Abstract
The Chinese Socialist (Marxist-Leninist) constitutional order has recently fully elaborated a theory and practice of democracy, one that has been offered as an alternative model to liberal democratic theory and practice. In contemporary China, this evolution has taken concrete form as the form of 全过程人民民主 (Whole Process People’s Democracy (WPPD)). This essay examines this emerging theory of Chinese democracy both within the structure of Chinese constitutionalism and as an expression of its Marxist-Leninist foundations. The essence of the distinction of this form of democratic theory with classical liberal democracy is the centrality of consultation rather than elections in this system; if liberal democracy is an essentially exogenous practice (elections as the primary expression of democratic practice), then Chinese WPPD takes an essentially endogenous form (built around well-organized systems of formal consultation). The essay first examines the structural and normative basis for WPPD. It then explores the pivotal role of structured and multilayered consultation in the construction of democratic institutions in China.
Lastly, it puts these two lines of examination together to consider the system’s rationale, one that is meant to overcome the contradictions between mass line democracy and the foundational constitutional principle of people’s democratic dictatorship while coordinating the roles of collective organizations under the leadership of the vanguard party. The consequences of this endogenous approach to the orientation of democratic theory are explored with comparisons to Cuban Marxist-Leninist practices and those of liberal democracy.
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