关键词: 精英民主 , 竞争性选举 , 精英统治 , 大众参与

Abstract: Elite democracy is an empirical theory of democracy based on the western political practice，which recognizes democracy as a type of political method and political procedure，and the core of it is the political elites as the key players of the democracy to compete for peoples votes in regular electionsCompetitive elections insure the power used by elites with the characters of openness and accountability and insure the rule of elites as democracyThe dilemma in the model of elite democracy is that it is with many contradictions，such as，the contradiction of the low capabilities existing in public and public electing elites，the rule of elites and the digestion of democracy，the periodicity of competitive election and the continuity of elites responsibility，etcThis paper argues that democratic theory should not only be empirical oriented，but also should take into account of some value emphasis，and the theory of elite democracy and the theory of public participative democracy should be complementary and mutually corrected

Key words: elite democracy , competitive election , the rule of elite , public participation