族际政治民主化:多民族国家建设和谐社会的重要课题

多民族国家社会和谐的一个重要方面是族际关系的和谐。多民族国家族际关系的核心是政治关系。多民族国家采取民主的方式处理族际政治关系,不仅是主权在民原则的自然引申,也是国家公共权力合法性的题中之意,更是多民族国家创造各民族政治认同、维护民族团结、建构和谐社会的制度保障。当代世界许多国家的少数民族政策已经倾向于承认和重视少数民族政治权利的制度保障,表现出族际政治民主化的趋势。本文试从国际比较的视角,从理论和实践两个方面,对当代多民族国家内部族际政治民主化问题略做探讨,以期有助于我国在建设社会主义和谐社会中充分重视民族关系的政治协调和制度完善。

Democratization of Inter-Nationality Politics: An Important Topic for Building a Harmonious Society in Multi-National State

In a multi-national state, an important aspect of social harmony liesin the relations between nationalities, with their political relations as the core. To deal with their political relations by means of democracy not only represents the natural extensionof the principle of sovereignty by the people, but also comes directly from the legitimacy of the public power of the state. Moreover, it is the institutional guarantee for multi-national state to create political identity among all the nationalities, safeguard the national unity, and build a harmonious society. In contemporarytime, theinstitutional guarantee for political rights of the ethnic groups has been recognized and emphasized in the minority policy of many countries, thus forming a tendency of democratization of inter-nationality politics. From the international or comparative perspective, this paper makes a discussion about the issue both in terms of theory and practice, in a hope that political coordination and institutional improvement will be given full attention to in China's strive to build a socialistharmonious society.