关键词: 协商民主, 政治技术, 民主程序, 开会

Abstract: Democracy's ideals and principles can only materialize into reality through structured forms. Designing feasible political technologies is essential to operationalize democracy. While electoral democracy primarily relies on “voting”, consultative democracy is chiefly realized through “meetings”. The functions of “meetings”, which serve as a core political technology underpinning consultative democracy, include ensuring onsite participation of stakeholders, facilitating authentic expression of individual interests, enabling facetoface dialogue among participants, and achieving preference transformation and consensusbuilding. Clarifying “meetings” as the primary mechanism for consultative democracy is critical, which provide implications including: translating democratic values into practice through institutional arrangements and procedural design, leveraging existing political organizational methods to enhance the relevance and effectiveness of consultative democracy, and defining the implementation sequence to prevent the vulgarization of consultative democracy due to excessive formalization. To address challenges in the process, such as political control, conflicts, bureaucracy, and technological subjugation, improvements in terms of cognition, rights, technologies, and performance are imperative, ensuring democratic progress rooted in human dignity and liberation.

Key words: consultative democracy, political technologies, democratic procedures, meetings