming): 1. To set up trade unions and professional associations; 2. To divide job types and work procedures reasonably and set wage standards scientifically; 3. To hold collective deliberative democratic forums on industry wages; 4. To give feedback on deliberative consultations; 5. To sign collective wage agreements for industries by both employers and employees; 6. To sign for the record; 7. To establish a wage deliberative consultation and supervision mechanism for industries. There are many practical experiences and cases in this area, which will not be discussed here.

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5.6 CPC Intra-Party Democratic Decision-Making I often hear from some senior officials that “China has to pursue democracy, or there is no other way out. Talking about democracy, China essentially needs to propel the democracy of the party. The party’s democracy entails the improvement of the party’s leadership. To enhance the party’s leadership, it is necessary to promote talents, well discipline the cadres, and effectively implement democratic centralism.” Nevertheless, the narrative makes nonsense in shaping democracy. –Mao Shoulong.

Intra-party democracy has always been the focal point of the CPC as the ruling party in the development of its system. Under the existing system, the ruling party is undoubted atop China’s decision-making power structure. Unless there are major political changes, the scale of CPC‘s intra-party democracy restricts the breadth of political democracy. Although the CPC‘s intra-party decision-making cannot be as open and transparent as government decision-making, its decision-making involves all social groups. Under China’s existing political structure, it is of great significance for the legitimacy of CPC’s rule to adopt deliberative decision-making on major policies and issues, reasonably integrate public opinions, and organize necessary information exchanges. The CPC Party Working Committee of Gumei Sub-district, Minhang District, Shanghai, integrates deliberative democracy into the traditional “Party Building Forum”. At the forum, all the party representatives conducted democratic consultations on the important system documents to be issued by the CPC Committee of Gumei Sub-district. Its effectiveness went beyond the formalistic “mere appointed participants’ remarks and leaders’ pep talks” mode of conventional party-building lectures and forums. It gives everyone an opportunity to study and delve into documents, rather than “studying documents for the sake of conveying their content to inferiors”, and enables party-building documents to be seriously scrutinized by party members. “July 1 Party Building Forum” in Gumei Sub-district of Minhang District in Shanghai Agenda I. Time: 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 26, 2013. II. Location: Conference Room 216, Gumei Sub-district (No. 890 Pingnan Road). III. Moderator: Xu Zhi, the Secretary of the Party Working Committee and the Director of the Office of Gumei Community (Sub-district) IV. Agenda Democracy is not an ornament for decoration; it is to be used to solve the problems that the people want to solve. In all the activities of the Party as it exercises state power, and in all of China’s activities related to governance, we need to respect the people’s principal position in the country, and respect their creativity. We need to look to them as our teachers. –The Meeting Marking the 65th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, 2014.

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1. Requirements. (1) Before the discussion, all materials should be delivered to the participants so that everyone has sufficient reading time; (2) Questionnaires should be prepared according to the number of people participating in the forum. Each person is required to complete a questionnaire before the discussion. If 50 people participate, then complete the first questionnaire ahead of the group discussion. (3) Hold an intensive discussion, and the participants are required to ask executives questions to have an in-depth comprehension of the evaluated items; (4) Randomly divide all participants into several groups; each group has a moderator. (It is not recommended that the sub-district executive be the moderator.) Within a group, participants should fully discuss the evaluated items, and summarize a representative group opinion (5) Hold a deliberative consultation, in which groups exchange views with one another, and executives give a reply. (6) Complete the second questionnaire by the end of the forum; (7) Gathering all the evaluation results to form an analytical report and give further feedback to the participants, which can be used as a reference for decision-making of the community Party Work Committee when formulating documents. 2. Forum project exchange (60 min). (1) Yang Shiying, the member of the Party Working Committee and the director of the party affairs work station in Gumei Sub-district, makes a speech on the topic: The New Carrier of Integrating Resources of Party Construction— “Gumei Seven-Star Club” of the Party Affairs Workstation in Gumei Subdistrict. (2) He Lihua, the General Party Branch Secretary of Gumei Third-Village Community, makes a speech titled Giving Full Play to the Leading Core Role of Community Party Organizations, Promoting the Cohesion of Residents with Satisfactory Services, “ Nurturing Residents’ Self-governance Ability. (3) Chen Jianyuan, the General Party Branch Secretary of the Second Village of Pinyang, gives an address on Cultivating Residents’ Self-governance Under the Guidance of the Party Organization. (4) Ruan Meihua, the member of the party branch of social organizations and director of Jingyan Studio, gives a speech on the topic: giving Full Play to the Leading Role of Party Building in Social Organizations. (5) Xu Xiaoyi, the Secretary of the General Party Branch of the Culture and Sports Education Center gives a speech titled “Party Construction Leads Cultural and Educational Construction, and Cultural and Educational Construction Feeds Party Construction Back”.

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(6) Gu Qiong, the Secretary of the General Party Branch of the Donglan Sanju Community, makes a speech on Openness to an Effective Construction of Life Under the Leadership of the Party. (7) Qiao Wenyan, the Secretary of the second party branch of the Second Village General of Pinji, delivers a speech on Unswervingly Enhance Party Cohesiveness and Dedicate Ourselves to the Cohesion of Party Members. 3. Expert Comments: Professor Qiu Baisheng and Professor Han Fugu from Fudan University and Wang Qing from the Department of Organization at the District Party Committee comment on the discussion results. (16 min). 4. Special report on the work of the Party Working Committee by Du Tao (10 min). 5. Group discussion (6 small groups, 30 min in total). 6. Report on the discussion and answer questions (plenary sessions, 25 min, 3 min for each group). 7. Third-party assessment (15 min). 8. Conclusion of the forum. If you only do what you can do, you will never be more than you are now. –- Kungfu Panda 3.

By comparing the questionnaire results of the deliberative democracy over the party-building at Gumei Sub-district, it is evident that the recognition and satisfaction of the seven systems have increased, especially in the first questionnaire. Satisfaction of “Measures for the Administration of On-duty Exercise for Young Cadres with Temporary Positions at Gumei Community (Sub-district)” was relatively low in the last survey, but it slightly rose from 9.0 to 9.3 this time. Satisfaction of “Interim measures on the open competition for posts in organs, enterprises, and institutions in Gumei Community (Sub-district)” rose from 9.2 to 9.4, and “Measures for Star-rated Management of Social Workers in Residential Areas of Gumei Road Community (Sub-district)” also rose from 9.1 to 9.3 (Table 5.1). The deliberative democratic discussion of the party-building project in Gumei community is mainly carried out by the party members and representatives. They are well equipped with strict organizational discipline, and the discussion revolves around documents, thus the scores in both questionnaires are relatively high. However, through the comparison between the two questionnaires, participants have different opinions on the documents. The projects with the highest rise in scores are those most favored by participants. Moreover, it is of greater importance that the scores in all projects are on the rise. The participants also put forward many opinions in group discussions. Xu Zhi and Du Tao, the then deputy secretaries of the sub-district Party Working Committee, found that the older generation of grassroots party representatives was concerned about the growth of young cadres. A thrill for them is that a vast majority of the older participants were concerned about the future, not merely about their interests (Table 5.2).

5.6 CPC Intra-Party Democratic Decision-Making

149

Table 5.1. Deliberative democratic questionnaire on satisfaction of party-building at Gumei Subdistrict of Minhang district in Shanghai SN

Regulation Name

Results of the first questionnaire (81 in total)

Results of the third questionnaire (72 in total)

1

Rules of procedure of the Working Committee in Gumei Road Community (Sub-district), Minhang District, CPC

9.5

9.5

2

Trial measures for the hearing of public affairs in Gumei Sub-district

9.1

9.4

3

Trial measures for the system of party representative conference in Gumei Community (Sub-district), Minhang District, CPC

9.3

9.5

4

Trial measures for the system of non-voting representatives of CPC Working Committee in Gumei Community (Sub-district), Minhang District, CPC

9.4

9.4

5

Measures for the Administration of On-duty Exercise for Young Cadres with Temporary Positions in Gumei Community (Sub-district)

9.0

9.3

6

Interim measures on the open competition for posts in organs, enterprises, and institutions in Gumei Community (Sub-district)

9.2

9.4

7

Measures for the star-rated management of social workers in residential areas of Gumei community (Sub-district)

9.1

9.3

Table 5.2 Deliberative Questionnaire on Satisfaction of the Progress of Party-building Projects in Gumei Sub-district of Minhang District in Shanghai No

Project Name

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the third questionnaire

1

Progress made in Units’ Self-governance

8.8

9.1

2

Progress made in “Self-governed Home”

8.8

9.0

3

Progress made in the Pilot Project of Effectiveness of 8.9 the Grassroots Party Organizational Life

8.9

Therefore, if we open up multi-dimensional intra-party decision-making and carry out tests of the multiple deliberative democracy for the masses on significant matters within particular regions, the gap between “intra-party political identity” and “public identity” will be effectively bridged, laying a solid foundation for the public support in the decision-making of the ruling party at all levels.

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5.7 Major Social Planning Projects Learning when you are young is like walking in the light of the rising sun. Learning in old age is like walking at night with a torch, which is better than seeing nothing with your eyes closed (Yan Zhitui, “The Yan’s Family Rules”). The same is true of our study of democracy. The earlier we learn and operate it, the earlier we can adapt it to the development of our country.

Voting on major social issues is an issue that modern democracies attach great importance to. Some countries with competitive democratic systems adopt referendums, but the premise of it is that all participants have a complete understanding of the information relevant to the vote. It is challenging to vote on decisions on significant issues nationwide (but it is not impossible, because the whole EU has conducted deliberative polls). However, it is feasible to engage the whole population in decision-making in a specific region, that is, by implementing multiple deliberative democratic decision-making procedures. Many critical social issues often go beyond specific contents like financial distribution and involve policies concerning fairness, democracy, and sustainability, such as urban planning, administrative division adjustment, migrant integration, urban transportation planning, urban cultural development, and environmental protection. Adopting the method of deliberative democracy on major social issues can give all stakeholders equal opportunities to participate, which is a legitimate and reasonable procedure to make up for China’s Representative Decision-Making system. In addition, introducing multiple deliberative democracy in addressing social problems can obtain the attention and engagement of society at all levels and scopes. As regards China’s existing political system, multiple deliberative democratic approaches can correlate the “orderly engagement” expected by the ruling party with the “expression of public opinion” that society anticipates. For party committees and governments at all levels, Multiple Deliberative Democracy not only meets the increasingly robust democratic demands of the public but also facilitates communication with the public in an orderly manner rather than dismissing the rationality and legitimacy of public engagement simply because of the diversity of the masses’ abilities to engage in decision-making and their divergence of opinions on public affairs.

5.8 Civic Education The operating procedures of multiple deliberative democracy cannot merely be used in public decision-making but also discussion and communication of various public issues. Citizens’ political accomplishment and public knowledge can be improved through engagement with multiple deliberative democratic procedures, thus cultivating well-educated modern citizens. In a strict sense, modern citizens are born with the right to engage in public affairs, which is legitimized by modern countries through laws. All laws in China are formulated with recognition of citizens’ right to political

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151

participation. However, it is essential for citizens’ political capability building to engage them, especially the younger generation, in handling modern public affairs. It is the top priority for a modern country to develop the younger generation a spirit of engagement and consciousness of prudent democratic decision-making. The Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University has conducted several citizen democratic consultation activities among middle school students near Silicon Valley to improve young American citizens’ ability to identify political information in TV news, media advertising, and election campaigns. Through the stringent procedures of deliberative democracy, they became aware of the importance of “informed decisions” and acquired good communication techniques. China has always emphasized citizen consciousness in modern society, but the cultivation mechanism in this field is still blank. We generally believe that middle school students are far away from political decision-making, and even after they received higher education, what they have learned is mainly skill-based knowledge. General courses replace civil political education, and there is no real opportunity for them to participate. As a result, they enter society lacking public social knowledge. Absurdly, on the one hand, the public in China grumbles about the deficiency of school education in fostering students’ capabilities of political engagement; on the other hand, the society is overwhelmed by the utilitarian pursuits of a better school or higher marks in examinations, and even worries about the awareness of civic consciousness. Therefore, multiple deliberative democratic decision-making can make primary school students, high school students, and especially college students, learn a rational way of discussion in their socialization progress. In this way, our students can meet the requirements of modern politics and the standards set by the Party and the government, and lay a social foundation of civil groups for China’s socialist democracy by participating in the democratic consultation of public affairs. Here is a notification of the deliberative poll for middle school students held by Stanford University. Deliberative Poll Voting and Being Informed Friday, March 4, 2016 Welcome to join the deliberative poll at Stanford University! Today you will have the opportunity to experience democracy in person, a topic that has been learned in your government lessons, especially in your adventure lessons. Given that the presidential election will be held this year, we want to focus on citizen engagement, especially in voting and being informed. Remember: the purpose of deliberation is to listen to others with your mind open, understand their reasons for holding different views, clarify your own stand, and learn how to grasp your own beliefs better. The topics discussed this time are also paradoxical. Hopefully, you can maintain mutual respect and a civilized attitude during the group discussion. Contact details (emergency): (650)-725–5555 or 911 Instructors from Stanford University: Alice Siu; Luke Terra The deliberative poll among middle school students conducted by Stanford University is a form of “Project Citizen” in the United States. This plan allows high

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school students to research practical social problems, analyze public policies, and try to put forward their solutions. Through the process, they can be acquainted with some basic social policies, improve their ability to consult and cooperate with others, and develop their critical thinking. Moreover, they are also supposed to mobilize others, raise funds, and enhance their writing and speaking skills. More interestingly, Stanford University has conceived a community problemsolving plan for college students to cultivate their sense of responsibility and commitment to the community, which is far from our impression that American college students pursue business ventures with the notion that “interests first” without community social responsibility. Any parents who send their children to receive education in the United States from an early age will realize how their children are cultivated to engage in public affairs. The training of democratic engagement ability and the quality of citizens has become an integral part of political and social life in modern democracies. Heine once said, “When people talk about the weather or inspiration, I worked as meticulously as a jeweler to make golden chains by stringing all the tiny rings”. For ordinary Chinese people, “democracy” has been entrenched by unilateral violent demonstrations and conflicts. Modern democracy lies more in orderly discussion and decision-making in daily life, as it properly strings all the “tiny rings” of daily affairs with systems. In contrast, this seems to be a problem that remains unresolved for China. To plan for one year, It is better to plant food; To plan for ten years, It is better to plant trees; To plan for life, It is better to cultivate talents. Grains can be harvested once in one cultivation; Trees can be harvested ten times in one cultivation; A wise man can harvest a hundred times in one cultivation. –Guanzi · Quanxiu.

We need more than theoretical propagandists; we need theoretical practitioners. People never feel fatigued in discussing the words and deeds of politicians that later become the targets of theoretical research and classics of propaganda, but people often forget that these politicians were actors and practitioners in their time.

Chapter 6

Comparison of Political Participation Methods: Practices of Deliberative Democracy in China

Diligence at the start indeed is fine; Completeness at ending, duly grand. Glorious works as the foundation, With no limit to one’s reputation. – “The Thousand Character Classic”.

Over the past three decades, diverse deliberative mechanisms have sprung up in the development of local democratic politics and democratic decision-making in mainland China, mainly including Hearing, the Coordination Meeting, the Appraisal Meeting, the Consensus Meeting, the Citizen Forum, Creation Rights and Referendum, the Civic Group and Civic Consulting Group, the Democratic Appraising Council, the Communication Day, the Consultative Poll (under test), the Participatory Budgeting, the Democratic Discussion, and the Internet Public Forum. Frankly speaking, I am always confused by these names. Some scholars refer to the Democratic Discussion in mainland China as the “Chinese Citizen Conference”. The practice of deliberative democracy in the Taiwan region of China mainly adopts Citizen Conference, Deliberative Poll, Citizens’ Jury, Scenario Workshop, etc. In recent years, Taiwan has widely spread the “Participatory Budget” and advocated openingup information on decision-making to the public. Hong Kong and Macao also have Consultative Poll projects, such as the questionnaire surveys conducted three times in Hong Kong. From the perspective of history and logic, democracy is far from being “a plate of loose sands” (a state of disunity), nor will it lead to this problem. In this sense, being “one plate of loose sands” is not the production of democracy; it is even not too much to say that this problem only can be solved by implementing the democratic political system. –San Yucheng, “Standing on the Plain and Looking at the High Mountains”.

We need to make it clear that there is no perfect deliberative democratic decisionmaking. It is essential to adopt diverse methods and procedures in social deliberative democratic decision-making in China. We should value and learn from system innovations that can gather public opinions scientifically, democratically, and openly, © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5_6

153

154

6 Comparison of Political Participation Methods: Practices … Techniques as Open Space Identification of Social Problems Expression of Social Opinions

Platforms as Citizen Forum New Spaces as Cyber Community Rules of Robert`s Order

Social Problems

Analysis of Public Opinions Integration of Diverse Opinions

Think Tanks` Planning Design

Multiple Deliberative Discussion

Selection of Public Decisions Local “Four Meetings” System Feedback of Selected Decisions Review of Decision Performance

Review of Multiple Deliberation

Fig. 6.1 Chart of China’s deliberative democratic decision-making mechanism

thus improving decision-making quality. None of the systems and methods is of little importance in wrestling with the issues of social governance and democratic development. Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages in terms of procedure and applicability to different stages and development levels in the process of promoting democracy. Simon Montefiore once said “everyone has his own Jerusalem. Everyone has the right to impose his ‘Jerusalem’ on Jerusalem in reality”. However, it is the innovation of scientific procedure innovation instead of the assumption that realizes our dreams. Some people make the above decision-making procedures and methods opposite to each other, which actually limits the practical possibility of multiple democracies. Discussions, forums, and communication sessions are all different variant forms and revolve around three fundamental questions: “who will participate”, “how to participate”, and “what is the result”, where the difference resides only in the methods to scientifically appoint participants and to quantify their opinions. Each specific issue can be addressed with a single or a mixed method, however, as many scholars insist, the key steps of every method have their distinctive systemic function, i.e. to ensure the justice, equality, and neutrality of the democratic decision-making process, and therefore they cannot be removed indiscriminately. In the past, however, some authorities had misunderstood the relationship between innovation and science and thus failed in their institutional innovation, which reduced the quality of democratic decision-making and deviate from the original aspiration to hold deliberative discussions. Hence, Professor He Baogang’s worries are justified in this regard. Only by adhering to both the “localization of problems” and the “scientific procedures” can we shape multiple deliberative democratic approaches with Chinese characteristics that contribute to world politics (Fig. 6.1).

6.1 Mass Forum

155

Nevertheless, “public opinion expression” and “public opinion integration” are two keys to decision-making. Many of the above systems and methods of deliberative democracy are introduced for public opinion expression instead of public opinion integration. Hence, with tailored solutions, these systems and methods should be considered one integral system. We should find the roles that they played in the system of public decision-making and the relevant approaches and procedures that can be adopted, thus forming a deliberative democratic decision-making building procedure on problem-solving. Although this book focuses on the introduction of operating procedures of multiple deliberative democratic decision-making, it also agrees that the existing mass forum and hearing, open space discussion, citizen forum, internet public forum, Robert’s Rules of Order, etc. are effective procedures for public opinion expression, collection, and supervision. We just want to emphasize the importance of questionnaire-based public opinion quantification and sample surveys in the process of multiple deliberative democratic decision-making. As the core of public opinion integration in modern society, they are scientific, democratic, and procedural and thus cannot be replaced by other democratic procedures. Moreover, they can, particularly in scientific decisionmaking on significant social issues, eradicate numerous social problems such as recurrent forums and conflicts in gatherings that may emerge in the late development stage. Some well-developed grassroots’ deliberative democracy methods are explained below. I will also give a brief discussion on their application scope and procedure advantages in the process of public decision-making and consultation, thus reviewing different methods and their social effects from a global perspective. In the strict sense, real democracy has never existed and will never exist in the world. It is a violation of the natural order that the minority is under the rule of the majority. We cannot imagine endless meetings on public affairs by the people. –-Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

6.1 Mass Forum Mass Forum is a mechanism that can be easily operated and implemented to grasp the social situation and collect public opinions, and it is a basic approach for Chinese people to give feedback on problems. Mass forum and Group-Rights Expression with social resistance constitute the active and passive reflecting mechanisms. Chinese authorities, social organizations, and all walks of life from the central government to communities often use mass forums to conduct research, justify policies, and adjust the existing policy structure. The disadvantage of mass forums is the “homogeneity” of their participants. First, the participants often share similar social backgrounds; second, when senior officials attend mass forums organized by their inferiors, inappropriate participants will undoubtedly be sifted out in rigorous vetting processes. Even in those forums with relatively loose regulations where teachers and students are present, the participants also need to be carefully selected. This leads to

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6 Comparison of Political Participation Methods: Practices …

an odd phenomenon that those who are ineligible to attend the forum consider it as a “mere formality”, while those who can attend reckon themselves “personnel within the system”. In fact, mass forum organizers have been increasing participant diversity so that their opinion can reflect the views of people from all walks of life. This can prevent the mass forum from eventually “extolling the political achievements of leaders” or being “a top-down communication” as a consequence of decision-makers being unable to hear the real voice of the people.

Despite the inherent flaws of mass forums in reflecting public opinion, they will still be constantly applied because of the convenience they bring. Taking the “open-ended decision-making” adopted by Hangzhou Municipal Government as an example, where participants are selected through diverse channels and volunteers from citizen and community workers are also sampled at random (although some steps are controlled by government personnel. It is by no means possible for the whole process of executive meetings of the Municipal Government to be open to the public). We interviewed Cai Qi, the then mayor of Hangzhou City, about what to do if the decision-making was voted down by the public and his reply was brief and straightforward: “What would a democracy be without voting?”

6.1.1 Text Broadcast of 49th Standing Meeting of Hangzhou Municipal Government November 5, 2005 Cai Qi (the then-mayor of Hangzhou City): Today, we hold the 49th Standing Meeting of the Municipal Government. According to the usual practice, we invited some deputies to the Municipal People’s Congress and members of the Municipal Council to the meeting. Here I will make a brief introduction of them: deputies present today are Lin Guoqin, director of Laodong road community at the Qingbo subdistrict of Shangcheng district, and Li Shugui, deputy counsel of Labor Dispute Division of Hangzhou Labor and Social Security Bureau; members of Municipal Council present today are Wu Xuan from “West Lake” periodical office and Cai Zuming from Hangzhou Huayuan Bean Products Ltd. We also invited some citizen representatives here. One hundred and one citizens signed up for the meeting through the internet and phone text message in a week from November 17 to November 23, and four of them were chosen by lot to attend today’s meeting. They are: Shen Jinnan, a resident of Xinglong West Village in Shangcheng District; Xu Guowei from the Social Insurance Office of Labor and Social Security Bureau in Jianggan District; Yu Jinqiang from “Liuxia” Economic Cooperative in Xihu District, but has not yet arrived; and Chaibanfen from Qijia Gate Village of Xixiang Subdistrict in Binjiang District. We also invited He Wenjiong, professor in social security studies at Zhejiang University, as an expert for the Municipal Advisory Committee attending today’s meeting.

6.1 Mass Forum

157

I’d like to note that the research group of the “China Local Innovation and Governance Award” Committee is also attending the meeting. They traveled from Beijing specifically for providing guidance. Please allow me to introduce them. They are Professor Chen Jiagang, director of the Center for Comparative Political and Economic Studies of the Central Bureau of Compilation and Translation of the CPC Central Committee; Dr. Han Fuguo, deputy professor of the School of Public Management at Zhejiang University; Ma Ben, postdoctoral fellow of Tsinghua University, and Dr. Huang Zhenqi and Dr. Wang Liu from the School of Public Management at Zhejiang University. Let us extend our sincere welcome to the deputies of the People’s Congress, members of the CPPCC, citizen representatives, and the research group of the “China Local Government Innovation Award” Committee. We will set up a video broadcast column and a live forum on the official website of Hangzhou Municipal Government, Hangzhou Branch of China Telecom, and Wasu Group. We hope that our citizens will actively participate in the online discussions and express their views. From November 17 to November 23, 48 citizens signed up for our video interaction. Later, we will select two of them randomly and listen to their suggestions through the internet video. We must be the great arsenal of democracy. For us, this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war. –Franklin Roosevelt

For mobile phone users, we will set up live broadcast channels for this meeting. China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom users can log in to our WAP site to watch and propose suggestions by sending phone messages. Let us welcome citizens who are going to participate in this meeting through the internet and mobile phones. Notice: The above text was extracted from. http://www.hangzhou.gov.cn/col/col812052/index.html Despite the selection procedure for resident representatives, daily residential deliberations after the selection are actually different versions of the mass forum. For example, many communities stipulate in their self-governance chapters the critical position of all kinds of mass forums in collecting public opinions.

6.1.2 Working Method of “1 + 1 + X” in Puxing Sub-district Self-governance Chapters and Implementation Rulesin Jinqiaowan Residential Area Chapter IV Discussion Rules for Residents Article 20 Discussion Methods

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6 Comparison of Political Participation Methods: Practices …

1. Meetings of resident representatives should be held regularly to work on solutions to existing problems and listen to residents’ views and suggestions, and the community self-governance committee should report on its work at the meetings. 2. Activities should be organized for residents to express their opinions, demands, and suggestions, and the community self-governance committee should appoint representatives to introduce the current focus of work. 3. Various kinds of mass forums should be convened and convenient mailboxes for residents should be set up to solicit opinions from residents and reply to residents’ inquiries as soon as possible. Discussion and Contact System of Residents in Jinqiaowan residential area. 4. The meeting of appointed participants of each building unit shall be held every half year, and the community self-governance committee should report on its recent work and listen to their opinions and suggestions. Various discussion organizations independent of the community self-governance committee, such as the “Residential Representatives’ Meeting” and the “Joint Meeting”, are also adopting mass forums to conduct the routine governance of the community. Brochure for the Work of Community Self-governance Committee on SCHB Sub-district, Hongkou District, Shanghai 37. Responsibilities of Residential Council 1. To discuss and investigate essential public affairs and major problems concerning the management of the residential area proposed by the residents or community units and to put forward solutions and suggestions. 2. To actively reduce factors that disrupt community order, safeguard the legitimate interests and rights of residents, promote the sharing of social resources, and create a harmonious community. 38. Composition of members of the Residential Council The Community Residential Council is a permanent council decision-making institution for residents’ meetings. The council is entrusted by residents (resident representatives) with the right to hold discussions and make decisions. Members of the Residential Council are composed of residents, representatives from community units, property management companies, the house-owner committee, etc., and community police. 39. Schedule of Residential Council Usually, Residential Council should be held every three months; more meetings can be convened if important events that need to be consulted about occur. 40. Preparation for Residential Council As the convener of meetings, the Party organizations in residential areas should extensively listen to the suggestions from all groups in the community, collect relevant information to get more details, and identify problems and categorize those related to society, masses, and public interests before meetings, so that these problems can be put forward during the meeting and solved through consultation. Residential Council meetings focus on discussing and investigating significant events

6.2 Citizen (Villager) Forum

159

of residents’ general concerns in our community, offering pre-argument of decisionmaking concerning the community’s significant public affairs, and taking the minutes in detail for meetings. The most terrible enemy is the lack of strong faith. –Romain Rolland

41. Notes to the Residential Council 1. Every issue needs to be deliberated. Every opinion and suggestion should be collected and seriously analyzed and deliberated. 2. Every issue should be reported. Categorizing the collected opinions and suggestions and reporting them to corresponding organizations in time (community units, property management companies, the house-owner committee, street departments, etc.). 3. Every issue should be handled. The above organizations should work out solutions to the problems reported to them. 4. Every issue should be replied to. Feedback should be given on received suggestions and addressed issues at Residential Council meetings (resident representatives’ meetings), and reasons should be given for unresolved ones. As regards advice suggestions with a specific name or room number, we need to give feedback promptly and reply to those residents with door-to-door visits. Although the residential council is entrusted with the right of the resident representatives’ meeting to manage, its composition remains the conventional administrative council of appointed participants. Furthermore, it stipulates the Community CPC Committee as the convener, making the resident’s representative council a formality to some degree. Despite the specific provisions that visits paid to residents and feedback given to their suggestions must be carried out as soon as possible, it remains “obsolete” in dealing with administrative problems.

6.2 Citizen (Villager) Forum Community (villager) representatives’ meeting or community (villagers’) meeting has long existed in China’s grassroots society and constituted the democratic form of consultations for all to engage in. Western countries have the “Town Hall Meeting” that, considering its town scale, equals our villagers’ meeting except for differences in freedom of speech. In 2006, a social worker organized a “Community Round Table Meeting” in Pudong New Area, where social workers and residents discussed their community’s public affairs and voted to make decisions on them. Moreover, “Square Politics” was launched between members of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress and vice mayors in Yueqing City of Zhejiang province, and some citizens there were invited to attend the meeting. It was similar to the open forum among officials and gave the ordinary people a chance to know about the supervision of the National People’s Congress.

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Citizen and villager forums (in some places, there are even “Migrants Forums”) are more formal than mass forums, it enables the mass to express their views more freely and openly. The number of citizens (villagers) participating in such forums is relatively large, and all groups have the chance and freedom to participate, enabling a more flexible and convenient way to express grassroots opinions. Autumn clusters surround my house just like Tao Yuanming’s. I walk full circle around the fence as the sun slowly tilts. It is not that I love chrysanthemums more than other flowers, But that no others will blossom after these blooms wither. –Yuan Zhen, Chrysanthemums

The urgent need for improvement in community (villager) forums lies in that although participants have more freedom to express themselves in such forums, it is difficult for decision-makers to integrate public opinions and draw a scientific conclusion in default of precise rules and methods.

6.3 “Four Meetings” System “Four meetings”, i.e., Hearing, Coordination Meeting, Appraisal Meeting, and Sitting Meeting, are the typical forms of collecting public opinions in grassroots decisionmaking in China, especially at the community level. Hearing is the most commonly used form, with which attempts have been made by many local and state authorities. We can take a deep look at how the four types of meetings are organized and operated through regulations introduced in Shanghai.

6.3.1 Measures of Hearing, Coordination Meeting, and Appraisal Meeting in Residential Areas in Shanghai 6.3.1.1

Chapter 2 Hearing System

Article 4 (the Meaning of the Hearing) The hearing is a system of meetings organized by community self-governance committees and attended by a fraction of resident representatives. Before the authorities or community self-governance committees make decisions on major public affairs or projects of great public interest, hearings should be held to extensively discuss the issues concerned, and the participants should put forward their views and suggestions at the hearings. Article 5 (Convening of Hearings)

6.3 “Four Meetings” System

161

Community self-governance committees should, in principle, convene hearings after the relevant authorities seek suggestions from them. Community selfgovernance committees can seek permission from the authorities to convene hearings when necessary. Community self-governance committees can convene hearings on residents’ affairs at their own discretion. Article 6 (the Composition of the Members of a Hearing) A hearing group is organized by the community self-governance committee whose director serves as the group leader. The group members are composed of resident representatives, representatives of residential councils, and representatives of other related unities involved in major public affairs or projects implemented in their community by the authorities or community self-governance committees. Article 7 (the Content of Hearings) The main content of hearing includes: 1. Recent construction planning projects concerning the vital interests of members of the community (except for major municipal and district-level construction projects) 2. Matters concerning the social stability of the community 3. Other matters requiring a hearing Article 8 (the Procedures of a Hearing) The procedures of a hearing include: Preparation Procedures: 1. If a community self-governance committee decides to convene a hearing, it should arrange the time and venue and appoint participants within seven days after it receives the requirements and content of the hearing in written form from relevant government departments. It should also ensure that relevant government departments and the appointed participants are informed. 2. Before the hearing, the community self-governance committee should conduct an extensive and in-depth investigation and seek public opinions, thus having a basic understanding of the situation. 3. A hearing can only be held when the number of attendants reaches half of the number of those who are supposed to come. Hearing Procedures: 1. The moderator states the topics of the hearing. 2. The community self-governance committee states information relevant to the topics. 3. Participants have a full discussion on the topics. 4. Officers from relevant government departments answer questions from the participants. 5. All participants vote to reach a hearing resolution. The voting method should be decided by the community self-governance committee based on the discussion of the topics, and the hearing resolution must be passed by more than half of the participants.

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The community self-governance committee should take the minutes of the hearing in full. Post-hearing Procedures: The community self-governance committee should announce the vote results of the hearing in proper ways within one week after the hearing. If the hearing matters involve relevant government departments or offices of the sub-district (the township government), a written duplicate of hearing vote results should be sent to them by the community self-governance committee.

6.3.1.2

Chapter 3 Coordination Meeting System

Article 9 (the Meaning of the Coordination Meeting) The coordination meeting is a system of meetings that aims to consult on matters of public interests and social concerns involving the residents of a community and to resolve conflicts of interest among them. Tönnies emphasizes that "a community is a shared entity", but the concepts of "neighborhood" and "community" may be different in the process of urbanization. A "neighborhood block" can be any social space dominated by the social relationships among residents, such as villages and urban suburbs where families gather and people raise their children. In contrast, in populated urban districts, people live in high-rise buildings, and most of them do not know each other. Although residents there have their own "relationship networks", we cannot call it a “neighborhood”. A community is built into a space area and an organized social institution, which is perhaps one of the reasons why it lacks motivation in community engagement.

Article 10 (Services Provided by Relevant Authorities) When the community self-governance committee convenes the coordination meeting, it can seek policy and legal support from relevant authorities in the district. Article 11 (the Composition of the Members of a Coordination Meeting) The members of a coordination committee are composed of the parties concerned, the director of the community self-governance committee, the director of the people’s mediation committee of the community self-governance committee, and relevant staff of the community. If necessary, persons such as the heads of the Party community committee, community police, and legal assistant of the sub-district office (the township government) can also be invited to participate. Article 12 (the Work of a Coordination Meeting) The main work of the coordination committee includes: 1. To resolve conflicts concerning the public interests of the residents of the community; 2. To settle disputes and conflicts of interests among the residents of the community; 3. To solve other conflicts that the parties concerned submitted. Article 13 (the Procedures of a Coordination Meeting) The procedures and contents of the coordination committee include: Preparation procedures:

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1. The coordination meeting committee should list the issues that need to be consulted and inform the parties concerned in a written form within seven days before the opening of the meeting. The coordination meeting can be convened as soon as possible if confronted with intense disputes or conflicts. 2. Before the coordination meeting, the community self-governance committee should contact the parties concerned and other participants to arrange the time and the venue and prepare relevant materials. Meeting procedures: 1. The parties concerned state the facts and reasons, and then the director of the community self-governance committee asks them questions to confirm the focal points of conflicts or disputes and mediate accordingly. The director should also take the minutes. 2. If the consensus is reached through meditation, the parties concerned should sign or seal a written agreement. Other participants from related authorities involved should also sign and seal. 3. If no agreement can be reached, the parties concerned and other participants involved should also sign or seal a written agreement, and the director of the community self-governance committee should inform the parties to settle their conflicts in other ways. Post-meeting procedures: 1. If the consensus is not reached at the coordination meeting but is reached after the meeting, a written agreement should be prepared. The agreement should be signed or sealed by the parties concerned and filed by the community selfgovernance committee. 2. If the consensus cannot be reached at the coordination meeting, the community self-governance committee should agree to the request of the parties concerned to convene a coordination meeting again. However, only three opportunities to hold a meeting are available for the same topic. 6.3.1.3

Chapter 4 Appraisal Meeting System

Article 14 (the meaning of the Appraisal Meeting) The Appraisal Meeting is a system of meetings organized by community selfgovernance committees and attended by resident representatives of communities. The representatives appraise the work of institutions, organizations, and persons at meetings. Article 15(the Objects to be Appraised) I believe in democracy because it releases the energy of every human being. –Woodrow Wilson

The objects to be appraised include accredited institutions and their personnel in administrative authorities of police, industry and commerce, taxation, environment, public sanitation monitoring, housing management, and health, as well

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as the community organizations and their workers such as property management companies, community residential affairs work stations. Article 16 (the Form of Appraisal Meetings) Regular appraisal Meetings are held at the end of each year to make comprehensive appraisals of the work of institutions, organizations, and persons. Occasional appraisal meetings such as thematic meetings and inspection meetings can also be held if necessary. Article17 (the Composition of the Members of an Appraisal Meeting) An appraising group is organized by the community self-governance committee whose director serves as the group leader, the group members are composed of resident representatives, representatives of residential councils, and representatives of other related unities involved. Article 18 (the Content of an Appraisal Meeting) The main content of an appraisal meeting includes: 1. The implementation of community work set by the city/district government and the completion of the goals and tasks of regular community work. 2. The performance of institutions, organizations, and persons in carrying out their functions in community work and the completion of their relevant work. 3. The participation of institutions, organizations, and persons in the coconstruction of community self-governance. 4. The completion of other particular tasks concerning community construction and management. Article 19 (the Procedures of an Appraisal Meeting) Procedures of an appraising meeting include: 1. The appraising group should inform all the objects to be appraised to submit reports on their work within 15 days before the convening of the meeting at the end of the year. 2. After receiving the reports submitted by the objects, the appraising group should appraise their work based on the annual work plan they had submitted at the beginning of the year and give a written appraisal report. 3. The appraising group should convene a comprehensive appraisal meeting, where the objects should report on their work performance, existing problems, and rectification measures. Then the group should complete the appraisal after discussions with three grades in written form: excellent, qualified, and unqualified. 4. Within seven days after the meeting, the community self-governance committee should give feedback to the objects and their higher authorities and sub-district offices (township governments) on their appraisal grades. These higher authorities and sub-district offices (township governments) should regard the appraisal grades as the criterion for demotion and promotion in department dual management and assessment. Without democracy, there would be no socialism or socialist modernization. Of course, democratization, just like modernization, should move forward step by step. The more socialism develops, the more democracy develops.

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–Deng Xiaoping

It can be seen from the above documents on the specific “three meetings” system that the authorities and communities in Shanghai have not made clear the composition of the members of these meetings. If that is the case, how do they ensure the equality and openness of social and political participation? What’s more, the primary power is handed over to the community self-governance committee to designate “a fraction of a fraction of resident representatives”, which is even stipulated in the above documents to be the function of the director of the community self-governance committee. This has fallen into the logic of a designated forum that we have repeatedly discussed: the community self-governance committee organizes the participants of these meetings with its director serving as the principal member. Thus, the problems in their practice of the “Three Meetings” system remain the lack of mechanisms to ensure the designated participants’ representativeness and the selection process’s fairness and openness. Otherwise, representatives lacking representativeness will make the system back into the predicament of “representatives expressing for people and making decisions for people”. In the early stage of grassroots self-governance, the “Three Meeting” system is of great institutional significance, but if it failed to ensure fairness in the selection of participants and to promote the rationality of the meeting process, it would turn from an innovative system into a conservative one lacking the sense of self-governance. The “sitting-in meeting system” is an emerging innovative system in which people’s congresses and other institutions allow citizens to sit in on meetings, that is, they are allowed to attend the meetings with no right to participate, although they are allowed to ask questions at some meetings. The earlier-mentioned “open-ended decision-making” adopted by Hangzhou Municipal Government is not part of the sitting-in meeting system because it allows citizens to ask questions and express their opinions, and the decision-making authorities are obliged to consider the participants’ ideas in making decisions. The “Citizen’s Siting-in Meeting System” of Guiyang Municipal People’s Congress, which was honored with the “Chinese Local Government Innovation Award” in the early time, can be regarded as an early attempt to open the door of the National People’s Congress and allow citizens to sit in directly.

6.3.2 Sitting-In Announcement of the Fourth Session of the Thirteenth Guiyang Municipal People’s Congress The 20th Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th Guiyang Municipal People’s Congress decided that the Fourth Session of the 13th Municipal People’s Congress will be held in Guiyang Conference Center, Guanshan Lake District, Guiyang on January 24, 2014. Citizens with full capacity for civil conduct are welcomed to attend the first, second, and fourth plenary sessions to listen to the reports on the work of the

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Municipal People’s Government, the Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress, the Municipal Intermediate People’s Court and the Municipal People’s Procuratorate, and to propose opinions and suggestions. Registration Time: 9: 00–17: 00 on January 14–16, 2014. Registration methods: 1. citizens can register with their valid certificates at the hall on the first floor of the office building of the Municipal People’s Congress of Guanshan Lake district; 2. To register via phone or fax, our number is 7988653 (including fax); 3. Citizens can also log in to the website of Guiyang Municipal People’s Congress (www.gysrd.gov.cn) and click the column of “online registration” to register for themselves. “Suppose that everyone in a political system is ranked in terms of his/her relative advantages over the predominant political resources in society, such as wealth, income, knowledge, fame, control over communication, the police, and the army- the distribution of various resources has become thoroughly interconnected. The more resources one has, the more other resources he/she possesses”. This explains the meaning of cumulative inequality of political resources. –Robert Dahl, “Modern Political Analysis”.

6.3.2.1

Office of the Standing Committee of Guiyang Municipal People’s Congress

January 13, 2014 Some other places have also introduced similar “sitting-in meeting systems”, as exemplified by the case of the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress. The 73rd meeting of directors of the Standing Committee of the 12th Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress decided to hold the 29th session of the Standing Committee of the 12th Provincial People’s Congress in Hangzhou from the afternoon of May 23 to the morning of May 27. According to relevant regulations, citizens are allowed to attend the meeting. The proposed agenda for the meeting mainly includes ... (omitted) For any citizens who want to attend the meeting, please take your ID cards and other valid certifications to apply for permission from relevant institutions. Citizens in Hangzhou City can apply for clearance at the General Office of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People’s Congress. Address: the central gate of the Great Hall of the Provincial People’s Congress. Application Time: 8: 30 a.m. to 11: 00 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. to 4 p.m., May 19; For those who are unable to apply on-site due to certain personal reasons, you can also apply to the General Office of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People’s Congress via telephone or fax (tel:87,057,927, 87,053,449; fax:87,053,445). At around 6 am BST on July 16, 2016, Turkish president Erdo˘gan was interviewed by CNN via the phone app Facetime in an unknown location. He called on the public to “go to the streets, and give them your answer” and added that “I will go to the square of Ankara”. The media said: “Erdogan has achieved political mobilization free from the constraints of time and space via new media.” “Unlike the Twitter revolution in the Middle East and North Africa that overthrew their authoritarian rulers, Erdogan successfully maintained his

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authority through the power of new media, which can also be regarded as a Twitter revolution in a broad sense. As a purely neutral technology, the political power of new media like Twitter is demonstrated in a profound and complete way at this moment. “ – “How did Turkish President Erdo˘gan foil the coup via new media”, The Paper News, 16 July 2016.

A critical question is: which applicants will be selected? What are the criteria for the selection? These are unknown to us. Judging from the identity of selected “ordinary” citizens in some places, they are basically people who have been strictly screened, such as community cadres, teachers, and very few ordinary citizens. Furthermore, the sitting-in meeting system is now still at a stage of allowing selected applicants to attend selected parts of meetings. If the “four meetings system” can guarantee the coverage of the representatives to allow genuine “stakeholders” to participate in the decision-making process, thus enabling the discussion outcomes to be known to the public and preventing the decision-makers from manipulating the meetings, an effective democratic decisionmaking process will be created. If our hearings were like hearings in some places, with armed police monitoring and guarding journalists, our hearings would be better off not being held at all.

6.4 Community Network Forum The Internet provides an effective platform that boosts the political engagement of citizens in modern society. Research shows that one main reason for the democratization of government decision-making is the “uncontralling” of information on the Internet in China over the past 40 years. After the “Migrant Sun Zhigang Incident”, the diversification and the anonymity of online opinion expression make Internet users feel safe, and thus many of them bravely speak their minds out. With upgraded expression methods such as “community network forum” in many communities, the residents are free from their concerns of “it would be embarrassing to criticize acquaintances” and express explicit criticism about the community. For example, in 2000, when we were conducting research on an online forum of the Huashan community committee in Shanghai, residents of the community posted remarks criticizing a “municipal government official” for illegal parking. As a result, the official quickly corrected his bad habits after seeing the post. The cadres of the community committee also admitted later that they had been afraid to accuse the official of illegal parking. There are also communities in Hangzhou (such as the Degas Community) that have made reasonable attempts to solve problems using online forums. However, those who are computer-literate and those who are active on the Internet tend to belong to the same group, that is, those who are prone to post cynical and irrational remarks. We find in the above-mentioned research that “biased and radical views” and “extreme attitudes” is easy to appear in cyberspace, which is often related to many macro-political issues that the “water army” (a group of Internet users hired

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to shape public opinion in a malicious manner) participate. Nevertheless, concerning specific decision-making matters, especially those in a particular region, there is a certain degree of coincidence between the opinions expressed online and the public’s opinions in reality. Hence, we advocate the combination of network forums and real-world forums to improve the quality of public opinion expression. If we failed to improve the socialist system, people would say: “why can’t the socialist system solve the problems that can be solved by the capitalist system?” Although this is not a comprehensive comparison, our concerns must mount over it. Stalin had once seriously undermined the socialist legal system, and Chairman Mao Zedong said at that time that such cases could not happen in western countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. –Deng Xiaoping

As far as the current situation in China is concerned, “resilience” is required in the face of adversity, and we need to be more patient with the mechanism of online opinion expression until we find a balance between the Internet and reality. We cannot stop moving forward simply because of divergences in public opinion, just as teachers cannot prohibit students from participating in class discussions simply because of certain peculiar views.

6.5 Government-Society Communication Day Communication between the government and the society, such as the “Communication Day” and the “Government Open Day”, is more of a feedback mechanism from decision-makers to the public that focuses more on solving problems related to petitions and so on. These open and democratic activities play the role of the carrier of daily emotional contact between the government and the public. Of course, the key to the system still lies in what topics will be chosen to give feedback to the public and how to receive their feedback, which will not be discussed here.

6.6 “Open Space” for Discussions “Open space technique” is a method of gathering public opinions, which essentially embodies the spirit of deliberative democracy. It can form a concentration of opinions through careful discussions. Under the guidance of a moderator, participants can express their opinions freely while maintaining mutual respect and reaching a consensus in the end. With the use of psychological knowledge and the involvement of sociological professionals, these discussion techniques provide good training on how to politically participate for citizens. Shanghai Pudong New Area Community Service Center adopted this technique to help community self-governance committees improve their projects at a training session on the application of self-government

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projects for residents of Puxing Road Sub-district. Many people who have adopted this technique often combine it with “Robert’s Rules of Order”. Similar methods are also adopted in a growing number of academic forums, with some critical words of “academic consensus” emerging.

6.7 Open Space Discussion on the Planning of the Functions of Old Service Stations in Jinqiaowan Residential Area 1. Basic Information Time: May 29, 2014 Location: Jinqiaowan Activity Room, Lane 828, Heze Road Participants: Organizations Providing Services for the Elderly in Puxing Road Sub-district and 80 Residents from Jinqiaowan Qingshui Residential Area. 2. Rules (1) Venue Rules: . . . . .

Please put your mobile phone on silent mode Please arrive on time Please pay attention to the ringing of the venue Raising hands is a sign of quietness No smoking

(2) Discussion Rules: . . . . .

Please focus your discussion on the topic Please speak in turn Please speak actively and seriously Everyone’s remark is valid, there is no wrong remark Please respect everyone’s opinions, do not criticize and judge

(3) Choose the moderators, recorder, timekeeper, and reporter in group discussions 3. 4. 5. 6.

Put forward topics (omitted) Summarize the result of group discussions (omitted) Focus on the topics and reach the consensus (omitted) Action Plan (omitted)

May 2014 Provided by Yang Xu, Shanghai Pudong New District Community Service Center. This discussion pays attention to the rules of participation, respects the participants, and conducts psychological communication for individual participants, which is worthy of appreciation. This can let us carry on etiquette tradition in Chinese social communication, but the problem of participant selection and the method of

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integrating opinions remains inevitable in terms of major public decision-making. The “open space” technique can serve as an approach to raising the early staged issues and clarifying opinions that lays a foundation for later scientific decisionmaking. Of course, we need to pay more attention to its core advantages rather than be hypercritical about it.

6.8 Scenario Workshop A scenario workshop is an excellent way to gather the public’s wisdom and focus on vision plans for specific issues in a community. This method may not emphasize the representativeness of the participants but may require the active participation of imaginative residents. Of course, a well-designed scenario workshop should include all the stakeholders concerned. The gathering of the issues discussed in the workshop can provide sound guidance and mobilization in planning future development directions for a region and help residents in other regions think about similar problems such as environmental governance and protection, advance in social culture, and other fundamental issues; by doing so, we can better discern the evolution of public opinion (Fig. 6.2). “Creative 3.0 Scenario Workshop of Communities in Pingdong County”: Solidifying the Collective Consensus of Community-Made Vision In every era, Chinese people have used their historical heritage of material, spirit, and institutions to set goals, face challenges, defend themselves and strengthen their power. Given that the behaviors of one generation will influence the resources inherited by the next generation,

Scenario Formation

Decision -makers

Experts

Commercial Representativ

Residents

Plenary Meeting: Common Issues

Common Development Movement Planning

Plenary Meeting: Common Issues

Fig. 6.2 Design of deliberation mechanism for scenario workshop (Chinese version by Ma Ben, Li Zhenzhen, 2014; Translated by Han Fuguo)

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changes are inevitable. However, these changes are linked to history, and I firmly believe this whether in the past or present. –Patricia Buckley Ebrey, The Cambridge Illustrated History of China.

In order to gather residents’ wishes in the community, create collective consensus, and integrate resources in the community effectively, the Culture Department of Pingdong County government in Taiwan, China, held the “Creative 3.0 Scenario workshop of Communities in Pingdong County” from March 3 to 4, 2016. Through field trips and forum exchanges, the government has jointly promoted the vision of community construction with representatives from town public offices and communities, thus implementing the concept of “living a prosperous and contented life in our residential area”. On March 3, representatives of various communities and town public offices visited Linbian town to learn from the experience of preserving and revitalizing historical buildings as well as environmental protection in Yongle community. They also learned about the important achievements of Pingtung in promoting green energy by developing public art. On April 4, a scenario workshop on the vision of community construction was held in the lecture hall on the fifth floor of the Culture Department. It invited Liao Jiazhan, the chairman of the New Hometown Culture and Education Foundation in Taiwan, to share the community-made models under cross-regional cooperation. Also, it invited Professor Huang Shihui of Yunlin University of Science and Technology to discuss the sustainable value of the concept and practice of Lishan in Japan. In the afternoon, group discussions and comprehensive discussions were held to provide a platform for communities to exchange practical experiences and suggestions.

6.9 Robert’s Rules of Order “Learning to consult” is just as important as “having a chance to consult”. The essence of consultation is a process that demands rational communication. Here, I would like to reaffirm that rational communication does not equal problem-solving under any circumstances. "Robert’s Rules of Order" adheres to several fundamental concepts: "people should use the same rules of consultations, whether they are in different organizations in the same place or in different places. Although there are different principles for each organization, the majority of them can use the same rules of consultations from the perspective of rules." The training and promotion of “Robert’s Rules of Order” provides an important method for China’s public engagement in politics and governance. Many decisionmakers who accuse the public of their inability to participate are actually blaming them for being too radical or not knowing how to talk appropriately in consultations. Of course, many decision-makers themselves do not know how to consult. They tend to regard “listening to leaders’ speeches” and “issuing instructions” as having a

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consultation. Even many intellectuals are unaware of how to concentrate on the topic when participating in a consultation. Therefore, all of them must learn the rules. It defines a consultative meeting as a general reference to a conference organized with “general consultation rules”, a broad concept that parallels the mass forum and the representative meetings in China. A consultative meeting has the following characteristics: . It is a collective meeting made up of people; through free and full consultation; it has the right to launch an action on its own in the name of the meeting. . The meeting should be held on a public occasion so that everyone has the same conditions and chances to participate in verbal communication with each other. . In general, the scale of members of a meeting should be over ten people. The more people there are, the more prudent the meeting procedures should be. . Its members, meaning those eligible to participate in the meeting, have the right to freely express their views during the meeting. . Each member’s vote should be equally important in the decision-making process; if the opinion he/she advocates is approved, the member should assume direct individual responsibility. . If the opinion of a member differs from the decisions of the meeting, it does not mean that the member should withdraw from the meeting, nor should that be a reason for the meeting to demand the member to withdraw. . If anyone is absent, which is inevitable either in a legislative institution or in an ordinary organization, the attendants can stand for the whole members to decide on the condition that the decisions must be consistent with relevant regulations of the meeting. (Robert’s Rules of Order [10th edition]). Some advocates in China have introduced it to build the capability of the grass roots to consult. They have also put forward “Luobotou” (Little Carrot), a Chinese version of it (because “Robert” sounds like “Luobotou” in Chinese), which is of great significance. … and that word Unionist is very important to me. It means we believe in the Union. It means that we believe in a Union not just of the nations of the United Kingdom, but between all of our citizens. Every one of us, whoever we are and wherever we are from … And we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us. That will be the mission of the government I lead, and together, we will build a better Britain. –Theresa May (Former British Prime Minister)

Except for the introduction of moderators in Deliberative Polling mentioned before, many grass-root communities have adopted the “Robert’s Rules of Order” as consultative procedures when establishing “Office of Public Discussion” or other self-governance organizations.

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6.9.1 Gubei Civic Council Hall Nearly 12,000 households with about 31,000 residents from more than 50 countries and regions live in Ronghua residential area, Hongqiao Sub-district, Changning District, Shanghai. The CPC general branch of Ronghua residential area has set up the Gubei Civic Council Hall and invited both Chinese and international capable residents who are passionate about public affairs and trusted by other residents to participate, discuss, and supervise community management. All residents can report problems they encountered through suggestion boxes in each corridor, 211 building group leaders, and 119 selected residents. Since the establishment of the Gubei Civic Council Hall, the community committee has guided local and international councilors to work together under the instructions of the CPC general branch of Ronghua residential area, thus pooling the wisdom of councilors from different countries to give full play to the unique advantages of having them in contacting multiple resident groups. The committee and councilors have gradually developed a set of operating rules for the “council hall” characterized by “voluntarily propose, discuss on demand, invite councilors, democratically evaluate, and strictly supervise”.

6.9.2 Meeting Rules (Referring to Robert’s Rules of Order) 1. The meeting moderator is responsible for announcing the opening of the meeting, allocating speaking time, announcing the beginning of a vote, and implementing other procedures, but the moderator shall not express his/her opinions or summarize the statement of others during the above periods. 2. The discussion at the meeting should revolve around a particular topic that is specific, definite, and feasible. 3. The discussion should focus on the topic. The moderator should interrupt digressions, and the person being interrupted should stop talking. 4. The speaker should first state his/her approval or objection to the topic and then explain the reason. Only the moderator can announce the beginning of a vote, and he /she can do it only when the time for statements of all the speakers is over. 5. When the number of participants in favor of a proposal exceeds that of those against it, the discussed proposal is approved. If not, the proposal will be rejected. The book The Technique of Deliberative Democracy (Written by Tan Huosheng, Lei Weian, and He Baogang) introduces the primary practice forms of deliberative democracy: public consensus meeting, citizen jury, deliberative poll, and scenario workshop.

"Gubei Civic Council Hall" is an important platform for the construction of Gubei community. Under the instructions of the CPC general branch, taking Ronghua community committee as the main body, it becomes an effective platform of integrating public opinion from both Chinese and international residents, solving

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problems, and combining grass-roots democratic self-governance and deliberative co-governance." (Han Fuguo, Case Study of Gubei International Community, May 2016). The rules for deliberation are reckoned to be very important, followed by the quality of deliberation and decision-making choice. Therefore, we highly recommend all participants and decision-makers learn the basic contents of the rules, thus laying a foundation of the basic capability to deliberate for deliberative democracy.

6.10 Citizen Jury The “Citizen Jury”, which is also known as “Citizen Council”, “Citizen Forum”, or “Consensus Meeting”, is also an approach for citizens to engage in decision-making discreetly. Given the implementation of “One Country and Two Systems”, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan of China are accustomed to the expression of “citizen engagement”, while China mainland tends to use the expression of “resident engagement” at the grassroots level. At one stage, there was an incredible open opposition to advocating “civic society”. The system of “Citizen Jury” is borrowed from the jury system in Western countries, where the jurors decide whether the accused is guilty or not through their discussion. It was established by a committee, and the jurors were selected by random sampling. The committee has the power to decide whether to take action based on the suggestions of the jury, and the jury should write a report to the committee in the end.

6.10.1 “12 Angry Men” “12 Angry Men” is a black-and-white film produced by MGM, directed by Sidney Rumet, written by Regino Ross, and starred by Henry Fonda, Lee Cobb, and Martin Balsam. The film was released in the United States on April 13, 1957. The film tells the story of a boy growing up in a slum who is accused of murdering his biological father. He was proven guilty by witnesses and the murder weapon. There are 12 people serving as the jurors who have to discuss the case in the jury lounge before the case is concluded. Only when the result of their discussion is unanimously accepted can the case be formally concluded. All jurors have their careers and life, including an eloquent advertiser, an outspoken engineer, a young man from a family with no insight, a new aristocrat who discriminate against commoners, an irascible old police officer, an intelligent and calm banker, a salesman who is only in a hurry to work, etc. Everyone thinks and speaks differently, however, except for the engineer played by Henry Fonda, the rest of them are dismissive of the case and assert that the boy is the murderer long before the discussion.

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The film illustrates the characteristics of the American jury system: instead of proving a suspect innocent, the jury aims to prove that there is no sufficient evidence in a case and therefore the suspect cannot be convicted. The film “12 Angry Men” has been an example for many universities’ lessons, especially on how jurors reach a consensus and persuade others in their debates. Many practices of deliberative democracy in Taiwan of China are implemented under the concept. The term “Jury” reflects the importance of citizens’ participation in public affairs as well as public opinions. In Taiwan, there are many mechanisms and procedures analogous to Deliberative Polling, whose characteristics are partially similar to the hearing of mainland of China. In contrast to the deliberative polls, the quality of deliberation will be improved if the participants can deliberate profoundly, just like dealing with legal cases. The approach has open and multiple participation mechanisms. As long as it can be applied to public opinion integration in the early establishment of major issues in the party and government departments, it can improve the quality of deliberative democratic decision-making.

6.11 One-Off Poll The book was being proofread at the end of the American presidential election. Opinion polls in this election face many challenges: the bias of selected samples, the influence of new media, etc. But the poll is still worth advocating.

The opinion poll recognized by society is a common way to solicit opinions from society on public issues. It has become the mainstream of decision-making and research and is even regarded as a “weather vane” in the electoral process of many competitive democratic nations. Polls are not only irreplaceably valuable and practical on many issues, but also very objective in collecting data. However, the poll also faces many difficulties in integrating subjective attitudes towards benefits. Most of the existing opinion polls are one-off and static and are carried out with respondents lacking information and deliberative communication and thinking. Thus, public opinions are easy to be manipulated and are inappropriate to be adopted in decision-making concerning public policies, especially in many crucial projects. One-off polls in which participants lack the necessary information and essential communication are difficult to integrate the real public opinion even if with random sampling, which will result in passive decision-making. In modern society, one-off polls and referendums are often inextricably linked, and the polls have become “powerful magic weapons” in referendums. The interest groups and media are inclined to adopt one-off polls to attract attention. However, most newspapers can only catch short-time attention, and at last the constant exaggeration of news was just like a catalyst to amplify the social resentment. There are also many predicaments in the polls over the election campaigns, especially those manipulated by the media, the results of which are exceedingly subjective.

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The above-mentioned facts explain why deliberative polls and multiple deliberative democratic decision-making emphasize conducting questionnaires twice or even three times. We have found in our practices of projects that there is no essential difference between the first poll result and a decision by a minority of decision-makers through sheer subjective judgment. Such one-off polls are always as destructive and extreme as large-scale political campaigns. Of course, it is feasible and reasonable to conduct social surveys according to scientific samplings, such as surveys on clinical studies and stable social attitudes. What we would like to emphasize here is the prudent adoption of one-off polls for public decision-making.

Chapter 7

Adequate Communication: Make an Informed Decision

This part mainly summarizes the core ideas and procedures of the multiple deliberative democracy in decision-making discussed previously. “A name is not granted by heaven; it must be earned in life.” There are many diverse ways to realize democracy, so we cannot just rigidly copy any particular one. Further, we must recognize that there is no such thing as a standard model that is universally acceptable. Whether people enjoy democratic rights or not depends on whether they have the right to vote in elections, as well as whether they have the right to constantly participate in everyday political activities. Besides having the right to democratic elections, it also depends on whether they have the right to democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic oversight. Socialist democracy requires not just a complete set of institutions and procedures, but also full participation. –The Meeting Marking the 65th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, 2014.

There are many methods of practicing democracy—especially deliberative democracy—in today’s China, but they have the same purpose: to provide people with equal opportunities to participate in public politics and decision-making. This is the essence of democracy. People in democratic countries have always been dissatisfied with their democracy because the representative system has broken the connection between the process of decision-making and the people, resulting in their interests not being represented as changes occurred. Therefore, they have been continuously demanding the right to be informed and participate in decision-making, thus constantly promoting the development of democracy. No matter how the ruling parties and governments in all countries emphasize the particularity and importance of their own systems, no matter how all levels of governments and departments emphasize the urgency and seriousness of their regional problems, and no matter how all decision-makers emphasize their predicaments and the deficiency of their knowledge, all of them will not deny the need to continuously improve the specific operating procedures of democracy to gradually

© Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5_7

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realize the goal of the modern democratic system, that is, ensuring the people’s status as masters of the country”. From the perspective of deliberative democracy, the following issues are the keys to estimating the quality of public participation in public decision-making: . How do the participants obtain the information on decision-making? (most important) . How do the participants express different opinions during deliberation? . How do decision-makers achieve a truly balanced communication between different opinions rather than an overwhelming one? . Do the participants in deliberation show a sense of responsibility? . Do the decision-makers give equal consideration to all the opinions expressed? Citizens who do not have access to the necessary information are difficult to express “accurate and sound” opinions even if they participate in decision-making. We have witnessed so many people being confused about voting in the People’s Congress at all levels. This phenomenon will ultimately undermine the authority of our systems as well as our government and departments, which often leaves our ruling party and government passive in policy implementation. Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states. Its administration favors the many instead of the few, this is why it is called a democracy. – [Ancient Greek] Pericles.

We discussed earlier that even the needs within the same social group would present a complex structure. Based on the premise that the complexity of modern communication and the uncertainty in the Information Era has increased, how can people choose policy methods to meet their needs in an environment of specific decision-making? They often fail to make wise choices that are in their objective interests because of their lack of information and communication. Therefore, those who implement “deliberative democracy” want to integrate people’s “enlightened preferences” through “deliberation”, thus making an informed choice in public decision-making. No matter how long it takes, it is necessary to let the public understand and master these policy methods, which is one of the great projects of China’s democratic development. The lack of information, which is a defect in participation, and the adherence to the CPC’s (the Communist Party of China) discipline in decision-making are two concepts at different levels. The CPC requires a high degree of organizational discipline as well as the obedience of individuals to organizations and of the subordinates to their superiors. This kind of obedience is at the level of political decision-making, that is, the “organizational centralism” at the “strategic level” as Mao Zedong often talked about in the past. At the specific “tactical level”, however, all people are equal in terms of implementing democracy in the decision-making of the national system. Unfortunately, all the decision-makers are increasingly blocking the information, creating unwritten connections between the position of a cadre and the amount of information he/she has access to. Much information is often “only for insiders”. As a

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result, “people in decision-making departments” don’t dare to tell the truth and “outsiders” don’t have the opportunities of telling the truth. Many people are proud to know the inside information and “disdain” to listen to others who lack it, displaying a “You Don’t Deserve to Know” attitude. This is very common among some social groups in China. An inescapable fact is that the CPC Committee has more information than the government, the government has more information than the People’s Congress, the People’s Congress has more information than the CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference), and the CPPCC has more information than ordinary people. So there is a strange phenomenon in China that “gossip is more accurate than official information” and government spokespersons often refute questions and answer nothing but clever evasions instead of releasing information. Therefore, many simple decisions are stuck in the “dead end” of “closed decisions”, that is, the CPC committee makes decisions while the government assumes responsibility, leading cadres make decisions while the related departments take responsibility, the superiors make decisions while the subordinates take responsibility, and the predecessors make decisions while the incumbents take responsibility. This vicious circle has made it very difficult for the CPC to implement its democratic system and for the government to make decisions openly. If China’s decision-making system remains in such a structure where information reduces step by step, the deputies at lower levels and ordinary people who are not involved in decision-making will be even more deprived of the necessary information. Public participation and supervision failed to function in the process of obtaining information, let alone the latter procedures. Many officials often ask people to show a high quality of political participation and supervision after making only one attempt to make a decision openly. They often regard the people as not being able to participate, not being aware of the actual situation, etc. These seem to be “reasonable”, but they are all very ridiculous and abominable in fact. They have never asked themselves why they have not achieved the modernized and sound administration required by the CPC and Central government for many years but only have achieved the “modernization of reading documents”. How can they ask the ordinary people who have long lacked opportunities for democratic participation to achieve high-quality political participation? It’s just like never letting a child walk on his/her own and telling him/her that walking is very dangerous and that it is easy to fall … But someday you suddenly feel impatient due to various problems and ask the child to stand up and walk on his/her own without allowing him/her to fall. This is a so-called “serious attitude” that always insists on “being tolerant with yourself and being strict with others”. China has always emphasized the structure in which “community governance should involve the participation of many other parties while the Party committee and government play a leading role”, especially in official documents and theories about grassroots governance. However, “the Party committee and the government, which are supposed to only play the leading role, can easily replace the community in completing its affairs, so the social cooperation and public participation do not function adequately”. (Extracted from Community Governance Should Focus on

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Cultivating Public Spirit, Research Report of the second Party Branch in Class One of 40th Training for Young and Middle-aged Cadres at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, Study Times.) The key behind this outcome is the lack of democratic decentralized constraint in the relationship between cadres at different levels. The superiors directly decide whether the subordinates will be promoted or not. Therefore, the subordinates will “make decisions on their own in order to dedicate themselves to making more achievements in the future”, resulting in a lack of self-governance space in the whole Chinese society. The people can only wait for, rely on, and finally complain about the policies. They may not be satisfied even when local Party committees and governments try their best to serve the people with more and more grievances. As in the combat against floods every year, the people just expect the government to provide them subsidies and the army to do the combat. The function of local governance which has been performed for thousands of years gradually failed in the face of catastrophe, and only governments are left to “play a solo show”. Why do men and women suddenly feel that they can govern themselves? What makes them believe that ordinary people can govern themselves without a King or an Emperor? Self-governance works only for those who have knowledge about it. –Joy Hakim, Freedom: a History of US.

However, China has been reforming and opening-up for more than thirty years because more decision-makers have steadily promoted the development of democratic decision-making, which is the basic driver of social progress. No matter what kind of ideology “prevails” nowadays, more decision-makers insist on implementing the socialist democratic system, thus making democratic decision-making the norm in their administrative regions, government departments, social organizations, and grassroots communities. In this sense, establishing a system that allows people to engage in informed participation, informed decision-making, and informed supervision is the basis for building modern democracy in China, and then the quality of the whole country’s democratic system will be considered to be promoted. With the access to necessary information, the public will continuously improve their capacity for political participation, learning how to communicate with others, how to reach a compromise of interests as well as how to reach a consensus to achieve social democracy which “seeks common ground while reserving differences” through practices. If not, our society will face a greater crisis that is not caused by democracy itself. We are resolutely opposed to the “strange theories” that ignore the greater pain caused by the history of autocracy and look for the defect of underdeveloped democracy to demonstrate that autocracy is practicable. What Chinese people in the twenty-first century should do is to deliberate on how to build well-developed democracy and improve the quality of democracy instead of going backward. Emerson said, “You can’t know God by the rigid formula, but you can reach it by walking along the garden path.“ Democracy is no longer an illusory holistic design but has been concretely manifested in civic participation. The scientific procedure of democracy is complete and pure. It is definitely not a theory or an assumption, and any other behaviors and explanations cannot give us this kind of intimacy like political

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democratic participation because the establishment of the relationship between the individuals and decision-making is an unparalleled contribution made by modern democracy. People often try to add their thoughts to the simple truth, so those who wish to promote democratic participation often have to resist the dogmas that impede the building of people’s capability to participate. The knowledge about democracy accumulated in modern times can match in quantity with the knowledge and theories in any other field and even ranks first. We no longer ask whether there is a democracy that can satisfy all people in modern political society. Our search is over because participation itself should be the most important search result. We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. –George Bernard Shaw.

There are some appendixes with specific texts and process descriptions of practical operations as well as some related articles at the end of this book. We also keep the original records of these cases. Deliberative democracy is also in the process of learning and exploration for everyone trying to establish it, so we can see the process of the development of multiple deliberative democratic decision-making based on Deliberative Polling.

Appendix I

Deliberative Polling on “Residents’ Self-Governance Funds” on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai

Who Is in Charge of My Territory? The Deliberative Polling Practiced in Shanghai for the First Time ⏹Reporter Liu Lu “Why can some communities apply for two or three projects while others do not have any one?” As residents became more familiar with the project of self-governance funds, the “smell of gunpowder” at the venue became increasingly noticeable. An old man queried the distribution of funds, and it resonated with many residents. And there was tension in the neighborhood following the query. The scene occurred during the Deliberative Polling on the “The Project of Residents’ Self-governance Funds” on Puxing Road. The appointed participant Zhou Yaping, born post 1970, on behalf of part of residents in the sub-district appeared more rational. The middle-aged and elderly were more active and radical in the deliberation, while the younger were relatively moderate. During the deliberation, the more subjects we argued, the more definitive decisions we could draw. In addition, our mutual trust and understanding are being enhanced. What impressed Zhou Yaping was the novelty revealed by the polling. This review followed Deliberative Polling, initiated by Stanford University. It changed the obsolete model in which executives and experts decided the distribution of self-governance funds. From the initial moderator training and project design training to the ultimate conference, it took almost half a year from the training programs to the end of activity. Reportedly, it was the first time that Deliberative Polling was applied on urban grassroots projects in Shanghai.

© Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

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Residents Participate in the Project Voluntarily and Cannot Be Substituted Han Fuguo, the director of the Research Center for Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University and visiting scholar of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, said that “Deliberative Polling” is a data collection approach based on public engagement, which reflects the needs of residents and thus provides innovative solutions as a response. It is highly consistent with the deliberative democracy policy of the Communist Party of China. Its first characteristic is scientific random sampling. The Project of Residents’ Self-governance Funds on Puxing Road was supported by the Research Center for Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University. 400 house numbers among 650,000 householders were selected randomly. Each household chose only one resident aged over 18 and born closest to May 31 to participate in the conference, and the selected one must not be substituted. In terms of the preliminary statistics, a valid name list of 360 residents was formed to the project groups. The name list was assigned to various community selfgovernance committees, and the project entrusted the community self-governance committee to invite these residents to the conference. The director of the Home Affairs Department of Puxing Road, Dai Min, said: “The community self-governance committee will invite in good faith, but it is residents’ right to decide whether to come or not”. After getting the name list of the 360 residents of the project team, Shao Zhufen, secretary of the Fourth Party Branch of the Donglu Road Community Committee, began to invite these residents. However, it turned out that only 5 among a dozen residents on the list joined the conference. During the establishment and development of East Asian democracy, the endogenous development, creative transformation, and adaptive change of political culture coexist and interact with one another. It has promoted the shift of East Asian conventional political culture and modern democracy and has leveraged the essential characteristics of East Asian democratic politics. —Guo Dingping, “East Asian Political Culture and Democratic Transformation”.

It’s known that it costed them half a year from the project’s preparation to the conference’s convening, and the relevant executives on Puxing Road participated in the whole process of the first theoretical training. The appointed participants of the project and community self-governance committees received various training to ensure the project was carried out in compliance with procedures. “At first, we worried that residents wouldn’t came but surprisingly, not only those who had promised to come attended but also their family members also came and listened”. Mrs. Dai said. The organizers also made great efforts in arranging the venue. Tables and chairs in the small room were laid out in a circle or zigzag pattern to facilitate discussion, and there were positions of moderator and recorder in each room.

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There Are Both Active and Silent Participants “It is not up to me to make decisions. Why should I know so clearly?” That was a common belief among residents. “I am not an exception, either”. said Zhou, who was not usually concerned about community affairs, but was deeply impressed in his sight. The conference of Deliberative Polling was officially held at 9:00 a.m. on May 31, 2015. More than 120 residents were divided into nine groups for discussion. The panel discussion in the morning would cover 11 items in deliberation. After reading the application materials, an old man asked: “Why can some communities apply for two or three projects while others do not have one?” An old woman next to him favored that there was no declared project in her community. The atmosphere froze for a while. The moderator comforted the two participants and simultaneously guided all to look through the specific projects. One resident passionately agreed with the third application project. “I am not a resident of the community who declared the project. I realized the first-aid project was of great significance and worthy of promotion after my family member was given first-aid treatment”. Another resident questioned, “Why should volunteers earn subsidies? They do their jobs voluntarily”. “Initially, I just watched their discussion, but when I saw that the discussion got intense, I also shared my viewpoint”. said Zhou Yaping. Han Fuguo found that there were one or two very active residents guiding the discussion, and in the meantime one or two relatively silent participants in each group, so the role of the moderator was important. “Since it may be their first interaction, you can find they are curious but also confused about the deliberation. They do not know what impact their opinions and discussions will have on the project application”.

Residents: The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease After deliberation, the nine groups wrote down two questions in need of an answer, and the moderator of the conference distributed them to the on-site experts and the relevant project executives to reply and explain. Zhou Yaping felt it was an excellent way to more or less resolve the confusions of each appointed participant through face-to-face communication with experts and project managers. “What is interesting is that I am not only concerned about my community but also about other community projects. My feelings resonate with others’”. Another group discussion was to be held this afternoon. The appointed participant who raised the first question finally understood why some communities had two or three projects while others did not have after explanation. In the afternoon, he was the first making a statement and stated that he would urge his community self-governance committee to apply for the project. After all, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. Other residents nodded in agreement.

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To a few construction projects, the group had a strong response, contending that it was the work of the property management company, neither that of the community self-governance committee nor using the self-governance funds. Some groups sparked a fierce controversy, with all the participants speaking in the Shanghai dialect. The final step was to divide the group to complete the post-test questionnaire. As the pros and cons had been counted overnight, the project team worked out a comparison of 24 average marks on the recognition of 24 shortlisted projects.

Residents Think They Entail the Right to Speak Han Fuguo believed that “the Deliberative Polling is an attempt, and its purpose is not to vote on which project to take the self-governance funds, but to mobilize the masses to participate at community self-governance committee, to listen to the opinions of residents, to understand the concerns of the masses, and to provide a reference for government decision-making”. The project team made comparisons of questionnaires about residents’ cognition on decision-making before and after participating in the Deliberative Polling and found a shift in residents’ attitudes towards their engagement of public decisionmaking at community affairs. As the comparison turned out, an increasing number of people favored the option “most public affairs were so complicated that people like me do not quite understand”. This is because many projects involved budgets, community construction plans, residents’ needed research and demanded satisfaction, etc. Appointed participants found that a community project was not as easy as they imagined. Residents’ engagement in the decision-making boosted their understanding and respect towards public affairs. The number of people who agreed with the option “people on my behalf have no right to speak in authorities’ decision-making” reduced. In this sense, appointed participants believed that they were essentially equipped with a right to speak, embracing engagement in decision-making. Those who chose “most people do not understand the public affairs of society, and it is best to be decided by experts and government officials” declined as well, which justified that experts and government officials necessarily listened to the public opinion rather than made decisions by themselves. The mutual evaluation of the appointed participants was scored from zero to ten, but the options for the evaluation questions were around five. “It shows mutual understanding among residents”. Han Fuguo said. This is the essence of deliberative democracy—shared identity and mutual respect. Only when you listen can you hear others’ voices and your own be heard. “In addition to the public polling, there is also the anonymous part, which would reveal the real opinion of our residents”. said Zhou Yaping. After the conference, the street made a return visit to some community selfgovernance committees. Many community self-governance committees said that,

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due to the Deliberative Polling, more residents who had been unaware of and unenthusiastic about community affairs were mobilized, and residents’ understanding and respect for public affairs increased.

Links: What Is the Deliberative Polling? Deliberative Polling is a data collection approach based on the engagement of residents. It is an efficient community deliberation approach on the crucial policies with sampled appointed participants. Most people cannot be effectively motivated to comprehend complex political issues most of the time. They are in a state of “rational ignorance”. The well-known political economist Anthony Towns put forward this famous concept in 1957. As one of the thousands of people, one quickly asserts their viewpoints will not bring different effects. So why do they waste plenty of time in knowing the conditions? By Deliberative Polling, the sampled participants have the right to speak among hundreds of people, and each group is made up of a dozen people. In this way, everyone can realize that his speech is crucial. Following discussions to get involved in these matters, participants may change their viewpoints. I think the key to reading a book is the flavor or hobby. The hobby of reading is akin to the appetite for food, selective and individualized. Eating one’s favorites is the most hygienic way of eating because he knows that the eaten stuff will be digested smoothly. Reading is the same as eating, “one’s supplements are perhaps toxic to others” Teachers cannot force students to read as they like, nor can parents expect their children’s hobbies to be the same as theirs. If the reader is not interested in what he reads, then all time is wasted. Yuan Zhonglang said: “The books you are not interested in can be read by others.” —Lin Yutang

In the Deliberative Polling, for 70% of political questions asked, there are statistically significant differences in the answers that people give before and after the deliberation. Related practices have the same outcomes in more than 20 countries worldwide, including many places in China. Deliberative Polling attempts to display residents’ decisions when they delve into the projects and well know the policy. (Source: Jie Fang Daily, August 24, 2015)

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Making Democracy Work in China: The First Deliberative Polling® on Urban Governance in Shanghai1 Han Fuguo, He Jing, Yang Xu, etc. Chinese scholars often fall into such extremes when they discuss developing democracy at the local levels of China. They either believe that now is the best and no need to change, or they demand an final resolution that no competition of democracy, and no practice of tactics. Yet It ignores that a “ladder” is needed to enable socialist democracy to come down to earth from the clouds.

To Make China’s Democracy Workable This is also the key issue of the practice of democracy in China in the past 30 years of Reform and Opening-up. Is it possible to integrate top-level institutional design into common practices of local governments? How can deliberative democracy be put into practice in a way that differs from mass forums and public hearings? These questions constitute the central concern for turning deliberative democracy from theory to practice in China. However, many of the modern innovative governance models might be “a flash in the pan” without appropriate procedures, techniques, and methods so as not to compose an institutional internal structure as a result. Nor is it possible for the public to accept rules of the system, that needs to remain deeply rooted. Still, people’s enthusiasm in participating democratic activities needn’t be over-mobilized. People of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, earnestly carry it into practice. People of the middle class, when they have heard about it, seem now to keep it and now to lose it. People of the lowest class, when they have heard about it, laugh wildly at it. If not laughed at, it would not be fit to be the Tao. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 41

In China, many people simply treat deliberative democracy as equivalent to political consultation. People tend to fill in their own understandings of the concept. Some even exaggerate the power of deliberative democracy and think it could replace our current election and deliberation systems of the People’s Congress to prevent competitive electoral system, since everything can theoretically be discussed and solved. This approach is, in fact, substituting democracy with deliberation. Other scholars, instead, reject the possibility of deliberation because they believe no equal deliberation can be achieved at all without competitive democracy. Regarding the role of deliberative democracy in China, we refer to the Communique issued in the 18th National Congress of the CPC, proposing to promote the socialist consultative democracy and modernize state governance. 1 The article was originally written in Chinese by Han Fuguo, He Jing, and Yang Xu and published in “City Hall” in The Paper on June 10, 2015. The English version was translated and edited by Kaiping Zhang to accommodate international readers.

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In response to the No. 1 Research Program of Shanghai Government in 2014, a Deliberative Polling was held on Puxing Road, Pudong New Area, Shanghai on May 31, 2015, and supported by the Research Center for Comparative Urban Governance (CCUG) of Fudan University. Ordinary citizens were invited to participate in selecting projects of “Residents’ Self-governance Fund”. The preparation and implementation of this project, starting from training moderators and designing procedures to the grand ending—spanned over 6 months. The project offers a vivid example of putting theories of deliberative democracy into practice in urban China.

A Brief History of Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China Deliberative Polling was initially introduced to Zeguo Town in Wenling City, Zhejiang Province in 2005 by James Fishkin, professor at Stanford University and academician of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of America, and Baogang He, professor and now head of Public Policy and Global Affairs Program at Nanyang Technology University, and Youxing Lang, a professor of School of Public Affairs Zhejiang University. Dr. Han Fuguo also participated in this project as part of the Zhejiang University team. The application of Deliberative Polling in participatory public budgets transformed the informal talks which lacks scientific standards, into a formal practice of deliberative democracy. Since then, the concept of deliberative democracy has been widely acknowledged and practiced in China, such as the participatory budgets in Yanjin, Yunnan Province. In 2013, Gumei Road in Minhang District, Shanghai, introduced Deliberative Polling to the intra-Party democracy for the first time. The poll was held among all party representatives of the Road. Later, another deliberative poll was conducted on a renovation project of Gulong neighborhood. These early practices of deliberative democracy on Gumei Road were exciting. Yet it should be noted that, the first one was conducted among Party representatives instead of a random sample of all Party members; the second one was held almost after the renovation plan was done, and the results were not ultimately implemented due to the promotion of the head of the Road. Hence even though these early practices of deliberation produced positive impacts, still, they fell short of key elements of Deliberative Poll to some extent. By bringing citizens into the deliberative decision-making process, it changes the history of decisions made by leaders and experts. The majority of the population is, oftentimes, “rationally ignorant” about politics. The well-known political economist Anthony Downs would call it “rational ignorance”. The reason for this “rational ignorance” is that, as only one of millions of voters, the chances that one’s vote can influence election outcomes is probably small. Since the payoff is extremely low, why should one bother spending time in complex policy issues? Therefore, it seems rational for individuals to remain ignorant of public affairs.

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In this new mode of polling, participants have the chance to speak with a random sample of the population, usually a few hundreds of people. They can further express ideas and discuss them with others in small groups. Therefore, it becomes possible for everyone to realize his or her voice matters. In the process of discussing with fellow citizens, people may change their initial attitudes. It is shown that participants demonstrate statistically significant attitude changes on 70% of all policy issues that are discussed in Deliberative Polls. The attitudes also changed significantly in over 20 countries over the world including China, which people are able to deliberate on their policy opinions when being provided with information. In short, Deliberative Polling is a data-collecting method of consulting people on public affairs. By randomly selecting participants from the population and soliciting discussions on key policy issues, it serves as an effective way for the government to learn about people’s needs and promote innovatory solutions to a few community issues. Based on the applications of Deliberative Polling in China, we summarize its key features as below: 1. Participants are selected through random sampling of targeted population. 2. The number of participants is often larger than that of traditional forums and public hearings, so the large-scale event needs preparation and organization. 3. Materials of the policy issues to be discussed should be released to the public before the event. 4. It includes both small group discussions and plenary sessions. 5. There are two questionnaires that measure participants’ policy attitudes before and after the event. 6. Small group discussions and plenary sessions are moderated by independent third party. As the very first Deliberative Polling that was rigorously conducted Street-wide in large cities like Shanghai, the occurrence of this project itself lends remarkable implications to the development of deliberative democracy in China.

Establish Rigorous Deliberation Procedures Different from research programs that were usually led by researchers, we emphasized that the Deliberative Polling on Puxing Road should first and foremost serve the role of setting up a direct dialogue between the authorities in the community and residents. Researchers from Fudan University and Stanford University, as third parties, are only responsible for supplying technical support. The project received tremendous support from officials of Puxing Road. The project was supervised by Zhu Hongming, secretary of Puxing Road Work Committee of CPC, attended by Dai Min, director of the Civic Affairs Puxing Road in the whole process, and Yang Xu, head of the Puxing Road Party Work Committee. Community Service Center of Pudong New Area also provided enormous help for this project.

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People tend to regard Deliberative Polling merely as a method of collecting public opinions. In fact, deliberation represents a typical form of public participation and polling measures and quantifies people’s opinions on deliberated topics. The scientific feature of this method is demonstrated in its sampling method as well as repeated measurements on participants’ attitudes before and after deliberation. People’s changing attitudes during the deliberating process may put forward decision-making bases for decision-makers. The Puxing Road Deliberative Polling went through an enormous amount of preparation before its final implementation on May 31, 2015. The preparation phase included but was not limited to sampling participants from the whole population of the Road, training moderators for small groups, collecting residents’ initial attitudes by door-to-door surveys, distributing handbooks of project proposals, and retrieving completed initial questionnaires. All work was advised by Dr. Alice Siu, associate director of the Research Center for Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University, as well as Zhang Xianming, Dai Min, and Dong Hua from the Puxing Road, and Yang Xu from Community Service Center of Pudong New Area. Students from Fudan University, and Stanford University including Zhang Kaiping and Chen Kaiping also provided invaluable help to the project. To guarantee the declaration of “Neighborhood Community Self-governance Funds”, each neighborhood committee first submitted project proposals to the Street government. All draft proposals went through a first-round review that was held by experts from Home Affairs Department, Finance Department, and social organizations. Twenty-four proposals were selected for deliberation from the initial screening. Those proposals were compiled into a file and distributed to participants to learn before deliberation. On May 29th, two days before the event, the team prepared for conference, including place cards, name stickers of participants, etc. Each participant was suggested to wear a name tag so as to enable representatives to facilitate mutual recognition. The courage of others is due to ignorance; when they stop to think, they start to doubt and fear. However, the courageous person knows best the happiness and disasters of life and then takes on the events that will happen in the future. —[Ancient Greece] Pericles

The venue was arranged at the Cultural Activity Center of Puxing Road. On the day before the event, an auditorium and six meeting rooms were prepared for the plenary sessions and discussion groups. The procedures and rules of Deliberative Polling were posted on the wall of the auditorium, and people from the same group had seats in the same area for the plenary session. Tables for 6 small meeting rooms were arranged in a circle or rectangle to facilitate discussion, and seats for a moderator and a note-taker for each group were also marked.

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An Orderly Process of Engagement Attenders’ registration started at 8 a.m. on May 31 (Sunday). Each participant first blindly drew a group number from a lottery box. Participants were thus randomly assigned to one of the nine groups. The introduction of the 24 projects was exhibited in the hall for people to further learn about the topics that were about to be discussed. About 120 people showed up for the deliberation, the senior more than the young. After the opening ceremony, people started discussing project proposals in small groups. The 24 proposals were divided into a morning session and an afternoon session. Eleven proposals on community cultural services were on the agenda for the morning session. Discussions in some groups started from people advocating for or questioning the absence of projects from one’s own neighborhood. Participants first searched for the projects and commented on the budget plans. Some shared their arguments or personal experiences. After a one-hour discussion in small groups, each group came up with one or two questions that they were most confused about regarding the project proposals. All participants then reconvened in the auditorium for a one-hour Q&A session. Questions were submitted to a panel of experts and the head of neighborhood committee. The plenary session solicited warm discussions, or even debates among participants, neighborhood committee, and policy experts. Dr. Zhang Xianming, who was on the advisory board of the event, had to remind the moderator of focusing on present questions. Questions from small groups had considerable overlap. Participants paid close attention to issues such as volunteers’ subsidies. Many participants reported that they gained a deeper understanding of projects through the plenary session. The afternoon session proceeded in the same way, with a plenary session following small group discussions. The afternoon session focused on governance of neighborhoods, involving questions such as whether it should be the responsibility of property management company or neighborhood committee to build door entrances that came up in both group discussions and plenary session. Discussions in some groups were so intense that participants started using Shanghai dialect. In the end, participants filled in questionnaires that reflected their updated project opinions in light of the event. Participants received umbrellas as a gift for their attendance.

The Convincing Results of Deliberative Democracy Admittedly, deliberative democracy is not a panacea but a practical tool for solving complex social issues. Meanwhile, the participants turned to understand each other while conflicts in interests still existed. The table showed the changing of participants’ attitudes before and after deliberating on selected projects. Participants rated their opinions on the 24 projects scoring from 0 to 10. 0 indicated “totally disagree”, 10 “totally agree”, and 5 “moderately agree”. The table clearly showed that, compared to their initial judgments, people’s opinions regarding the 24 projects changed significantly, with the largest change reaching 2 points out of 10.

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We also found that people gained both internal and external political efficacy after participating in Deliberative Polling. As shown in the table, participants agreed more on statements such as “I have opinions that are worth listening to by the government”, and they agreed less on the statement “most public affairs are too complicated for ordinary people like me to be able to understand well”. In other words, participants became more confident about their capacity for participating in public decision-making and influencing the government. Furthermore, participants’ trust in the government increased after the polling, as indicated by their positive responses towards statements such as “government officials care about my opinions” and “government officials will consider my opinions carefully”. We need to avoid the conflicts between our obligations and our interests and avoid acquiring our happiness from the disasters of others. —Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Moreover, we found that people became better aware of others’ viewpoints after deliberation. The average point on the statement “other people don’t know as much as me” decreased from 6.36 to 6.08 on the 0–10 scale after discussion, where 10 denoted “strongly agree”. Meanwhile, people also became more certain about their own opinions after deliberation. The average point on the statement “others’ opinions are not as good as mine” increased from 5.96 to 6.17. Participants’ responses towards the statement “people only care about their own interests” increased from 4.49 to 4.9 after deliberation, yet lose to the median, which suggested that participants were still trying to understand each other. These changes exactly manifest the essence of deliberation—when you sincerely listen, you can hear others’ voices and your own can be heard (Table A.1).

Conclusion: A Practicable Democracy It has been more than 40 years since China started exploring grassroots democracy. Yet as the top demand of central government and the research project in shanghai indicated, an institutional breakthrough is urgently needed. That’s consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics. In exercising deliberative democracy polling on Puxing Road, we found that the practicality of democracy depends upon a scientific approach and strict procedures of public participation. Admittedly, there is room for improvement, for example elderly people were more passionate about the event than the younger because many of proposed projects seemed to serve elderly people. Some neighborhoods also had more participants showing up than other neighborhoods. These issues may bring about concerns over how to narrow sampling errors or how to make sure the representatives are truly “representative”. The effective governance and property in urban and rural areas may take shape when democracy can be practiced. Unlike behavioral experiments that can predict outcomes through manipulating conditions, one of conundrums for political practices is that it cannot assume the premise, nor can control variables in consistently changeable political world. The

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Table A.1 Descriptive statistics on the changes of participants’ perception of others’ viewpoints before and after Poll Number

1

2

3

4

5

Items

They do not know much

Some of their views are just wrong

They did not figure it out

They have good They only put points of view, their own but mine is benefits first better

First time N = 114

107

106

106

108

109

Mean

6.36

5.15

5.22

5.96

4.49

Second time N = 116

107

111

103

108

108

Mean

6.08

5.51

5.74

6.17

4.9

Change value

−0.28

0.36

0.52

0.21

0.41

Results of changes

Decline

Rising

Rising

Rising

Rising

Note “0” means “totally disagree”, “10” means “totally agree”, “5” means “Moderately agree”

variables involve conflicts among individuals and groups. There is full of complexity and uncertainty. In Puxing Road Deliberative Polling, participants’ evaluations on the 24 neighborhood projects changed significantly after discussing with fellows. Intense debates occurred between experts and residents, especially in the afternoon session when people became familiar with the projects. The essence of democracy—striving for mutual understanding in the presence of conflicts—was demonstrated well in the deliberation process. Only when information becomes publicly available and rules of discussion are democratic can people fully explore all the possibilities involved in public decision-making. In Deliberative Poll, people’s diverse opinions are converted to quantified ones after deliberation. On the contrary, the scene of “cheering up” and “no divergence” was the result of lacking interactions and communications with residents. Therefore, only when public participation becomes possible, can we prevent the typical passive governance model—public decisions seem well-received by the people until they are actually implemented. It is important not to forget that the governance of cities involves a lot more than pursuing visible achievements such as infrastructures at all levels. Urban governance should also aim for establishing a democratic environment, defending citizens’ dignity and place. The development of democratic procedures and people’s participation should be a priority in China. Shanghai serves as a pioneer in practicing local democratic governance and innovations in China. Looking forward, tremendous efforts are still needed to create a sustainable governing system that incorporates mass participation, mechanisms for mutual understanding, equal deliberation, and democratic decision-making learning

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from existing political and cultural traditions. An ancient Chinese proverb says that a long journey can be completed only by taking one step at one time. The very first step made by Puxing Road explored an approach that integrated the top-level institutional design into local governance. In sharing these insights, we hope to promote practices of deliberative democracy in a broader scope in China. Only constant practices can advance the system. We hope that the Puxing Road in Shanghai will be the first one, and there will be more pragmatic room for deliberative democracy in the future. We also hope that Shanghai and all parts of the country provide more “underlying system and specific procedures” under the “top-level design” issued by the documents of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC). (Dr. Han Fuguo, Director of the Research Center for Comparative Urban Governance (CCUG) of Fudan University and visiting scholar of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. Gratitude should also be extended to the members of the project team Dai Min, Yang Xu, Chen Donghua, Zhang Xianming, Cao Wenyuan, He Jing, Gong Yifei, Chen Kaiping, Zhang Kaiping, etc., and other executives, working staff, and moderators from the Puxing Road who are not listed one by one. As an appendix to this book, some inaccurate words expressions have been modified.)

Appendix II

Materials of Practicing Deliberative Democracy on Gumei Road, Minhang District, Shanghai

2014 Analysis Report on the Deliberative Polling on Gumei Road The Research Center for Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University

The Significance of Practicing Deliberative Democracy at Grassroots Level According to documents of the 18th CPC National Congress, the grassroots consultative democracy should be strengthened in our society, which provides room for advancing deliberative democracy in China’s social governance. For the grassroots governance of urban society, deliberative democracy entails concrete steps to perform its functions, not merely a call for visions and policies. Socialist democracy in the People’s Republic of China is essentially advanced but lacks appropriate procedures in practice. Nevertheless, that cannot guarantee a scientific and democratic system, as manifested in the flawed procedural design in PRC’s social governance. Regarding the current governance performance on Gumei Road Sub-district of Minhang district, Shanghai, substantial progress has been made in “openly establishing the CPC” in this community. However, gathering public opinions rationally and scientifically requires a vast array of procedures to obtain a scientific decision and social identity. Ultimately, an influential grassroots democratic system will be established. The scientific procedures of deliberative democracy can ensure that the needs of masses will be integrated with the leadership of the Party Committee and government that boosts mutual understanding among different social groups. So the needs of masses can be expressed scientifically. Therefore, governance functions, scientific procedures, and approaches of deliberative democracy jointly contributed to effective socialist democratic governance on Gumei Road. © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

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Fig. A.1 Communication with the Moderator on Deliberation Day

Preparation for the Deliberative Democracy on Gumei Road Determining to Practice the Deliberative Democracy Based on the actual conditions of community governance, the Party Working Committee and Office of Gumei Road took “the Renovation Project of Gumeiliucun community” with abundant public opinions as a trail. Its residents were relatively well educated and had more motive to engage in the discussion to deliver their own voices.

Training for Moderators The Research Center of the Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University, working together with the Party Working Committee, and the Sub-district Office provided systematic training for the moderates selected from the teaching staff of Gulong Primary School. The researchers at the Research Center of the Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University conducted training on “the fundamental characteristics and procedures of deliberative democracy at the grassroots level in China” and “moderator’s Roles and abilities” (Fig. A.1).

Selection of Participants and Preparation for Materials The research group selected 220 representatives on a random sample of residents aged over 18 from Gulongliucun Community. The Party Working Committee, Gumei Road Office, and the self-governance committee of the Party Branch of GulongLiucun Community informed these selected participants of participating in the conference via phone calls. The construction sector of Gumei Road provided the early phase

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Fig. A.2 The moderator of plenary session and the expert panel

printed materials. After distributing and retrieving the first questionnaires, the staff continued to send out the materials to ensure an effective questionnaire survey.

Specific Procedures of Deliberative Democracy on Gumei Road On April 13, 2014, the Party Working Committee and Gumei Road Office held a deliberative conference on “The renovation project in Gulongliucun community” at Gulong Primary School, and experts from the Research Center for Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University provided on-site technical support. During the deliberation, Xu Zhi, secretary of the Party working Committee of Gumei Road, extended his regards to these representatives. Du Tao, the deputy secretary of Party Working Committee, led the staff to prepare carefully (Fig. A.2). Members of the panel responsible for plenary session involved Du Tao, acting both as the deputy secretary of Party working Committee and as the chief of Urban Construction Administrative Office of Gumei Road, and other representatives of the Design and Construction sector and experts in the field of environmental protection. The moderators were a deputy to the national People’s Congress in Minhang District and one teacher from Fudan University. The whole progress of the Deliberative Polling was conducted rigorously in accordance with relevant procedures divided by plenary session in larger group and discussion in a smaller group. The number of 10 initially planned groups was adjusted to 5 according to on-site attenders’ registration (Figs. A.3, A.4 and A.5). Questionnaires for the second Deliberative Polling were issued after deliberation, and 45 questionnaires were returned. Statistics on gender and educational backgrounds of the representatives in the conference are displayed as follows (Tables A.2 and A.3).

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Fig. A.3 Participants were raising questions in the plenary session Fig. A.4 A representative raising questions during the deliberation (Note The representative in this picture had an in-depth discussion with us on random sampling, and she strongly opposed to random sampling. Despite different views, it was the random sampling that involved them in this project)

Fig. A.5 Representatives were raising questions in the plenary session

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Table A.2 Gender ratio of representatives participating in the renovation project in Gulongliucun Community on Gumei Road Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

Gender Number Percentage (%) Cumulative Number Percentage (%) Cumulative percentage (%) percentage (%) 34.00

34.00

Female 33

66.00

100.00

50

100.00

Male Total

14

34.15

34.15

65.85

100.00

34.15 65.85

100.00

100.00

Table A.3 Proportion of educational backgrounds of representatives Educational background

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

Number

Proportion

Percentage (%)

Cumulative Percentage (%)

Percentage (%)

Cumulative percentage (%)

Junior high school

9

18.00

18.00

6

15.79

15.79

Senior high school

9

18.00

36.00

5

13.15

26.32

Technical secondary school

2

4.00

40.00

2

5.26

34.21

Junior college 12

24.00

64.00

9

23.68

57.89

Bachelor’s Degree (College)

13

26.00

90.00

12

31.58

89.47

5

10.00

100.00

4

10.53

100.00

48

100.00

38

100.00

Postgraduate Degree (Master’s Degree) Total

Note The standard value of the corresponding variables is not given in the questionnaire. Statistically, we incorporate data about college degree into that of the Bachelor’s Degree and data about Master’s Degree into that of Postgraduate Degree

As we can see from the analysis on educational background, participants in this community are equipped with comparatively qualified educational backgrounds, 23.68% with junior college degree, 30–40% with Bachelor’s Degrees or even above. Compared with statistics on the educational qualifications of participants, the more educated people are, the more actively they engage in the second democratic deliberation (Figs. A.6 and A.7).

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Fig. A.6 Small group discussion

Fig. A.7 Small group discussion

Data Analysis Before and After the Deliberation Fifty-three questionnaires were collected in the first time before reading project materials, and 45 questionnaires in the second questionnaire after reading materials and having deliberation among large and small groups.

Changes of Participants’ Average Recognition of Specific Projects In the two questionnaire surveys, the representatives quantified the items, and the statistics are as follows: (“0” means “unimportant at all”, “10” means “extremely important”, “5” means “moderately important”, and “99” “no content”) (Table A.4). A quantitative scientific comparison of the appointed participants’ scores to the items before and after the democratic deliberation indicates participants’ growing recognition over the above items after deliberation. In parallel, the public’s recognition over other items declined after deliberation (Table A.5).

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Table A.4 Rising statistics on outcomes of the two questionnaire surveys Items

The first test data

The second test data

Number of samples Average value Number of samples Average value 1. Repair of Leaked 43 roofs

9.44

44

9.64

2. Maintenance of external wall/ paint renewal

44

9.70

44

9.89

3. Refurbishment of 46 drainpipes/ air-conditioning pipes/gutters

9.17

43

9.19

4. Refurbishment of 44 some open ditches

8.11

40

8.35

5. Repair and adjustment of some cellars

41

7.80

41

8.10

6. Opening of life channels and road-widening

47

8.30

40

8.33

7. Renewal of wall coating for shared parts

46

8.540

43

8.65

8. Renovation of green space

44

7.16

39

8.18

11. Upgrading of street lamps

48

7.625

42

7.904762

Age

50

53.1

41

53.41463

Table A.5 Declining statistics on outcomes of the two questionnaire surveys Items

The first test data

The second test data

Number of samples

Number of samples

Average value

Average value

9. Operation of east–west highway

40

6.38

37

5.95

10. Increasing of barrier-free facilities

43

6.88

37

6.46

12. Repair of collapsed wooden bridge

44

7.45

42

6.67

13. Set of electronic probes

48

9.15

41

8.44

14. Installing of an electronic fence around the community or replacing it with a stainless steel barbed wire

46

8.26

38

6.37

Age

50

41

53.41

53.1

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Table A.6 Analysis on attitudes towards the deliberation process Questions

Number of the first samples

15. Do you think 48 the government will take/adopt sincerely and seriously the opinions and suggestions put forward in this questionnaire? 16. Do you think 50 the government will implement the decisions made in the democratic deliberation conference?

Data of the first questionnaire

Number of the third samples

Data of the second questionnaire

7.92

40

8.48

7.16

44

8.27

Changes of the Public’s Attitudes Towards Their Abilities to Engage in Decision-Making Process Through the democratic deliberation within large and small groups, it’s found that participants’ recognition over decision-making has dramatically improved. The scores of the 15th item rose from 7.92 to 8.475, and that of the 16th item from 7.16 to 8.27. In this sense, democratic deliberation bolstered the mutual communications and recognition between the authority and the public (Table A.6). Through engagement in deliberative democratic decision-making process, representatives’ awareness of making decisions by themselves has dramatically enhanced. The percentage of “strongly agree that the public has no voice” plummeted from 16.67 to 9.3%, and the percentage of “partially agree” declined from 20.83 to 16.28%. Although the percentage of “disagree” declined, “strongly disagree” increased significantly from 20.83 to 27.91%. Conspicuously, representatives’ confidence in public affairs has been boosted by their experience engaging in the deliberative democratic decision-making process (Table A.7). The percentage of people choosing “strongly agree that experts and officers decide public affairs” rose from 12.5 to 20.45%, and that of those “partially agree” saw a marked increase as well. Despite a drastic decline in people choosing “disagree,” it remained a comparatively high percentage in the data of 81.82%. It shows that residents in Gulongliucun community have a strong sense of participation in public affairs (Table A.8).

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Table A.7 Analysis on the response to “Civilians like me have no voice for the government’s decisions” Items

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

Numbers

Numbers

Percentage (%)

Cumulative percentage (%)

Percentage (%)

Cumulative percentage (%)

Strongly agree

8

16.67

16.67

4

9.3

9.3

Partially Agree

10

20.83

37.50

7

16.28

25.58

Doesn’t matter

3

6.25

43.75

3

6.98

32.56

Disagree

15

31.25

75.00

13

30.23

62.79

Strongly disagree

10

20.83

95.83

12

27.91

90.70

No comment

2

4.17

100.00

4

9.3

100.00

48

100.00

43

100.00

Total

Table A.8 Analysis on the response to “experts and officers determine first because most people do not know much about them”

Items

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

Number

Number

Percentage (%)

Percentage (%)

Strongly agree

6

12.5

9

20.45

Partially Agree

9

18.75

9

20.45

Doesn’t matter

2

4.17

1

2.27

22

45.83

14

31.82

Strongly disagree

8

16.67

6

13.64

No comment

1

2.08

5

11.36

48

100.00

44

100.00

Disagree

Total

Changes of Opinions About Obtaining Basic Information About Community A basic understanding of participants about the community is an essential metric to gauge whether they have the basic knowledge background and sense to judge different problems (Tables A.9, A.10, and A.11). The percentage of people choosing “about 1500” significantly increased, from 46 to 76.92%. (The exact figure is 1439.) The percentage of people choosing “above 160,000” rose markedly from 27.33% to 70.59%. (The exact figure is 16896.45 square meters.)

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Table A.9 Analysis on the response to “how many households are at this community?” Items

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

Number

Number

1

Below 800 About 1000

0

About 1500

23

Above 1500

Percentage (%)

Cumulative percentage (%)

2.00

2.00

0 46.00

0

Percentage (%) 0.00

Cumulative percentage (%) 0.00

2.00

2

5.13

5.13

48.00

30

76.92

82.05

9

18.00

66.00

5

12.82

94.87

No idea

17

34.00

100.00

2

5.13

100.00

Total

50

100.00

39

100.00

Table A.10 Analysis on the response to various responses on “how many square meters are this community?” Items

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

Number

Number

Percentage (%)

Cumulative percentage(%)

Percentage (%)

Cumulative percentage (%)

Below 100,000

0

0.00

0.00

0

0.00

0.00

About 160,000

13

27.66

27.66

24

70.59

70.59

About 250,000

3

6.38

34.04

3

8.82

79.41

Above 300,000

4

8.51

42.55

0

0.00

0.00

No idea

27

57.45

100.00

7

20.59

100.00

Total

47

100.00

34

100.00

In the second questionnaire survey after the deliberation, the number of people choosing “all of the above” increased obviously. (Exact figures: the preliminary budget of the comprehensive reformation project was 15.1557 million yuan, of which Minhang District granted 51%, Gumei Road office granted 29%, and owners’ committee 20%. Construction funds have been in place.) This shows that the participants’ understanding of basic information on public affairs has significantly improved.

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Table A.11 Analysis on the response to “funding of renovation project at the pingyangliucun residential area” Items

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

Number

Number

Percentage(%)

Cumulative percentage(%)

Percentage(%)

Cumulative percentage(%)

1. 29% from Nanmei Road

6

13.64

13.64

6

22.22

22.22

2. 50% from owners committee of the community

1

2.27

15.91

0

0.00

0.00

3. 30% from Minhang District

1

2.27

18.18

2

7.41

29.63

4. All of the above

14

31.82

50.00

15

55.56

85.19

5. Don’t know

22

50.00

100.00

4

14.81

100.00

Total

44

100.00

27

100.00

Recommendations on Advancing the Democratic Deliberation in the Future Of great practical significance, the trial of deliberative democratic decision-making was progressed in compliance with rigorous scientific procedures and quantitative statistics at a specific physical space. (In contrast, sampled representatives participating in intra-Party Deliberative Polling at Gumei Community were comprised of Party delegates and secretaries of neighborhood community instead of random samples.) In our analytical findings, this Deliberative Polling efficiently expressed and integrated public opinions. Meanwhile, it enhanced public trust towards the municipality and promoted the masses’ confidence in their engagement capability (Fig. A.8). Generally speaking, large and small groups were progressed successfully. The participants were enthusiastic, and they knew well one another. Therefore, the participants had a strong desire to express their opinions on their vital interests that were inextricably linked to their daily lives. From the perspective of institutional improvement ahead, there are still many aspects worthy of further consideration and advancements to be achieved when the Street is chosen as a sampling object, or other topics are employed. (Other cases in this book employed random sampling within the entire residential area.)

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Fig. A.8 Picture of the plenary session

The Overall Enthusiasm for Engagement On the deliberation day, participants were quite active. However, only 50 among 220 people randomly selected from the entire population in the community showed a relatively high public enthusiasm for engagement while others did not attend. Usually, residents in big cities manifest a lower willingness to engage in the deliberation. In contrast, more opinions and petitions are submitted at the town level. It’s showed that people who are willing to express themselves guide the government’s decisions while ideas of the silent majority are ignored, so ordinary people’s enthusiasm for engaging in public affairs should be improved. One possible reason for the majority’s silence was that the schedule was tight. The community staff lacked sufficient time to explain the project’s details to residents since the renovation project was ready to be confirmed back then. Moreover, many community staff feared difficulties because they did not know the purpose of deliberation either. Although leaders of community took it very seriously, the staff in the neighborhood community did not want many people to participate in for fear that it might be out of control on the deliberation day. All this is understandable. And it emphasizes the need for deliberative democracy.

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The Materials Were Simple The project materials provided by the designer were too simple and a lot of deficiencies existed in the communication with residents at the early stage. The initial materials did not give a clear exposition, and some specific complex projects were not clear either, that led to some troubles for the later discussion. The designer and the construction sector considered it a technical issue and had no interest in revealing information transparently to the public. This is typical of decision-makers’ problem of “information blockade”. The effectiveness of discussion was affected by the non-transparent information provided to the public. Each group submitted two issues to the plenary session. Was it necessary to select the urgent issues or the confusing ones? After the large group discussion, we felt that some small groups asked the questions they did not understand most and expected the large group to explain, while others, like Group5, selected the most urgent ones. When the most urgent project was discussed in the large group, all attention would be drawn to the project itself, with other problems neglected.

Weaknesses of the Moderators Given a lack of time to prepare and insufficient experience, some moderators were less capable of guiding the deliberation objectively and properly. They unconsciously brought their views into the deliberation, although they were trained in advance. The moderators of some groups seemed to live in this community, so they always unconsciously engaged in the discussion. Meanwhile, the moderators shouldn’t summarize participants’ remarks simply according to their personal judgments. However, the moderators made a summary with their understanding every time a remark was given. Sometimes, the discussions became disordered. Even if participants started to engage in discussions in twos and threes, the moderators did not give any guidance.

Note-Taking Problems During the Deliberation Process In the group discussions, some essential questions were not answered in the large group discussion. The large group was merely engrossed in certain problems that had been answered many times. And there was nothing left to talk on these items. In such cases, the function of large group discussion was not entirely performed. Thus, small groups’ notes were critical. However, this analysis lacked small groups’ notes, making it difficult to make up for the changes in each project’s scores. Decisionmakers necessitated more focus over group note-taking. This is the first time that a whole-process deliberative trial was carried out in a renovation project of a sub-district in Shanghai. The staff hurried to prepare and made great efforts to finish much work in such a short time. Many specific problems having not been properly solved will be well done next time.

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Experimental units: The Party Working Committee and the Office of Gumei Road, The Research Center of Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University. Members of the research group: Xu Zhi, Du Tao, Han Fuguo, Zhang Wuwen, Wang Mengqi, and other students. Questionnaire design and collation: Dr. Han Fuguo, Dr. Xiao Yingmin Data input and collation: Master of Zhang Wuwen, Master of Wang Mengqi Written by: Han Fuguo, Xu Zhi, and Du Tao et al.

Procedures of the Deliberative Polling on the “Pingyangliucun Community”, Gumei Road, Shanghai The Genda of Deliberative Democratic Conference on the “A Renovation Project of Pingyangliucun Community, Gumei Road, Minhang District, Shanghai” 8:30–9:00 Registration of representatives 9:00–9:10 Assembly The moderator reads out the basic rules of the conference and the list of random groups. Then representatives join their small groups directly. 9:10–10:10 Group discussion 10:20–11:00 Plenary session 11:15–11:45 Second group consultation 11:45–12:20 Fill in the second questionnaire Detailed Items of the Renovation Project of Pingyangliucun Community, Gumei Road See Table A.12.

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Table A.12 Detailed renovation items of Gulongliucun community on Gumei Road Category

Number

Item description

Advantages

Category A

1

Repair of leaked roofs

It can improve the living environment

31.9

2

Repair of Leaked external walls

It can repair leaked walls and improve the living environment

701.11

3

Replacement of broken drain pipes and air-conditioning condenser pipes

Rain and condensed water from air-conditioners can be discharged properly

137.58

4

Renovation of gutters and add waterproof layers

With no leaked gutters, good drainage of water can be ensured

31.45

5

Renovation of some Good drainage ditches around buildings can be ensured

6.12

6

Replacement of broken manhole covers

It can ensure walking safety of pavements and greenbelts

7

Widening and connection of some roads, renovation of curbstones

There will be more parking lots, and traffic safety will be ensured. Connection of some roads will facilitate traveling

Because of the limited renovation expenses, not all of the roads can be widened enough

8

Renovation of parts of greenbelts and increase of parking lots

There will be more parking lots, and greening and replanting in some areas can improve the living environment

Green space may be narrowed

9

Renovation of walls in shared space in corridors, handrails, and security doors

It can improve the living environment, prolong the service life of handrails, and ensure safety up and downstairs

Problems

Expenses RMB (10,000)

12.58

52.13

157.36

211.86

(continued)

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Table A.12 (continued) Category

Category B

Number

Item description

Advantages

Problems

10

Replacement of broken street lamps and adjustment of street lamps on the widening and connected roads

It can ensure safety for a night walk and take precautions against dangers

1

Upgradation of street lamps

It can ensure safety for a night walk

2

Accessibility facilities

It is more convenient Renovation for the elderly and expenses are The handicapped limited, so the item is not included in the renovation project

3

Renovation of wooden bridges

It is more convenient Renovation for residents to go expenses are out limited, so the item is not included in the renovation project

4

Installation of electronic probes and fences

The community will be safer

Expenses RMB (10,000) 6.18

Because of the limited renovation expenses, not all street lamps can be replaced

Renovation expenses are limited, so the item is not included in the renovation project

Note The renovation expenses in the table are temporarily estimated and will be finally decided based on the construction cost. Items in Category A are projects to be implemented, while items in Category B will not put in place

The Questionnaire of Renovation Project of Gulongliucun Community on Gumei Road Please evaluate the following items. 0 means “unnecessary at all”, 5 “moderately necessary”, 10 “extremely necessary”, and 99 “no comment”. √ Please check “ ” directly on top of your selected number.

Appendix II: Materials of Practicing Deliberative Democracy on Gumei … Item

Unnecessary at all

Moderately necessary

213

Extremely No necessary comment

1. Repair of 0 leaked roofs

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

2. Repair of 0 some external walls seepage and painting update

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

3. Renovation of drain pipes/air conditioning pipes/ gutters

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

4. Renovation of some ditches

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

5. Renovation and adjustment of some manhole covers

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

6. Open life channels and widen some roads

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

7. Painting renovation of shared walls

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

8. Renovation of greenbelts

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

9. Opening of east–west highways

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

10. Install accessibility facilities

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

11.

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

Renovation of street lamps (continued)

214

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(continued) Item

Unnecessary at all

12. Repair of collapsed wooden bridge

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

13. Install electronic probes

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

14. Install the 0 electronic fences around the community or replace them with stainless steel barbed mesh

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

Moderately necessary

Extremely No necessary comment

15. Do you think the government will take your opinions and suggestions seriously? No 0

Unsure 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Yes

No comment

10

99

16. Do you think the government will implement the outcomes of the democratic deliberation conference? No 0

Unsure 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Yes

No comment

10

99

17. Do you agree with the statement: “Experts and officers determine first because most people do not understand public affairs well”. Strongly agree

Generally agree

Do not care

Disagree

Strongly disagree

No comment

1

2

3

4

5

99

18. Do you agree with the statement: “Civilians like me have no voice for the authority’s decision-making?”

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215

Strongly agree

Generally agree

Do not care

Disagree

Strongly disagree

No comment

1

2

3

4

5

99

19. Please select the reasons for community construction. Options

Unimportant at all

To have a better living environment and a more convenient life

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

To make sure 0 that everyone has access to adequate food and good health care services

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

To have a comfortable life after retirement

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

To spur economic growth in this community

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

To protect the community’s environment

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

To enable the residents to possess more skills

0

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

99

Moderately important

Extremely No important comment

Not everyone knows the correct answers to the following questions. If you are not sure about it, please choose “Do not know”. 20. “How many households are in this community?” ( ). (1) Less than 800; (2) About 1000; (3) About 1500; (4) Over 1500; (5) Don’t know 21. The source of funds used in the renovation project of Pingyangliucun community? (1) 29% from Office of Gumei Road (2) 50% from the owner’s committee of community (3) 30% from the government of Minhang District (4) All above (5) Don’t know

216

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22. How many square meters are this community? (1) less than 100,000; (2) About 160,000; (3) About 250,000; (4) Over 300,000; (5) Don’t know 23. Age: ; Gender: ; Educational background: . The Research Center of Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University, 2014

Appendix III

Deliberative Polling on “Open Party Build-Up” on Gumei Road of Minhang District, Shanghai

Instruction to Deliberative Polling on “Open Party Build-Up” Advantages and Disadvantages of Evaluated by the Third Party Regarding the evaluation of Party-building by the third party, Gumei Road employed sampling and questionnaires, that changed and improved a lot compared to conventional ways relying on inner and superior evaluations and mass forums. However, the scores in the questionnaires about CPC were inclined to show high satisfaction, and we lacked the detailed information and mutual deliberation. Therefore, some specific institutions and projects were evaluated in the mere different scores. The advantage of “Deliberative Polling” was that it focused on specific projects, integrated opinions, and ultimately produced dynamic well-targeted and dimensional outcomes of intra-Party democracy by analyzing and comparing the changing of public opinions before and after the deliberation through 2 questionnaires surveys.

The Basic Procedures of the Deliberative Polling on Party-Building The basic procedures of Deliberative Polling on public opinions (Chart A.1). Before the discussion, all materials of policy issues must be released to the participants so that they can have enough time to read through. 1. Each participant should finish the first questionnaire before group discussions. 2. The first group discussions: All participants are randomly divided into several small groups, and there is a moderator (not officer but ordinary Party member) in every group. 3. Participants will have thorough discussions and communications and, finally, conclude opinions or problems of all group members. 4. Plenary session: Participants can ask officers questions and have an in-depth understanding of the deliberated projects in the plenary session. © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

217

218

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The Deliberative Polling® process begins with administering a questionnaire on a random, Representative sample of the public. Poll 1 At the event, participants are randomly assigned to small groups with trained moderators. Small Group Discussions Participants pose questions– questions are chosen by groups–to experts and policymakers. Plenary Sessions Q & A

1

2

3 4 5

A random, representative sample is selected to participate in the Deliberative Poll.

Recruit Participants Prior to the event, participants receive balanced briefing materials on the topics being discussed. Balanced Information

The event concludes with a final questionnaire capturing participants’ considered opinions.

Poll 2

Results are analyzed and released to the media soon after the event.

Media Coverage

Chart A.1 Chart of the Deliberative Polling®

5. The second group discussion: Participants exchange opinions of all small groups after the deliberation and finish the second questionnaire. 6. The analysis report is written based on the statistical results to offer insights for leaders’ decision-making and give further feedback to these participants. “Research Group on The Deliberative Polling” from the Research Center of Comparative Urban Governance of Fudan University, June 20, 2013.

Analysis Report on the Deliberative Democracy Polling on Party Build-Up on Gumei Road, Minhang District, Shanghai, in 2013 By introducing Deliberative Poll to the Intra-Party democracy, this project investigated the government officials at the sub-district level and neighborhood level (the majority are delegates of the National Congress of Party) on their recognition and satisfaction of “Open Party Build-up” project as well as their opinions about Party build-up at sub-district level. The content of the questionnaires was about rules and regulations on Gumei Road in recent two years. According to their satisfaction over the institutions, the √ interviewees had to check “ ” on corresponding figures (from 0 to 10: 0 means “unsatisfactory”, 5 “moderately satisfactory”, 10 “extremely satisfactory”, and N “no comment”). The overall scale was relatively high since the surveyed were officials at the community and sub-district with a strong sense of organizational discipline. However,

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219

any slight average changes in the two questionnaires before and after the deliberation demonstrated people’s changing attitudes. For example, there were significant differences between 9.1 and 9.2. In parallel, average scores below 9 indicated people were extraordinarily dissatisfied with it, requiring institutional refinement and enhancement carried out by Party Working Committee and Office of sub-district.

Participants’ Satisfaction Over Party Build-Up Satisfaction of Rules and Regulations The two questionnaires’ results before and after the deliberation demonstrated people’s advancing recognition and satisfaction over the 7 items of rules and regulations. The item “Administrative measures for serving temporary posts and training for young officials on Gumei Road” in the first questionnaire with a lower degree of satisfaction raised from 9.0 to 9.3. The average response on “Interim measures on the transparent competition for posts in organs, enterprises, and institutions on Gumei Road” increased from 9.2 to 9.4, and “Measures for the star-rated management of social workers in residential areas of Gumei Road” up from 9.1 to 9.3 (Table A.13).

2013 Selection of Top-Priority Projects to Deepen Statistically, in the two questionnaires before and after deliberation, both of the first and the second systems accounted for the largest proportion of the most important items, including “Rules of Party Working Committee on Gumei Road, Minhang District” and “Trial measures for the hearing of public affairs on Gumei Road”. In parallel, the second regulation system accounted for a high proportion of “the second most important items” in two questionnaires before and after deliberation. This indicated an unanimity of the public towards the core of institutional construction on Gumei Road, and these regulations should be at the center position of “Open Party Build-up” by Party Working Committee of sub-district (Tables A.14 and A.15).

The Open Questions in Questionnaires Open opinions in the first questionnaire: 1. There should be a mechanism for submitting long-term proposals and opinions in which the staff at all levels at the sub-district can have reasonable suggestions on the community in all respects. Also, there should be a mechanism for proposing “golden ideas” so as to improve working methods and skills internally. (By a community official, female.) 2. Deepening transparent public affairs (By a community official, male.)

220

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Table A.13 People’s satisfaction over the advancement of party build-up projects Number

Institution names

Results of the first questionnaire (81 in total)

Results of the second questionnaire (72 in total)

1

Rules of Party Working Committee on Gumei Road , Minhang District

9.5

9.5

2

Trial measures for the hearing of public affairs on Gumei Road

9.1

9.4

3

Trial measures for the conference system of Party delegates on Gumei Road, Minhang District

9.3

9.5

4

The trial working system of non-voting delegates of Party Working Committee on Gumei Road, Minhang District

9.4

9.4

5

Administrative measures for serving temporary posts and training for young officials on Gumei Road

9.0

9.3

6

Interim measures on the transparent competition for posts in organs, enterprises, and institutions on Gumei Road

9.2

9.4

7

Measures for the star-rated management of 9.1 social workers at residential areas of Gumei Road

9.3

Table A.14 Statistical table of preferred options of projects Number

Items of importance

1

The most important items

2

3

The second most important items

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

1(21); 2(20);

1(23); 2(24);

3(12); 4(1);

3(9); 4(2);

5(4); 6(12);

5(4); 6(4);

7(5)

7(2)

1(8); 2(16);

1(9); 2(13);

3(9); 4(5);

3(9); 4(5);

5(19); 6(9);

5(14); 6(6);

7(7)

7(6)

The third most important items 1(9); 2(3);

1(1); 2(8);

3(16); 4(17);

3(6); 4(10);

5(11); 6(10);

5(12); 6(7);

7(8)

7(11)

Appendix III: Deliberative Polling on “Open Party Build-Up” on Gumei …

221

Table A.15 Statistical table of preferred projects Number

Degree options of importance

Results of the first questionnaire (N = 81)

Results of the second questionnaire (N = 72)

1

These regulations involve the core issues of Party build-up on Gumei Road

76.54% (62 pieces)

79.16% (57 pieces)

2

The implementation of these regulations is not ideal

0.74% (6 pieces)

0.42% (3 pieces)

3

Combine the above two items

0.86% (7 pieces)

0.83% (6 pieces)

4

No comment

0.12% (1 piece)

3. The System of officials maintaining close contact with the people; The System of democratic meetings in which criticism and self-criticism should be carried out regularly. (By a retired official, female.) 4. System needs to be more precise in operation. Responsibilities and processes should be specified, and implementation situations should be summarized and improved regularly. (By a community official, male.) 5. Management system of volunteers in the community. (By a community official, male.) 6. System of officials maintaining a close contact with the masses; System to organize democratic meetings; Mechanism for the community shared governance and residents’ self-Governance. (By a community official, female.) 7. System of training and educating officials; System to psychological relief (Employee Assistance Program). (By a community official, female.) 8. System of contacting and listening carefully to people wholeheartedly. (By a community official, male.) Open Opinions in the Second Questionnaire: 1. Inspire and build an internal improvement system just like enterprises do in which the staff in the community can put forward methods and mechanisms to improve work efficiency. (By a community official, female.) 2. How to develop residents’ self-governance system (By a retired official, male). 3. Opinions over the Party Working Committee’s leaders maintaining close contact with the masses; Opinions regarding doing more in practicing “Open Party Build-up”. (By a retired official, female.) 4. Social organizations provide instructive training for developing grassroots critical members in practicing “Open Party Build-up”. (By a community official, female.) 5. Opinions over deepening “Open Party Build-up”. (By a community official, female.) 6. Some suggestions on developing Party affairs’ work stations. (By a community official.)

222

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Table A.16 Statistics on social factors affecting three key projects Number

Institution names

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

1

How important is it for regional development?

9.3

9.4

2

How important is it for intra-Party democracy?

9.2

9.3

3

How important is it for social construction?

9.3

9.3

4

How important is it for the image of Gumei Street?

9.4

9.3

7. Selecting and appointing qualified secretaries of the General Party Branch for the neighborhood; Mechanism for evaluating staff members. (By a community official, male.) 8. Employment welfare and personnel mechanism. (By a community official, female.) 9. The pattern and mechanism for shared governance of the community. (By a community official, female.) 10. System of making Party affairs more open and Party Build-up more informative. (By a community official, male.) We can see that the questions raised in the first questionnaire were relatively indistinct. However, after deliberation, people put forward specific requirements for implementing “Open Party Build-up” and systems of shared governance in a community indicating a further consensus.

Analysis on Social Parameters Regarding Selecting Critical Projects According to the statistics of social factors affecting the three important projects, it can be found that people primarily focused on “regional development” and “intraParty democracy”, while the region’s image was considered less critical. Indicating that significance of Party Build-up system was of greater concern than that of image (Table A.16).

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223

Table A.17 Judgments on extent of party working committee accepting participants’ opinions Number

Institution names

The Result of the first questionnaire

The Result of the second questionnaire

1

Do you think the Party Working Committee will take suggestions you put forward in the questionnaires seriously?

9.1

9.4

Table A.18 People’s satisfaction over advancement of party build-up projects Number

Items

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

1

Progress in corridor self-governance

8.8

9.1

2

Progress and improvement of self-governing community

8.8

9.0

3

Progress in implementing trials of effective Party meetings at the grassroots level

8.9

8.9

Cognition of Deliberative Democracy of Party Build-Up Systems on Gumei Road Attitudes Towards the Extent of Party Working Committee Accepting Participants’ Opinions This changing data indicated that people increasingly believed that the Party Working Committee would sincerely absorb those suggestions through deliberation, especially after the conference and group discussions in which officials answer questions raised by small groups. Accordingly, the average jumped from 9.1 to 9.4 (Table A.17).

People’s Satisfaction Over the Advance of Party Build-Up Projects The “Building corridor self-governance project” and “Self-governing community Project” were significantly improved among the three projects. However, “Progress in implementing trials of effective Party meetings at grassroots-level” remained the same, in need of improvement (Table A.18).

People’s Understanding and Recognition of “Open Party Build-Up” In the two questionnaires before and after deliberation, people’s recognition of “Transparent Party Build-up” increases significantly. People had an in-depth understanding of transparent Party Build-up through group discussions and conferences,

224

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Table A.19 Results of understanding and recognition of “transparent party build-up” Number

Item names

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

1

The “Core Idea” of Transparent Party Build-up: Leading, Opening-up, Deliberation, Supervision, and Co-governance

9.1

9.4

2

Opening-up of Party Construction

9.1

9.4

3

Opening-up of Party Committee’s Decision-making Process

9.2

9.3

4

Opening-up Party Mechanism for Mobilization 9.1

9.2

especially after reading research reports of Party Build-up projects on Gumei Road (Table A.19).

Overall Evaluation of the Projects Through this rigorous but straightforward deliberative poll on Party Build-up projects on Gumei Road, we can find that people were increasingly concerned about Party Build-up systems in the community after democratic deliberation. Furthermore, increased recognition and concentrated suggestions consolidated the effectiveness of intra-Party deliberative democracy. That even further promoted grassroots Party Build-up. The success of the deliberative democracy polling indicates that we can manage to set up more specific and practical projects conducive to regional selfgovernance and progress. (Subsequently, the renovation project of Gulongliucun community takes into practice) (Table A.20). Members of the project: Qiu Baisheng, Chen Yongwang, Xu Zhi, Du Tao, Xu Jin, Liu Chunrong, and Han Fuguo et al. Reports Analyst: Han Fuguo et al. Data Input: Zhang Yanqing and Shi Jundan et al. “Research Team of Intra -Party Deliberative Democracy” from the Research Center of Comparative Urban Governance (CCUG) of Fudan University, July 7, 2013 Table A.20 Gender ratio of participants in intra-party deliberative democracy on Gumei Street Number

Options

Results of the first questionnaire

Results of the second questionnaire

1

Male

34

33

2

Female

45

34

Appendix IV

Practices of Deliberative Democracy in Big Picture in China: Characteristics, Structures and Problems at Grassroots Level2

Han Fuguo, Zhang Kiaping The socialist system with Chinese characteristics lacking corresponding procedures, methods, and technologies results in democracy short of practicability. To a certain degree, our system advantages have eventually become “a castle in the air”. During the past two decades, deliberative democracy has undergone tremendous years of grassroots practices and theoretical illuminations, regardless of the disputes over the concept of “deliberative democracy” per se. Ultimately, it was assimilated into the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) as integral to China’s democratic development path from the ruling party’s perspective. Since the acknowledgment of the ruling party, deliberative democracy has become a focal point of institutional innovation at all levels and terrains. Improving the socialist system of deliberative democracy has become the core issue of China’s construction of democracy. The academic research of China’s deliberative democracy is mainly on case studies of grassroots deliberative democracy, while the construction of other macro theories emphasizes the “conceptual transformation” of national policy. In summarizing the concrete practice of China’s deliberative democracy, our preoccupation is necessarily on grappling with the future problems and challenges in combination with specific practical cases.

2

This article was published in the 10th issue of “Zhejiang Social Science” in 2015, and was revised when the book was included.

© Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

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Theoretical Characteristics of Current Deliberative Democracy in China In the Chinese language and political background, “Political Deliberation” has always been the idea and action pattern advocated by the CPC during its process of political negotiation and country construction. The concept of modern deliberative democracy has been inextricably linked with the interpretation of policy documents since introduced to mainland China’s research literature, not only triggering conflicts in dialogues between home and abroad but also extending the functional space of deliberative democracy in China.

“Deliberation” and “Democracy”: Two Essentials of China’s Practices Throughout thirty years of Reform and Opening-up, many institutional innovations have been precisely seeking holistic political identity through “creative transformation of the language concept”, which also brings two adverse factors: the first is conceptual interpretation—the essential requirement of deliberative democratic decision-making is inclined to be replaced by “deliberation practice with democratic forms”; the second is that it is easy to construct feasible procedures and rules in the practice of deliberative democracy at grassroots level, while the practice at other levels only exists in the recognition of concepts. These two characteristics have shaped a “conflict” in system characteristics and practical structure of China’s deliberative democracy, which is relatively distinctive in general. Through a top-down lens, China’s deliberative democracy a “conflict” in system characteristics and practical structure of China’s deliberative democracy, which is relatively distinctive in general; through a down-top lens, it is a pragmatic attempt valuing democratic decision-making over public opinion collection. Research on China’s deliberative democracy is diverse, but it relatively lacks studies over possible paths, functions, and procedural designs. The core questions encompass: what are the current procedures and approaches of deliberative democracy practice in China? What is the interactive relation between theory and practice? The research agenda relates directly to the development of China’s deliberative democracy in all aspects. Therefore, we examine the correlations between the theoretical characteristics and the process of deliberative democracy practice according to the grassroots deliberative democracy’s participatory subjects, terrains, main topics, procedures, and approaches. It is essential to point out that how ideas are applied in specific practical procedures is precisely the space that needs to be paid attention to in developing grassroots deliberative democracy in the future. It is also a possible way for Chinese practical experience to enter the international view.

Appendix IV: Practices of Deliberative Democracy in Big Picture …

227

Theoretical Characteristics of Chinese Deliberative Democracy The third-plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee puts forward several overlapping concepts, such as “legislative consultation, administrative consultation, democratic consultation, political engagement consultation, and social consultation”. Moreover, it points out that “under the leadership of the party, we will carry out extensive consultations throughout the society on the critical issues of economic and social development and practical issues involving the very interests of the masses, and insist that consultation be conducted before and during decision-making”. Therefore, on the nation’s level, consultation is complementary but unnecessary to decisionmaking in the socialist political system, unlike the l logical complementary relationship of representative democracy in the Western context. Therefore, “deliberative democracy” in the Chinese context is “consultation superior to democracy”. This has become why many scholars have always emphasized that “political consultation” is the advantage of China’s political system. Internationally, some agree with this view: “Liberal democratic politics perhaps does not fit in with risk society, but deliberative democracy does”.3 However, if “formalistic participation” is more salient than “participatory form”, it will challenge the “democracy” of deliberative democracy, and in practice, it often leads to the regression of consultation to mass forums and information bulletins (Fig. A.9). Deliberation has been a continuous social tradition at a historical scope of Chinese social governance, with a series of mature “native China” practical mechanisms, which has constituted a supporting point for the operation of traditional society. Therefore, when present China’s theorists accept the theory of deliberative democracy, they do not “emotionally” feel strange. In the process of seeking solutions to social problems through deliberation and self-governance, grassroots governments, urban community self-governance organizations, rural self-governance organizations, and social organizations do not feel the plight of “excessive transformation” resulting from introducing “deliberative democracy”. The “Triangle Regime” in the CPC’s anti-Japanese base area is also a model for establishing grassroots political

Levels of Deliberative

Political Consultation at National Level Consultative & Deliberative Democracy at Social Level Consultative & Deliberative Democracy at Economic Level Consultative & Deliberative Democracy at Administrative Level Consultative & Deliberative Democracy at Grass-roots Level

Fig. A.9 Hierarchy of China’s practice of deliberative democracy 3

Wouter Achterberg and Zhou Zhanchao. (2003). “Democracy, Justice, and Risk Society: The Shape and Significance of Ecological Democracy.” Marxism & Reality 2003 (3).

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power by deliberation. Therefore, China’s acceptance of deliberative democracy has a “historical and linguistic basis of identification”. The first Political Consultative Conference of the People’s Republic of China once made political consultation at the state level possible for democratic existence. Tracing back to the “Chongqing Political Consultative Conference” under the period of the Republic of China, the CPC was not opposed to political deliberation in theoretical propaganda at that time, but considered that the political deliberation the Kuomintang presided over did not perform the democratic function of deliberation, which was an “obsolescent Political Consultative Conference” under the “party state system” and “one-party dictatorship.“ However, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Political Consultative Conference is a process of “building the country through consultation”,4 which is called the “New Political Consultative Conference”. However, with the collapse of the “54 Constitution” System caused by the “Great Cultural Revolution,” and the implementation of the “Information Circular” process under the leading cadres hip of the CPC after “the expansion of the Antiright Movement” in 1957, which has neither involved deliberation nor democracy, the democratic nature of “political deliberation” in the national political life and grassroots social governance has waned. After the 18th CPC National Congress leveled consultative democracy from a form of grassroots democratic practice to a component of the national system, consultation gradually expanded from political parties to government and society, social groups and citizens, forming a consultation system of “political consultation” at the national level, “decision-making consultation” between the state and society, and “citizen consultation” at the social level. Therefore, deliberative democracy in the current national government has the “legitimate foundation of policy from the national level to the grassroots governance”. Increased public affairs, the plural social structures, and the enormous mobility of the population gradually raise people’s consciousness of governance engagement. The ruling party promotes system reform based on restoring the sound political system before the “Great Cultural Revolution”. Therefore, “political consultation” reappears in national life, with increasingly salient democratic characteristics of “deliberative democracy” in the grassroots social governance. On this basis, China started theoretical introduction and time dialogue on the “deliberative democracy” proposed by the international community.5 In 1999, democratic deliberation was first initiated in Wenling City of Zhejiang Province, with many ramifications comprising 4

Zhang Lifan. (2009). “A Historical Review of the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China through Democratic Consultation.” Yanhuang Chunqiu (4); Yang Shengqun and Chen Jinbian. (2009). The Memory of Those Who Experience It: Building the Nation through Consultation. SDX Joint Publishing Company; Hao Zaijin. (2010). Building a Nation through Consultation: China’s Democracy 1949. Lijiang Publishing Limited. 5 Chen Jiagang. (2005). “Deliberative Democracy: Concept, Element, and Value.” Journal of Tianjin Municipal Party School of CPC (3); Chen Jiagang. (2004). ‘An Introduction to Deliberative Democracy”. Marxism & Reality (3); Chen Jiagang. (2008). “The Rise and Development of Deliberative Democracy in the East and the West.” Studies on Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping Theories (7); Chen Jiagang. (2007). “Deliberative Democracy and Political Deliberation.” Study & Exploration (2).

Appendix IV: Practices of Deliberative Democracy in Big Picture … Characteristics of Consultative & Deliberative Democracy

Fig. A.10 Overall characteristics of China’s practice of deliberative democracy

229

Consultation & Deliberation beyond Democracy

Participation beyond Consultation & Deliberation

From Nation Level to Grassroots Level

Results beyond Procedures and Process

dialogue democratic consultation, participatory democratic consultation, and collective democratic consultation on wages. Subsequently, a rudimentary grassroots deliberative democratic system was constructed with “interparty democratic consultation, political parties’ consultation, People’s Congress consultation, intragovernmental consultation, the CPPCC consultation, grassroots level organization consultation, and social organization consultation”.6 However, an extrusive phenomenon is that up to now, in addition to a few cases of grassroots social governance that attach more importance to the procedures, techniques, and methods of deliberative democracy, grassroots deliberative democracy is characterized by “pursuing the results of deliberation rather than the democratic procedures of deliberation” (Fig. A.10). In this sense, deliberative democracy has institutionalized the above “Chinese Characteristics” parallel to state politics. In the practice process of China’s deliberative democracy, we need a clear cognition: First, the development of democracy cannot avoid the important and dwell on the trivial. It can be said macroscopically that “China’s gradual democracy growth relies on an integral instead of unilateral action structure”.7 Nevertheless, while facing the “offensive and defensive point” and “breach” of democracy development in the past, we were prone to choosing a certain aspect: for example, we mainly chose intraparty democracy rather than people’s democracy, deliberative democracy rather than electoral democracy, grassroots democracy rather than high-level democracy, all of which were once called a sensible and optimal choice. However, it has been proved by decades of democratic practice that it cannot be a balanced development but will block the overall advancement of democracy and blur the essence of developing democracy.8 Second, deliberative democracy cannot replace electoral democracy. China’s democratic practice can be diversified, but rather than ill-balanced, deliberative democracy must progress with the representative democracy of the People’s 6

“The Research Team of the Office of the CPC Central Committee Came to Wenling City to Investigate Deliberative Democracy”. Taizhou Daily. March 15, 2014. 7 Lin Shangli. (2007). “Citizen Deliberation and the Development of Grassroots Democracy in China.” Research Monthly (9). 8 Yu Chongsheng. (2010). “An Accurate Grasp of Tri-dimensional Chinese Democracy.” Journal of Wuhan University (3).

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Congress, which is the fundamental political system of the People’s Republic of China. “Electoral democracy and deliberative democracy are at different stages of the political process and cannot be replaced by each other. It is an ignorance of democracy that China’s democracy is deliberative democracy while western democracy is electoral democracy”.9 Third, the stable progress of democracy has a positive influence on the economy, but it cannot be reduced to the “slave” of the latter. If the “the growth of democracy maintains a coordinated relationship with economic and social development”, not only accommodating but also ensuring economic and social development”, it is the best. But we must adhere to the independence and indispensability of democracy development, which cannot also be delayed indefinitely.

The Plural Action Subjects of China’s Deliberative Democracy In the practice of China’s deliberative democracy, what are the main action subjects participating in and promoting the practice and innovating operational methods and procedures? Based on the observation of practical cases, it mainly includes various social organizations, the People’s Congress and CPPCC organizations, the Communist Party organizations at all levels, community autonomous organizations (including rural and urban spaces), migrant workers, etc. Furthermore, party committees and governments at all levels are the indispensable ones in each practice model (Fig. A.11).

Social Organization: Integration Function of Democratic Engagement Since the Reform and Opening-up in 1978, the society has shown a diversified flow and the party-centered unit system cannot accommodate the conflict interests among the existing groups. Although “two committees at village level” (party branch and village self-governance committee) play a dominant role in the deliberation of village governance, the growing urban community self-governance committee and other related organizations have bolstered the development of deliberative democracy.

Practices

Social Organizations at all Levels

at

Fig. A.11 Participants of China’s deliberative democracy

CPC Organizations at all Levels

Grassroots

9

PC and CPPCC at Different Levels

Self-governing Organizations at Communities Migrant Population`s Participation

Yu Keping. “Discuss Democracy Again.” Study Times, February 25, 2009.

Executive Departments of Government

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How to promote the common development of community organizations and deliberative democracy has also became the common theme of community governance and political democratization.10 Drastic changes have been taking place in the ways and structures of underlying social organizations. Whether social organizations can participate in democratic decision-making is an important basis for contemporary grassroots deliberative democracy. Otherwise, relying on political deliberation by grassroots party committees and governments, the society will still return to the traditional mode of government management, and there is no real room for deliberative democracy. Unlike general social organizations, village committees, and community selfgovernance committees are “social self-governance organizations” following the law, but they both are embedded with apparent administrative characteristics. Therefore, the functional advantages and disadvantages of the grassroots self-governance organizations are also hidden in the various practical modes of grassroots deliberative democracy. A common viewpoint is that advancing deliberative democracy in rural China and endowing villagers’ rights to engage in democratic decision-making, governance, and supervision will better protect their fundamental rights and interests and significantly prosper democracy.11 During the post-earthquake reconstruction of communities in Deyang, Sichuan Province, social organizations were advocated and supported by the local government, whose appointed participants engaging in deliberation played a significant role.12 The Wenling City of Zhejiang Province also innovated democratic consultation in 1999 to resolve the multiple conflicts in rural governance. Suppose the original self-governance organizations such as Village Committees lack the independence and representativeness of deliberative democracy, many informal grassroots social communities will emerge, resulting in the “deliberation” of spontaneous social organizations by the public with authorities. Instead, the Village Committee has been considered as the root of conflicts and isolated in the subsequent deliberations. The dilemmas faced by social organizations outside the system are more centralized. If they seek to integrate the public to engage in deliberation in a direction inconsistent with that of the government and exceedingly ambitious, it will raise the concern of the grassroots government and, conversely, set the deliberation back. In contrast, excessive conformity with authorities will eventually undermine its fair representativeness of public interests and coordination ability, deviating the deliberation outcome from expected, stirring up social resistance, and shaping a new social organization from scratch. For example, the “Fujie Grassroots Chamber of

10

Lili and Chen Xiufeng. (2008). “A New Way to Improve China’s Deliberative Democracy: The Development of Community Organizations.” Socialism Studies, 2008(3): 103–106. 11 He Baogang and Wang Chunguang. (2007). “Chinese Rural Deliberative Democracy: A Case Study.” Sociological Studies (3). 12 Community’s “‘New Life’ with Public Engagement.” Xiaokang Magazine. May 03, 2013.

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Commerce” study clearly shows the dilemma of social organizations participating in deliberative democracy.13 Without corresponding procedures and methods, elites from social organizations will inevitably undermine the equality and fairness of deliberative democracy. For example, researchers concluded that the “elite-led deliberation” failed, as exemplified in the deliberative democracy at Xiping Village of Lianping County, Heyuan City, Guangdong Province.14 The emerging social organization will become the object of the government “institutionalize” with “unremitting efforts”. However, if lacking legitimacy and effectiveness, the grassroots deliberative democracy cannot form a stable normalized governance structure. The rational deliberation among the plural subjects in the grassroots society often becomes the victim of the “coordination” of the government. As a result, the practice of deliberative democracy in many places has “great randomness and uncertainty, and factors such as changes in leadership may affect the continuity and effectiveness of deliberative democracy at any time, an inevitable consequence of deliberative democratic reform led by government”.15

CPPCC Organization: Reviving Supervision Function The functions of the CPPCC are not as prominent as those of the People’s Congress, Party Committee, and government. After the 18th CPC National Congress, the CPPCC at all levels grasped their conventional functional positioning of “political consultation” and tried to advance the features of deliberative democracy in all aspects. Nevertheless, the critical question is what is the relationship between deliberative democracy and the supervision and engagement function in the CPPCC? In what ways can CPPCC prompt specific innovation of deliberative democracy? Theoretically, CPPCC’s efforts of deliberative democracy stagnate at “rehashing” and “re-interpreting” the political program. The Research on CPPCC’s engagement in deliberative democracy is centered on the following issues: advancing policy-making consultation, advisory consultation, and communicative consultation at the institutional level, as well as standardizing the procedures for deliberative democracy, improving consultation with representatives from all sectors of society, advancing legislation consultation, intersecting democratic deliberation with social deliberation, etc.16 Except for the First Political 13

Tao Qing. (2006). “The Constitutional Dimension of “Legitimate Compromise” Between Local Government and Nongovernmental Organizations: From the Ethnographic Perspective of the Grassroots Chamber of Commerce in Fu Street, Nanfang City.” The Journal of International Studies (3). 14 Xia Tian. (2013). “Deliberative Democracy: Difficulties and Reflections in Farmer Organizations: A Case Study of Nannong Experimental European Village Cooperative.” Scientific Socialism (1). 15 Wu Lingzhi. (2010). “Deliberative Democracy and Rural Governance in China.” Hubei Social Sciences (10). 16 Yin Xiaohu. (2013). “Path Analysis of CPPCC’s Practice of Deliberative Democracy.” Journal of Shanghai Institute of Socialism (2); Zhu Yanli and Ren Nairong. (2010). “Research on Deliberative

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Consultative Conference of the People’s Republic of China, we have always lacked specific ways, mechanisms, and measures on how the CPPCC performs deliberative democracy. In contrast, the grassroots CPPCC has a lot to explore. The CPPCC at the Wenling City of Zhejiang Province has expanded the democratic deliberation in its system. Democratic deliberation has been embedded into political consultation by organizing democratic deliberation over political affairs, mass forums, and deliberation over a specific topic. Democratic deliberation has been integrated into supervision by appointing supervisors and establishing particular supervision tasks. Democratic deliberation has been manifested in political engagement by guiding party members on some topics and conducting deliberations among citizens, netizens, etc.17 From February to June 2014, Zhejiang launched special democratic supervision at the county, municipal, and provincial levels and organized the three levels of CPPCC members to identify problems undiscernible in “water control”. The CPPCC believes that “democratic supervision obtains salient achievements”. Whereas it remains contingent on the conventional paths of putting forward suggestions for the government, and the effectiveness of supervision is determined by the “will” of the party committee and government.18 In comparison, the grassroots People’s Congress possesses greater authority and capacity to take actions and flourish deliberative democracy, such as the “Public Hearing” system implemented by the Yueqing People’s Congress of Zhejiang Province in 2010.19

Grassroots Party-Building: CPC Mass Line by Deliberative Democracy The construction of upper-level political parties is more about how political decisions are correctly made and how effective the order is communicated. However, in grassroots party construction, how to carry out deliberative democracy in grassroots party construction interweaves with the specific resolution to the governance issues. In response to the new population structure changes and new social needs,

Democracy of CPPCC in Recent Years.” Theoretical Research of CPPCC (3); Chen Jiagang. (2007). “Deliberative Democracy and Political Deliberation.” Study & Exploration (2). 17 “The City’s Exploration of Ways to Achieve Deliberative Democracy Attracted the Attention of the CPPCC National Committee.” Wenling News Website. www.wlxww.com. 18 “We have visited 1,281 townships (towns, streets), 5,886 villages, 4,971 rivers (rivers, streams), and 2,848 small enterprises on the spot.” People’s Daily, July 16, 2014. 19 In April, May, September, and the end of each year, the deputy mayor of Yueqing City, Zhejiang Province, is required to report critical issues to the People’s Congress and receive on-site questions from representatives. At the end of the year, the People’s Congress will review and summarize the situation of problem-solving. Dozens of people’s representatives will be invited to attend each meeting, and the meeting will be broadcast live to the society through the Internet.” (Wang Dongmin. “People’s Hearing: The ‘Yueqing Practice’ of the County People’s Congress.” Zhejiang Today, 20108-6; Shen Jianli. “Interpretation of ‘People’s Hearing’ in Yueqing, Zhejiang Province.” 21st Century Business Herald, 2010-5-26; Zhu Yonghong, “People’s Congress Debate and People’s Hearing.” Zhejiang People’s Congress (1)).

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the Gumei Road Community at Shanghai’s Minhang District has tried to implement a mechanism of deliberative democracy in community party-building. They initially established an “open form of party-building” changing the obsolescent closed model, integrating the spirit of mass line into the party construction, establishing a party member poll mechanism for party committee’s decision-making, and taking advantage of an independent third-party evaluation. The democratic hearing of Party Members of non-state-owned enterprises at Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, has made mechanism innovations for enterprise democracy. These innovations are reflected in the democratization of hearing representatives, issues generation, hearing process, results, feedback, and auditing.20 In the context of Chinese society’s transition from a traditional “party-government center” to a cogovernance with multiple forces under the leadership of the CPC, the construction of grassroots governments and parties entails a new structure that can absorb growing social forces and deliberation structure based on “open organization construction”, “open decision-making process”, and “open mobilization mechanism”. In the process of integrating democracy into grassroots party-building, working hard to integrate diverse social forces can creatively inherit the working model of the mass line and reshape the party’s organizational effectiveness of integration with society when the CPC was founded.21

Migrant Population: Deliberative Participation to Help Governance Nearly 270 million migrants are considered one of the determinants that were incentivizing China’s future development. Massive systemic contradictions exist between migrant populations and natives in many aspects such as resource allocation and cultural identity; in particular, the urban population excessively overloads the supply capacity of urban infrastructure and public service. Many social conflicts often occur between migrants and local populations, plaguing local authorities. The Cixi City of Zhejiang Province innovated the “cooperative governance model of grassroots and social organizations”, carving out a grassroots social governance service system with multiple subjects’ engagements through building up a social deliberative platform with institutional measures (Table A.21).

20

Zhong Dongsheng. (2010). “Democratic Hearing of Party Members: Innovation of Democratic Decision-Making Mechanism of Non-state-owned Enterprises.” Economic Research Guide (26). 21 Han Fuguo. (2013). Open Party Building: The Integration of Deliberative Democracy and the Mass Line. Shanghai People Press.

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Table A.21 Actors of collaborative governance in Cixi City, Zhejiang Province Participant Subjects

Role

Functions

The Village Committee

Major Managers

Manage village affairs

Harmony Promotion Association

Assist Managers

Assist the village committee and participate in the management and service of the migrant population

Village CPC Branch and Mobile CPC Branch

Organizers of Various Groups

Give full play to the enthusiasm of local Party members and migrant Party members

Superior party committee and government

Leading Cadres and Policy Supporters

Provide policies and funds for the operation

Local Peasants

Landlords, Resource Holders

Take the initiative to reduce social exclusion and provide help to migrants

Migrant Population

Tenants and Resource-poor Population

Consciously abide by laws and regulations and try to integrate into the community

This model cannot root out the principal problem of the “dual social structure” of migrants but it tries to help migrants to integrate into society in the method of democratic consultation.22 The main factory of Foxconn, Longhua District, Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, has made consistent attempts to settle the migrant worker issues with deliberative democratic governance since 2013.23 In 2009, a deliberative self-governance approach was applied to migrant workers at Fengyang Sub-district of Haizhu District in Guangzhou City.24 In April 2014, a similar cross-industry and cross-provincial fraternity organization was founded in Dongguan City. Concurrently, the role of mobile party members has been well performed in an attempt to set up a “Township Fraternity” at Yongren Village, Hufang Town, Qingshanhu District, Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province.25 Therefore, integrating migrants into the social deliberation makes it possible for authorities to remedy the deficiencies of the migrant worker system. Pivotal is the migrants’ trust towards the appointed participants to the democratic deliberation in the migrant-dense places. The dearth of migrants’ trust towards the 22

Han Fuguo, Wang Mengqi, Mei Dun, Wang Meiran. “The Construction of a Platform for Social Integration of Migrant Population—Case Study of Wutang New Village, Kandun, Cixi City, Zhejiang Province.” Research Project of the Center of Comparative Study of Urban Governance, Fudan University in 2014. 23 Lin Shangli, Han Fuguo. (2013). Research Report on “Longhua Mode of Social Integration.” Project Entrusted by Social Work Committee of Longhua New Area. 24 “Fengyang Street of Zhuhai City ‘Lets the Villagers Manage the Villagers.’” Nanfang Metropolis Daily, November 27, 2013. 25 “Strengthen the Management of Grassroots Organizations to Build a Service and Innovative Society: Introduction to the Working Method of ‘Villagers Manage Villagers’ in Yongren Village in Hufang Town,of Qingshan Lake District”, Contributed by Hufang Town, May 10, 2012.

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Consultation & Deliberation in Urban Governance Domains of China's Deliberative Democracy

Fig. A.12 Domains of China’s deliberative democracy

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Consultation & Deliberation in Rural Governance Consultation & Deliberation in Public Policy-making Consultation & Deliberation in Budget Innovation Consultation & Deliberation in Grassroots Election

appointed participants will inevitably stumble the deliberation into a binary model of conflicts. As a consequence, the genuine deliberation will be barely accomplished.

The Multiple Dimensions of China’s Deliberative Democracy Deliberative democracy can play a vital role from urban grassroots society to rural governance, public policy issues, public budget reform, and even in grassroots elections (Fig. A.12).

Urban Governance: Deliberative Democracy as Embedded Resource Under the existing political framework, the possibility of “deliberative democracy” in urban governance lies in: emphasizing deliberation rather than confrontation in democratic development, embedding democratic mechanisms into development, and eliciting the deliberative spirit as a practical resource to promote social development. Ultimately, social development will be more wholesome and orderly. That is, urban democratic achievements not only propel the handling of the social malaises concerning the people’s livelihood, but also continuously improves the quality of modern urban democracy. Various elites and organizations in Huashan Community, Jingansi Street, Shanghai, distributed public powers using their resources. Thereby an operational system of “deliberative democracy” emerged.26 Hangzhou promotes democracy by focusing on solving people’s livelihoods, and deliberative democracy is embedded as a resource in the specific process of urban social development in all aspects of governance, thereby creating a multi-layered composite structure of political, social,

26

Liu Ye. (2003). “Public Engagement, Community Self-governance, and Deliberative Democracy—An Analysis of the Public Communication Behavior of the Urban Community.” Fudan Journal of Social Sciences, (5): 39–48.

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and economic deliberation.27 Deliberative citizen engagement has become a reference asset28 in urban governance and comprehensive environmental improvement in Ningbo City, Zhejiang province. In addition, deliberative democracy has been broadly exercised in budgeting for urban utilities29 and managing traffic congestion.30 However, the conflict between the credibility of the grassroots government and the engagement of residents slows down the progression of the community’s “participatory democracy”. The empirical surveys conducted in Nanjing in 2006 and 2008 showed that the lower the government level, the lower the Chinese residents’ trust in the government. Put simply, residents have lower trust in the district (county) government and sub-district offices.31 Many cases illuminate that the deliberative democracy required by urban grassroots governance is not merely an interim means for existing issues but an ultimate democratic decision-making model and a cooperative mechanism between authorities and citizens.32

Rural Governance: Combination of Conventional Deliberation and Modern Democracy Deliberative democracy has been broadly practiced in the current rural governance of China. For example, the “Community Communication Day” system in Changshan County, Zhejiang Province, introduced deliberation to the democratic decision-making process.33 From the state perspective, the villager conference system has been spread. This system is built on the original village committee as a deliberation mechanism with public engagement in public affairs. Studies of the villagers’ congress system in underdeveloped areas indicated that villagers believed that “no finance, no need 27

Han Fuguo. (2013). “Deliberative Democracy as an Embedded Governance Resource: Interaction Rules between Government and Society in Modern Urban Governance.” Fudan Journal of Social sciences (3). 28 Zhu Demi. (2008). “Public Deliberation and Citizen Engagement: An Empirical Study on Deliberative Citizen Engagement in Urban Governance of J District of Ningbo City.” CASS Journal of Political Science (1). 29 Zhao Xinfeng. (2012). “Application of Participatory Budget in Urban Public Utility Projects: Evaluation on the Implementation of the Participatory Budget in the Central Heating Project of Bayan County, Heilongjiang Province.” Chinese Public Administration (1). 30 Jin Guokun. (2011). “On the Legalization of Scientific and Democratic Decision-Making— Consideration of Soliciting Public Opinion Based on Traffic Congestion Control Plan in Beijing.” Law Science Magazine (7). 31 Liang Ying. (2009). “Community Participatory Democracy” in a Predicament—On the Dilemma of the Credibility of the Grassroots Government and the Engagement of the Residents in the Community Social Policy.” Academia Bimestrie (3). 32 Qi Weiping and Chen Peng. (2008). “Deliberative Democracy: An Effective Model of Urban Grassroots Governance.” Theory and Reform (5). 33 Ying Xiaoli. (2010). “The Innovation of Villagers’ Public Engagement System Based on Deliberation and Democracy: An Investigation and Analysis of the System of Communication Day of People’s Conditions in Changshan County, Zhejiang Province.” Zhejiang Social Sciences (2).

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for supervision”. In comparison, villages in the city with the superior geographical location and collective solid economy, such as Su Village, Qindu District, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, have many vital decisions involving villagers’ interests and other issues that require villagers’ engagement in urbanization, such as distributions of huge land compensation funds, the establishment of public facilities, projects invested by a rural collective, etc.34 The experiment of deliberative democracy at Zeguo Town, Wenling County, Zhejiang Province, illustrates that the deliberative democracy of rural governance has produced significant positive effects on grassroots governance.35

Policy Agenda: From Budget Allocation to Public Decision-Making Formulating a modern grassroots public policy is no longer a process of electing appointed participants to act independently with authorities. In a country like China, where “political decision is superior to an administrative decision”, it is of great value of democratic administration for citizens to engage in the agenda-setting of public policy by means of deliberative democracy. Compared with the personnel system, the public budget is of substantial public concern and targets expanding deliberative democracy. The introduction of deliberative democracy has led to “participatory budgeting” in local budget reforms. This is the most empirical evidence of grassroots deliberative democracy and reflects the essential differences between the People’s Congress and the CPPCC. In a sense, the grassroots practice of China’s deliberative democracy begins with reforming public budgets: with the combination of Democratic Deliberation and grassroots People’s Congress systems, Wenling City chooses budget reform as a breakthrough.36 Nevertheless, the specific procedures and modes of Wenling townships are not entirely consistent.37 Since 2012, Yanjin County, Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province has successively established three fiscal reform measures in four townships and villages: the county

34

Chen Xiaoli. (2010). “The Practical Efficiency and Perfection of the System of Villagers’ Congress: Based on the Observation of Su Village.” Journal of South China Agricultural University (Social Science Edition) (2). 35 He Baogang and Wang Chunguang. (2007). “China’s Rural Deliberative Democracy: A Case Study.” Sociological Studies. 36 Chen Jiagang, Chen Yimin. (2007). “Participatory Budgeting in Local Governance: A Case Study of the Reform of New River Town, Wenling City, Zhejiang Province.” Journal of Public Management (3). 37 Lang Youxing. (2009). “The Process and Function of the Wenling Democratic Conference in Zhejiang Province.” Journal of Public Administration (4); Xu Xun and Chen Shengyong. (2009). Participatory Budget and Local Governance: Experience of Wenling, Zhejiang Province. Zhejiang Social Sciences (11).

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and township fiscal and taxation growth incentive mechanism, the department’s “proportion and performance” budget, and the township mass engagement budget pilot.38 Nanhui District of Shanghai,39 Harbin of Heilongjiang Province, and Wuxi City of Jiangsu40 also carried out corresponding reforms. Hearings have also become a relatively prominent practice. Many local governments and departments have tried them,41 and they constitute an essential space for policy agenda-setting. During the implementation of the rural resettlement policy of the Three Gorges Project, local governments, experts, and people at grassroots levels had an interactive policy demonstration process.42 The Macao Special Administrative Region of China also revised the “Press Law” and “Audiovisual Broadcasting Law” public opinion projects in the framework of deliberation polls in 2011. If public engagement in the hearing process is inadequate or absent, a vicious spiral will be formed.43 In practice, many hearings are not signed after the end of confirmation. There is no clear and strict regulation on how the legislature adopts the hearing results and how to deal with the written opinions submitted and opinions expressed by the hearing presenters.44 There exists even a lopsided view that “hearing is approval”.45

Grassroots Elections: Recommending Candidates Through Deliberation In China’s grassroots elections, because the party and government highly value the election, the election rule usually becomes an acting authority to appoint candidates, which is the root of the dysfunction of grassroots self-governance organizations. Deliberative democracy can play a significant role in grassroots elections. More 38

Xie Yi. (2014). “Budget Reform in Yanjin County of Zhaotong City: Increasing the Weight of Public Opinion.” Yunnan Daily, 2014-5-28. 39 Zhou Meiyan and He Junzhi. (2008). “The Initiative and Thinking of Township Public Budget Reform: A Case Study of “Public Budget System Reform” in Huinan Town, Nanhui District, Shanghai.” People’s Congress Studying (11): 23–28. 40 Zhang Ni. (2007). “Participatory Budget Reform Experiment.” Journal of Decision-Making, 2007-7-30. 41 “For example, Jiaozuo Municipal Government held social hearings on financial investment and livelihood projects, State Environmental Protection Administration held public hearings on the environmental impact of Yuanmingyuan environmental remediation project, Shandong Province held hearings on the construction of sea use projects, Nanjing city held two hearings on Jiangbei waste incineration power generation project, etc.” Yue Pei. (2011). “On the Hearing of Public Projects in China from Deliberative Democracy.” Master Thesis in Northwest University. 42 Zhao Dexing. (2006). “On Deliberative Democracy in Public Policy—Taking the Three Gorges Rural Resettlement Policy as a Sample.” Master Thesis in Huazhong Normal University. 43 Yang Xuedong. (2004). The Dilemma of Engagement in China’s Local Legislative Hearings. Central Compilation & Translation Press. 44 Chen Jiagang. (2013). Democratic Decision Making and Political Legitimacy: Case Studies of “Legislative Hearing.” Reprinted Chen Jiagang: Democratic Decision Making: Theory and Practice of Democratic Governance in China. 45 Henan Province: 19 hearing witnesses agree with the price increase after the water price hearing in Zhengzhou], Henan Broadcasting System, August 8, 2015.

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precisely, through deliberation of candidates and other procedures, to ensure that the grassroots elections can be conducted orderly and reduce the blindness of random elections. The introduction of deliberative democracy in grassroots elections can, in a certain sense, realize the combination of deliberative democracy and electoral democracy in an acquaintance society. Wenling’s Participatory Budget demonstrated that deliberative democracy did not impact the elected “deputies to the People’s Congress”: the appointed participants of the public expressed their opinions during the democratic deliberation, which were to be valued and respected and finally “be voted” by the NPC to take effect.46 Some scholars have suggested that “further to advance the deliberative democracy to democratic elections, to promote the development of grassroots democratic politics as a whole”.47 Deliberative democracy can play a role in the process of candidate selection and other aspects. The specific suggestions for building a deliberative democracy system to make up the above deficiencies are as follows: producing the election committee through deliberation, adopting the proportional deliberation system, the quota deliberation system, and the target-oriented responsibility system. Some suggest specifying the election procedure of producing village committee candidates.48 So far, researches and practices on this issue are not abundant.

Labor Relationships: Salary Deliberation and Labor Security In order to establish a harmonious labor relationship, Wenling City of Zhejiang Province initiated a collective wage deliberation in the Xinhe wool sweater industry with the platform of “democratic deliberation” since 2003, backed by industry unions and associations. The main parts of the “Salary Negotiation Mechanism” are: (1) the formation of trade unions and associations; (2) the rational division of work types and procedures, and the scientific establishment of labor quotas (price standards); (3) the holding of democratic deliberation on industrial wage collective deliberation; (4) feedback and deliberation; (5) collective negotiation agreement on industrial wages shall be signed by both labor and capital; (6) recording the signed agreements; (7) the establishment of the industry wage deliberation and supervision mechanism. From 2003 to 2007, five rounds of deliberations have been conducted within the industry. Deliberation has crept into seven more industries, including pumps, injection molding, shoes and hats, shipbuilding, and bearings, with 565 enterprises and

46

Pan Rongjiang and Chen Ming. (2009). “The Co-Existing Development of Electoral Democracy and Deliberative Democracy—Inspiration from the Case of Zeguo Town in Zhejiang Province.” Studies on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics (4). 47 Ren Zhongping. (2011). “Electoral Democracy in Sichuan and Deliberative Democracy in Zhejiang: A Comparative Study on the Development Model of Grassroots Democracy in China.” Explore (1). 48 Tang Yimei. (2009). “On the Democratic Deliberation in the Election of Candidates for the Village Committee.” Master Thesis in Huazhong University of science and technology.

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32,141 employees.49 The characteristic of collective wage deliberation in Guangzhou is that the deliberation is promoted and carried out through the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions: The labor and wage agreements reached between the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions and the Municipal Entrepreneurs Association are the general principles that all trade associations and unions must abide by.50 Many scholars point out that China’s collective wage deliberation is “oriented by interest cooperation, government-led, multi-interest representative and decentralized”, where the trade union plays a vital role.51 In the “Socialized Rights Protection Model” of the Federation of Trade Unions of the Yiwu City in Zhejiang Province, the union has implemented multiple deliberation approaches to safeguard the rights of migrant workers in wage disputes and collective bargaining.

Key Topics in the Development of Deliberative Democracy in China There are currently several prominent governance issues in China’s social governance, not only as of the potential terrains of spreading deliberative democracy but also as a pivot affecting future development and continuity of grassroots deliberative democracy (Fig. A.13).

Key Topics of Deliberative Democracy

Deliberative Democracy on Environment Protection Deliberative Democracy on Cyberspace Deliberative Democracy and Gender-related Engagement Deliberative Democracy and Political Culture Forms of Deliberative Democracy Methods and Procedures of Deliberative Democracy

Fig. A.13 Key Topics of China’s deliberative democracy

49

Zhu Shengming. (2008). “Game Theory Analysis on Collective Deliberation of Industry Wages: An Empirical Study Based on Wenling Xinhe Sweater Industry.” Journal of Gansu Administration Institute (4). 50 Xie Jianshe. (2008). “Assumption and Practice of Constructing a Collective Deliberation Mechanism of Enterprise Wages: Taking Guangzhou as an Example.” Trade Unions’ Tribune (2). 51 Huang Renming. (2009). “The Characteristics of Collective Deliberation on Wages in China and the Role of Trade Unions.” Journal of China University of Labor Relations (5); Xu Xiaojun. (2006). “Trade Unions Should Be the Main Body of the Wage Increase Mechanism of Enterprise Workers.” Social Sciences in China (5); Cheng Yanyuan. (2004). Study on Collective Bargaining System, China Renmin University Press.

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Environmental Protection: Public Opinion for Decision-Making Chinese rapid development of economy leads to formidable dual challenges: first, the urban and rural environmental pollution caused by the high-input and highconsumption economic development model; second, the wealthy people mount concerns over the quality of the living environment after achieving the economic development. A majority of local governments have been thus landed in a plight. The first is that maintaining a consistent economic growth in the default of transformed pattern of economic prosperity entails leeway for industries characterized by low output and high energy consumption. Second, the masses pass the buck of environmental governance to the government, manifesting the deleterious effects of “Not in My Backyard.” It is crucial how the deliberative democracy reaches a consensus mechanism on environmental governance. Therefore, democratic deliberation should be strengthened in environmental governance to move towards ecological democracy.52 Three categories of public deliberation come out of the fact that democratic deliberation mechanism is introduced into public engagement in environmental protection: civic forum, referendum, and mediation. In 2005, two conflicts caused by environmental pollution occurred in Xinchang County and Dongyang City, Zhejiang Province, exploiting new attempts wrestling with problems through deliberation. Environmental protection and governance in Taiwan Province of China involves a wide range of environmental issues and they have achieved a high performance in practices.53 For example, the New Taipei City of Taiwan entrusted the Taiwan Environmental Action Network to carry out “a scenario

52

Lang Youxing. (2008). “Deliberative Democracy and Public Engagement in Environmental Governance—Take Zhejiang Farmers’ Protest against Environmental Pollution as an Example,” in Lang Youxing and Chen Shengyong. The Development of Nongovernmental Departments and Local Governance. Zhejiang University Press. 53 Shen Huiping. (2011). “Practical Analysis of Deliberative Democracy in Taiwan.” Journal of Xiamen University (5); Qiu Jinglian. (2010). “Deliberative Democracy and Policy Democratization—An Observation on the Mechanism of American Learning Circle.” Congress Monthly (11); Yang Zhibin. (2008). “Some Observations on Deliberative Democracy in Community Practice.” New Messenger (2); Wang Ru. (2008). “The Practice of “Deliberative Democracy” in the Construction of Civil Society in Taiwan.” Taiwan Research Quarterly (1); Thomas Christiano. (1997). “The Significance of Public Deliberation”, in James Bohman and William Rehg (eds.), Deliberative Democracy, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Lin Shuibo, Qiu Jingjin. (2006). Referendum v.s. Civic Council. Wunan Book Publishing Co., Ltd.; Fan Yun. (2001). “Storytelling and Democratic Discussion: An Analysis of a Forum of Ethnic Dialogue Within Civil Society.” Taiwan Democracy Quarterly (1); Du Wengling, Zhang Guowei. (2009). “A New Experiment of Deliberative Democracy on Space Issues—A Case Study of the Scenario Workshop of Hsin-Chuang Chung-Kang Drainage Channel.” Journal of Public Administration (32); Zhang Guowei. “Social Capital in Deliberative Democracy.” http://pam.nsysu.edu.twI dataItaspaaIfI F3-2.pdf; Du Wengling, Chen Zhizhong. (2007). “Reflection on Public Engagement in Public Decision-Making.” Taiwan Democracy Quarterly (3); Wang Ru. (2008). “The Practice of “Deliberative Democracy” in the Construction of Civil Society in Taiwan.” Taiwan Research Quarterly (1).

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workshop of Hsin-Chuang Chung-Kang Drainage Channel”.54 Others include the Civic Forum “Positioning of Hot Spring Museum in Beitou District” promoted by Taipei Beitou Community University, and the round table forum “Guardian Alliance for Tamsui River” to protect Tamsui River.

Cyberspace: A New Approach to Engagement The conventional deliberation model has specific restrictions on time and space, giving rise to community residents’ short engagement. Especially in the interpersonal relationship of new communities with a substantial inflow of migrants and social communication structure dominated by young people is not mature, and people’s difficulty shifting their identity from “working for authorities or economic actors” to “serving for communities”, hardly equip themselves with self-governance capacity. The emergence of the Internet Society has provided an open vehicle for Chinese growing public engagement: first, the information flow in cyberspace has undergone a cardinal change; and second, the government’s response to online public opinion faces tremendous external pressure. Therefore, this brand-new “neighborhood space” in cyberspace provides a platform where the young group can fully participate, and the urban grassroots democratic self-governance and the citizens can communicate with the authorities directly. The networking platform has been actively used in the grassroots party-building and community governance of Gumei Sub-district, Minhang District, Shanghai. The government initiated establishing a party-building WeChat platform.55 The Huashan community self-governance committee of Meiyuan district and Jiangsulu district in Shanghai has carried out networked governance for a long time and conducted democratic deliberation on some issues such as community health, garbage disposal, random parking, and so on.56 The Dejia community in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, has also made valuable attempts: to install an online community platform to release community information and provide community networking forums services. The specific topics residents post involve many aspects, such as the operation direction of supporting facilities for residents’ living, how to improve realty management, community greening, fitness, entertainment activities, community parking, neighborhood disputes, legal troubles, etc.57 Issues perhaps in need of attention include 54

Du Wengling, Zhang Guowei, Wu Jiachun. (2009). “A New Experiment of Deliberative Democracy on Space Issues—A Case Study of the Scenario Workshop of Hsin-Chuang Chung-Kang Drainage Channel.” Journal of Public Administration, 32:69–104. 55 Han Fuguo. (2013). Open Party Building: The Integration of Deliberative Democracy and the Mass Line. Shanghai People Press. 56 Han Fuguo. (2002) “Democracy on the Network: Networking Community and Open Governance—An Empirical Analysis on the Networking Governance of Huashan Community Selfgovernance Committee of Meiyuan and Jiangsu Subdistrict in Shanghai.” Recorded in Lin Shangli’s Community Democracy and Governance: Case Studies. Social Sciences Academics Press. 57 Zhang Yali and Lao Gu. (2006). “Deliberative Democracy in Internet Forum—Practice from the Dejia Community.” Governance Studies (5): 44–49.

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the risk of extremist groups in the process of political engagement of public online forums; the tension between the limitations of participants’ social structure and the inclusiveness of democracy; how to improve the performance of public deliberation; and how to standardize and ameliorate public deliberation.58

Deliberative Democracy and Gender-Related Engagement What is women’s underlying capacity in engaging in decision-making? Are women less concerned about and informed of public affairs than men in equal democratic engagement? Is their understanding of decision intentions and relevant knowledge inferior to men’s when participating in policy review? Female social status has been lifted along with the economic boom; they have played a more critical role in China’s grassroots social governance. Zeguo Town, Wenling City, conducted a “controlled experiment” on the democratic deliberation and regarded the equal rights of the appointed participants of both genders as a “restored status”. Through a comparative study of women and men, this experiment found that when identical conditions of political engagement are obtained, women have the same capabilities as men, whether in judging public affairs, choosing public policies, or understanding public interest and preferences. Hence, women’s potentials in engaging in the decision-making of public affairs are comparable to men’s.59 Some people emphasized the gender responsiveness of the budget process and believed that the rule of law of citizen engagement in gender budget should be realized to provide a desirable condition for citizen engagement.60 Overall, there is little research on gender engagement in China, and a few pieces of literature are mainly discussed by female scholars.

Deliberative Democracy and Political Culture Although deliberative democracy has the basis of traditional Chinese culture and social customs, there is no doubt that the deliberation mechanism of traditional society has long dismissed democracy. In contrast, the sustainability of modern democratic governance mechanisms depends on the maturity of civil culture. Civil culture democratic governance has become an interactive habit and a lifestyle in correspondence with a mature civil culture. Therefore, it is necessary to consolidate 58

Chen Shengyong and Du Gu. (2005). “Internet Public Forum: The Rise of Political Engagement and Deliberative Democracy.” Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences) (3). 59 Guo Xiajuan, Zhang Jing. (2012). “Women’s Political Potential under the Condition of Equal Engagement: From the Test of the Democratic Conference.” Zhejiang Academic Journal (2); Guo Xiajuan, Lv Xiaomin. (2012). “Participatory Gender Budget: An Exploration from Wenling.” Journal of Chinese Women’s Studies (1). 60 Ma Caichen, Li Hongmei. (2010). “Citizen Engagement in Gender Budget—Based on Gender Budget and Participatory Budget.” Academic Forum (12).

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democratic procedures and enable a sustainable democratic engagement through democratic habits and multiple consensuses. Some cases explore the significance and features of political culture in deliberative democracy.61 For example, a questionnaire survey in 2006 examined the impact of Wenling’s democratic deliberation on the public. The results showed that the public had solid political cognition, political emotion, and evaluation orientation for democratic deliberation. They were exuberant in participating in rural political life and were aware of how to engage effectively. In parallel, participation of the public is encouraged and supported by the political system. Immersed in the political culture with public engagement, the public’s attitudes towards rural political democracy have been increasingly rational and generous.62

Democratic Engagement: Approaches and Procedures of Deliberation From the state practices worldwide, deliberative democracy may occur at three levels: the state system, specialized forums for deliberation, and the public sphere varying in characteristics and operations.63 At present, China’s deliberation mechanism mainly consists of citizen conferences, deliberative polls, talks for consensus, civic forums, mediation, creation rights and referendums, citizen teams, citizen advisory groups, democratic councils, democratic deliberations, and public Internet forums.64 Some scholars even refer to the democratic talks as “Chinese-style citizen meetings”.65 In addition, grassroots deliberation has civic forums,66 the “three meetings” system in urban communities67 (hearings, coordination meetings, and discussion meetings),

61

Lang Youxing. (2012). “Citizen Culture and the Consolidation and Sustainability of Democratic Governance Mechanism—Take the Wenling Democratic Conference as an Example.” Governance Studies (2). 62 Chen Wenzheng. (2008). “Grassroots Democratic Practice and Rural Governance Performance— Based on the Investigation and Analysis of Wenling City.” Governance Studies (1). 63 John S. Dryzek. (2005). “Deliberative Democracy in Different Fields.” Journal of Zhejiang University (Humanities and Social Sciences) (3). 64 Lang Youxing. (2008). “Deliberative Democracy and Public Engagement in Environmental Governance—Take Zhejiang Farmers’ Protest against Environmental Pollution as an Example,” recorded in Liang Youxing and Chen Shengyong’s Nongovernmental Development and Local Governance, Zhejiang University Press; Chen Shengyong. (2005). “The Theory of Deliberative Democracy and China.” Zhejiang Social Sciences (1). 65 Lang Youxing. (2009). “Chinese Style Citizen Conference: The Process and Function of Wenling Democratic Conference in Zhejiang Province.” Journal of Public Administration (4). 66 Liang Ying. (2009). “‘Citizen Forum’: How Far Is It from Deliberative Democracy?” Truth Seeking (3):68–72. 67 Zhang Meihua. (2008). A Study on the Deliberative Democracy Mechanism in Urban Communities—Taking the “Three Meetings” System of Qinghejing Neighborhood Committee in Xuhui District of Shanghai as an example, MPA thesis of Shanghai Jiaotong University.

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community communication day,68 legislation hearing,69 participatory budget, etc. So far, citizen meetings, deliberative polls, citizen juries, vision workshops are applied to practice deliberative democracy in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.70 Many people insist that deliberation per se is a kind of engagement. They believe that deliberative democracy inherits and deepens participatory democracy.71 Intuitively, Chinese multiple civic participation is oft-combined with the deliberative democracy to buttress discussions over diverse deliberative democracy. In the light of Wenling’s practices over a decade, a new creative model will barely commence without the stimulation of new procedures and methods.72 Therefore, Zeguo Town, Wenling City introduced the “deliberation poll”73 in 2005 and fused it into the local “democratic discussion”74 to make budgetary decision-making more effective75 (Fig. A.14).

Grassroots Practices: Deliberative Democracy or Democratic Consultation? Unprecedentedly, Chinese social development faces complex challenges to maintain stability, handle multiple risks and conflicts, and democratic pursuit confronts enormous pressures. Hence, a crucial problem is how deliberative democracy is not merely rendered as an approach of democratic consultation but instead extended to 68

Ying Xiaoli. (2010). “The Innovation of Villagers’ Public Engagement System Based on Deliberative Democracy—An Investigation and Analysis of the System of Communication Day of People’s Situation in Changshan County.” Zhejiang Social Sciences (2). 69 Tang Juan, WangLijuan. (2004). “Analysis of the Legislative Hearing System of Local People’s Congress—Taking four Legislative Hearings in Shenzhen as the Analysis Object.” Journal of Guiyang University (3). 70 Shen Huiping. (2011). “Practical Analysis of Deliberative Democracy in Taiwan.” Journal of Xiamen University. 71 Chen Yao. (2013). “From Engagement to Deliberation: Criticism and Deepening of Deliberative Democracy to Participatory Democracy.” Social Sciences (12). 72 He Junzhi. (2010). “The Combination of Power, Concept and Governance Technology: The Growth Mechanism of Wenling’s “Democratic Forum” Model.” Nanjing Journal of Social Sciences (9); He Junzhi. (2007). “The Development of Democratic Tools and the Improvement of Governing Ability: A New Perspective of Wenling’s ‘Democratic Conference’.” Journal of Public Management (3). 73 James S. Fishkin. When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation. Oxford Pres, 2009. The center for deliberative democracy at Stanford University focuses on the global promotion of this approach. 74 Zhu Shengming. (2009). “The Application of Deliberative Opinion Poll in the Budget Democracy of Our Country.” In “Order and Progress: 60 Years of Research on Social Development in Zhejiang Province” Symposium and 2009 Zhejiang Social, Academic Year Conference. 75 Han Fuguo. (2010). The Procedure and Validity of Deliberative Opinion: Stratified Sampling, Structural Substitution, and In-depth Interview. http://www.yusuangov.cn/lxtt/201003/201003 02442.html.

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Fig. A.14 Specific practices of Chinese deliberative democracy

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Democratic Discussion (Deliberative Polls) Hearing, Coordination Meeting, and Appraisal Meeting Communication Day Participatory Budgeting Community Networking Forums Civic Forums

the scope of democratic decision-making system and integrating public opinion. The future rollout of Chinese deliberative democracy will be bent on the following six essentials. Otherwise, deliberative democracy will be dismissed eventually: democratic and deliberative development philosophies, procedural and operational development norms, influential and plural development dynamics, inclusive and expansive external environment for development coupled with continuous and creative resource exploitation, economic and societal development tactics, as well as endogenous and implantable development strategies.

Ideology: Making Deliberation Democratic The specific operations of deliberative democracy partially accruing from the experiments of international communities determine its implantability. Systemic innovation is the overriding incentive to implant deliberative democracy into Chinese grassroots society, whereby the deliberative democracy could be practiced independently by CCP’s party organizations at all levels. This is endogenous deliberative democracy. Nevertheless, to enhance the quality of deliberative democracy, what can we choose to deliberate with can ensure fairness? How to warrant a scientific deliberative procedure? How to accomplish democratic decision-making? The core of development of deliberative democracy in Chinese social governance resides in stepping forward to democracy from deliberation, maximizing the efficiency of democratic governance, propelling a sustainable deliberative democracy, and lifting the blockade of systemic conventions. As regards the present Chinese grassroots society, officials’ commitment is rendered a vital catalyst to reform deliberative democracy and development. Local party committees and government necessarily break free from the glass ceiling of conventions and shift the conventional models, which entail courage and ability, and the promotion of rational officials, especially government leaders. In areas where the deliberative democracy has been processed smoothly, local party committee, People’s Congress, and CPPCC mount concerns over the social needs taking the initiative to innovate and seeking an appropriate resolution to the chock point of the social development. The key of the grassroots deliberative

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democracy in the future of China is that the local party committee and government become the proactive participants instead of passively responsing to the public opinion. Reversely, though a specific model of deliberative democracy appears at the grassroots level, it can hardly become a sustainable system and ends up with rising social protests and mobilized governance.

Normalization: Democracy, Equality, and Continuity of Deliberation Regarding the future development of deliberative democracy, it is imperative to stress the workable system, enhanced techniques of systemic practices, and operable democracy through scientific procedures. Therefore, in the practice of grassroots deliberative democracy, we necessarily heed lessons from social science exercisable methods to design the process with the help of experts and scholars. The practices of Wenling City, Zhejiang Province, and Yanjin County, Yunnan Province have explicitly proven that an effective, orderly, and sustainable grassroots democratic deliberation system requires a reasonable operating procedure to support. During the grassroots deliberative democratic practices, the experts and scholars scarcely decide what topics the local authorities need to opt for because this work is their duties. Authorities choose political issues, and experts commit to designing operating procedures. Deliberative democratic reform at the grassroots level entails the guidance of relevant experts and scholar’s objective for they are rich in theoretical knowledge to promote the reform. However, intellectuals’ understanding towards which local governance issues should be deliberated democratically is not as indepth as local authorities. In this sense, intellectuals are recommended to draw a demarcation and retain an explicit cognition, well structuring an interaction with government.

Development: Multiple Dynamics Instead of Administrative Uniform Model It is a fundamental consensus over the core deliberative democracy that “deliberation” is governance with legislation and legitimate decision-making endowed by liberal and equal citizens’ appraisal of various related reasons through dialogues and discussions, which is conducive to the political exercises of political communities. The key is that even if consensus cannot be reached, the opinions and interests of different groups can be understood through deliberative information exchange. Therefore, whether a consensus can be reached through deliberation depends on what topics to be deliberated on, and how the appointed participants identify and comprehend the deliberation rules and topics. The economic development, social structure, and abundant issues vary from one another. Thus, dissimilarities exist in the practical deliberative models. Given the innovative development of local governments over the past three decades in China, different cases have displayed a situation that “let a hundred flowers bloom and a

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hundred schools of thought contend”, galvanizing the exercise of local authorities and society considerably. In the multiple practices, there will be an underlying logic behind many models: the basic procedure of deliberative democracy and the Chinese consciousness of solving problems. Therefore, in progressing grassroots deliberative democracy, it is unnecessary to normalize all deliberative democratic practices with administrative orders but rather provide policy instructions with specific methods and build an incentive mechanism. Never conceal and never fear the darkness; you will land yourself in tomorrow’s world as long as you have been chasing after the sun courageously. —The Movie of The Croods

Systemic Matching: An Integral Promotion of All Components of the Existing System A strong impetus for local governments to promote deliberative democracy stems from the people’s aspirations for democracy and the government’s desire for problemsolving in possession of intrinsic incentives for deliberative democracy. Deliberative democratic exercises effectively revitalize the Party committee and the government and the People’s Congress on public opinion to integrate public opinion. As for electoral democracy and deliberative democracy, no one is naturally superior to the other, nor is it necessary to make an either-or decision, and instead, they should complement each other to highlight their advantages. However, we cannot think that deliberative democracy can solve all the local governance problems and ignore the development of the NPC system. The emergence and accumulation of many social problems are, to a large extent, precisely because the NPC system has not been activated, so the government has played a role in solving all problems. Therefore, it is an essential political proposition that seeks the progress of electoral democracy in advancing deliberative democracy and combines the NPC system with the government’s lawful administration. Otherwise, deliberative democracy cannot assume the mission of democratic development. One of the dilemmas for the local CPPCC to develop deliberative democracy is that there is a clear boundary: “rather than replace the electoral democracy and constitutional democracy, deliberative democracy is to establish a new development dimension for democracy and inject new vitality into the latter”.76 The question is that, is the CPPCC’s supervision rigid or flexible? In the latter case, the CPPCC will be like a social organization.

76

Li Yunxi. (2012). From Political Deliberation to Deliberative Democracy: Research on the Reform and Development of the CPPCC system. Beijing: Social sciences Academic Press.

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Strategy: Jointly Promote Deliberative Democracy and Economic and Livelihood Any form of democracy, from an ideal point of view, tends to better solve problems in social development, coordinate interests, and achieve the most extraordinary possible fairness in development. The development of deliberative democracy at the grassroots level in China is precisely because of the needs of China’s social and economic development and the emergence of many people’s livelihood issues. The improvement of the economic development level of the public will indeed bring about an increase in engagement knowledge and opportunities, but to improve people’s livelihood, society itself will continue to innovate the form of engagement. At the same time, under the influence of the “compelling mechanism” or because of the “leading cadres’ instincts”, local governments will passively or actively conduct experiments on deliberative democracy and conduct a process to negotiate organically with the public to achieve democratic governance of grassroots society. In promoting grassroots deliberative democracy, we can find that economic development determines to a certain extent how active people are to participate. Otherwise, society will lack rich public issues for deliberation, but this is not necessarily related to improving engagement capacity. One of the main characteristics of grassroots deliberative democracy is to embed democracy as a resource in modern social governance, rather than simply constructing an external restraint system with a democratic form. Its development path comes from the solution of the exogenous predicament of “mutual premise or result” between democracy and development, which provides a concrete practice form for the development of grassroots democracy in China. However, the development of deliberative democracy cannot be reduced to “accessories”, “accompanies”, and “victims” of economic prosperity in any case. We strongly oppose the “anti-historical” logical deduction that solving the people’s livelihood problem is merely to meet the needs of democracy.

Party Transformation: Organic Integration with the Mass Line No matter how noble the top-level concept the Chinese ruling party and the country have designed, bottom-level structures are needed to undertake its mission and decompose its tasks. From this perspective, the development strategy of deliberation and democracy in the grassroots society needs to build its embedded action framework in China. With China’s rapid entering into a pluralistic society, social governance has been overburdened with the surging demand of social groups. Under this circumstance, the party’s ruling capacity faces substantial challenges and entails more democratic methods. From this perspective, the practice of deliberative democracy at the grassroots level can effectively advance state affairs management and administration following the law and channel assistance to the scientific governance of grassroots party organizations and governments and the People’s Congress and the CPPCC. In a sense, deliberative democracy and the mass line are internally compatible. The essence of the mass line lies in how to know the real needs of the masses

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so that the interests and opinions of the people can be taken into consideration in the decision-making of the Party committee and the government, rather than merely helping the masses to solve the immediate difficulties.

Conclusion: The Possibility from Grassroots Governance to National Democratization Under the existing political framework, the primary political appeal of “deliberative democracy” in social governance emphasizes social cooperation rather than group confrontation in the development of democracy. Therefore, an ideal way is to cultivate the democratic deliberation spirit as a practical resource for developing political democracy to achieve a more orderly and wholesome Chinese political democracy. If democratic progress can be embedded into social development endogenously, the two may mutually promote each other. The democratic development in the political space promotes the solution of social livelihood issues; thus, modern political democracy can be improved in this process. In any case, the practical results of the diversity of deliberative democracy will be presented in various ways in the entire national political structure. Grassroots deliberative democracy also provides rich experience and substantive content procedures, methods, and technologies for deliberation politics at the state level. It is precisely because of this political need that deliberative democracy, parallel to other development models in the entire political and social field, has “Chinese characteristics”. However, this kind of “meeting point of upper and lower demands” is not only the driving force and possible space for institutional innovation but also a dilemma for sustaining the system. This dilemma is that it legitimizes vast arrays of practices within the entire state’s political framework and inherits the deliberative traditions. However, due to changes in the macro-political environment and interest appeals, it may lack stability at a critical moment in the development of the system, thereby causing the collapse of institutional innovation and program design. As a result, Chinese democracy will have to face a great leap. In any case, the diverse practices of China’s deliberative democracy will advance China’s grassroots democratic politics. However, many current practices of deliberative democracy attach less importance to the procedures and rules of deliberation but simply entitle the conventional “communication conference” as “deliberative democracy”. The spirit of deliberative democracy in many grassroots practices cannot be entirely denied. However, as a particular form of democracy, it should have its own set of specific rules and procedures and certain scientific and technological methods.

Appendix V

Procedures of Chinese Participatory Budget—Comparative Analysis of “Yanjin Model” and “Wenling Model”77

Question Definition: Participatory Procedures and Impartial Budget The procedures of participation and identification of impartiality in public decisionmaking are explicitly correlated with government administration’s legitimacy and public affairs’ performance. Chinese local governments at all levels leave the right of budget determination to the representatives of the public outside the system through the pluralistic consultation procedures and the participation mechanism in order to activate the participation of deputies to the People’s Congress, promote the expression and integration of public opinions, and enhance the science and rationality of government decision-making (Chen Jiagang et al., 2007). The questions are: in what ways the participants’ recognition of the impartial budget can be achieved? Are there overlapping factors to bolster public recognition? How will reform influence the budget process? This paper takes two cases in the public budget reform of local governments in China as objects of comparison, namely “Public Participation in Budgeting” in Yanjin County of Yunnan Province (“Yanjin Model”) and the “Participatory Budget” in the Wenling City of Zhejiang Province (“Wenling Model”). By analyzing the procedures and effects of public engagement in the reform of public decision-making in modern China, this paper discusses how to improve the identification of fairness in public decision-making by program design and to realize the effective governance of grassroots society.

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This paper was originally published in Public Administration Review (2014(5)) (Gou Yannan, Han Fuguo), and has been modified according to the style of this book. (This study was partially supported by 2014 General Project of the National Social Science Fund of “Research on Local Innovation and Expansion Model in China” (14BZZ049), and 2012 Shanghai Education Committee Innovation Project of “Local Innovation and China’s Social Governance: an Empirical Analysis Based on the Sustainable Innovation of Government” (12ZS016)). © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

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Comparative Analysis of the Procedure of “Participatory Budget” The world owes you nothing. It was here first. —Mark Twain

Many countries with different degrees of development have carried out local practice of participatory budget under the representative system in the procedures of public participation.

Background: Procedures of International Budget Participation As a typical representative system, the local governments in the United States have gradually formed six main characteristics in public budgeting, review, and supervision: (1) The budget-making process needs more than half a year (from December to June 30 of the following year); (2) Administrative procedures entail multiple hearings (at least three times under the parliamentary system); (3) A special committee composed of citizens can make recommendations in the process of budgeting and participate in budgeting; (4) Significant budget issues require a referendum; (5) The budget plan is transparent (various types of revenue and expenditure are explicit and accessible to the public at any time); (6) The income of the local party shall be supervised by the particular audit department subordinate to the Congress parliament, and it shall directly control the transfer payments from superiors.78 As a developing country, Brazil has practiced the method of participating budget in Alegre where the government provides a portion of the budgetary funds for the public to decide how to use (especially those related to the investment of public projects, accounting for about 20–30 percent of the budget). The specific process can be divided into three stages: (1) The stage involving a wide range of citizen participation: the public assesses the implementation of financial budget in the previous year and puts forward the budget plan in the following year; (2) The representatives of different interest groups and relevant government departments shall carry out legal and technical argumentation on the priority of budget projects and determine budget proposals; (3) The draft budget shall be deliberated and consulted, and ultimately exercised by various parties in accordance with the law.79

78

“Summary of Seminar on Public Budget Reform of Local Governments in China”, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, November 25, 2005. 79 “Summary of seminar on public budget reform of local governments in China”, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, November 25, 2005.

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Chinese Practice Model: Basic Characteristics of Wenling Procedure In 1999, Wenling of Zhejiang Province first tried “Heart-to-heart Discussion” on the “Forum of Modernization of Rural Education” in Songmen Town. Since then, Zeguo, Xinhe, and other town’s CPC Committees and governments started to hold a conference on democracy with appointed participants for decision-making. In early 2005, the government of Zeguo Town ushered in the specific procedures and methods of Deliberative Polling and listened to the public opinions presented by the randomly sampled participants in combination with those from the deputies to the Township People’s Congress and members of the CPPCC, inaugurating the exploration of the participatory budget (Zhang Xueming, 2010). So far, Wenling has practiced the “Heart-to-heart Discussion” into budget participation with two types of Zeguo and Xinhe.

Zeguo’s Process of Participatory Budget From the onset of 2005, the government put forward thirty construction projects including roads, bridges, planning and design, greening and landscaping, old city reconstruction, and sanitation facilities after listening to the opinions of the deputies to the Township People’s Congress and CPPCC members.12 Experts proposed a budget of about 140 million yuan after demonstrating the viability of the construction projects. Under this circumstance, the town Government deepened the “Heartto-heart Discussion” mechanism, introduced the procedure of “Deliberative Polling”, and generated participants by random sampling according to the registered population of the town (120,000 local population, 150,000 migrant population), and conducted a deliberation about the allocation of budget funds with them. With ten years of practice, Zeguo Town has formed a participatory budget model with the following characteristics: (1) non-elected people (other than deputies to the People’s Congress) are allowed to participate in the public policy-making by random sampling; (2) considerable large samples; (3) relevant materials and information would be published before deliberation; (4) Discussions in small and plenary session; (5) the outmoded qualitative description would be transformed into intuitive and accurate data analysis through the questionnaire before and after deliberation.80

Xinhe’s Process of Participatory Budget In correspondence with Zeguo’s Model, Xinhe Town of Wenling City has carried out the participatory budget in two stages: The first stage takes place before the Congress meeting, which constructs the “interest expression mechanism” through budget democratic deliberation, and better collects public opinions. The second stage 80

People’s Government of Zeguo, Wenling: “Democratic discussion on the financial budget in Zeguo, Wenling in 2010”, October 2010.

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occurs during the People’s Congress to improve the “voting mechanism” through revising the budget by five or more deputies to the People’s Congress. The most significant feature is the voluntary participation of deputies to the People’s Congress and non-deputies, rather than random sampling to produce public representatives, which can give full play to exert the resources in the existing system.

Ruoheng’s Triple Reviews of Budget The budget participation has been classified in Ruoheng Town of Wenling City, to form a sample of a combination of “regional segment budget” and “financial field budget”. Meanwhile, it emphasizes democratic discussion as the prerequisite in the People’s Congress budget approval. Unlike the procedures of Zeguo and Xinhe, the representatives of the public and the deputies of the People’s Congress of Ruoheng Town are chosen through invitation, so the procedural and regulative nature of their democratic discussion is not obvious.

Budget of Wenling Municipal Departments On January 13, 2008, the Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress held a democratic discussion for the Transportation Department Budget. More than 80 participants were invited to the discussion, including deputies to the People’s Congress, ordinary citizens, old cadres, heads of the town (sub-district), heads of relevant departments or experts, heads of relevant departments of the Standing Committee and the Committee members of the Financial and Economic Committee. In this way, Wenling City successfully ushered in the budget participation into municipal departments, forming a democratic discussion on a budget led by the People’s Congress at the county level. The discussion on a budget started from a specific section (water conservancy, transportation, etc.), and formulated relevant regulations of the People’s Congress. However, deputies are the main participants of their democratic discussion, and other representatives are designated. In 2010, Wenling City established an expert database in various fields to provide representatives through sampling. In July 2009, Wenling City set out a multi-level reform procedure covering villages, towns, and counties by adopting a series of institutional texts on participating in the budget. Though with different purposes and methods, those procedures had several similar features: random and stratified sampling or voluntary representatives outside the system; comparison of the different attitudes before and after participation (deliberation); appraisal on scientific and quantitative attitudes; authorities’ action under the assistance of experts and scholars; comparison and analysis of the identification in budget-related projects before and after participation; the consideration of the public engagement outcome in government’s budget modification and the voting process of the People’s Congress (Table A.22).

Deputies as the Main From Partial budget to People’s Congress Body and Assigned overall Budget System Activation person from Various Fields

People’s Congress The Legality of the Deputies to the Budget People’s Congress and the Industry elites

People’s Congress The Legality of the Deputies to the Budget People’s Congress and the Industry elites

Department sample

Source According to the implementation of participating budget of Zeguo Town, Xinhe Town, and Ruoheng Town of Wenling City from 2005 to 2010; “Provisions for budget of voting departments of Wenling Municipal People’s Congress (Draft)” (proposed at the Eighth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 15th People’s Congress of Wenling on February 22, 2013); “ Measures on Budget Produced by Voting Department of the Second Session of the 15th People’s Congress of Wenling City (Draft)”(The chairman of the second session of the 15th National People’s Congress of Wenling proposed at the first session); and Government documents on participatory budget (Report on the sub-project “Theory, System and Empirical Research on Rule of Law in Transition Period” of the 211 Project “Rural Governance”: Practice, Space, and Network of Democratic Discussion in China’s Social Governance: Review of the Participatory Public Budget System in Wenling City, Zhejiang Province, Han Fuguo, 2011)

Deputies as the Main From Partial budget to People’s Congress Body and Assigned overall Budget System Activation person from Various Fields

The absorption of social opinions for decision-making

Ruoheng sample

From Major Projects to overall Budget

Deputies as the Main From Partial budget to People’s Congress Body and voluntary overall Budget System Activation registration

Sampling

People’s Congress The Legality of the Deputies to the Budget People’s Congress and the Industry elites

Representatives of the People

Xinhe sample

Meaning of system

Discussion on the Rationality of Budget

Scope of deliberation

Party Committee and Government

Method of selecting representatives

Zeguo sample

Composition of participants

Focus

Process leader

Sample

Table A.22 Comparison of internal models of participatory budget in Wenling City in 2014

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Basic Procedures for “Mass Participation in Budget” in Yanjin “Yanjin County has heeded the lessons from the reform models of Wenling City and foreign countries, selected Miaoba and Dousha towns as the trials for masses’ engagement in reform, and invited provincial and municipal Finance Departments and university experts for supervision and guidance, rolling out the trials in an orderly manner” (Jiang Ming, 2014). The mass participatory budget in Yanjin County, Yunnan Province was delicately designed, with stringent regulations in the way to appointing participants from the masses, the proposal and auditing of budget projects, moderators, procedures of making a statement and organizing a discussion, ballot, tallying the votes, unraveling the results on the spot, etc.

Selection Procedures of Mass Participation Budget81 Mass-appointed participants are selected in two ways: one is nominated and selected by the two committees in the village, and the other is chosen at random based on the population of villages or communities. There is one director and two vice directors in the council. The director and vice directors are first nominated by 1/3 members and approved by the Town CPC Committee and government, and then the nominees are elected by a vote; a candidate with more than a half of votes from the attendants in the council meeting will win the election. Mass-appointed participants are selected in two ways: the first is direct recommendation; the other is random selection. Direct selection is carried out in villages and communities: two mass-appointed participants for each village (community) that are nominated and elected through the conference convened by the village (community) self-governance committee. Random selection is based on the population of each village or community. The number of appointed participants is determined by 0–5‰ of the entire population of the village or community. Each village and community group can recommend one candidate for the selection. Whereupon the two villages or

81

The people’s Government of Yanjin County has printed and issued “the Program of Mass Participation in Budget Reform in Yanjin County” (Yanjin People’s Government [2014] No. 3) and “the Measures for the Election of Mass Participants to Participate in and Budget” (Yanjin People’s Government [2014] No. 4) provide a basic selection rule for the budget reform. According to these documents, the villages and towns that implement the Mass Participatory Budget have formulated their own selection rules. From February 27 to March 1, 2014, the County Government specially invited experts from Sun Yatsen University, Fudan University, and Provincial Finance Department to give lectures for local county and town leaders and people participating in budget reform. They gave professional guidance on the relevant knowledge of the masses participating in the budget reform, project editing and performance evaluation, laying a theoretical foundation for the masses participating in the budget reform. At present, the four townships of Dousha, Miaoba, Zhonghe, and Niuzhai in this county have carried out mass participation budget reform successively. (Jiang Wu: “Yanjin People Participating in the Budget Causes a Sensation”, Publicity Department of Yanjin County Party Committee, Yanjin Net, April 4, 2014. Website: http://www.ynyj.gov.cn/ index.php?m=content&a=show&catid=329&id=3969).

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community self-governance committees hold a mass conference to randomly select the participants from the masses according to the fixed quota. After the appointed participants come out, the villages and communities submit materials about the appointed participants on behalf of each village and community to the Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Office and Panel of Mass Participatory Budget to put on records. When the Town Office or Panel has put together the information, they submit it to the County Mass Participatory Budget Reform Leading Team Office for the record. However, the selection of appointed participants has to be random; no organizations or individuals can designate a person as the appointed participant. When the selection comes to an end, the result has to be announced on the spot. The mass-appointed participants of deliberation have to be elected by more than five villagers or residents and will be in the selected database after being reviewed and approved by the general Party Branch Committee and village (community) selfgovernance committee. Village Congress, with the presence of 2/3 participants, can roll out. The tenure of mass-appointed participants of deliberation is three years; the selection, replacement, and by-election have to be carried out in compliance with provisions. However, if the appointed participant changes his registered permanent residence or moves out of Dousha Town, or more than 50% of residents vote for “discontent with” his performance during the democratic appraisal of the annual village (community) conference or village (community) Congress, his qualifications as a mass-appointed participant can be dismissed with a joint proposal by the town participatory budget team leaders or more than ten mass-appointed participants through ballot during the democratic deliberative meeting.

Scope of Mass Participation The mass-appointed participants take part in the training and study on the budget, so that they can come up with a project scheme that can be incorporated into the Deliberative Democratic Conference. They are allowed to refer to relevant documents and materials such as the issues to be deliberated at the conference, speak out their opinions at the Deliberative Democratic Conference, and ask questions and propose recommendations to other mass-appointed participants. They have priority to speak for the projects they put forward and vote for the projects to be deliberated democratically with a consultation. Mass-appointed participants shall listen to, collect, summarize, and timely reflect the opinions, conduct an in-depth investigation, analyze, research, and formulate detailed budget plans. Concurrently, they have to introduce and explain the project to other mass-appointed participants and answer their questions with an explicit explanation. After the projects have been determined, they shall implement the decisions of the conference, supervise the implementation, and proactively spread, explain, and report to the masses about the decision-making process, outcomes, and implementation. In

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addition, they should supervise the significant changes in budget execution, increased budget expenditures, and other significant matters, handing up a report to Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Team and consciously accepting the supervision and appraisal of the people.

Procedures of Deliberation in Mass Participatory Budget The deliberation rules are the most important part in the masses participating in the budget reform, which is the key to ensure effective discussion and cognition of the projects in the early stage. As mass-appointed participants make up the deliberative democratic meeting, Yanjin County deliberative democratic meeting over participatory budget can be rolled out firstly on the premise of the proposal by Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Leading Team and more than 1/3 mass-appointed participants. The second precondition is that the leading cadre of the mass participatory budget or the director of the council summons more than 85% mass-appointed participants (22 participants) present in the conference. If the mass-appointed participants cannot attend the meeting due to special reasons, they must ask for leave from the Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Team and may entrust other appointed participants to demonstrate the former’s viewpoints over the projects, accept the queries and answer questions without rights to vote. Deliberative democratic meetings are held twice a year as prescribed, and Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Leading Team determines the specific date of the conference. Issues to be deliberated are mainly around the projects and budget adjustment schemes. In the face of new projects and budget adjustment, the Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Leading Team can organize an unscheduled deliberative democratic meeting. The town government may determine other personnel to attend the conference as required. First, the hosts count the number of appointed participants present at the conference, then read out the notes, agenda, and considerations, and ensure that the participants understand the rules of deliberation. Mass-appointed participants and town governments jointly recommend four to five candidates competing for moderators of the deliberative democratic meeting. Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Leading Team examines and determines the ultimate candidates in a shortlist, from which the moderator will be randomly selected prior to each Deliberative Democratic Conference. Second, the conference uncovers the information about the project’s implementation, performance evaluation, and accountability in the previous year or stage. Then, the conference should notify the financial estimate of this year and the technical and policy review of the project, articulating the reasons for projects not passing the review. The third is to demonstrate and deliberate the projects. The project proposer (or client) shall illuminate the project they declare within 5 min. Each participant has the right to ask questions by raising their hands. With the moderator’s permission, the participants may start to ask questions, and each question shall be within one

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minute. The questions unrelated to the project are not allowed to propose. Within three minutes, project proposers (or clients) are allowed to complete their answers. None are permitted to speak at will or interrupt others unless moderators are in need of maintaining the conference order. The final step is a ballot. Three members are recommended by the attendants of the deliberative democratic conference as tallymen, vote tellers, and supervisors. After the ballot, the “three members” observe the opening of ballot boxes and watch as the individual ballot papers are counted. The project will be approved if it obtains half or more votes and will be incorporated into the budget arrangement of this conference. Town Mass Participatory Budget Reform Leading Team shall calculate the votes, and the approved projects shall enter the budget pool as the basis for getting funds arranged by the Finance Department. Projects that do not receive more than half the votes will not access the budget arrangement of this meeting. The moderator announces these mass participatory budget projects of this year (this stage). Those approved projects that are not considered in this budget arrangement have a priority in budget adjustment to get funded or carry forward to the fund arrangement in the following year (stage).

Implementation and Feedback Town Finance Department of Yanjin County takes into consideration the total annual funds, raises funding suggestions, and arranges the budget for the approved projects in terms of the precise ballots. Given the budget fund inadequate to a single project, the leftover funds will roll over into the next deliberative democratic meeting. If two projects have the same ballots and the capital demand is less than the budget fund, the mass-appointed participants vote a project out. If there are even numbers of voters, the government shall vote too. Then the town Finance Department shall draft the project expenditure budget based on the vote results and hand it up to the Town people’s Congress for re-approval after being ratified by the Town government. A critical part of the system is that each Town Mass Participatory Budget Office in Yanjin County has assigned the staff to make an objective, genuine, and unabridged conference record.

Recognition and Governance: Comparison of Procedures and Results Similarities and Differences in Procedures In contrasting and analyzing the public engagement in the budget reform in Yanjin Model with the Wenling Model, we can find that in specific procedures, the Yanjin

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Model needs to be advanced in augmenting women’s positions in appointed participants of deliberation, carrying out project scoring system, demonstrating the authorities’ leadership, procedures to discern mind changes after the deliberation. However, the Mass Participatory Budget of Yanjin County manifests the magnitude of “localization” in electing the appointed participants, fitting well into the social structure and political systems with Chinese characteristics. On the contrary, the participatory budget reform in Wenling City underlines citizens’ participation and roles of the People’s Congress, the system per se, and its deputies. In combination with the democratic discussion and the grassroots People’s Congress, it has explored how to carry out budget reform within the system. Wenling Model with prolonged budget deliberation and ferocious competition around interests highlights a comparatively high demand for the procedure per se (Niu Meili, 2007; Zhu Shengming, 2007). The budget projects at Dousha Town and Zhonghe Town of Yanjin County are all on-site votes and are then embedded in the budget that year in sequence. Throughout a series of procedures such as questionnaires, project publicity, and approval of the People’s Congress, the approved projects are exercised with the project contract responsibility system under leadership. Over the course from the project implementation to its inspection and acceptance, members of the presidium, deputies of the People’s Congress, and appointed participants of the deliberative democratic conference would be invited to research and investigate the project progress, use of funds and project quality.82

Comparison of the Identification of Budget Results In the practice of Wenling, drastic changes have been taking place in the public recognition over budget projects. In this economy-developed region, budget participation has more or less counteracted the incredibility of budget fairness. Albeit massive relevant research, we enumerate budget outcomes in 2005 to make a comparison with the results in Yanjin Model. In the 2015 participatory budget of Zeguo Town of Wenling City, participants were asked to rate the magnitude of thirty projects (scored from 0 to 10, with 0 being completely insignificant, ten being the most important, and five neither critical nor unimportant). Table A.23 shows the average scores before and after the deliberation (the result is converted to the interval of 0 to 1). Moreover, the result presents that the attitude of participants to 12 projects has changed significantly in 30 ones.

82

People’s Government of Dousha Town “Compilation of Information of Mass Participatory Budget in Dousha town, Yanjin county”, 2014; People’s Government of Zhonghe Town, Yanjin County “Compilation of Information of Mass Participatory Budget in Pilot Work of Budget”, 2014; “Records of Democratic Meeting in Dousha Town in 2014 (final version)”, May 4, 2014; “Democratic Meeting of Miaoba Town in 2014(revised edition)”, May 4, 2014; “Records of Democratic Meeting of Zhonghe Town in 2014”, May 3, 2014 (provided by Yunnan Provincial Finance Department).

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Table A.23 Comparison of project priorities in Zeguo Town, 2005 Projects

N

T1

T2

Main Road of Wenlu Road

160

0.825

0.924

T2-T1 0.098

s. e

P

0.023

0.000

Phase 1 Main Road of Muchang Road

116

0.688

0.554

0.134

0.054

0.015

Bridge

111

0.742

0. 706

0.036

0.063

0.571

96

0.578

0.505

−0.072

0.042

0.084

The eastern part of Fuxing Road Dongcheng Road Phase 1

90

0.543

0.510

−0.033

0.045

0.458

Dongcheng Road Phase 3

99

0.561

0.459

−0.102

0.042

0.018

Shangcheng Road Phase 1

110

0.697

0.612

−0.085

0.040

0.035

Shangcheng Road Phase 3

96

0.600

0.466

−0.134

0.045

0.004

Tengqiao Road

86

0.502

0.473

−0.029

0.045

0.519

Filling and reconstruction in Dongwen Road

93

0.714

0.583

−0.131

0.044

0.003

Main Road of Dongwen Road

101

0.563

0.533

−0.031

0.045

0.501

Xicheng Road Phase 1

108

0.626

0.630

0.004

0.041

0.928

Zeguo Avenue Phase 3

110

0.583

0.597

0.015

0.039

0. 709

Zeguo Avenue Phase 3

93

0.467

0.459

−0.008

0.047

0.872

Compressor for industrial district

81

0.563

0.506

−0.057

0.047

0.226

114

0.667

0.689

0.023

0.033

0.496

Supporting facilities for Muyu, Lianshu, and Shuicang Industrial Zone Reconstruction of urban branches

97

0.568

0.520

−0.048

0.043

0.268

Treatment of Gaojialing Slope

86

0.560

0.595

0.035

0.044

0.429

Wenlu Park Phase 1

109

0.593

0.505

−0.088

0.044

0.046

Wenlu Park Phase 3

98

0.518

0.350

−0.168

0.045

0.000

Civic Park Phase 1

109

0.696

0.744

0.048

0.034

0.158

Urban greening project

118

0.755

0.731

−0.024

0.038

0.530

Danya Mountain Park

134

0.761

0.723

−0.038

0.037

0.305

Muyu Mountain Park

118

0.721

0.704

−0.017

0.032

0.593

Urban and Rural Planning and Design

134

0.864

0.924

0.060

0.027

0.026

Construction of Model Street

114

0.675

0.649

−0.025

0.045

0.572

Reconstruction of old blocks

111

0.637

0.576

−0.061

0.045

0.178

Muyu sanitation transfer station

133

0.729

0.886

0.157

0.032

0.000

Danya sanitation transfer station

145

0.753

0.914

0.161

0.030

0.000

Preliminary phase of Sewage Treatment Project

167

0.892

0.971

0.080

0.022

0.001

Note N = 235, significant change of 0.1 level on 2-tailed samples t-test Source FISHKIN, James, S., BAOGANG, LUSKIN, Robert, C., & SIU, et al. (2010). Deliberative democracy in an unlikely place: deliberative polling in china. British Journal of Political Science

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Although participation does not necessarily lead to a consensus, it is conspicuous that an agreement can be reached on many projects through proactive communication and engagement before and after the “Heart-to-heart Discussion”. The different scores reflected the change of the participants’ attitude to a certain extent and the spotlight of public opinion shaped by the deliberation legitimized and rationalized the government’s budget readjustment. Through the democratic deliberation over the Wenling’s participatory budget, project information has been adequately exchanged among the masses and government officials, well-performing the role of deliberation. Two questionnaires before and after the deliberation turned out a quantified outcome regarding the shifting attitudes of the surveyed. Important as the project engagement outcomes were to the People’s Congress decision-making, it did not constitute a premise of decision-making. In stark contrast to the relatively large-scale budget of Zeguo Town, the total budget of each town in Yanjin County was relatively small. Despite no quantitative questionnaire, engagement in the budget distribution has been on the wax through debate and ballot. However, the results of several trial villages and towns’ budget engagement directly generated the government’s budget report, which would then be submitted to the People’s Congress for the vote. In this sense, the fairness of the results is crucial, which is the most salient difference from the Wenling Model. In 2014, sixteen projects at Dousha Town were included in the budget distribution. Twenty-four appointed participants were present in the deliberative democratic meeting, and twelve projects were added to the budget pool of Dousha Town by receiving more than 1/2 of the votes. This Town’s financial resources for people’s project budget engagement reached 2.79 million yuan in 2014. Therefore, the deliberative democratic meeting worked out a plan of mass participatory budget projects worth 2.759 million yuan and the top-10 projects were financially backed by local authorities (Table A.24). In 2014, eighteen projects in Zhonghe Town passed the review and were proposed to the Deliberative Democratic Conference. There were thirty-seven appointed participants, 35 of them present in the deliberation. The project funds were worth 6.03 million yuan (of which the government was to invest 4.67 million yuan and 1.36 million yuan was to be raised by the public). The first thirteen projects were approved by receiving more than 1/2 votes. Furthermore, the government funding was 3.15 million yuan. The project funds were 2.75 million yuan in total, and the annual balance was 394,000 yuan (Table A.25). Although the 18th project gained the fewest votes and was not adopted eventually, the appointed participant also expressed his recognition after the deliberation. He believed that the main reason for the failure was the lack of preparation for the project presentation, and there was no problem in the fairness and rationality of the decision-making process.83 “Life always brings us wounds all over the body. But the wounds will certainly become the greatest strength finally” (Hemingway). So is the practice of democracy. 83

People’s Government of Zhonghe Town: Records of the Meeting of the Democratic Conference of Zhonghe Town in 2014, April 3, 2014.

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Table A.24 Ballot results of mass participatory budget in Dousha Town 2014 (Planning department: Working Group of Budget-reforming in Dousha Town Unit: RMB10,000) Number Project name

Proposer

1

Routine maintenance of sanitation in Dousha market town

Government 35

35

24

1

35

2

Infrastructure Maintenance of Dousha Market Town

Government 30

30

24

1

65

3

Drinking water of the Changsheng Primary School

Zhu Zhaojun

4.75

23

3

69.75

4

Street Hardening Huang and Brightening Pengquan of Grain Management Agency

27.56 27.56

23

3

97.31

5

Construction of Chahe Highway

35

30

21

5

127.31

6

Construction of Zhang Xinhua Highway Huafu

14

12

19

6

139.31

7

Hardening of Wangjiawan Highway

35.36 35.36

19

6

174.67

8

Construction of Luo Yaohua Highway Bangying

32

30

18

8

204.67

9

Planting of Amomum villosum in Xincun

Xu Xiaodong

13.2

10

18

8

214.67

10

Construction of Shanggou Highway

Lin Qiyin

64.08 61.23

17

10

275.9

Zhu Fengyun

Fan Min

Total

5.25

Budget Yes-vote Ranking Accumulated Fund

Source People’s Government of Dousha Town “Compilation of Information of Mass Participatory Budget in Dousha town, Yanjin county”, 2014; People’s Government of Zhonghe Town, Yanjin County “Compilation of Information of Mass Participatory Budget in Pilot Work of Budget”, 2014; “Records of Democratic Meeting in Dousha Town in 2014 (final version)”, May 4, 2014 (provided by Yunnan Provincial Finance Department)

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Table A.25 Ballot Results of the 2014 Masses Participate in Budget-reforming Projects in Zhonghe Town (Planning department: Working Group of Budget-reforming in Zhonghe Town Unit: RMB10,000) Number

Project name

Proposer

Budget

Accumulated Fund

Yes-vote

Ranking

1

New construction of Shizi highway

Zuo Guihui

20.0

20.0

31

1

2

Maintenance of Sanitation and public facilities in market town

Government

30.5

50.5

31

1

3

Repair of Wangguan Highway

Qiu Huiyin

18.0

68.5

31

1

4

New construction of Daping to Piaoba Highway

Wu Jiliang

14.5

83.0

30

4

5

Paving of Sihemasha Highway

Zuo Guiqiong

30.0

113.0

29

5

6

Transformation of the civic service center

Government

15.5

128.5

28

6

7

Street hardening of Wang villager group of Xianqiang Shaba

13.5

142.0

28

6

8

Repair of Xiaping Highway

Yang Guangxiu

21.0

163.0

27

8

9

New construction of Zhumalin to Wangu Highway

Deng Tianxiang

30.0

193.0

26

9

10

Education fund from government

Government

10.0

203.0

25

10

11

Reconstruction of Sijing to Yankua Highway

Liu Yong

25.9

228.9

25

10

12

Repair of Sandayuan

Zuo Bin

10.0

238.9

24

12

13

Reconstruction of Highway in big and small village

Li Yibin

36.7

275.6

22

13

14

Walnut Planting in Dayuan Area

Liu Panqian

12.3

287.9

14

14

15

River regulation from Shangchangkou to Xiajie

Yuan Shijin

58.0

345.9

14

14

(continued)

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Table A.25 (continued) Number

Project name

Proposer

16

Hardening of Liziyuan Road

Huang Defu

67.1

413.0

8

16

17

Development of Government Capsicum frutescens Industry

30.0

443.0

3

17

18

Planting of Chimonobambusa and Walnut

24.0

467.0

1

18

Total

Tong Qijiu

Budget

Accumulated Fund

Yes-vote

Ranking

467.0

Signature of the vote counting: Signature of the vote telling: Signature of the supervisors: The fund for approved projects is RMB2,756,000 and the surplus is RMB394,000 Source “Democratic Meeting of Miaoba Town in 2014 (revised edition)”, May 4, 2014; “Records of Democratic Meeting of Zhonghe Town in 2014”, May 3, 2014 (provided by Yunnan Provincial Finance Department)

Conclusion: Technical and Procedural Supply of Budget Participatory Budget in Yanjin County and in Wenling City both employed a localized democratic deliberative engagement procedure, piling up opportunities for citizens’ participate in public decision-making, optimizing the allocation of resources, avoiding potential risks, meliorating public services, and building up the confidence in impartial budget. This conclusion is embedded with policy connotations of great magnitude for Chinese grassroots. Put differently, multiple deliberative democratic procedures provide a novel choice and benefit the conventional governmentdominated decision-making model, an effective offset to the inadequate public engagement of the simplified representative democracy. Increasingly optimized and perfected deliberative democratic engagement procedures make the public increasingly recognize the impartial budget allocation, precipitating contradictions and conflicts in economic and social development.

Appendix VI

“The Document on Strengthening the Socialist Consultative and Deliberative Democracy”84 Issued by CPC Central Committee

Beijing, February 9, 2015 (Xinhua)—The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) recently issued “The Document on Strengthening the Socialist Consultative & Deliberative Democracy”. The opinions clarify the essence and connotation of socialist deliberative democracy, expound the significance, guiding ideology, basic principles, and procedures of strengthening socialist deliberative democracy, and make comprehensive arrangements for political party’s consultation, People’s Congress deliberation, government deliberation, CPPCC deliberation, people’s group deliberation, grassroots deliberation, and social organization deliberation under the new social situation. It is a programmatic document guiding the construction of socialist deliberative democracy. The full text of the opinions is as follows. Socialist deliberative democracy is a unique form and a distinctive strength of China’s socialist democracy. It is an important embodiment of the Party’s mass line in the political field and a significant part of deepening the reform of the political system; to deeply implement the document of the CPC’s 18th National Congress and its third and fourth plenary sessions, improve the institutions and mechanisms for deliberative democracy and promote its broad-based, multilevel, and institutionalized development, build socialist political civilization, and promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. The following opinions are put forward on strengthening socialist deliberative democracy. We cannot make the river run backwards; but we do not therefore say that watermills “are not made, but grow.” In politics, as in mechanics, the power which is to keep the engine going must be sought for outside the machinery. —J. S. mill, Consideration on Representative Government

84

Sources Xinhuanet.com. Website: http://news.xinhuanet.com/2015-02I09/c_1114310670_2. htm. CPC can find that CPC only use the “Consultative Democracy” in the political parties and in Xi’s selected works, but CPC use the concept of “consultative & deliberative democracy” in our translation because CPC believe that in the government People’s Congress, government, CPPCC, people’s group, grass-roots and social organization fields, there exist “consultation & deliberation” and there never deliberation between political parties but consultation. © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

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Significance of Strengthening Socialist Deliberative Democracy Under the leadership of the CPC, the deliberative democracy is an important form of democracy in which all aspects of the people carry out extensive consultation and deliberation before and during the decision-making process to form consensus around major issues of reform, development and stability and practical issues involving the vital interests of the masses.

Development Process Socialist deliberative democracy is a great creation of the CPC and the Chinese people, which originates from the long-term practice of the CPC leading the people in revolution, construction, and reform. The 18th National Congress of the CPC and the third-plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee have deeply summarized the experience and law of socialist democratic political construction and developed a strategic plan to establish and improve the socialist deliberative democracy system, as well as to promote its broad-based, multilevel, and institutionalized development. In China, the deliberative democracy has its profound cultural, theoretical, practical, and institutional foundations, which diversifies the forms, widens the channels, and gives new connotations for the development of China’s socialist democracy.

Political Significance At present, China is in the critical stage of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. In the face of profound adjustment of interest structure in the Reform and Opening-up, of the new and old social conflicts, of diversified ideas under the condition of market economy, and of competition in different political development paths around the world, strengthening the construction of deliberative democracy is conducive to expanding citizens’ orderly political participation so as to realize the right to be the masters of the country. It can also promote scientific and democratic policy-making and advance the modernization of governance system and capability. It’s conducive to settling social conflicts and therefore promoting social harmony and stability. Moreover, it is beneficial for promoting the relationship between the Party and the public, consolidating and expanding the Party’s governing foundation, and giving the full play of China’s political system. It undoubtedly will play an important role to enhance confidence in the path, theory, and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

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Dominating Ideology, Basic Principles and Channels and Procedures for Deliberative Democracy Guiding Ideology For strengthening deliberative democracy, the decisions of the 18th CPC National Congress and the third and fourth plenary sessions should be fully implemented. In line with the guidelines set forth by Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and the “Three Representatives Thought” and the Scientific Development, we should firmly hold high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, deeply implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s series of important speeches, insist and perfect Chinese fundamental political system and basic political system, and guarantee people’s position as masters of the country. An integrated democratic system with reasonable procedures should be established to promote its broad-based, multilevel, and institutionalized development, which could inject new vitality to the development of China’s socialist democratic politics, and condense wisdom and strength to achieve the “Two Centenary Goals” as well as realize the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Basic Principles To strengthen deliberative democracy, we must ensure the unity of the leadership of CPC, the position of the people as masters of the country and law-based governance. We should fully and faithfully implement democratic centralism, and keep to the socialist path of making political advance with Chinese Characteristics. We should adhere to focus on the central task and serve the overall interests, promote the lasting sound development of economy, and uphold social harmony and stability. We should ensure that the deliberative democracy has rules to follow in an orderly manner by adhering to the law and order. To make democratic deliberation more effective and scientific, deliberations are necessary to be conducted before the policy decisions are made. To uphold people’s right to stay informed about, participate in, express views on, and oversee Party and government operations, attentions should be paid to expanding orderly participation for everybody on all levels. To increase the quality and efficiency of deliberation, we should keep expanding common ground and setting aside differences.

Deliberative Channels We will continue to focus on consultation with non-CPC parties, government, and CPPCC, actively carry out deliberation among the people’s congresses, people’s organizations, and grassroots, and gradually explore social organization. We should

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give full play to the advantages of all channels of deliberation, make good connections and cooperation, and constantly improve the system of socialist deliberative democracy. Various types of deliberation shall reasonably determine the deliberation contents and methods according to their characteristics and actual needs.

Deliberative Procedures We must base ourselves on reality in everything we do by following the requirements of science, order and procedure, convenience, and democracy and centralization, to formulate the plan, topic, and content, as well as the personnel of deliberation. By carrying out deliberation activities with feedbacks, the achievements, in turn, could ensure them to be efficient and pragmatic.

Continue to Strengthen Deliberation Within Political Parties85 We should give full play to the advantages of the socialist political party system with Chinese characteristics, insist on long-term coexistence, mutual supervision, sincere treatment with each other and the sharing of weal or woe, strengthen political deliberation between the CPC and the Non-CPC parties, do a good job in cooperation, and consolidate and develop harmonious political party relations.

Continue Regulating Deliberation Within Political Parties We should improve the form of deliberation meetings and hold special deliberation forums on important principles, policies, and issues of the party and the state, which should be presided over by the leading comrades of the CPC Central Committee. The consultations of important personnel arrangement should be held in the planning stage, which should be charged by the leading cadres of the CPC Central Committee. An investigation and deliberation forum should be held on important research topics of non-CPC parties, which should be charged by the leading cadres of the CPC Central Committee and should invite relevant departments. According to the needs of work, a deliberation forum should be held to exchange ideas, opinions, and important information, which shall be charged by the leading cadres of the CPC Central Committee or entrust the related departments to charge. We should improve the form of interviews between the leading cadres of the CPC Central Committee and those of non-CPC parties, and improve the form of written communication and consultation between the CPC Central Committee and the central committees of non-CPC parties.

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Here, CPC only use “consultation” between CPC and other ono-CPC parties because there is definitely no deliberation with the meaning of democracy at this level.

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Improve Non-CPC Parties’ Suggestions Directly to CPC Central Committee The Central Committee of the non-CPC parties could make advices to the CPC Central Committee in the form of reports and recommendations every year. The leading cadres of the non-CPC parties may directly report and propose to the CPC Central Committee as well as the State Council individually. Besides, the Politburo Standing Committee and their members could invite the leading cadres of the nonCPC parties to participate in domestic surveys and other significant foreign activities.

Strengthen the Guarantee Mechanism for Deliberation of Non-CPC Parties We will improve the system to make people informed, with relevant departments regularly providing relevant materials, organizing symposiums, and assisting the nonCPC parties to select their research topics. We will strengthen the contact between relevant government departments and judicial organs with non-CPC parties, and appropriately invite members of non-CPC parties to attend related meetings, as well as participate in special research and supervision. We will improve the deliberative feedback mechanism so that relevant departments could take steps in time according to the deliberative opinions submitted by the Central Committee of the CPC. We also support the non-CPC parties to strengthen their capacity for deliberation. The Federation of Industry and Commerce (FIC) with the advantage of united front is comprised of people’s organizations and the civil chamber of commerce. The related government departments would provide great contact service for all of them. Non-party elites are the important part of political consultation and the CPC Committees of all provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and cities (prefectures, counties, and leagues) shall make specific arrangements according to the actual conditions.

Actively Carry Out People’s Congress’ Deliberation The system of People’s Congress is the fundamental political system to ensure people’s position as masters of the country. The people’s congresses at all levels shall exercise their powers according to law. Meanwhile, they should have sufficient deliberation before making major decisions to better gather people’s wisdom, collect public opinions, and support and guarantee the people’s exercise of their power through the People’s Congress.

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Conduct In-Depth Deliberation on Legislation To make the legislation plan, we should widely listen to opinions and suggestions from all sides. We will improve the coordination mechanism for drafting up laws and regulations, and strengthen communication between the special committees and working committees of the People’s Congress. We will improve the mechanism of legal argumentation, hearing, and evaluation, and explore the mechanism of consultation and deliberation on the adjustment of major interests involved in legislation by relevant state organs, social organizations, experts, and scholars. We will broaden the channels for citizens to participate in the legislation in an orderly manner, and improve the feedback mechanism for public opinions about law drafts. For laws and regulations draft with serious differences and complicated legal relationships, we will conduct extensive research and deliberation, and make decisions before achieving consensus. To inquire into the best form of government in the abstract (as it is called) is not a chimerical, but a highly practical employment of scientific intellect; and to introduce into any country the best institutions which, in the existing state of that country, are capable of, in any tolerable degree, fulfilling the conditions, is one of the most rational objects to which practical effort can address itself. —J. S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government

Play Full Role of Deputies to PC in Deliberative Democracy We will improve the system of soliciting opinions from NPC deputies for drafting up laws and regulations, invite more ordinary deputies to watch meetings of the PC Standing Committee, and increase their participation in the legislation. To improve the quality of their proposals, relevant departments should strengthen communication with delegates and enhance the effectiveness of the proposals. Deputy liaison offices and network platforms should be established to improve the mechanism for deputies to maintain close contact with the people. The local People’s Congresses are encouraged to conduct deliberation according to the law, as well as enrich its forms and content.

Take Practical Steps to Promote Government Deliberation By effectively promoting scientific and democratic policy-making based on law, we will strengthen government deliberation, enhance transparency and public participation, solve the most practical problems of the interests that people most concern, promote the transformation of the government functions, and improve governance capacity.

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Formulate and Publish the Contents of Deliberation The government shall explore to formulate and publish the contents of deliberation, by following the laws and regulations and working experience. The items listed in the directory shall be communicated. For matters unlisted, deliberation shall be conducted based on actual needs. People often fail when they are going to succeed. If they are as careful as they were at the beginning, there would be far less failure. —Daode Jing . Chapter 64

Enhance the Universality and Pertinence of Deliberations We will adhere to the extensive public participation and strengthen deliberation with the deputies to PC, CPPCC members, the members of non-CPC parties, non-Party figures and the members of FIC. On the one hand, the professional matters shall invite experts. On the other hand, when it comes to people’s well-being, crucial public interests, and major issues of economic and social development, Chinese government will pay attention to advice and opinions from all social sectors, and allow the public, especially stakeholders to take part in the process of deliberation. The deliberation with relevant people’s groups, social organizations, and representatives of the masses shall also be strengthened when the specific interests are involved.

Improve the Government Deliberation Mechanism Information publicity of Chinese government should be guaranteed to create conditions for the participation in the government deliberation. The opinion collection and feedback mechanism should be improved for widely accepting opinions when making legislation and setting topics for policy-making so that the adoption of opinions will be fed back to the public in time. For standardizing the hearing mechanism, the hearing shall be held publicly according to laws and the relevant information shall be released immediately. Government shall establish a sound decision-making mechanism of deliberation, perfect pertinent deliberation procedures, and enhance the quality and credibility. Government should also improve the contact mechanism for handling proposals of deputies to PC and members of CPPCC, improve the standing list, list the handling of suggestions and proposals into the annual supervision work plan of the government, and gradually release the results to the public.

Further Improve the Deliberation of the CPPCC We should make the CPPCC serve as a major channel for conducting deliberative democracy and a specialized institution. The CPPCC should, focusing on the themes

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of unity and democracy, improve systems of political consultation, democratic supervision, and participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs, and constantly improve the level of institutionalization, standardization, and procedure of the deliberative democracy.

Specify the Major Contents of the Political Deliberation of CPPCC86 The consultation and deliberation of the CPPCC mainly includes national and local policies and important issues in political, economic, cultural, and social life, common affairs in which all parties participate in the work of the CPPCC, the internal affairs of the CPPCC, and other important issues concerning the Patriotic United Front.

Improve CPPCC and Other Forms of Deliberation CPPCC should improve the form of deliberation by changing the system of consultation and deliberation forum, and appropriately increase the number of specific issue meetings of the Standing Committee and special deliberative meetings. CPPCC should regularly conduct flexible deliberations on special issues, with representatives from all sectors of society, and with relevant government departments on the handling of proposals. Meanwhile, CPPCC should explore cyber politics, long-distance deliberations, and other new forms. We will increase the proportion of collective proposals and improve their quality, and establish a mechanism for handing over, handling, and supervising proposals. To actively perform the functions of democratic oversight, opinions, and suggestions, CPPCC should put forward the form of deliberation, recommendations, inspections, proposals, and information to reflect the social conditions and public opinions.

Strengthen Effective Coordination Between the CPPCC and CPC and Its Government CPC will standardize the issue proposing mechanism for deliberation, earnestly implement the regulations on proposals raised by the Party Committees, the People’s Congress, the governments, the non-CPC parties, and people’s organizations, and explore joint proposals by all sectors and members. The annual deliberation plan should be listed in the meeting’s agenda and the annual work of the CPC Standing Committee. To create convenience for CPPCC members performing their duties, the related government departments will improve the system to uphold CPPCC members’ right to stay informed about by regularly releasing related official documents. CPC 86

We should clarify that it is only “consultation without deliberation” within CPC and non-CPC parties when CPC emphasizes the political consultation.

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will regulate the participation of leading cadre of CPC Committees and government officials in activities of the CPPCC, and improve the mechanism for adoption, implementation, and feedback of results.

Strengthen the System Construction of CPPCC The National Committee of the CPPCC will research the specific opinions for standardizing political consultation, democratic supervision, and political participation. CPC will conduct investigations and adjust the CPPCC sectors when conditions are suitable. CPPCC will improve the recommendation and nomination mechanism and optimize the composition of committee members. CPPCC should study the management of CPPCC members to improve the committee member’s liaison system.

Carry Out Deliberations Among People’s Groups CPC must conduct deliberation to strengthen the CPC’s mass work through the analysis of the new conditions, better organize and represent the masses to participate in public affairs, effectively reflect the wishes and interests of the masses, and give full play to the role of people’s groups as bridges and ties linking the CPC and its government with the people.

Improve Mechanism for People’s Groups Participating in Deliberation For the problems concerning vital interests of the masses, especially those concerning the protection of the rights and interests of specific groups, the relevant departments should strengthen deliberation with relevant people’s organizations. The CPPCC should give full play to the role of people’s organizations and members of their sectors, actively organize people’s organizations to participate in the deliberation, inspection, survey, and other activities, and keep close contact between the special committees of CPPCC and the people’s organizations.

Organize the Masses to Conduct Deliberations The people’s organizations should improve the mechanism for direct contact with the masses, and timely carry out deliberation on matters related to the masses’ serious interests. To enhance the universality and representation of deliberation, CPPCC should expand the contact channels and working field to incorporate the work of services for newly rising social groups. CPPCC should serve as a platform for the

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relevant social organizations to better communicate with the CPC committees and its governments in contacting with the social organizations in relevant fields.

Steadily Promote Deliberation at Local and Community Levels Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow. —Emerson

A large number of decisions and work involving the people’s interests mainly exist at the grassroots level. By following the requirements of deliberation with the people and for the people, CPC should establish an integrated mechanism for grassroots deliberative democracy, steadily develop community-level deliberation, better solve the masses’ real difficulties and problems, and timely resolve conflicts and disputes to promote social harmony and stability.

Promote Deliberation in Towns and Streets CPC will organize the deliberations on local urban and rural planning, public engineering projects, land demolition and expropriation, and serious livelihood issues. The townships and sub-districts should strengthen their guidance to the deliberative activities of villages and communities. The townships, sub-districts and even counties (cities and districts) organize the important decision-making matters across villages or communities.

Promote Deliberation in Villages and Communities CPC should persist the Peasants’ (or Residents) Meeting and the Peasants (or Residents) Representatives’ Meeting and standardize the procedures to actively explore the forms of consultation and deliberation in the Peasants (or Residents) Council. CPC will allow all stakeholders, social organizations, migrant workers, and units in the village (community) to participate in the deliberation. Issues or matters that cannot be solved or have major disputes in discussion shall be submitted to the Peasants’ (or Residents) Meeting and the Peasants (or Residents) Representatives’ Meeting. Once the law is enacted, no one can escape from the system of the law by his right. Nor, on the pretext of his superiority, should he allow himself or any of his subordinates to behave recklessly and ask protection from legal action. No one in the civic society can escape the rule of law. —John Lock, Two Treatises of Civil Government

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Promote Deliberation in Enterprises and Public Institutions CPC should improve the democratic management of enterprises and institutions based on the Workers’ Representatives’ Meeting to build the channels for employees to express reasonable demands, and improve the communication and deliberation mechanism for employees at all levels. CPC will actively promote collective negotiation between the Trade Union representing workers and the enterprise on important decisions such as coordinating and regulating labor relations. CPC will gradually improve the triple mechanism represented by the Labor Administrative Department, the Trade Union and the enterprises. CPC must adhere to the leadership of the CPC and government must operate by following the law and improve their working mechanism and channels for communication with relevant social organizations, guide social organizations to carry out deliberations in an orderly manner, to explore the deliberation among the social organizations, and to better serve Chinese society.

Strengthen the Party’s Leadership in Deliberative Democracy CPC’s leadership is the most essential characteristic of socialism with Chinese characteristics. To improve deliberative democracy, we should adhere to the leadership of the CPC, give full play to its leading role in controlling the whole situation and coordinating all social sectors’ efforts, and hold the right direction to form a powerful force and ensure the deliberative democracy to develop orderly and efficiently.

Attach Great Importance to Improving Deliberative Democracy CPC Committees at all levels within the scope of responsibilities should fully understand the significance of strengthening the consultative and deliberative democracy, integrate its construction into the work planning and important agenda, and to unify the leadership and planning for its various activities. CPC and its government should carry out the deliberation before or during the decision-making and adjust the decisions by following the opinions and suggestions from all sides to better comply with public opinion and be more practical, and thus ensure the achievements of consultation and deliberation through institutional arrangements. The leading cadres of CPC committees should set an example of learning and mastering the theory of deliberative democracy, familiarizing themselves with its methods, grasping its laws, and striving to become active organizers and promoters. CPC could strengthen the leadership and consolidate its ruling position through the promotion of deliberative democracy.

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Establish the Leading System of CPC in the Deliberative Democracy CPC should establish a dominating system and working mechanism under the unified leadership of the CPC Committees, with responsibility based on division of work and the public participation. CPC Committees at all levels shall, by following the principle of democratic centralism, adhere to the unification based on the democracy and the democracy under the unification, to ensure that the deliberations are carried out by following the law in an orderly manner, and to prevent them discussing without decisions or making decisions without execution. To make progress in consultation and deliberation, CPC will strengthen coordination, earnestly study and formulate deliberative plans, solve major issues concerned, and support the People’s Congress, the government, the CPPCC, party groups, grassroots organizations, and social organizations to practice deliberation by following the laws. CPC should also strengthen supervision and inspection over the implementation of deliberative democracy.

Encourage the Innovation of Deliberative Democracy The development of deliberative democracy is a continuous process. CPC Committees at all levels should strengthen leadership and organizational coordination, encourage exploration and innovation, conduct extensive deliberations through various channels and methods, and establish various ways for deliberation, including proposals, meetings, symposiums, argumentation, hearings, publicity, assessment, deliberation, Cyber-networks, and public polls, etc. CPC should respect the pioneering spirit of the masses, refine and summarize the practical experiences, and then promote them to national level. CPC should strengthen the construction of new types of Think Tanks with Chinese characteristics, and establish the mechanisms for deliberation in decision-making. Meanwhile, CPC will strengthen the theoretical research of socialist deliberative democracy and continuously enrich and develop its theoretical system. CPC will research, and develop deliberative democracy to build inner-party laws and regulations.

Create a Good Ideology for Deliberative Democracy CPC Committees at all levels should consciously practice the deliberative democracy in all fields and insist on more deliberations during working. CPC should promote its development by improving the inner-party democratic system. The Publicity Departments of CPC committee and the major news media should strengthen correct guidance of public opinions, popularize its knowledge of deliberative democracy, publicize its theory and practices, establish its advanced models, and play the role of guidance. Relevant departments in each region shall formulate specific official documents according to the actual situation and this central document.

Epilogue

I wish to be a man in the thick of action of practicing local democracy, so I have always wanted to write a book on such operational procedures because I believe that academic research has two purposes: one is to reveal and explain the reality as educational materials to train students and to inspire the world; The second is to summarize the practical experiences and combine it with theory to provide reference for the practitioner in operation. To a certain extent, the purpose of Chinese political sciences is still to explain “common sense”. Usually, the common sense is not always recognized before it becomes “common sense”; however, when it comes out, people will find out that “it is really true”, or even feel “just so-so”. CPC and Chinese Central government have issued so many official documents about Chinese socialism democracy, and even with the one ruling party system, it never denies the public participation. When I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation, I was very interested in the huge theory about Chinese social institutional transformation. But when I worked in Zhejiang University, I was attracted by the cases of local governance and innovation. One of them was the case of “Heart–to-heart Discussion”. I started to wonder how the official documents about Chinese democracy could be practiced in reality. In the past thirty years, China’s central government has prioritized the task of cutting red tape and delegating power to lower-level governments. That is the necessary precondition for deliberative democracy to be practiced in local and grassroots levels. Then we have got what has been described in this book. But it has always been easier that speak louder than words. Mr. Lu Xun once said, that person may get beheaded to change the position of a table and chair in the house in China, not even to achieve “the unity of knowledge and action”. Some people often say: Do you know what Chinese democracy will eventually become? Perhaps there is no meaning in insisting on democracy in a short life. My answer is that in the ultimate sense, of course, we do not know, but people will look back on history and stick to the rules they believe, just as the oppressed slaves pursue liberation, the powerless bourgeoisie must rebel, and the over-exploited workers and peasants must rebel. Whether it is meaningful or not, it is only a coming generation’s judgment to the past. Except for a sense of personal experience and the maintenance of individual © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

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interest, there is no significance for the society if you persist in autocracy in an era of democracy. Thus, on many occasions, I would rather abandon the norms of academic research to try to summarize some local typical practices for I know clearly how difficult they were in the practices, so we can encourage more local cadres and social organizations to innovate and they don’t feel lonely, but the cases of abandoning the democratic development and regression from democracy were few summarized. Sometimes I feel very hopeful, but sometimes I feel desperate. When I see many cadres and practitioners actively seeking help in hope, I feel that the hope is rising, and China’s democracy has the possibility of subduing despair. The progress of democracy in China requires the effort of one generation or even several generations. Chinese and their government both have patience in moneyearning but no patience in practicing real democratic procedures and have patience in paper agenda of democracy but no patience in practicing it, so it is really hard to push the democratic progress. I want to dedicate this book to my daughter Talia (Miao Miao), because the young generation is the hope for future! Han Fuguo, October, 2016

Acknowledgment

Fortunately, there are always some persons trying to do so for only making complaints without the spirit of pushing forward can only delay the process. I must extend my sincere gratitude to those people who keep giving me hope in practice, from Zhejiang to the Shanghai, from Shanghai to Shenzhen, for their persistence, as well as the coordination and intelligence required for innovation. Their names should be mentioned, not only because a lot of my practical experience (and academy) is from their help and guidance, but rather their practice gives me inspiration and hope. They are Chen Youde (former chairman of Trade Union in Yiwu City in Zhejiang province) and Luo Xiaojun (the deputy mayor of Yiwu City). Especially many cadres in Wenling City of Zhejiang Province like Chen Weiyi, Zhang Xueming, Qiu Shiming, Wang Fusheng, Lin Xianhua, Hu Fuxiang, Cao Yu, Lin Bangqin, Jiang Zhaohua, Zhao Min, Zhu Baoqing, Wang Xiaoyu, Zhuang Dezhen, Liang Yunbo, Zhu Yongning, Jiang Huijun, Mu Yifei, Chen Yimin, Zhu Shengming, etc. Besides, Ma Bin, a researcher at the Research Office of Zhejiang Provincial Government and Ren Lihua, Wang Tao and Lv Xiaojian, Lin Long, He Hangang, Zhang Pengting, Chen Xuming, Hu Haiqi from Zhejiang province, have been communicating with me on this approach for many years, which benefits me a lot. Of course, several professors of the “Local Government Innovation Project” of the former Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, such as Yang Xuedong, Chen Jiagang, and Zhou Hongyun, are also good teachers who help me to understand the local practice. I am also supported by Qian Bei and Liu Liyuan from Wenhui Daily. It should be noted that many of the inspiration of this book comes from the corporation with team members who put deliberative democracy into practice at the grassroots level in Shanghai, including Xu Zhi, and Du Tao in Minhang District of Shanghai. Ni Qian, Deng Liang, Dai Min, Gao Rui, Bao Qian, Chen Donghua, Zhang Qian, etc. in Pudong New District of Shanghai. Xu Xiaojing, Hu Chunhua, Wang Benzhuang in Jiading District of Shanghai. I want to thank many local governments and departments such as Lujiazui Street Government, Puxing Street Government, Nanjingxi Street Government, Yangjing Street Government, Zhenxin Street Government, Jiading District Social-building Office, Shanghai Pudong Community Service Center in Shanghai; Organization © Fudan University Press and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 F. Han, Practicing Deliberative Democracy in China, Understanding China, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5783-5

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Department of Hangzhou Municipal Party Committee; Hangzhou Civil Affairs Bureau; Hangzhou Policy Research Office, Hangzhou Performance Appraisal Office, Hubin Street of Xihu District of Hangzhou, Tonglu County of Hangzhou, Songyang County of Zhejiang Province, etc.; as well as many researched sub-districts and communities in Longhua New District of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and the Labor Bureau of Baoan District; Yanjin County of Yunnan Province; Dousha Town, Miao Ba Town, Zhong He Town, and Niuzhai Town. As for the numerous academic scholars of grass-root and local democratic innovation, it is hard to write down all their names from Nankai University to Fudan University, from Zhejiang University to Stanford University. I tried to write this book into a more readable and operable pamphlet for local cadres in governments and communities, therefore I avoided a lot of academic notes and quotations so that Chinese readers and operators would not be “annoyed”. Meanwhile, we have made necessary citations in the margin of the book about many academic works and Best Line. This book is one of the Achievements of the 2014 General Project of the National Social Science Fund of “Research on Local Innovation and Expansion Model in China” (14BZZ049), the 2010 Ministry of Education of China Human and Social Sciences Research Youth Fund of “Analysis of Factors Influencing Local Innovation Sustainability” (10YJC810013) and 2012 Shanghai Education Committee Innovation Project of “Local Innovation and China’s Social Governance: Empirical Analysis Based on the Sustainable Innovation of Government” (12ZS016). The two research projects provided the basis for applications to national social science programs, which enables me to continue my practices in deliberative democracy. I need to thank Professor Fishkin for guiding me in my academic study and writing the preface for my book. I owe much to Professor Jing Yuejin and Chen Mingming for taking time to give directions via their prefaces. Thanks are also given to Professor Wang Deyao of the Fudan University Press for providing many wonderful ideas to book design. I also thank Mr. Wu Hongwei, the publisher’s editor, for putting a lot of effort into the book series. Yang Xu, the director of Pudong Community Service Center, read the manuscript and put forward many suggestions from a local cadre. Besides, I’m grateful to Professor Xu Xian, the director of the Fudan University China Research Center at UCSD and Dr. Xiu Yingmin, the associate director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, for providing the seminar so that I could get important reviews on this approach. I also thank Professor Zhou Xueguang and his wife for providing wonderful food for us in Stanford University, as well as the helpful discussion with Professor Wu Jinqun from Zhejiang University and others during our stay in the United States. Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my wife Shaishai who gave birth to our daughter in China during my one-year visit in the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. And I would also like to show my sincere thanks to my parents-in-law for taking good care of them. All my friends have given a lot of support but they are not all listed here.