信访机制的民主化——协商民主的视角

当下中国在强调信访法制化的同时，对信访民主化的重视也应得到加强。协商民主作为社会冲突的协调机制具有其他治理机制无法比拟的优势，信访民主化可以成为解决“信访悖论”的主要路径。中国基层三个典型的信访协商民主个案表明，信访协商民主具有明显的优势，在实践中也存在一些问题。信访民主化路径的关键在于创新性地整合各种协商民主方法，将信访的正式协商与非正式协商有机结合起来，在已有的实践经验的基础上不断完善，构建出一套符合中国国情的信访民主机制和制度，包括信访协商的包容与中立机制、专职化和社会化机制及相关衔接机制等

Democratizing the Practice of ″Letters and Visits″ in China: A Deliberative Democracy Perspective

China has experienced rapid economic growth and a sharp rise in social conflicts and mass incidents since the launch of its reforms in the late 1970s. The petitioning institution of ″letters and visits″, which was designed to deal with ordinary citizens' complaints and petitions, has been caught in a paradox. The more power the institution gains, the more petitions it attracts. The draft law on ″letters and visits″ and the debates on how to reform this institution have centered on as well as divided on the two extreme positions of ″expanding″ and ″weakening″ the body. These debates have largely ignored the democratization of the petitioning institution of letters and visits. This paper argues that local deliberative democracy, such as citizen juries, has the advantage of addressing and managing petitions and complaints and it should become the main resolution to the ″paradox revolving around the petitions process″. China started public hearings on petitions more than 10 years ago, and the local deliberative democratic mechanism has been introduced. Such a process reflects the transformation of the petitioning institution of letters and visits from government affairs to public affairs, and from the secrecy of the state to the transparency of public concern and participation.Through a comparative study of the three cases of how local deliberative democracy addresses petitions at the grass-roots level in China, this paper finds that the cases share some common features- equal dialogues with petitioners, fair and reasonable decisions through public deliberation, and simplified and transparent procedures. These features have greatly improved the legality of the petitioning institution of letters and visits. However, such practices of local deliberative democracy also suffer from some shortcomings: they are time and labor-intensive, they produce a trade-off between the representativeness of public consultation and the quality of deliberation, and they create tensions between authority and control. To improve the practice of deliberative democracy at the local level, it is critical to innovatively integrate various methods of deliberative democracy, to combine formal deliberation and informal consultation, to set up a set of standards that are applicable to China, to ensure inclusiveness and neutrality, and to professionalize the function of citizen juries. Two core issues still need to be considered in the future. First, how to construct a consultative mechanism to deal with claims, and second, how to construct an independent third-party mechanism to handle complaints.