In Search of a Civilizational Consensus

Abstract

Pacific Asia in Quest of Democracy. By Roland Rich. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007. 330 pp., cloth (ISBN-10 1588265757). Having read Roland Rich's Pacific Asia in Quest of Democracy , I cannot help but call him an Alexis de Tocqueville of the twenty-first century. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a classic of democracy in the nineteenth century. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French practitioner investigating prisons of the United States. While carrying out his official duties, he made observations first hand in various parts of the United States and was fascinated by the vigor of associations and volunteers which he thought was the secret of American democracy. Roland Rich was a career diplomat working for the Australian government. As a diplomat, he accumulated his experiences in East and Southeast Asia. On the basis of his experiences he has written this book. Just like de Tocqueville, who saw both bright aspects and dark in American democracy, Roland Rich sees both aspects in Asian democracy and non-democracy. Rich is a formidable scholar and his grasp of many aspects of democracy in Pacific Asia is most impressive. Unlike de Tocqueville, who singled out American associational life as a key to the vigor of American democracy, Roland Rich checks each institutional component of democracy and non-democracy empirically to argue that Asia has great potential for democracy but that flaws need to be overcome before it enjoys the fruits of democracy. Roland Rich's perspective can be said to be that of crafting democracy on the basis of a good understanding of …