Pride and prejudice: Chinese citizens’ evaluations of democracy in the United States, India and Taiwan

Abstract

How citizens in authoritarian regimes evaluate the practice of democracy in both new and established democracies has important implications on the prospect of democratisation in their own country. As an authoritarian country with the largest population around the world, China has resisted waves of democratisation and maintains the one-party rule. This study examined the Chinese case and explored how Chinese citizens evaluated democracy in the United States, India and Taiwan. It theorised that the tendency towards ingroup favouritism and attitudes towards democracy are the factors that primarily influence citizens’ evaluations of democracy in other countries. The results show that Chinese citizens perceive the democratic level of China as being as high as that of the United States and Taiwan, whereas they gave lower evaluations in the case of India’s democracy. The effects of the aforementioned factors varied between the three countries. After presenting the findings, the theoretical implications are also discussed.