OME OF THE more discerning writers of modern times, including De Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and John Dewey, have pointed out the relationship between freedom and culture. Expressed or implied by these same writers is the tenet that Western democratic institutions cannot take root in an alien culture which contains few or none of the conditions material, social or psychological necessary for their successful development. With the departure of colonialism from Asia after the second world war, parliamentary or representative governments were installed in a number of the new Asian nations. Today the majority of these governments have been replaced either by military rule or by some form of dictatorship or oligarchical domination with only the vestigial remnants of the original Western-type political institutions. The course of events in Korea, Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, and Indonesia in recent years has provided ample evidence of this trend. The decline or disappearance of Western-type democratic institutions in Asia has been noted with some discouragement by analysts of Asian affairs.1 In their exploration of the reasons for this trend, there is impressive substantiation for the point of view advanced by De Tocqueville, Mill, and Dewey, namely that freedom and democracy are outgrowths of a certain kind of culture or societal system. If the essential elements of this type of culture are lacking, there is no foundation to nourish the growth of Western-style free institutions. The characteristic features of Asian social systems which fail to provide sufficient roots for the growth of Western political institutions are obvious enough. In addition to the sense of helplessness engendered by the omnipresent poverty and illiteracy, there is an almost complete lack of familiarity with the Western democratic tradition. Only the urbanized and Western-trained elite, who are few in number, are familiar with this tradition, and there is a vast gulf between the elite class and the masses of the people. The social and political tradition of the majority of the people, moreover, is generally authoritarian in nature. They have been attached for centuries to deeply imbedded customs and traditions which maintained a passive and submissive rather than a dynamic and individualistic society. They have often been accustomed to authoritarian leadership of a direct and personal nature. Even more important, social philosophies as well as social conditions have taught them fatalistic attitudes of acceptance. They have little conviction that they are the masters of their environment, that they themselves can control and reconstruct their social systems. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that they have shown so little interest in alien political institutions derived from the entirely different background of Western peoples.