Liberal democracy as the end of history

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doh Chull Shin ◽  
Hannah June Kim
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Population ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Third ◽  
The End Of History

A growing number of political scientists have recently advocated the theses that democracy has emerged as a universal value and that it is also becoming the universally preferred system of government. Do most people in East Asia prefer democracy to nondemocratic systems, as advocates of these Western theses claim? Do they embrace liberal democracy as the most preferred system as they become socioeconomically modernized and culturally liberalized? To address these questions, we first propose a typology of privately concealed political system preferences as a new conceptual tool in order to ascertain their types and subtypes without using the word “democracy”. By means of this typology, we analyze the third wave of the Asian Barometer Survey conducted in 12 democratic and nondemocratic countries. The analysis reveals that a hybrid system, not liberal democracy, is the most preferred system even among the culturally liberalized and socioeconomically modernized segments of the East Asian population. Our results show that the increasingly popular theses of universal and liberal democratization serve merely in East Asia as prodemocracy rhetoric, not as theoretically meaningful propositions.

Big government sentiment and support for protectionism in East Asia

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-89
Author(s):  
Wen-Chin Wu
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Policy Preference ◽  
Trade Policies ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
East Asians ◽  
The Third ◽  
Individual Preferences

While previous studies find that individual preferences for trade policies are shaped by economic and non-economic factors, it is still unclear whether people’s perception of their government’s role in citizens’ lives affects their attitudes toward free trade. In view of the “developmental state” legacy in East Asia, I investigate how the “big government sentiment” in East Asians’ mindset is associated with their support for protectionism. Based on the data of the third-wave Asian Barometer Survey conducted during 2010 and 2012, I find that when people think that government should bear a major responsibility for the wellbeing of its people, they are more supportive of protectionist policies. This finding contributes to studies of East Asian political economy as well as the formation of individual trade policy preference.

The Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
East Asian ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Third ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Global Understanding

Writing from a wide range of historical perspectives, contributors to the anthology shed new light on historical, theoretical and empirical issues pertaining to the documentary film, in order to better comprehend the significant transformations of the form in colonial, late colonial and immediate post-colonial and postcolonial times in South and South-East Asia. In doing so, this anthology addresses an important gap in the global understanding of documentary discourses, practices, uses and styles. Based upon in-depth essays written by international authorities in the field and cutting-edge doctoral projects, this anthology is the first to encompass different periods, national contexts, subject matter and style in order to address important and also relatively little-known issues in colonial documentary film in the South and South-East Asian regions. This anthology is divided into three main thematic sections, each of which crosses national or geographical boundaries. The first section addresses issues of colonialism, late colonialism and independence. The second section looks at the use of the documentary film by missionaries and Christian evangelists, whilst the third explores the relation between documentary film, nationalism and representation.

The Place of Confucianism in Pluralist East Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-134
Author(s):  
Dongxian Jiang
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Empirical Claim

Abstract In this commentary on Shaun O’Dwyer’s Confucianism’s Prospects, I raise three challenges to the arguments presented in the book. First, against his empirical claim that East Asian societies have already become pluralistic, I show that there are important empirical studies supporting the “Confucian heritage” thesis that O’Dwyer rejects. Second, against his anti-perfectionist position, I argue that there are some significant perfectionist connotations in his use of the capabilities approach which are in tension with his critique of Confucian and liberal perfectionisms. Third, against his argument that contemporary Confucians have good reasons to embrace a liberal democracy and pluralistic public culture, I argue that the reasons he offers are not solid enough to convince his Confucian rivals.

scholarly journals EAST ASIAN PATHWAYS TOWARD DEMOCRACY: A QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF “THE THIRD WAVE”

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinan Hao ◽  
Qiqi Gao
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Authoritarian Regime ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Mass Mobilization ◽  
Democratic Transitions ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
The Third ◽  
Joint Forces

AbstractWhat drove the East Asian tide of democratization during the “Third Wave?” Instead of focusing on a single-factor explanation, we perform qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) on fourteen cases in the region of East Asia from 1980 to 2000 and find three parallel pathways: (1) overthrow model, which features the positive effects of mass mobilization against authoritarianism under a deinstitutionalized authoritarian regime; (2) urban pressure model that works under an institutionalized authoritarian regime; and (3) inside-out model, in which democratization is triggered by the joint forces of domestic and international conditions under both types of regimes. These results demonstrate that the authoritarianstatus quo anteis an important determinant of democratic transitions.

scholarly journals “Belonging to a Homeland in Order to not Need it Anymore”

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-352
Author(s):  
Theo W.A. de Wit
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Free Fall ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Illiberal Democracy ◽  
Political Theorist ◽  
Recent Movement ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
The Difference

Abstract In his book After Europe, the Bulgarian political theorist Ivan Krastev observes the ‘free fall’ of the dominant grand narrative in Europe after 1989, Fukuyama’s idea of the ‘End of history’. If we want to understand why we must pay attention both to the ‘periphery’ of this narrative, as well as to the periphery of Europe, where the recent movement of migration in the refugee crisis is experienced from a nationalist déjà vu mindset and not welcomed, we have to rethink the phenomenon of nationalism and patriotism, and the difference between the two. After a short phenomenology of the diverse combinations of ‘love’ (among other meanings the love for my patria) and ‘justice’, the author concludes that a strict separation of patriotism and nationalism is hardly possible. And even more fundamental, there will always be a tension between love and justice or, in philosophical terms, between the particular and the universal. Following Krastev, the autor holds that the contemporary rise of populist movements and of ‘illiberal democracy’ points to the crisis of a meritocratic idea of liberal democracy. One longs for a form of belonging that is not the result of our performance but that is unconditional, as Jean Améry argued in his reflections on the meanings of a homeland (Heimat).

Prospects for East Asia in the third quarter of 2015

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South China Sea ◽  
East Asia ◽  
South China ◽  
Political System ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
The South China Sea ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Third ◽  
China’S Economy

Subject Prospects for East Asia in the third quarter of 2015. Significance China's economy is still slowing, and President Xi Jinping is further tightening his hold over an increasingly illiberal political system, but few grave consequences are visible yet. In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's leadership remains unchallenged. Tokyo's relations with Beijing and Seoul have warmed slightly, but tensions in the South China Sea have risen.

Marxism and The End of History and the Last Man: A Critical Review

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuhu O. Yaqub
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The One ◽  
The Last Man

This review of The End of History and the Last Man sets out to achieve two major objectives: first, to establish whether or not the collapse of the Soviet state system and the alleged triumph as well as reconsolidation of liberal democracy have finally sounded the death knell of Marxism as a body of thought and a guide to action. The paper tries to achieve thisobjective by examining some of the core concepts of Marxism e.g., alienation and exploitation; inequality and freedom; the question of the state; and the nature of imperialism to see the extent to which they have been made otiose by the alleged triumph of liberal democratic system. The evidence emerging from their analyses, however, is not only the correctness and profundity of the position of Marx and his disciples Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Hoxher, Castro, Cabral, Fanon, Mao, Machel, etc. but that as long as Fukuyama attempts to mystify the insidiousness of the capitalist cum liberal democracy visavis alienation and exploitation of the worker on the one hand, and the predatoriness of imperialism over other peoples and lands on the other, so long shall the unscientific assertions and assumptions of the book continue to be subjected to critical pulverizations and attacks. Arising from this conclusion, the second and related objective is to exhort workers in both the advanced capitalist and the superexploited Third World countries towards greater and more focused struggles to bring down the moribund capitalist system, which is to be replaced with socialism/communism

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 341-346
Author(s):  
Ngoc Son Bui
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
The End Of History

This conclusion summarizes trends and major points in socialist constitutional change, and addresses broader implications. The socialist constitutions’ history or progress indicates the trend to incremental adaption of core socialist constitutional institutions. In some case, socialist constitutional change leads to partial adoption of some institutions of liberal democracy and market economy. But, the resistance to institutions of liberal constitutional democracy is also vehement in several cases. In addition, the divergence between socialist and liberal political and economic institutions is increasingly sharp. This institutional divergence is mainly due to socialist and local constitutional innovation. The partial adaption, resistance, and local innovation suggest that socialist constitutional change has not converged with “the end of history.” The socialist constitutions are increasingly dissonant documents, which is the condition for continuing evolution of the socialist constitutional order. Socialist constitutional change is connected to the broader global constitutional landscape. Constitutional change to improve the material wellbeing of living conditions is a part of human development.

Political Institutions and the Malaise of East Asian New Democracies

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tun-jen Cheng
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Policy Action

Although quite a few third-wave democracies in Southern and Central Europe became consolidated within a decade of their origin, all of those in East Asia are still fragile and fledgling. Ever since South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines embarked on democratic transition or restoration more than a decade ago, elections have been regularly held, and democratic competition is widely considered the only path to power. Rough edges remain, however. Rules are stretched, even bent. Political stalemate tends to delay, if not prevent, timely policy action. And public cynicism toward underperforming, if not malfunctioning, democracy in these four polities is so pervasive and unnerving that pundits warn against a crisis of governance in East Asia's new democracies.

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