在台灣我們因為民主的發展成就而驕傲，但總是可以看到政黨為其利益所鬥爭和不佳的決策品質。而晚近關於民主理論的研究有一個明顯的審議轉向，審議民主理論試圖解決現在自由民主制度所產生的諸多問題，提倡一種更好的民主參與模式。簡而言之，審議民主理論的理念是強調決策都必須要來自於自由而平等的公民之間的討論，而這個理念乃是來自於哈伯瑪斯的理論的影響，因此引起筆者研究的興趣。透過追溯哈伯瑪斯於八十年代的對話倫理學理論，到哈伯瑪斯晚近透過對話倫理學對憲政民主國家的重構，形成哈伯瑪斯的審議民主理論：審議政治。哈伯瑪斯為人民主權理解為在立法機構和公共領域的非正式網絡中的溝通過程所形成的更高層次的交互主體性，為此提出了一個雙軌制的構想，使決策跟立法需要回應於在非正式的公共領域中所形成的公共輿論。 In Taiwan we are proud of our democratic achievement. But we always can see the two main parties battle for their own private interest and bad quality of the decision-making. Recently there is an obvious deliberative turn about the research of democratic theory. Deliberative democracy tries to resolve many problems about liberal democracy and advocates a better model of political participation. In short, the ideal of deliberative democracy is that decision-making must come from the discussion among the free and equal citizens. The content of the deliberative ideal is influenced by Jürgen Habermas. So it causes me to do research about Habermas’ theory. Based on his early discourse ethics theory developed around 80’s, Habermas tries to reconstruct the principle of institutional democratic state and brings out his model of deliberative democratic theory: deliberative politics. Habermas seeks to recast concepts like popular sovereignty in the terms of the higher-level intersubjectivity of communication processes that flow through both the parliamentary bodies and the informal networks of the public sphere. According to this he brings out his two-track model of democracy. The decision-making and legislative institution must feed back to the public opinion formed in the public sphere.
