This study examines subtle forms of political expression, including political satire and criticism of the state, in the writings of popular Chinese bloggers. It finds that the advent of blogging has provided citizens of the People's Republic with a medium for making sophisticated critiques of the regime without encountering harsh repression.

Deliberation research is now undergoing two emerging trends: deliberation is shifting from offline to online, as well as from an inherently democratic concept to the one applicable to less competitive regimes (He & Warren, 2011). The goal of this article is to study the peculiarities of deliberative practices in hybrid regimes, taking online discourse on the Russian anti-sanctions policy as a case. We use the Habermasian concept of basic validity claims to assess deliberation quality through the lens of argumentation and interactivity. Our findings suggest that deliberative practices can exist in non-competitive contexts and non-institutionalized digital spaces, in the form of intersubjective solidarities resulting from the everyday political talk among ordinary citizens. Such deliberations can be counted as argumentative discourses, although in a special, casual way-unlike the procedural rule-based debates. Generally, as in established liberal democracies, deliberation in Russia tends to attract like-minded participants. While the argumentative quality does not seem to vary across the discussion threads sample, the level of deliberative interactivity is higher on pro-government media, accompanied with the higher level of incivility. On the other hand, discourses on independent media are distinctively against the government policy of food destruction. The democratic value of such deliberations is unclear and might depend on the political allegiance and ownership of the media. Though some discourses can be considered democratic, their impact on decision-making remains minimal, which is a key constraint of deliberation.

Authoritarian rule in China is now permeated by a wide variety of deliberative practices. These practices combine authoritarian concentrations of power with deliberative influence, producing the apparent anomaly of authoritarian deliberation. Although deliberation is usually associated with democracy, they are distinct phenomena. Democracy involves the inclusion of individuals in matters that affect them through distributions of empowerments such as votes and rights. Deliberation is a mode of communication involving persuasion-based influence. Combinations of non-inclusive power and deliberative influence—authoritarian deliberation—are readily identifiable in China, probably reflecting failures of command authoritarianism under the conditions of complexity and pluralism produced by market-oriented development. The concept of authoritarian deliberation frames two possible trajectories of political development in China: the increasing use of deliberative practices stabilizes and strengthens authoritarian rule, or deliberative practices serve as a leading edge of democratization.

The very thought of deliberative politics in contemporary China may seem surprising. Indeed, there are questions over its veracity. Analyses of scholarship on deliberative democracy in China to date might be said to fall into two camps: one sees the emergence of deliberative democracy in China as a real prospect for democracy; the other dismisses it outright. This essay offers an alternative evaluation to these two camps. It proposes a theoretical reconstruction of deliberative culture that accounts for a proliferation of contemporary deliberative practices in China and the CCP’s sponsorship of deliberative experiments and institutions. The theoretical reconstruction of contemporary deliberative practices bears traces of the Confucian moral code of deliberation and the institutionalization of deliberation throughout the history of the Chinese imperial states. The upshot in taking this theoretical approach is that we can confirm that the practice of deliberation in contemporary China is well and truly alive, but it does not readily map with Western theoretical models of deliberative democracy. This essay sets up a contrast between an authoritarian deliberation—the use of actual deliberative practices by the authoritarian state to improve governance and enhance its authority— and the “western” idealized version of democratic deliberation. It considers the limitations of the Chinese model of authoritarian deliberation and explains why and how it may constitute, at least partially, a defensible normative account of the contributions of deliberation to political legitimacy, and in doing so hopes to illustrate some important historical lessons for Western deliberative democracy.

Authoritarian rule in China increasingly involves a wide variety of deliberative practices. These practices combine authoritarian command with deliberative influence, producing the apparent anomaly of authoritarian deliberation. Although deliberation and democracy are usually found together, they are distinct phenomena. Democracy involves the inclusion of individuals in matters that affect them through distributions of empowerments like votes and rights. Deliberation is the kind of communication that involves persuasion-based influence. Combinations of command-based power and deliberative influence – like authoritarian deliberation – are now pervading Chinese politics, likely a consequence of the failures of command authoritarianism under the conditions of complexity and pluralism produced by market-oriented development. The concept of authoritarian deliberation frames two possible trajectories of political development in China. One possibility is that the increasing use of deliberative practices stabilizes and strengthens authoritarian rule. An alternative possibility is that deliberative practices serve as a leading edge of democratization.

The internet and its surrounding technologies hold the promise of reviving the public sphere; however, several aspects of these new technologies simultaneously curtail and augment that potential. First, the data storage and retrieval capabilities of internet-based technologies infuse political discussion with information otherwise unavailable. At the same time, information access inequalities and new media literacy compromise the representativeness of the virtual sphere. Second, internet-based technologies enable discussion between people on far sides of the globe, but also frequently fragmentize political discourse. Third, given the patterns of global capitalism, it is possible that internet-based technologies will adapt themselves to the current political culture, rather than create a new one. The internet and related technologies have created a new public space for politically oriented conversation; whether this public space transcends to a public sphere is not up to the technology itself.

Dictatorial China contains vivid examples of grassroots deliberative democracy on issues vital to local participants. Three elements in our case studies are relevant to programs of deliberative, participatory decision making elsewhere in the world. First, the Chinese examples have all occurred within longstanding communities. Second, the members of these communities have faced concrete issues of a type they felt they had the knowledge to resolve. And third, all of these communities had access to institutional frameworks established from above that the local populace could utilize as deliberative forums. In addition, a more distinctively Chinese factor was observed in two of our case studies: collective decisions were arrived at based on “moral economy” beliefs rooted in China’s socialist past.