民主观:二元对立或近似值

Democracy: Binary Opposition or Approximation?

国内思想界流行的民主观是二分法,即以有无竞争性选举作为民主与非民主的唯一标准。二分法民主观主要是解释代议制政治,但是,现代国家向代议制提出了诸多制度性挑战。二分法民主观主要是冷战时期意识形态战争的产物,在此之前近似值政体观一直在西方思想界占有重要地位。判断一个国家是不是民主政治,需要寻求替代性的民主观。无论什么样的民主政治,说到底都是为了善治,为此,人类不得不思考二分法民主政治所带来的种种后果。

The dominating vision of democracy in the Chinese thoughts shall be binary opposition which equates democracy with the election campaign. The main goal of binary opposition is to explain theoretically the representative politics, but it has been seriously challenged by the changed political institutions. Democracy of the binary opposition is the product of ideological war in the Cold War period, and before that democracy of approximation has been occupying an important position in the western political thoughts. Here we need to bring it back. The purpose that we seek democracy is for good governance, not democracy itself. Therefore, we ought to think over many kinds of outcomes of democracy of dualism in history.