Exploring “Non-Western Democracy”

Calls for non-Western forms of democracy are becoming louder and more ubiquitous. More needs to be done to nurture a wider variation in democratic processes and practices. Forms of democracy that differ from prevailing Western norms should be encouraged rather than simply dismissed as a cloak for illiberalism or authoritarianism. However, it is highly questionable that a wholesale non-Western variety of democracy exists. Indeed, the calls for non-Western democracy suffer from some major problems. Rather than a binary competition between ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ democracy, joint experimentation is needed between different regions of the world to advance democratic renewal.