Popular Value Perceptions and Institutional Preference for Democracy in “Confucian” East Asia

Abstract

Scholars and observers of democracy have argued that the world has entered a period of democratic recession (Carothers 2006; Diamond 2008; Kurlantzick 2011; Plattner 2015; Puddington 2007, 2009). This pessimistic view is supported by Freedom House's annual report on political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World 2015, which concludes that the state of freedom has declined for the ninth consecutive year (Freedom House 2015). In many cases, this rollback has taken place even as democratic institutions remain, at least superficially, in place. As the National Endowment for Democracy (2006, 2) has noted, there has been an increase in semi-authoritarian hybrid regimes characterized by superficially democratic processes that disguise and help legitimate authoritarian rule. In these countries, there has been a pushback against democracy as autocratic governments clamp down on free media, civil society, and human rights groups (Carothers 2006). In East Asia-the eastern part of the Asian continent that can be defined in either geographical or ethnocultural terms-the democratic recession in semiauthoritarian hybrid regimes has coincided with the entrenchment of authoritarianism in China, which is now the region's largest economy. In the context of the global democratic recession and the rise of China, the prospects for democratization in East and Southeast Asia are now bleaker than at any time since the beginning of the third wave of democratization.Some observers have argued explicitly that the democratic recession is closely associated with China's rise and the position taken by China's leadership toward political institutions (Ambrosio 2012; Ikenberry 2008; Leonard 2008; Tao 2015). Tao (2015) argues that the China model, as an alternative modernization model, has enhanced the normative power of autocracy over democracy. Tao describes China's authoritarian model as an economic globalization model based upon liberal state-market relations and illiberal statesociety relations, with a market economy driven by globalization and a political system operated according to the rule of law. Concerning the mechanisms for international diffusion, Thomas Ambrosio (2010) contends appropriateness and effectiveness are the two key mechanisms for the diffusion of authoritarianism. In this regard, the existence of a successful China model already shows the appropriateness and effectiveness of authoritarianism for countries where a liberal political culture has not developed and both political elites and citizens tend toward normative values such as the accumulation of wealth over political freedom.Literature ReviewThe literature on the decline of democracy is reminiscent of the Asian values debate of the 1990s, following the economic emer- gence of the four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan). In the wake of economic development and rising national pride, some politicians in East Asia, such as Lee Kwan Yew and Mohamad Mahathir, questioned the necessity and desirability of liberal democracy, and developed an alternative discourse based on Asian values.1 With the economic rise of China and the stability of its political system the debate surrounding Asian values reappeared. The global financial crisis of 2008 resulted in even more attention given to Asian values as an alternative to liberal democracy (Shin 2012). China's rise has thus reopened the debate between cultural determinism and modernization theory.Cultural determinism and modernization theory are premised on competing claims about the attitudes of ordinary people. Therefore, this study reexamines the Asian values debate by considering popular value perceptions and institutional preference for democracy among citizens in seven societies with Confucian traditions: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, mainland China, and Vietnam.2 The economic success of Confucian (or authoritarian) societies has discredited the idea that the wholesale adoption of democracy is requisite for economic development. …