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7. Four Models of the Relationship between Confucianism and Democracy
- The University Press of Kentucky
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7 Four Models of the Relationship between Confucianism and Democracy He Baogang Confucianism is not a conceptual monolith but rather has a variety of traditions, versions, and forms including imperial, reform, elite, merchant-house, and popular Confucianism. Just as Confucianism is multidimensional, democracy is also multifaceted, including liberal, developmental, social, deliberative, and republican conceptions. The relationships between democracy and Confucianism therefore must be multiple and complex. much of the controversy stems from the fact that scholars use different conceptions of democracy and different interpretations of Confucianism to support their positions.1 any single conceptualization about correlations between democracy and Confucianism will therefore, of necessity, be narrow, one-sided, and incomplete. it seems inappropriate to start with a monocular definition of Confucianism or democracy because such an approach will exclude others. it is better to remain open to other definitions and interpretations, because different understandings and conceptions of Confucianism and democracy, together with historical contexts, cultural backgrounds, power relationships , and geopolitics all play their part. in building democracy, changing interpretations and reconstructions of Confucianism often come into play. in the past the debate has focused on the question of whether Confucianism is conflictive or compatible with democracy. in this regard, huntington and Fukuyama offer different evaluations of Confucianism. 132 hE Baogang according to huntington, the core values of Confucianism are not compatible with liberal democracy.2 By contrast, Fukuyama argues that the Confucian examination system, education, fairly egalitarian income distribution , relative tolerance, tradition of dissent and protest, and tendency toward egalitarianism are not only compatible with but actually promote liberal democracy.3 The two models of understanding above are largely framed by a tradition -versus-modernity mentality and a West-versus-East outlook. This essay argues that we need to go beyond these two conventional models and explore alternative ways of thinking about the relationship between democracy and Confucianism. The search for alternatives comes from the real world. in the last decade the processes of Chinese local democratization, the development of village elections, and the struggle for human rights, deliberative forums, and intraparty democracy reveal that in practice there is a mixing of Chinese traditions and new democratic institutions. This gives rise to a mixed model for rethinking the relationship between democracy and Confucianism. Unfortunately the mainstream thinking on Confucianism and democracy is still confined to either the conflict or the compatibility model. importantly, the last two decades have witnessed the development of a post, critical, or new Confucianism.4 With the revival of Confucianism in the 1990s,5 and in particular in the context of the rise of China, some Chinese have become more confident in their tradition of Confucianism than before. They have reflected upon and criticized electoral democracy and developed a new critical model of rethinking the relationship between democracy and Confucianism. Some creative Chinese scholars have departed from conventional models and developed a number of approaches. First, the conventionally close association between Confucianism and authoritarianism has been deconstructed.6 Jiang Qing distinguishes politicized Ruxue, which was often used to maintain autocracy, from political Ruxue, which seeks to uphold social justice by criticizing the government, its institutions, and its policies.7 often an idealized version of Ruxue has been developed so that its moral and political principles offer new criteria for rethinking democracy . Second, there are plural truths and multiple ways of reconsidering the relationship between democracy and Confucianism. Traditional Western liberal democracy is not the final truth or criterion by which to judge all political systems. There are different models of democracy, ranging from [44.198.57.9] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:43 GMT) The relationship between Confucianism and democracy 133 direct and representative democracy to communitarian and deliberative democracy. democracy itself needs to be opened up and subjected to criticism from different cultures. in this context, Confucianism is presented as a counterbalance to excessive individualism and narrowly defined electoral democracy. Third, there is a continuing attempt to transcend the boundary between tradition and modernity, as well as West and East, which can therefore recover the traditional value of Confucianism and blend it with modern democratic values. This chapter examines the ways and models of thinking in which questions regarding Confucianism and democracy are raised and answered. The various answers depend, first, on the attitudes of political actors and scholars toward Confucianism; second, on the selection of which key elements of Confucianism are emphasized; and third, on different conceptualizations of Confucianism and democracy. Four ideal-type models of the relationship between Confucianism and democracy—conflict...