| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立暨南國際大學 === 公共行政與政策學系 === 92 === In the old days, Taiwan was a state ruled by authoritarian regime. To the public, the decision-making process was a black box. Today, the high degree of division in social functions and the diversity of the society reflect a multidimensional polity. However, the interferences of various interest groups in decision-making process resulted in very different opinions on interpretation of policy-related problems. If the interest groups hold on to their own views, relativism and subjectivism in decision-making are likely the consequences. Habermas’Theory of Communicative Action suites in this case to provide us an aspect that is worthy of deliberation, namely reaching congruent integration and consensus through communicative action.
This paper begins with introduction on the theories and practices of policy networks. The theories of policy networks focus primarily on a conceptual illustration of policy networks, which includes the disparity of characteristics between policy networks and pluralism, corporatism, policy subsystem, and the implication of policy networks to decision-making process. The practices of policy networks draw upon several cases to explain the implementation of decision-making process in policy networks. Then, this paper discusses the disparities between the theories and practices based on a“postmodern”discourse to explain the relativism and subjectivism of the various participants in the construction and discourse of policy-related problems during the decision-making process.
Furthermore, this paper goes into Habermas’Theory of Communicative Action by first clarifying the medium effect of language in understanding action to unfold the significance of communicative action, then introducing the fundamental connotation of Theory of Communicative Action, including validity claims: comprehensibility, truth, truthfulness, and rightness. Also it presents the ideal speech situation of discursive argument carried out by the communicating parties if validity claims encounter problems.
In conclusion, this paper discusses the application of Theory of Communicative Action in decision-making process, namely the implication and significance of“communicative rationality”to “policy networks”. This paper expects to solve the problems of relativism or subjectivism in decision-making through“policy networks of communicative action”to establish a complete and healthy civil society, and develop positive interaction between state and society. This paper also addresses the limitations in application of“policy networks of communicative action”, namely distorted communication due to internal or external factors, such as deception and fraud by various participants, the existence of social classes, the difference in participants’knowledge background, and the time-definiteness of policies.
|
|---|
