德国民众对民主政党和新的民主政党国家的好感反过来也帮助形成支持基本法的共识。因此,民众民主政治文化和国家民主体制之间便有了良性互动。在基本法最初实施期间,由于它的先天不足(精英制定、盟军监督和未经民众表决),民众的支持度相当有限。1955年只有百分之三十的人赞同基本法。但这一支持度持续上升,到1978年,支持率已上升到百分之七十一。另一个重要的情形是,“连续的联邦议会选举和选民高参与率可以说是完成了基本发的追补立法程序。”[21]民主政治不是民粹政治,它需要融合大众共识和精英共识,从民意调查看,这两种共识在德国渐趋一致,大概花了三十年时间。这段时期是政治文化在德国发生重大转折的时期,民主政治文化的发展是德国政局稳定的重要条件。反过来,德国政局在宪法体制中的稳定又为民主政治文化的发展和形成、为凝聚公民的宪法爱国主义提供了条件。相比之下,尽管中国1949年或1976年后民众的热情高于战后的德国,但中国的宪政发展、民主政治文化建设和公民宪法爱国主义的成就却要逊色得多,其中的经验教训是很值得总结的。
【作者简介】
徐贲,马萨诸塞州大学文学博士,曾任教于苏州大学外文系,现任美国加州圣玛利学院英文系教授。
【注释】 Quoted by Max Pensky, "Universalism and the Situated Critic," in Stephen K. White, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Habermas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 83.
Jurgen Habermas, Fakitizitat und Geltung: Beitrage zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des Demodratischen Rechtsstaats (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp) p. 638.
Jurgen Habermas, "Citizenship and National Identity:Some Reflections of the Future of Europe," in Ronald Beiner, Theorizing Citizenship (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1995), p. 261.
Ibid., p. 260.
Ibid., p. 258.
Ibid., p. 259.
费孝通主编, 《中华民族研究新探索》, 中国社会科学出版社, 1991。
Jurgen Habermas, "Citizenship and National Identity:Some Reflections of the Future of Europe," p. 262.
Ibid., pp. 259-60.
Ibid., p. 260.
Michael Richter, "The Basic Law and the Democratic Party State:Constitutional Theory and Political Practice," in Detlef Junker, et al., eds., Cornerstone of Democracy:The West German Grundgesetz, 1949-1989 (Washington, D.C.:German Historical Institute, 1995), p. 37.
Ibid., pp. 45-6.
Brian Barry, Socialists, Economists, and Democracy (London: Collier Macmillian, 1970), p. 48.
Jurgen Habermas, "Uber den doppelten Boden des demokratischen Rechtsstaates," in Die nachholende Revolution. Kleine politische Schriften VII(Frankfurt:Suhrkamp, 1990), pp. 18-19.
Jurgen Habermas, Die Neue Unubersichtlichkeit (Frankfurt:Suhrkamp, 1985), p. 41.
Jurgen Habermas, The New Conservatism:Cultural Criticism and the Historians'' Debate. Ed. and trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), p. 42.
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Boston, 1963), see also Russell Dalton, Politics in Western Germany (Glenville, Ill: Scott Foresman), pp. 103-104.
Russell Dalton, Politics in West Germany, p. 107.
David Gonradt, "The Changing German Political Culture," in Babriel Almond and Sydney Verba, eds., The Civic Culture Revisited (Boston: Little Brown, 1980), pp. 224-5.
Kenneth Dyson, "Left-Wing Political Extemism and the Problem of Tolerance in Western Germany,"Government and Opposition (Summer 1975), pp. 319-20.
Gunnar Folke Schuppert, "The Constituent Power,"quoted in Donald P. Kommers, Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989), p. 36.