民主理论协商转向的合理性——基于社会和理论背景的分析

The Rationality of the Deliberative Turn of Democratic Theory:An Analysis of the Social and Theoretical Background

民主理论的协商转向作为民主理论发展中的重要现象有着深刻的社会背景和理论背景。现代社会的多元发展趋势,特别是价值冲突的普遍化,对古典民主理论构成了重要挑战,也成为现代民主理论必须回应的基本问题。面对这一现实问题,自由民主的精英理论否定共同利益的可能性及大众参与的可欲性,从而在事实上采取了消极回避的理论策略;而自由民主的市场模式所内含的交易或妥协原则在处理价值问题上则是不恰当或不充分的;民主的激进理论对规范政治概念和参与价值的强调是重要的,但它对可能的参与方式、后果等却估计不足,解释不多。而协商民主理论则力图直接回应现代社会中价值冲突普遍化问题所带来的挑战,其理论的展开也是建立在对自由民主不足的批判以及对激进民主传统的资源的继承和反思之上的。

The deliberative turn of democratic theory has its deep social and theoretical background. Socially,the di verse trends and the generalized value conflict in modern society become the major issues and challenges of the modern democracy. Theoretically, these problems can not be solved by such theories of liberal democracy as the elite theory and the principle of bargain and compromise of market theory, let alone the theories of radical democracy. Therefore, based on the criticism of the drawbacks of the liberal democratic response and on the heritance and reflection of resources of radical democratic tradition, deliberative democracy is to respond directly to the challenge caused by the generalization of value conflict in the modern societies.