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 

摘要： 具备一定的形式，民主的理想和原则才能够转变为民主的现实。设计一套可行的政治技术，民主也才能够运转起来。选举民主主要是通过“投票”来实现的，协商民主主要是通过“开会”来实现的。作为支撑协商民主的政治技术，“开会”的功能在于实现利益相关者的在场参与、实现个体利益诉求的真实表达、实现参与者面对面的直接对话和交流、实现偏好转换和共识达成。明确“开会”作为协商民主的主要实现形式，其意义在于，推动民主价值、民主原则经由制度安排和程序设计变成现实；充分利用已有政治组织方式实现协商民主的针对性、现实性和有效性；明晰协商民主实现形式的基本次序和结构，避免因为形式泛化的倾向而导致协商民主的庸俗化、空洞化。面对“开会”过程可能出现的政治控制、政治冲突、官僚主义和技术奴役等挑战，需要通过认知、权利、技术和绩效改进，实现基于人的尊严和解放的民主发展。

关键词: 协商民主, 政治技术, 民主程序, 开会