A Democracy That Works Western democracies have failed to address people’s livelihood concerns while the Chinese practice has made notable achievements

More than 200 scholars,researchers,former government o!cials and party leaders from over 50 countries gathered in the sprawling building of the Chinese Academy of History in Beijing on 20 March for the third International Forum on Democracy:The Shared Human Values.The forum debated the concept of democracy,its trajectories and prospects,and,more importantly,how it can be made to work and deliver tangible results for di"erent countries.

Inherent Features and Future Practice of Whole-Process People's Democracy from a Comparative Perspective

Democracy is a common value pursued by human society and is often viewed as an important symbol of the development level of a political civilization. However, after a review of the histories of different countries around the world。

The Core of the Chinese Democracy Is to Respect and Protect Human Rights——A Summary of the Academic Seminar on Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Protection

On March 26,2023,a Seminar on Chinese Democracy and Human Rights Protection was held,jointly organized by the National Human Rights Education and Training Base and the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University under the guidance of the Chinese Society for Human Rights Studies.The event adopted a combination of online and offline channels.Over 30 experts and scholars from universities,research institutions,and practical departments across the country participated in extensive discussions on“Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Chinese Democracy and Protection of Human Rights.”The seminar aimed to focused on the essence,characteristics,advantages,and human rights implications of Chinese democracy and interpreted the concept of Chinese democracy and the protection of human rights through academic and theoretical methods.

Reassessing Human Rights VS Democracy of the Public:A Necessary Challenge?

Today,we are witnessing a profound transformation of the dominant model of representative democracy which is increasingly giving way to a new form of democracy of the public,as Bernard Manin defined it.In a democracy of the public,parties tend to personalise themselves,becoming machines serving one particular person,who embodies public feelings.Participation and social organization within the territory are progressively replaced by a widespread communication and social media framework where the citizens become just passive spectators.To this,we must add that the spectacularisation of the current democratic systems,adopted to satisfy the audience,leads to negative effects on the protection of fundamental rights.This article will analyse the aspects that characterise the democracies of the public,and their social and legal effects on the consideration of human rights.The article goes further without being limited to this issue.In fact,it wants to emphasise the way human rights are crucial to bolstering democracies,rather than merely the other way around.Doctrines and politics have frequently emphasised the need for democracy,and,more specifically,the export of democracies to advance human rights.Contrarily,a shift in perspective is required in order to preserve liberal democracies.

Solving the Century Problem“Modern Transformation of China’s Traditional Confucianism”—A Mistake-Tolerant Democracy Perspective

The reason why Chinese scholars cannot bridge between Confucianism and democracy as a century problem since 1920s is that liberal democracy has two fundamental defects:Human beings born with wisdom have known rights before entering societies,which is contrary to Confucianism;separation between politics and religions has led to religious ceremony of confession far away from politics.Mistake-tolerant democracy whose right theory is the right to trial and error as an original right and mutual empowerment theory can overcome above defects.Liberty is divided into the right to trial and error as an original right in innovative fields which can be transferred by contract and unalienable liberties in non-innovative ones.The spirit and behavior of self-criticism to people like confession is a virtue which meets Confucian moral requirements of becoming a Saint and politician’s obligation required in mistake-tolerant democracy,which can solve the century problem at utmost.

The Root Cause of the Failure of American COVID-19 Governance Based on the Criticism of Liberal Democracy From Error-Tolerant Democracy

Liberal democracy cannot help America govern COVID-19 effectively for liberalism’s misunderstanding of the concept of liberty.Error-tolerantism divides liberty into the right to liberty in innovative fields,the right to be wrong as an original right,and the right to be right in non-innovative ones as sub-rights;rights come from mutual empowerment among people.The major defects of liberal democracy from the perspective of error-tolerant democracy constructed on error-tolerantism are as follows:The essence of election is to transfer people’s right to be wrong and corresponding right to be right to politicians,but the separation and balance of powers does not evaluate whether presidents,states,mayors,et al.,have exercised the power to be wrong reasonably,so that they could even abuse it in the COVID-19 governance,and did great harm to people’s human rights without any accountability or impeachment.Democratic governor’power to be wrong authorized by election was deprived by President Trump through issuing false information in the COVID-19 governance and encouraging people to protest against the anti-pandemic laws,which made liberal democracy in the United States threatened and COVID-19 out of control.

A Prerequisite for the Successful Governance of COVID-19 in the United States:Expansion of Liberal Democracy From Politics to Economy

The failure of COVID-19 governance in the United States of America is closely related to its economic inequality.According to the theory of error-tolerant democracy,after reflecting on the American financial crisis of 2008,liberty should be redefined from mutual empowerment under the background of regulation,which means that rights to liberty of entrepreneurs and financial capitalists in the public economy are empowered by the people,so they should empower and benefit the people,corresponding to regulation and redistribution respectively.During the COVID-19 pandemic,empowering and benefiting the people regarded as economic democracy has not been realized for neoliberal policies,leading to insufficient public funds to help citizens badly hurt by the disease.To restore the U.S.as the beacon of democracy,it should undertake the historical mission:expansion of liberal democracy from politics to economy so as to reduce unreasonable economic inequality and protect rights to life of more infected Americans.

Chinese Enrichment and Development of Marxist Concept of Democracy in the New Era

Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China,Chinese communists,re-presented by President Xi Jinping,have innovated Marxist Concept of Democracy base on Chinese history,culture and conditions. On the basis of inheriting Marxist thought of the inner prescriptions of "people's democracy",they fur-ther expanded the connotation and extension of "rule by the people",developed the contents of the electoral democ-racy and consultative democracy in China.,enriched the concrete requirements of the democratic realization condi-tions from the aspects of economic foundation,intellectual support and the guarantee of the rule of law,and a new ex-ploration is made on the development of China's democratic political system from the aspects of Party's leadership and operation supervision.

Reflections on the Peasants＇ Subjectivity in the Development of Rural Deliberative Democracy

The subjectivity of China's people deliberative democracy is essentially different from Western capital deliberative democracy. And the people's subjectivity naturally manifests as peasant's subjectivity in the deliberative democracy in rural areas. Combined with normative analysis of the whole process of rural deliberation practice,peasants' subjectivity can be summarized as broad equality of participation,completeness of the program,as well as final benefit of the result. However,there are some hidden dangers which may give rise to alienation development of deliberative politics in the current dilemma of rural deliberation practice.The fundamental way to solve the problem lies in combining subjectivity and institutionalization together to develop the rural deliberative democracy.

On the Crisis of Democracy

In the last three decades of the 20th century, important political changes occurred in all regions of the world, making the institutions of many existing political systems closer to the ideals of democracy. But as happened in other moments of history, those processes of democratization, even when successful, always occurred through advances and retreats. Thus, contemporary political practices, procedures, and institutions embody democratic ideals only partially. In many nations, in the present, the rule of law, civil, and political rights, and institutional mechanisms for citizens’ control of governments remain ineffective or underdeveloped. Thus, a double concern prevails among analysts: on the one hand, the regression to authoritarianism in some countries after the processes of political changes—Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Turkey being the paradigmatic examples;the emergence of semi-democracies, i.e., hybrid or illiberal regimes, which have provoked a new interest in the study of patterns of institutional design, the critical role of civil society, different political-cultural developments, authoritarian legacies in the context of the new democracies, competitive authoritarianism and new dictatorships. On the other hand, the acknowledgement of intrinsic limits of the historical development of the democratic regime even in the case of old democracies, i.e., the fact that political equality, active citizen participation, and effective control of abuse of power have never been fully realized in practice. This is the general context in which many analysts and part of the public opinion sustain that there is a crisis of democracy. The general diagnosis refers to the decreasing trust in political elites, political parties, parliaments, governments, and to the dissatisfaction with the regime among democrats;it refers also to the weaker and sometimes erratic performance of democratic institutions and particularly to the failure of the representative system. The picture is completed with the growing rates of partisan misalignment, electoral volatility, and declining civic participation. All this seems to indicate that democracy is inconceivable without crisis. This chapter discusses this scenario. The crisis of democracies is examined from a critical perspective, and the main objective is to understand the different dimensions of its nature and its consequences.

Political Disinformation on the Net and the Risk to Democracy

The essay aims at analyzing the relationship between the changes of political information,disseminated through the net,and the dangers to democracy.In particular,three topics will be addressed:the change of ways of making political information on the net;the new characteristics of political information disseminated on the net and the risk for democracy;the need to combat political disinformation on the net through adequate regulation.In this regard,the paper analyzes the measures adopted in some European countries,such as France,Germany,and Spain,aimed at countering disinformation online and fake news,especially in the field of political information,and the action started by the European Union for this purpose.The measures adopted by some European countries are aimed at:repressing the disinformation and fake news;providing transparency obligations for providers;promoting media literacy programs.Instead,the European Union preferred to resort to self-regulation by providers.In fact,although the European Union can adopt a regulation containing specific obligations for providers,for the moment it has provided for the adoption of a Code of good practice to combat disinformation which is not binding on them.In this regard,the paper analyzes the possible measures that States and European Union could introduce in order to combat the phenomenon of political disinformation able to influence the voters and condition the electoral competitions.Finally,the paper focuses on the effectiveness of these measures and their limits.

A Study on"Fengqiao Experience"from the Perspective of People's Livelihood

The"Fengqiao Experience"has risen from the"local experience"in the early days to the"national experience"now.Although it has gone through twists and turns,it is full of exuberant and strong vitality.Fengqiao Experience is the experience of grass-roots mass governance based on people's livelihood and other factors,so this paper studies the challenges faced by the application of"Fengqiao Experience"and the internal relationship between the experience and people's livelihood from the perspective of people's livelihood and summarizes the realization path of carrying forward the"Fengqiao Experience"from the perspective of people's livelihood.Strengthening the construction of grass-roots Party organizations,taking the mass line and implementing autonomy,rule by virtue and rule by law are the ways to carry forward the"Fengqiao Experience"in the new era,which has certain guiding significance for reality.

The Emergence of Illiberal Democracy in the European Union:The Hungarian Case

In 2010,the Hungarian government established so-called“illiberal democracy.”Western courtiers have looked on with bewilderment over the past eight years at this political trajectory of Hungary.Some post-Communist countries that were committed to common European values,have already been implementing this illiberal democracy model.The perceived interests of the“nation”are taking centre stage and governments are subject to far fewer checks and balances.They are turning instead towards an alternative social,political,and economic model,in which the cultivation of traditional values and distinct national identities are of paramount ideological importance.This new model is frequently characterised by widespread,systematic state corruption,and an increasingly authoritarian political culture.The paper tries to shed light on the reasons of development of illiberal democracy in the European Union by examining the case in Hungary.Furthermore,the paper defines the price of partially giving up certain principles of liberal democracy,such as checks and balances,political pluralism,economic equality of market constituents,or the rule of law,in return of hoped greater economic and state efficiency.

On the Educational Thoughts in Dewey's Democracy and Education

Dewey is a famous American educator,and his Democracy and Education is a complete and systematic theoretical system of education,so it is know as the classics education, progressive education theory of the general program.There are many defects and deficiencies in the education of junior middle school in our country,the pragmatism education thought in the book has a great influence on the education of junior middle school in our country,so analysis of the educational thoughts of Dewey's Democracy and Education,such as "child centered theory", "school is society", education is "life", "learn from doing" and so on,this is to improve the history education of junior high school in our country and further promote the education reform of our country has a great positive significance.

On the Process and Rights in the Whole-process People’s Democracy

Theoretically, the whole-process people’s democracy involves five processes, namely, political process, policy process, urban and rural community governance process, enterprises and institutions management process, and international exchange process. Fach process includes several links which involve different democratic rights. To comprehensively promote the whole-process people’s democracy, it is necessary to make a detailed distinction between the democratic rights of each process, build a corresponding system and mechanism for the protection of rights, improve the ability of people in democracy, and establish the system and mechanism for evaluating the effect of democracy implementation.

On the Whole-Process People’s Democracy and the Construction of Citizens’ Cultural Quality

The Whole-Process People’s Democracy has become an important proposition of the socialist modernization democratic theory with Chinese characteristics,and has important value for the development of the new form of human civilization.The Whole-Process People’s Democracy is not only a“democracy”system,its focus is to achieve“people’s democracy”,its unique feature is to surpass“non process”democracy with the“Whole-Process”,and create a new governance path of a new form of human civilization.Of course,the emphasis of people’s democracy on the consciousness of people’s subjective participation in the whole process also puts forward corresponding requirements for the cultural quality construction of Chinese social citizens in the new era,so it is also of great significance to pay attention to the cultivation of citizens’public spirit.

A Brief Reflection on the Development of American Democracy

The three most important documents in American history were the Declaration of Independence,the US Constitution and the Gettysburg Address.They contributed to American democracy from different aspect.The following essay will briefly discuss the development of American democracy since the foundation of the US.