This concluding chapter not only aims to provide a summary of the democratic approaches discussed in the book, but also seeks to present an integrated theory of democratic governance which is centred on deliberative referendum. It presents a synthesis of the theory and case studies in the book, focusing on the idea of deliberative referendum and how it can improve democratic governance mechanism.

This book has examined a number of democratic devices: referendums, autonomy and minority rights, consociational arrangements and deliberative forums (Chapter 1); the referendum as a conflict resolution mechanism (Chapter 5); liberal multiculturalism's system of minority rights that protects the interests of Tibetans (Chapters 7–9); consociational democracy and the building of complex power-sharing mechanisms (Chapter 8); deliberative democracy and its offer of a talk-centric approach as better management of the conflicts of divided societies (Chapter 10). Each of these devices has been applied throughout the world with varying degrees of success and failure.

In the specific context of China, this book has sought to develop an anti-empire thesis that articulates how democracy can address the national identity issue (Chapter 3); it has discussed a federalism solution to the Taiwan question (Chapter 4); it has examined the case of the 2004 referendum in Taiwan and attempted to derive lessons from it so as to improve referendum mechanisms and processes through public deliberation (Chapter 5); it has discussed Taiwan's bid for a UN seat, and examined questions concerning political representation and equality (Chapter 6); it has examined three competing discourses on the Tibetan question, calling for a dialogue and engagement between Confucianism and liberalism (Chapter 7); it has dealt with the autonomy issue in Tibet and makes a number of miniproposals to overcome the current stalemate (Chapter 8); it has addressed China's language policy in Tibet, and called for the return to the multi-linguistic policy of the Qing dynasty (Chapter 9); and it has examined and tested the idea that the Tibetan autonomous question could be addressed through a deliberative experiment (Chapter 10).

To this point, our ideas about democratic approaches have been treated separately in different chapters. It is useful now to combine these democratic approaches in both theory and practice; to forge a synthesis of them in a spirit of holism.