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Authoritarian Deliberation: The Deliberative Turn in Chinese Political Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2011

Baogang He  and
Mark E. Warren
Baogang He
Affiliation:
School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University, Australia, and Tianjin Normal University, China. E-mail: baogang.he@deakin.edu.au
Mark E. Warren
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia. E-mail: warren@politics.ubc.ca
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Abstract

Authoritarian rule in China is now permeated by a wide variety of deliberative practices. These practices combine authoritarian concentrations of power with deliberative influence, producing the apparent anomaly of authoritarian deliberation. Although deliberation is usually associated with democracy, they are distinct phenomena. Democracy involves the inclusion of individuals in matters that affect them through distributions of empowerments such as votes and rights. Deliberation is a mode of communication involving persuasion-based influence. Combinations of non-inclusive power and deliberative influence—authoritarian deliberation—are readily identifiable in China, probably reflecting failures of command authoritarianism under the conditions of complexity and pluralism produced by market-oriented development. The concept of authoritarian deliberation frames two possible trajectories of political development in China: the increasing use of deliberative practices stabilizes and strengthens authoritarian rule, or deliberative practices serve as a leading edge of democratization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 2011 , pp. 269 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

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