社会选择理论与社会冲突的治理之道

Social Choice Theory and the Governance of Social Conflicts

在当今中国,随着社会经济及价值观的变化,不同人的偏好呈现多样性是一种新常态。当某些未得到满足的偏好影响到人们的切身利益之时,社会冲突在所难免。国家治理体系是否现代化的标志之一,就在于能否在适当尊重个体偏好多样性的前提下有效地管控甚至解决社会冲突。为了管控并解决社会冲突,集体决策是必须的,但以多数决为核心游戏规则的民主机制常常并不能有效地进行集体决策。在集体决策上民主的低效,为形形色色的独断留下空间。社会选择理论深入探究了集体决策低效的条件,并从拓展信息基础和价值基础两个方面,澄清了我们在面对社会冲突之时如何能有效运用民主机制达成解决方案。简言之,社会选择理论阐明了理性的民主决策机制有效运行的制度条件和社会条件,成为研究社会冲突治理之道的学术基础,对于深入研究国家治理变革具有重要意义。

As socioeconomic status and values change, the diversity of preferences amongindividuals has become a normal state in today＇s China. Social conflicts are inevitable when unmetpreferences affect interests of the individuals. The well-functioning of national governance system islargely manifested ineffective control over social conflicts while respecting preference diversity amongindividual citizens. For conflict resolution, collective decision making is indispensable, but it is oftendifficult to be reached through democratic mechanism based on majority rule. The low efficiency ofdemocratic collective decision making leaves leeway for a variety of arbitrariness. Social choice theory hasprobed into the prerequisites of low efficiency of collective decision making, and from perspectives ofexpanding informational and value basis clarified how we can reach solutions when facing social conflicts.In sum, by enunciating the institutional and social conditions of democratic decision making, socialchoice theory has become a scholarly basis for social conflicts .resolutions, and therefore has significantimplications for our explorations of national governance change.