批判与超越——精英民主理论评析

【作者】 林毅；

【导师】 杨海蛟；

【作者基本信息】 中国社会科学院研究生院 ， 政治学理论， 2011， 博士

【摘要】 精英民主理论作为现当代西方民主理论的重要组成部分,在其诞生以来的百余年间,基于有别于传统自由主义的视角,旨在解释和重构西方民主体系,形成不同于古典民主的民主观及其注重实证研究的研究范式。毫无疑问,精英民主理论在打破单一的传统自由主义垄断话语霸权的局面,朝向以自由主义为主体,多元化民主理论并存的转变过程中,发挥了一定的作用,对20世纪民主主义者寻求民主的实现路径产生过重大影响,并在发展过程中表现出某种规律性。从一定意义上而言,可以将精英民主理论的演变视为整个20世纪西方民主理论体系变迁的一个缩影。尽管精英民主理论具有不可替代的意义和价值,然而由于受到其自身特质的影响和一些现实政治原因的限制,在以往国内对西方民主理论的研究中,关于精英民主的研究未得到应有的重视,评价也多有偏颇失实之处。为弥补这一缺憾,本文试图在系统梳理西方精英民主理论产生、发展、演变的过程、规律,概述其基本观点的基础上,重点论述其竞争性民主理论、精英政治及寡头铁律等核心观点,同时通过分析精英民主与自由主义民主和多元主义民主理论之间的关系,将精英民主理论纳入整个20世纪西方民主理论变革的视野中予以评析。对于中国的民主问题研究者而言,精英民主理论的最大价值就在于提供了一个民主理论的分析视角,当然,也不应忽视由其阶级立场和立论初衷所决定的基本理论和研究范式的双重缺陷。本文拟通过客观、全面地评价其价值和分析其局限性,并以此为切入点超越精英民主理论构建的话语平台,对如何理解和阐释民主作出新的解答。更多还原

【Abstract】 As an important component of modern democratic theory, elitist democratic theory has a history of hundreds years. Based on the perspective different from traditional liberal democracy , the theory tried to explain and restructuring the basis of Western democratic system. It had a significant impact on remodeling the study path of the 20th century democrats because of the unique notion on democracy and the empirical research paradigm. Elitist democratic theory play a role of connecting link in the changing process form the traditional hegemony of liberalism to the coexistence condition of liberalism and pluralistic democratic theory. The development trend of the theory is a miniature of the change of democratic theory in the 20th Century.Although the elitist democratic theory has the irreplaceable value, but it has not got enough attention in previous studies in China and the evaluation toward the theory was also partially because of its own theoretical characteristics and some practical limitations for political reasons. To compensate for this shortcoming, the research tries to systematizing the development process and basic notions of elitist democratic theory, analyzing its core ideas include the theories of competitive democracy, elite politics and Iron law of oligarchy. And then, the analysis on elitist democratic theory will be incorporated into the great vision of Western democratic theory development in 20th century by summarizing the relationships between elitist democracy, liberal democracy and pluralistic democracy.For the Chinese researchers who care about the question of democracy,the most important value of elitist democratic theory is that it provides a unique perspective for democratic problems research which has the subtle relationship with liberal democratic theory. At the same time, the dual defects of basic theory and research paradigm should not be overlooked which caused by class position and the original intention of research. Based on the evaluation of its value and limitations objectively and comprehensively, this article also attempts to go beyond the research platform of the elitist democratic theory, and give a new answer to understanding and interpretation of democracy.更多还原