China Social Science Review

No.2, 2020

The Development of the Research Paradigm of the Chinese Human Rights Discourse System

(Abstract)

Liu Zhiqiang and Lin Dong

Research on the Chinese human rights discourse system in the new era has emerged alongside academics’ reflection on and interest in the powerlessness of domestic academic discourse. The basic formation of the socialist human rights theoretical system with Chinese characteristics constitutes the inherent support of the Chinese human rights discourse system in the new era. The “conceptual interpretation theory” and “constructive expression theory” of the human rights discourse system of China’s human rights academics describes the current situation of human rights discourse as being “strong in the West and weak in the East” from the perspective of the power discourse paradigm. As a result, the theoretical dilemma of “human rights discourse” has led to the loss of the normative foundation of our human rights discourse system and the functional decline of human rights. In order to make up for lack of experience, the communicative consensus paradigm advocates rational communicative behavior as a form of international discourse struggle, and constitutes a fair and reasonable human rights discourse pattern through authentic, sincere and correct discourse communication. However, the limitation of the communicative consensus paradigm is that rational behavior and strategic behavior cannot be completely separated, leaving human rights discourse with a limited effect. Therefore, in the context of globalization, we should propose a new theory that accords with Chinese practice to reconstruct the research paradigm of the Chinese human rights discourse system in the new era, and correctly handle the relationship between experience and norms, struggle and understanding, and confrontation and interaction.