East Asian Authoritarian Modernism: From Meiji Japan’s “Prussian Path” to China’s “Singapore Model”

Abstract

The significance of Meiji Japan’s “Prussian path” to authoritarian modernity has largely been ignored in the social sciences because it contradicts prevailing modernization theory. Meiji Japanese reformers, after carefully examining several Western country’s political systems, chose the German model because of its illiberal but modern politics. This argument regarding the authoritarian modernity of Imperial Germany and Meiji Japan contradicts modernization theory which claims that advanced industrialization leads to liberal democracy. Similarly, Meiji Japan’s influence on the “developmental states” of East Asia (East and Southeast Asia) has not been given much weight by modernization theories. More recently, Singapore’s successful combination of non-democratic rule with advanced capitalism has been dismissed as a (literally) small exception to the general democratizing rule, with even autocratic China expected by modernization theorists to democratize soon given its rapid economic growth over the past generation. This article explores the impact of the Imperial German model of authoritarian modernism on Meiji Japan and, in turn, Japanese influence on political development in East Asia as well as the influence of the “Singapore model” on China. It explores three forms of linkages: social structural, state formational, and ideological.