Abstract: Institutional civilization serves as a crucial indicator for measuring the maturity of a nation’s governance system and the development level of political civilization. It also represents a key perspective for examining the formation, construction, and innovation of the autonomous knowledge system of the whole-process people’s democracy. The autonomous knowledge system of the whole-process people’s democracy gradually took shape and evolved during the historical process of the Chinese Communist Party leading the people in advancing democratic political construction. Its formation involved initial exploration during the embryonic stage of democratic concepts, the establishment of socialist democratic institutions marked by knowledge formation, the deepening of knowledge through democratic institutional development since the reform and opening-up, and the system’s leap forward driven by the major concepts proposed in the new era. This reflects the intrinsic logic of China’s political civilization transitioning from institutional practice to theoretical consciousness. The construction of the autonomous knowledge system of the whole-process people’s democracy is a systematic process guided by goal-setting, standardized by principle adherence, supported by multidimensional structures, and driven by practical innovation. In the new era and on the new journey, the innovative development of this autonomous knowledge system must adhere to the methodological principle of the “two integrations”, promote the organic unity of value rationality and instrumental rationality, ground itself in the practice-oriented development of modern civilization, and continuously enhance its theoretical explanatory power, knowledge integration capacity, and real-world responsiveness through the exchange and mutual learning of institutional civilizations.

Key words: whole-process people’s democracy, institutional civilization, autonomous knowledge system, “two integrations”, institutionalization