當代民主制度正面臨內部與外部雙重威脅。體制外部，面臨非民主政體在治理效率，與長期規劃上的競爭挑戰；體制內部，則因全球化經濟衝擊、數位資本主義與社群媒體演算法的影響，導致深陷政治極化、民粹主義、身分政治，以及憲政體制運作衝突的否決政體危機。面對此波民主衰退浪潮，Nathan Gardels與Nicolas Berggruen於Renovating Democracy一書中，以美國加州的直接民主與代議民主為試驗對象，提出結合古典共和主義，與美國進步時代引入專家治理的民主「第三次轉向」解決方案。他們試圖透過細分選區、間接選舉的「階梯式選舉結構」反制金權俘獲，並且創建由跨領域、非黨派專業人士組成的「新參議院」，掌握公投與「冷靜二讀」的權力，以建構「民意諮詢，中介轉譯，公眾審核」的立法循環，試圖在西方民主體制中，引入「賢能治理」以緩解過熱民意。
本研究採取詮釋性政治理論，與理論導向之比較研究方法，將Renovating Democracy的政治理想，置於當代民主理論地圖中，與Cristina Lafont、Hélène Landemore、John McCormick、F. A. Hayek等學者進行對話，從三個層次解構其認識論預設與實踐限制。
首先，在正當性論證層次，本研究依循John Locke的同意理論，與Bernard Manin歸納總結出的代議政治特質，論證該方案的階梯式選舉，阻斷了人民持續授權的民主正當性。而新參議院在實質決策程序中抽離人民實質審議的機會，以「賢能」代替「同意」作為統治正當性來源，恐將民意授權化為橡皮圖章，陷入「開明專制」困境。其次，在菁英可靠性層次，Machiavelli的兩種性情理論，與當代的菁英捕獲研究，揭示了排他性非民選菁英機構，在缺乏大眾參與及外部制衡下，難以藉由內部自律以確保其決策公正無私，反而容易淪為特權階級囤積機會與共謀的新場域。在知識認識論層次，本文反思Hayek與James Scott關於在地知識與實踐知識的知識分散本質，指出該方案試圖將社會碎片知識集中、建模，並交由中央專家轉譯，在結構上必然導致真實民意與脈絡資訊失真。
最後，本研究結合James Fishkin審議式民調、冰島與法國氣候公民大會等現代抽籤民主之實證經驗，論證當代民意展現之短視與非理性，實係特定未經結構設計之場域（如社群網路）所誘發之展演行為，而非公民固有之認知極限。普通公民在制度設計得當之審議空間中，完全具備處理長期且系統性複雜議題之集體智慧。專業知識在公共決策中應扮演技術輔助之「大副」，而非決定集體命運之「船長」。Renovating Democracy以賢能取代同意、以阻隔取代參與之解方已然超越民主治理之邊界。民主制度之自我革新，無須仰賴閹割民主正當性之賢能治理作為「壓艙石」，唯有透過實質賦權公民、完善微觀與宏觀領域之參與審議機制，方能真正挽回社會大眾對民主體制之信賴，讓人民奪回對命運的主宰權。

Contemporary liberal democracy is confronting dual threats from both within and without. Externally, authoritarian regimes, challenge democracies regarding governance efficiency and long-term policy planning; internally, expanding global wealth inequality, intense political polarization, and declining public trust erode the foundations of democratic governance. Compounded by digitalization and social media algorithms, modern societies have spiraled into political polarization, populism, and identity politics, culminating in a legislative gridlock characteristic of a "vetocracy." In response to this democratic backsliding, Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen, in their book Renovating Democracy, propose a "third renovation" framework aimed at correcting direct democracy's populist excesses by using California’s systemic dysfunction as an experimental vanguard. Their institutional blueprint seeks to decouple politics from money through "stepped" indirect electoral structures within subdivided neighborhoods. Simultaneously, it creates a nonpartisan "New Senate" composed of cross-disciplinary elites. Endowed with agenda-setting powers, a "sober second reading" for ballot measures, and post-enactment amendment rights, this institutional design constructs a cyclical feedback loop of "public consultation, institutional translation, and popular affirmation," attempting to introduce "meritocracy" into Western democratic frameworks to temper volatile public passions.
Adopting interpretive political theory and theory-guided comparative research methodologies, this study maps the meritocratic ideals of Renovating Democracy onto the landscape of contemporary democratic theory, engaging in a paradigm dialogue with scholars such as Cristina Lafont, Hélène Landemore, John McCormick, and F. A. Hayek to deconstruct its epistemic presuppositions and practical limitations on three structural levels.
First, at the level of normative justification, drawing upon Locke’s consent theory and Manin’s principles of representative government, this thesis demonstrates that the stepped electoral structure ruptures the citizens' mechanism for continuous authorization via retrospective judgments. By removing opportunities for meaningful public deliberation from the policy-formulation process, the New Senate effectively substitutes "merit (substantive outcomes)" for "consent" as the source of political legitimacy, reducing popular sovereignty to a mere rubber stamp and trapping the regime in the undemocratic conundrum of "benevolent despotism." Second, regarding elite reliability, through the lens of Machiavelli’s theory of two conflicting humors and contemporary literature on "elite capture," this study reveals that an exclusive, non-elected elite body, absent the external checks of popular participation, cannot guarantee impartiality through mere internal self-regulation; instead, it risks mutating into a new political arena for "opportunity hoarding" and oligarchic collusion by privileged classes. Third, from an epistemic standpoint, reflecting on Hayek’s and Scott’s formulations of dispersed "local knowledge" and "practical knowledge (mētis)," this thesis argues that the framework's attempt to centralize, model, and translate fragmented societal insights through centralized experts constitutes a form of conscious control that structurally guarantees the distortion of genuine public preferences and contextual data.
Finally, integrating the empirical insights of modern sortition-based democracy—including Fishkin’s Deliberative Polling, the Icelandic constitutional experiment, and the French Citizens’ Convention on Climate—this study argues that the short-sightedness and irrationality observed in contemporary public opinion are not indicative of inherent cognitive limitations of citizens, but are rather performance behaviors induced by unstructured interaction spaces such as social media. Ordinary citizens, when placed within a well-structured deliberative venue, demonstrate ample collective intelligence to navigate long-term, highly complex systemic challenges. In public decision-making, professional expertise should serve as the technically adept "first mate" rather than the "captain" who decides the collective destiny. The remedies proposed in Renovating Democracy—substituting consent with merit and replacing participation with insulation—transgress the legitimate boundaries of democratic governance. The self-correction of democratic institutions does not require a non-accountable "ballast" that castrates democratic legitimacy. Only by substantially empowering citizens and refining both micro- and macro-deliberative mechanisms can we truly restore public faith in democratic governance and enable the people to truly take back control of their destiny.

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