Asian Contributions on Democratic Dignity and Responsibility: Rizal, Sukarno and Lee on Guided Democracy

Abstract

Democracy as political doctrine has its fair share of controversies over the adjudication of rights and the prioritization of the individual over the community. These debates have largely derived from its western genesis. The current stage of global development has however supplied many non-western perspectives on democracy which suggest that any consensus over an identifiable body of democratic thought is likely to witness more sub-diversity than ever before. This article argues that contemporary Asian thinkers on the philosophy of government have a valuable contribution to make to democratic discourse notwithstanding the cliches of the Asian Values debate of the 1990s. By performing a sampled reading of Jose Rizal, Sukarno and Lee Kuan Yew on their diverse interpretations of guided democracy in a nationalistic context, it will be shown that these three modern Southeast Asian political thinkers would offer some tentative Asian insights on the democracy of dignity and of responsibility.