Workshop Presentation--"Whole Process People's Democracy"-- Public Law and Human Rights Forum, School of Law of City University of Hong Kong; "Exploring Cutting Edge Constitutional Issues in the "New Era" of China"

 

 

It was my great pleasure to have participated in the Workshop organized  by the Public Law and Human Rights Forum, School of Law of City University of Hong Kong. The workshop, entitled "Exploring Cutting Edge Constitutional Issues in the "New Era" of China," brought together scholars from Mainland China, Hong Kong and abroad to discuss pressing issues in Chinese constitutional research, including State-Party interactions, protection of fundamental rights, and challenges in constitutional implementation. Great thanks to the remarkable Guobin Zhu,  Director, Public Law and Human Rights Forum, CityU School of Law and Co-Associate Director, CityU Centre for Public Affairs and Law, City University of Hing Kong for making this all possible.

The workshop was part of a series of events that are being held around the drafting of what hopefully will be published as The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Constitutional Law (Guobin Zhu, Björn Ahl & Larry Catá Backer, eds.). 

My contribution focused on the development of Whole Process People's Democracy. It considers the development of dual track structures of endogenous (voting for representatives) and exogenous (collectivized popular consultations) democratic practices within and through the leadership and guidance of a vanguard party. These structures, long in the making had been effectively parallel structures of socialist democratic engagement. The exogenous element of democratic structuring is embedded in the People's Congress system; the mandatory structures of democratic consultation has emerged through the system of the CPPC and collective mass organizations, including the old United Front parties. The Decision/Resolution of the 3rd Plenum of the 20th CPC Congress, concluded in July 2024 formally embedded a principle of coordination among these two institutional elements. Together these elements constitute the whole of whole process peoples democracy.  Whole process people's democracy and its processes (especially) are then embedded in the evolving construct of socialist modernization and its high quality productive forces modalities. These then further integrate the political and consultative structures of democratic operation within the broader ideologies of the comprehensive development of all of the society's productive forces, now through focused innovation.  The essay first situates the "issue" of democratic expression its its core framework--the spectrum of possibilities within which it is possible to express premise of rule or governance by the people. It then contrasts the baseline approaches of liberal democracy's centering of exogenous  democratic practices (through the election fo representatives) with the expression of Chinese Marxist-Leninist democratic practices through endogenous (institutionalized consultation) approach. 

The PPT of the presentation of the contribution follows below. The discussion daft may be accessed here.