Cai Wencheng and Liu Bojian: The Logical Rationale and Improvement Path of Whole-Process People's Democracy Empowering the Modernization of a Super-Large-Scale Country
The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee pointed out: "Developing whole-process people's democracy is an essential requirement of Chinese-path modernization." As a "great creation of the CPC in uniting and leading the people to pursue, develop, and realize democracy," whole-process people's democracy is a unique value norm and guide for action rooted in China’s national conditions and built upon the logic of the people. In leading the people to build and advance Chinese-path modernization, the CPC must persist in putting the people first, implement people's democracy, and gradually unfold work around the value concepts and practical requirements of whole-process people's democracy.
Chinese-path modernization is the modernization of a huge population. Looking across human history, no country has yet completed the process of modernization with a total population exceeding one billion. Due to their massive populations, ultra-large-scale states are highly susceptible to an "overload" of government governance capacity, which brings complex national governance difficulties and ultimately leads to the stagnation of the modernization process. However, "whole-process people's democracy contains profound concepts of democratic governance, a scientific logic of governance, and effective governance mechanisms." With its immense governance efficacy, it transforms the "scale problem" into a "scale advantage," becoming the effective answer for the CPC in leading the people to crack the governance puzzles of an ultra-large-scale state and advance its modernization.
At the same time, democracy is historical, concrete, and evolving; the actual circumstances and specific backgrounds faced by the modernization of an ultra-large-scale state are also constantly shifting and evolving. Democratic methods must correspond and match with objective conditions. Therefore, conducting an in-depth study of the operational mechanisms of whole-process people's democracy under the governance condition of "ultra-large scale"—and exploring the underlying logic by which whole-process people's democracy cracks scale-based governance puzzles—is of great significance for enhancing the governance efficacy of whole-process people's democracy in ultra-large-scale states and further advancing their modernization.
I. Governance Puzzles of Ultra-large-scale States and Their Manifestations
Conceptually, "scale" can be deconstructed into two dimensions: first, the spatial extension of a political entity; and second, the size of its population. However, existing empirical research has confirmed a correlation between territorial area and population size, and compared to the spatial dimension, the measurement of the population dimension is more intuitive and more closely linked to political practice. Therefore, population size is generally regarded as the core factor affecting political scale and the primary object of investigation regarding scale issues. Consequently, the modernization of an ultra-large-scale state implies completing the modernization process within a country of huge population size, which is in itself a complex systematic project. In the modernization process of an ultra-large-scale state, the country's economy, politics, culture, and ecological environment undergo constant changes, placing higher demands on national governance.
In a general sense, population growth can bring a corresponding scale effect, bursting with huge potential in economic development, industrial clustering, and technological inheritance. However, at the level of national governance, an expansion in population scale not only fails to bring significant marginal utility but instead leads to an increase in governance content and difficulty, resulting in governance failure. Aristotle believed that "it is difficult for everyone to obey the laws (and customs) and maintain good order. Those cities which have a reputation for being well-governed are invariably those which have a limit on their population." Once daily needs are met, population growth will shake the centripetal force and political order of the city-state, thereby destroying its political stability. Since the dawn of the modern era, democracy has become a common value of all humanity, and democratic governance has become the essential attribute of modern national governance. Yet even within the framework of representative democracy, population scale—constrained by time costs—still directly affects the breadth of the masses' participation in political life and the effectiveness of their interest expression, restricting the operational efficiency and governance results of national institutions.
In summary, due to the popularization of democratic concepts and the establishment of democratic systems, the essence of modern national governance is a form of democratic governance. This determines that national governance necessarily exists within the context and scope of democracy. In the democratic governance of a modern state, a larger population scale will greatly throttle national governance capacity, bringing governance challenges and crises. In an ultra-large-scale state with a population exceeding one billion, these dilemmas of democratic governance are further exacerbated, triggering a series of complex governance puzzles.
First is the puzzle of "interest differentiation". The value of democracy lies in the people being masters of the country; the people are the subjects of the nation’s political life. Therefore, when measuring democratic performance, one must look specifically at whether the operation of democratic institutions can truly solve the people’s immediate problems and realize the maximization of the public interest. However, throughout the history of human civilization, democracy—as a political form with a long history—has faced much criticism for its ineffective integration of public interests; for a long time, it was depicted as a "spectacle of turbulence and contention." In the governance of an ultra-large-scale state, the massive population scale derives even more complex interest demands and relations. Due to the interaction and gaming between interest groups, the independence of various interest subjects and the antagonism between them are constantly intensifying. The inherent defects of democracy at the level of interest integration become further highlighted, easily triggering political conflicts characterized by "forming cliques to attack outsiders" [1] and mutual obstruction, fundamentally shaking the political stability of the ultra-large-scale state.
Second is the puzzle of "lack of responsiveness". Subject to objective spatio-temporal conditions, for a modern state, the vertical dimension of the governance system is often more important and urgent than the horizontal dimension within the overall pattern of national governance. Under the vertical governance system of a modern state, the will and interests of the masses can mostly only be transmitted through their representatives. However, can these representatives fully represent the will of hundreds of millions of people, adequately express their demands, and scientifically formulate public policies that cover the entire country? At the same time, this representative nature of the people is further weakened by its procedural elections, which can exacerbate the disconnection between government departments and the masses. This leaves the system lacking efficient processing and positive feedback when facing governance overload caused by population scale, making it difficult to respond truly, accurately, and timely to the needs of the masses.
Third is the puzzle of "distortion of demands". From a utilitarian perspective, the ultimate goal of any polity should be to increase the happiness of all people, or to realize a certain "common good." Thus, in the governance of modern states, democracy is essentially a means of governance that uses the state apparatus to integrate preferences and select policies. It is generally believed that elections are the most efficient form of democracy for aggregating citizen will and formulating government policy, specifically manifested as a simplified "ballot-based system" [2] guided by the majority principle. However, in an ultra-large-scale state, "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem" logically proves that due to the diverse preferences brought by a large population, pure procedural elections cannot achieve a complete integration of individual preferences. That is, it is impossible to realize the collective social welfare expected by public policy. This inevitably leads to narrowness and distortion in the expression of public demands, and even derives a series of "bad policies" that do not conform to the people's will.
Fourth is the puzzle of "obstruction of participation". Looking at the essence of governance, no matter what form of governance is adopted under any national system, the issue of political participation cannot be avoided. Broad political participation is the prerequisite for the legitimation and scientific basis of public policy, and a basic requirement for strengthening governance efficacy and improving performance. However, in the democratic governance of an ultra-large-scale state, population scale greatly limits the breadth of political participation and increases its difficulty. Robert Dahl once performed a simple calculation: in an "ideal city-state" of only ten thousand people, "if every citizen were allowed 10 minutes of speaking time, the meeting would require more than 200 working days. If every citizen were given 30 minutes, the meeting would last nearly 2 years." Under the conditions of an ultra-large-scale state, due to the insufficient participation of the masses in public affairs, social "political apathy" is easily bred and spread, thereby reducing the enthusiasm of the masses for political participation and weakening the democratic foundation of ultra-large-scale state governance.
II. The Profound Foundation of Whole-Process People's Democracy Empowering the Modernization of Ultra-large-scale States
The modernization of an ultra-large-scale state brings immense challenges to national governance. To advance this modernization, one must first crack the governance puzzles of the ultra-large-scale state and further improve national governance capacity. Currently, supported by a theoretical, practical, and historical foundation, whole-process people's democracy demonstrates significant governance advantages, making it possible to solve these puzzles and advance modernization.
(i) Theoretical Foundation: Marxist Theory of National Governance Provides Scientific Guidance Cracking the governance puzzles of ultra-large-scale states requires guidance and regulation from scientific governance theory. Marxism, as our powerful ideological weapon for grasping laws and pursuing truth, contains rich governance concepts and values, demonstrating strong vitality in the process of combining with China’s specific realities. The Marxist theory of national governance is an important theoretical basis for advancing the modernization of national governance in the New Era.
In the vision of Marx and Engels, the state, as a historical category, is itself the product of irreconcilable class contradictions. Therefore, in a class society, national governance is essentially the governance of the ruling class. To conduct proletarian national governance, one must first "raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." Thus, the democratic system is the highest form of the state system and a necessary prerequisite for national governance. Specific to socialist countries, national governance requires that "all political and economic work of the state power be led by the Communist Party, the conscious vanguard of the working class," realizing the self-management of the people through their democratic participation, thereby promoting the healthy operation of the state and ultimately achieving the free and comprehensive development of every individual. In other words, only by persisting in the leadership of the proletarian party and establishing a true democratic system can thorough national governance be achieved.
On this basis, the theory of national governance with Chinese characteristics—as the Sinicized and modernized Marxist theory of national governance—is built upon the practice of people's democracy, achieving a coupling of people's democracy and national governance. On one hand, it treats people's democracy as the value pursuit of national governance; governance must deeply implement democratic values, fundamentally reflecting the people's will and their status as subjects, and achieving broad political participation. On the other hand, it treats people's democracy as the basic path of national governance; governance must be supported by the system of people's democracy to coordinate diverse interests, resolve social contradictions, and ensure the democratization of public policy. Overall, Marxist national governance theory uses democracy as a condition for governance, effectively coordinating the complex relationship between whole-process people's democracy and the governance of an ultra-large-scale state.
(ii) Practical Foundation: The Explorations of Democratic Governance by the Party and the People Provide Valuable Experience Since the dawn of the modern era, in the process of merging democratic values with national governance, the CPC has led the people to successfully establish a democratic order and framework in an ultra-large-scale state like China, gradually blazing a path of democratic governance with Chinese characteristics. In the long-term exploration of the Party and the people, socialist democratic governance with Chinese characteristics has broken the path-dependency on Western democracy, expanding and innovating the methods and means of democratic governance.
As early as the period of the New Democratic Revolution, the CPC, rooted in Chinese reality, led the people to create independent democratic governance practices. In the process of carrying out the Land Reform, the CPC shattered the old traditional "gentry governance" [3] model and established primary-level Party organizations as the front line of democratic governance. On this basis, Mao Zedong clarified...
The "Three-Thirds System" [4] for organizing political power—stipulating that "Communist Party members should only occupy one-third of positions in government organs, so as to attract a broad range of non-Party personages to participate in the government"—ensured that the masses gained the opportunity and right to participate in and discuss state affairs and express their demands. In rural areas with low literacy rates, to ensure the normal operation of grassroots democratic governance, the Communist Party of China replaced the high-threshold "ballot vote" with the "bean vote." [5] This broke down the literacy barriers required for elections and cultivated the political participation consciousness of the masses through a concise and efficient form of voting. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, democratic governance shifted toward systematization and normalization, becoming fixed through law in various institutional forms. Among these, the system of people's congresses, as the fundamental political system of the state, serves as the important institutional carrier for realizing people's democracy and provides the fundamental institutional guarantee for democratic governance. Following the Reform and Opening-up, under the strong guarantee of the rule of law, the practical fields of democratic governance have become increasingly rich and their scope of application broader. In the realm of grassroots governance, relying on diversified grassroots primary-level mass autonomous organizations, the grassroots democratic system has realized the self-management of the masses and expanded their orderly participation. In this process, the political institutions of democratic governance have been continuously established and perfected, gradually developing into an institutional system composed of fundamental, basic, important, and specific institutions. Various democratic institutions are linked horizontally and connected vertically, playing unique functions in state governance and significantly improving the efficacy and performance of democratic governance.
(3) Historical Foundation: The state governance traditions of ancient China provide useful lessons. Compared to the West, China's democratic tradition is thin, yet the challenge of scale has existed since antiquity. Long before democratic values were introduced, China’s governance practices regarding a megacity-sized state had spanned over a millennium. Although state governance in ancient China did not follow democratic values, it constructed a relatively systematic governance system in the process of managing a super-large-scale country. This expanded the path and horizon of contemporary Chinese democratic governance and provided useful historical lessons for whole-process people's democracy to solve the governance puzzles of a super-large-scale country and advance Chinese-path modernization.
Grassroots social autonomy was an important component of ancient Chinese state governance. Under the system of unified imperial power, in order to achieve effective central management of local areas and form a stable social order, grassroots social autonomy below the county level gradually became the basic form of ancient Chinese state governance starting from the Han Dynasty. The essence of this autonomy was to borrow and coordinate the power of local patriarchal clan organizations—that is, to mobilize social resources to serve state governance—thereby achieving the unification of vertical central management and limited social autonomy. In this process, the state's administrative power was gradually delegated to the grassroots, broadening the governance authority and responsibilities of grassroots society, thus alleviating the governance burden at the national level. However, constrained by ancient state capacity and management technology, this type of autonomy possessed considerable looseness and fragmentation; when the authority of the central government weakened, it easily produced a series of social problems such as localism and ethnic separatism, triggering governance crises. Beyond grassroots autonomy, ancient China also conducted meticulous divisions of administrative levels, achieving multi-layered and collaborative governance. In the evolution of administrative systems from the enfeoffment system to the commandery-county system and finally to the province system, ancient China gradually established a unitary state governance system combining central concentration of power with local devolution. It established multi-level state administrative organs to ensure that local governments maintained a certain degree of autonomy on the basis of obeying the central government's unified decision-making, thereby improving local governance efficiency. In essence, starting from the relationship between "centralization" and "devolution," the state governance of ancient China gradually achieved the coordination and unification of the two in specific governance practices. This preliminarily achieved social stability in a super-large-scale country and completed effective governance to a certain extent. Its comprehensive use of various governance forms, such as grassroots autonomy and hierarchical governance, also provided ideas and approaches for the democratic participation of the masses.
III. The Internal Mechanism of Whole-Process People's Democracy Empowering Chinese-Path Modernization
The report to the 20th CPC National Congress pointed out: "Our country's population of over 1.4 billion is moving into a modern society as a whole, a scale exceeding the total population of existing developed countries. The difficulty and complexity are unprecedented, and the development path and advancement methods must necessarily possess their own characteristics." Addressing the complexity brought by a super-large-scale country, whole-process people's democracy fully integrates various advantageous resources. Through its unique mechanism of action and operational mechanism, it resolves the governance puzzles of a super-large-scale country from multiple dimensions and powerfully advances Chinese-path modernization.
(1) Resolving the "interest differentiation" puzzle through the "unification of Party leadership and putting the people first." From the practical experience of democracy, due to differences in interest demands, the full expression of political topics by diverse subjects inevitably leads to the differentiation and confrontation of public interests; this is determined by both the value requirements and the procedural processes of democracy. Therefore, facing the "interest differentiation" brought by a super-large-scale country, democratic institutions and norms inevitably face the problem of weak interest integration in the process of balancing interest relations and realizing interest sharing. However, "the leadership of the Communist Party of China is the fundamental guarantee for the development of whole-process people's democracy in China." As a political party representing the overall interests of the broad masses of the people, the CPC takes social integration as its basic function. In the process of the modernization of a super-large-scale country, whole-process people's democracy is always closely linked with Party leadership, taking Party leadership as the highest political principle, thereby achieving the coordination and unification of diverse interests.
From the laws of modernization, "the sequence of modernization is generally that democratization lags behind industrialization." Against the backdrop of China's highly effective industrial construction, whole-process people's democracy both carries the value pressure bestowed by the modernization process and contains the governance demands brought by modernization dilemmas. Based on this, whole-process people's democracy introduces democratic methods completely into the governance system of a super-large-scale country, truly upholding the principal status of the people. While fully implementing democratic values, it expresses and realizes the interests of the masses. However, the democratic process is both a process of aggregating public opinion and a process of dispersing power; without precise orientation and correct political guidance, democracy will only degenerate into a game for a few politicians or become swaying and turbulent fragmented politics. Therefore, "in a large country like China, it is not easy to truly express and realize the will of more than 1.4 billion people; there must be strong and powerful unified leadership." To address the differentiation and conflict of diverse interests, whole-process people's democracy unifies Party leadership and putting the people first. On one hand, it upholds Party leadership, resolutely safeguards the authority of the CPC Central Committee, and maintains the direction of action for governing a super-large-scale country. Through the Party's comprehensive leadership and the centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee, it represents the overall interests of the broad masses, achieving a high degree of consistency between people's interests and national interests. On the other hand, it persists in putting the people first, resolutely implements democratic values, always places the people's interests in the highest position, and provides legal and effective channels for the expression of those interests, easing the complex demands brought by diverse interests through genuine and effective political participation. Thus, whole-process people's democracy achieves the unification of Party leadership and putting the people first, resolving the "interest differentiation" puzzle in the governance of a super-large-scale country through correct principled guidance.
(2) Resolving the "lack of responsiveness" puzzle through the "combination of vertical and horizontal democracy." It is generally believed that a political system is a complex interlaced system, possessing both top-down vertical hierarchical relations and horizontal internal relations at the same level. Specifically within the category of democracy, it can be divided into vertical democracy and horizontal democracy. Horizontal democracy refers to flat democratic processes such as elections and participation conducted at the same level, while vertical democracy is equivalent to representative democracy. In this sense, the root of the "lack of responsiveness" puzzle is the incoordination and asymmetry between the government's response capacity and the scale of the population. That is, in a single vertical democratic structure, a small number of representatives cannot fully capture the interest needs of the entire people, thereby weakening the government's responsiveness, leading to lagged or deficient political responses, and subsequently restricting the governance effectiveness of a super-large-scale country.
Guaranteed by a complete system of institutions, whole-process people's democracy integrates direct democracy and indirect democracy, forming a "governance-based democratic system that is vertical from top to bottom and horizontal from left to right," significantly enhancing the responsiveness of government departments. The historical practice of democracy proves that, due to time and space constraints, direct democracy with high governance performance is not feasible in modern state governance. However, if democratic units are divided hierarchically into "State—Province—City—County—Grassroots Township," and the massive political body is refined into several tiny democratic units, direct democracy becomes possible once again in the grassroots field. Whole-process people's democracy emphasizes the "whole process." Direct democracy in the grassroots field not only possesses a complete electoral procedure but also covers diverse democratic practices such as consultation, decision-making, management, and oversight beyond elections, forming a comprehensive system of horizontal democracy and achieving direct participation by the people in grassroots affairs. Through horizontal grassroots democracy, the governance overload brought by population scale is instead transformed into the momentum for political participation, and the vitality of democratic governance is released through grassroots autonomous practices. In summary, regarding the "lack of responsiveness" puzzle caused by governance overload: on one hand, whole-process people's democracy relies on the system of grassroots mass self-governance; within the structure of horizontal democracy, it encourages the masses to self-digest and self-manage the minor and mundane affairs of daily life, thereby reducing the input pressure on government departments. On the other hand, whole-process people's democracy is rooted in the system of people's congresses; within the structure of vertical democracy, it places the urgent and difficult major issues that the people care about into the fold for centralized advancement, thereby improving the output efficiency of government departments. Therefore, whole-process people's democracy achieves the combination of vertical and horizontal democracy, resolving the "lack of responsiveness" puzzle in the governance of a super-large-scale country through strong government capacity.
(3) Resolving the "distortion of demands" puzzle through the "coordination of electoral democracy and consultative democracy." In modern political science research, a relatively profound and common classification is the formal dichotomy of democracy into electoral (aggregative) democracy and consultative democracy. These two forms of democracy follow opposite underlying logics: one is the confirmation and expression of the general will, and the other is the creation and reconciliation of the general will. In modern state governance, electoral democracy is an important form for the people to realize their democratic rights, essentially emphasizing procedural democracy; however, it can trigger the "distortion of demands" puzzle in expressing public opinion due to the complexity of individual preferences. Consultative democracy overcomes this defect; in concrete practice, the masses rely on systematic communication platforms to carry out extensive dialogue and discussion regarding their own demands, essentially emphasizing substantive democracy. However, the complex content of consultative democracy is inevitably constrained by political scale; applying consultative democracy indiscriminately to all issues is clearly inappropriate and unrealistic.
Objectively speaking, the key to governing a super-large-scale country is to anchor the needs and concerns of the masses and achieve good governance through public policy. In this process, how whole-process people's democracy ensures the authenticity and effectiveness of people's interests during information transmission—avoiding the distortion of public demands and truly achieving the goal of "broadly building consensus, seeking the greatest common denominator, and drawing the largest possible concentric circles" [6] so as to formulate public policies consistent with the people's interests—has become the most difficult technical problem in the governance process. To this end, based on China's national conditions and realities, whole-process people's democracy synthesizes the two forms of electoral and consultative democracy, achieving the unification of procedural and substantive democracy, as well as the unification of democratic form and content. It has created diverse democratic channels and rich democratic practices, truly expressing the people's demands. At the level of aggregating public opinion and policy formulation, whole-process people's democracy affirms the procedural necessity of electoral democracy, completing the screening and integration of the people's will through the step-by-step election of deputies to people's congresses. Utilizing the platform of the People's Congress, it persists in democratic centralism throughout the expression and decision-making processes, efficiently formulating public policies aggregated from public opinion via the system of voting. To address the information loss and aggregation failure caused by electoral procedures, whole-process people's democracy further affirms the value legitimacy of consultative democracy. Relying on multi-level democratic consultation platforms, it resolves social contradictions and builds social consensus through dialogue and communication, enhancing the systematic understanding of various social subjects regarding relevant issues through close interaction. Therefore, whole-process people's democracy achieves the coordination of electoral democracy and consultative democracy, resolving the "distortion of demands" puzzle in the governance of a super-large-scale country through the complete expression of will.
(4) Resolving the "participation obstruction" puzzle through the "convergence of digital democracy and traditional democracy." From the original logic of institutional operation...
“Democracy is determined by participation.” However, within a megascale state, the forms, channels, and content of political participation are significantly constrained. Clearly, relying on traditional physical media such as face-to-face dialogue or physical voting makes achieving broad political participation nearly impossible in a megascale state. To truly implement the relevant requirements of “expanding the orderly political participation of the people,” it is necessary to transform participatory tools and improve participatory efficiency. Currently, technological progress has birthed entirely new forms of realizing democracy and has updated traditional modes of state governance. The integration of digital technology with democratic politics has opened up cyberspace—a field of practice possessing both virtuality and reality—and constructed an important platform for converging public opinion and strengthening interaction between the government and society. The confluence of digital democracy and traditional democracy has already become a vital characteristic and developmental trend of whole-process people’s democracy.
Based on digital technology, whole-process people’s democracy has achieved the transparency of grievance processing, information management, and government governance, constructing an entirely new form of political participation. Regarding the possibility of political participation, digital technology has broken through the space-time barriers brought about by political scale. Leveraging online democratic battlefronts such as government websites and administrative APPs, it has realized the full-process informatization of processing citizens’ grievances, overcoming the information blockages and lags caused by political scale. Regarding the enthusiasm for political participation, based on public choice theory, individual citizens will inevitably factor various participation costs into their considerations to maximize the utility of their political participation. Digital technology has built more authentic and convenient channels for participation, lowering participation costs while increasing utility, thereby expanding the returns of participation. Regarding the effectiveness of political participation, digital technology has increased the rate of information transmission, breaking the asymmetry between political scale and political information. In the process of realizing the metabolism of democratic technology and the widespread popularization of democratic knowledge, it has prompted the transformation and upgrading of democratic governance modes, fundamentally changing inefficient and complex patterns of political participation. While expanding new avenues for participation, digital technology is also closely integrated with traditional democratic media, promoting digital practices of traditional democracy such as electronic elections and digital consultation, and building more authentic and convenient participatory channels. Furthermore, offline traditional democratic forms are still retained and play an important role in many settings due to the deliberative nature and rigor of the physical presence of subjects. In short, whole-process people’s democracy has achieved the unity of online and offline democracy and of digital and traditional democracy. The communication distance between the masses and government departments has been drastically shortened, and the temporal, spatial, and psychological costs of political participation have been significantly reduced. Thus, whole-process people’s democracy achieves a confluence of digital and traditional democracy, solving the “participation congestion” problem of megascale state governance through efficient participatory media.
IV. The Enhancement Path for Whole-Process People’s Democracy to Empower Megascale State Modernization
Whole-process people’s democracy has resolved the governance dilemmas of the megascale state, powerfully advanced the modernization of the megascale state, and achieved world-renowned successes. However, “compared to the new requirements of modernization and the new expectations of the people for democracy, China’s democracy still needs continuous development and perfection.” How to utilize democracy effectively, promote democracy, and continuously enhance the governance efficacy of whole-process people’s democracy—thereby further empowering the grand cause of Chinese-path modernization—still requires a coordinated effort across multiple levels and the synthesis of various factors.
(1) Value Guidance: Persisting in the People’s Standpoint and Empowering Megascale State Modernization with Advanced Concepts
To empower megascale state modernization with whole-process people’s democracy, one must grasp the conceptual factor of value and strengthen the value guidance of whole-process people’s democracy. At the normative level, the value of democracy is that the people are the masters of the country; this itself is a profound interpretation of the people’s standpoint. Whole-process people’s democracy is always for the people and relies on the people; through complete participatory practice, it achieves substantive democracy beyond mere elections and creates a new form of political civilization. Therefore, it is necessary to further persist in the people’s standpoint and promote correct democratic values, thereby safeguarding the interests of the people, stimulating the wisdom of the people, and mobilizing rich social resources for advancing megascale state modernization.
At the level of values, one must adhere to the people-centered value orientation—doing everything for the people and relying on the people for everything—to mobilize the broad forces for advancing megascale state modernization. On one hand, the masses must be treated as the subjects of political participation; the cultivation of the people’s democratic consciousness must be accelerated, and the enthusiasm and initiative of the masses for political participation must be mobilized. Historically, China’s democracy started late, its democratic tradition was relatively thin, and public democratic concepts were deeply influenced by the West, resulting in a shallow understanding of whole-process people’s democracy. To this end, education departments should strengthen relevant education, popularize democratic knowledge, and enhance political capacity to increase the masses’ emotional identification with whole-process people’s democracy and stimulate their spirit of being the masters of the country. On the other hand, the interests of the masses must be resolutely safeguarded, the will of the people respected, and the needs of the people met to enhance the masses’ perception and experience of democracy. In the process of whole-process people’s democracy empowering megascale state modernization, one should adhere to a livelihood-orientation and a people-orientation, taking the improvement of people’s well-being and the protection of their rights as policy objectives, smoothing the expression channels of the masses, optimizing political agenda-setting, and concentrating forces to overcome the urgent, difficult, and anxious problems [7] of the masses. Value issues are ideological, directional, and instructional; one must always persist in the people’s standpoint and encourage the masses to participate in the governance of the megascale state in a more autonomous and conscious manner, laying a solid mass foundation for megascale state modernization.
(2) Institutional Perfection: Improving the Democratic System and Empowering Megascale State Modernization with Systemic Institutions
To empower megascale state modernization with whole-process people’s democracy, one must grasp the structural factor of institutions and promote the institutional perfection of whole-process people’s democracy. In the process of megascale state modernization, the system of whole-process people’s democracy has performed important functions of discourse representation, practical shaping, and value guidance, playing a key role in regulation, orientation, support, and protection. Therefore, the institutional system of whole-process people’s democracy must be further improved, so that the status of the people as masters of the country is tangibly and realistically reflected in all aspects of national political and social life, achieving a qualitative improvement and optimization of democratic governance.
At the institutional level, targeting the governance dilemmas of the megascale state, the institutional perfection of whole-process people’s democracy should focus on two dimensions: improving the responsiveness of government departments and enhancing the transformative capacity of democratic participation. Regarding government response, the system of grassroots democracy must be improved. The grassroots democracy system takes the system of self-governance by the masses at the grassroots level as its primary content; relying on the people’s self-management, it can effectively refine, filter, and screen the suggestions and grievances of the masses. One should base efforts on grassroots consultation and other forms of grassroots democracy, improving the operating procedures of the grassroots democracy system and conducting micro-level designs for its implementation details. Meanwhile, the exemplary and leading role of Party organizations must be given full play, using intra-Party democracy to drive the construction of grassroots democracy, ensuring that its development is consistent with the Party’s line, principles, and policies, and perfecting the top-level design for grassroots democracy. Regarding democratic participation, the mechanism of consultative democracy must be improved. Consultative democracy itself is a vital link in realizing large-scale democratic governance; the process of broad consultation among the people is the process of transforming the outcomes of democratic participation into national governance efficacy. Improving the mechanism of consultative democracy requires both perfecting the consultation and collection mechanism prior to decision-making—formulating consultation agendas with the goals of deep interaction, full expression of opinions, and broad consensus-building—and perfecting the consultation participation mechanism during decision-making, utilizing various platforms to achieve multi-channel coordination and encouraging the masses to offer suggestions broadly. Furthermore, it requires perfecting the consultation feedback mechanism after decision-making to track, supervise, and respond to the implementation of consultation results, thereby improving the masses’ experience of consultation.
(3) Content Deepening: Innovating Methods and Empowering Megascale State Modernization with Comprehensive Participation
To empower megascale state modernization with whole-process people’s democracy, one must grasp the foundational factor of content and achieve the deepening of the content of whole-process people’s democracy. Democratic content reveals the methods of realizing democracy and is the most basic component within a democratic system. The content of whole-process people’s democracy is reflected in various Sinicized and modernized democratic forms—such as electoral democracy and consultative democracy—possessing a distinct practical quality. In the modernization process of the megascale state, democratic content is directly related to the functioning of whole-process people’s democracy, profoundly affecting its governance efficacy in the dimensions of the people’s democratic participation and their perception of democracy.
At the level of content, the methods of whole-process people’s democracy must be continuously innovated and improved, its content system enriched and expanded, and the replacement of old forms with new, concrete forms encouraged. First, the goal must be the enhancement of governance efficacy. General Secretary Xi Jinping noted: “Developing socialist democratic politics is an inherent requirement for promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity.” Whole-process people’s democracy is governance-oriented; its content deepening must unfold around the improvement of governance efficacy, actively integrating democratic methods into governance practice to promote the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. Second, the focus must be on forms of grassroots democracy. The grassroots level constitutes the “nerve endings” of national governance and is the basic engineering project that can best demonstrate the effectiveness of democracy and expand democratic perception. Currently, some regions in our country have explored various new forms of grassroots democracy, such as democratic deliberation councils and “new乡贤” (new rural sages) [8]. Based on these, the development of whole-process people’s democracy should be driven by the innovation of grassroots democratic forms, continuously enhancing the masses’ sense of participation and gain. Finally, the means must be the expansion of participatory channels. Political participation is the foundation of national governance; the breadth of participation directly affects the width of information acquisition and ultimately affects the precision of megascale state governance. New methods and ideas must be applied to innovate avenues and modes of political participation, lowering thresholds and restrictions, and making democratic practice more grounded in the “hustle and bustle of daily life” [9] through diverse and smooth channels of participation.
(4) Technological Support: Expanding Democratic Conditions and Empowering Megascale State Modernization with Innovative Technology
To empower megascale state modernization with whole-process people’s democracy, one must grasp the developmental factor of science and technology and solidify the technological support for whole-process people’s democracy. At present, the integration and penetration of science, technology, and socio-economic development are accelerating; the link between democracy and technology is becoming tighter, and the forms of realization, operating fields, and concrete shapes of whole-process people’s democracy are undergoing profound changes. One must develop the new democratic form of digital whole-process people’s democracy to expand the practical conditions of democratic politics, thereby increasing the breadth and depth of political participation and enhancing the governance effectiveness of whole-process people’s democracy.
At the technological level, the application of emerging technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence in the democratic field must be advanced, accelerating the informatized and networked transformation of whole-process people’s democracy to further empower megascale state modernization by reducing the costs of political participation. First, one must improve the digital linkage platforms of whole-process people’s democracy. Currently, governments at all levels have provided rich channels for political consultation and information disclosure through platforms like WeChat official accounts and "Mayor's Mailboxes." Yet, these platforms suffer from issues like complex operations and inconspicuous promotion, leading to difficulties in inputting demands and outputting responses. Therefore, technologies like big data should be effectively used to integrate massive amounts of public opinion, optimize platform layouts, and absorb suggestions and provide feedback tailored to the individual realities and needs of users. Second, one must improve the intelligent decision-making mechanisms of whole-process people’s democracy. At this stage, “with the assistance of decision-making intelligence, both government agencies and enterprises/institutions can conduct decision-making and management within a more rigid framework.” AI technology should be fully utilized to analyze the demands of the people and efficiently complete information processing, thereby reducing the cost of government decision-making and response. Third, one must build an information management system for whole-process people’s democracy. To ensure the procedural legitimacy of political participation, information review and management are of the utmost importance for the operation of democracy. Currently, some localities in China have established information platforms for the performance of duties by deputies to the People's Congresses, digitally recording their activities. This experience should be learned from, integrating information management modes such as process tracking and digital assessment into every link of whole-process people’s democracy, forming an organized and systematic democratic chain to supervise the effective operation of democratic governance.
About the Authors: Cai Wencheng is a Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Marxism, Lanzhou University. Liu Bojian is a Doctoral Student at the School of Marxism, Lanzhou University. Source: Ideological Front (思想战线), Issue 1, 2026.