28/09/2013 Francis Fukuyama - Confucianism and Democracy - Journal of Democracy 6:2
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Copyright © 1995 National Endowment for Democracy and the Johns Hopkins
University Press. All rights reserved.
Journal of Democracy 6.2 (1995) 20-33
Confucianism and Democracy
Francis Fukuyama
The caning for vandalism last year of American high-school student Michael Fay by the
Singaporean authorities underscored the challenge now being put forth by Asian societies to the
United States and other Western democracies. The issue was not simply whether Singapore, as a
sovereign state, had the right to subject an American expatriate to its laws and legal procedures,
but a much more fundamental one. In effect, the Singaporeans used the case of Michael Fay to
argue in favor of their brand of authoritarianism, charging that American democracy, with its
rampant social problems and general disorder, could not be regarded as a model for an Asian
society. This claim forms part of a larger argument that Singaporeans, beginning with former prime
minister Lee Kuan Yew, have been making for some time now to the effect that Western-style
democracy is incompatible with Confucianism, and that the latter constitutes a much more coherent
ideological basis for a well-ordered Asian society than Western notions of individual liberty. 1
While Singaporeans have been the most outspoken proponents of this view, many people in other
Asian societies, from Thailand to Japan, have come to share their beliefs. The standing of the
United States in Asia has already been affected: on the issue of using trade policy to pressure
China into bettering its human rights record, Washington had few allies in the region, and it was
forced to back down on its threat of withdrawing China's most-favored-nation (MFN) status.
Are Confucianism and Western-style democracy fundamentally [End Page 20] incompatible? Will
Asia formulate a new kind of political-economic order that is different in principle from Western
capitalist democracy? The fact is that there are fewer points of incompatibility between
Confucianism and democracy than many people in both Asia and the West believe. The essence of
postwar "modernization theory" is correct: Economic development tends to be followed by
political liberalization. 2 If the rapid economic development that Asia has experienced in recent
years is sustained, the region's democratization will continue as well. In the end, however, the
contours of Asian democracy may be very different from those of contemporary American
democracy, which has experienced serious problems of its own in reconciling individual rights with
the interests of the larger community.
Modernization Theory Confirmed
Although it is no longer considered "politically correct" to advocate modernization theory, it has
actually stood the test of time relatively well. In a seminal article published in 1959, Seymour
Martin Lipset noted the empirical correlation between a high level of economic development and
stable democracy. 3 Although the thesis that economic development gives rise to political
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liberalization has been debated endlessly since then, it was strengthened considerably with the
democratic transitions that began in the mid-1970s, and it is more valid today than it was when it
was first enunciated. 4
The correlation between development and democracy is nowhere better illustrated than in Asia.
The states of the region have established stable democratic institutions roughly in the same order in
which they began to develop economically, beginning with Japan and extending now to South
Korea (which held its first completely free elections in 1992) and Taiwan (which is scheduled to
hold free legislative elections at the end of this year). There have been a number of failed
prodemocracy movements in China, Thailand, and Burma, but even these cases reveal a link
between development and democracy. In the Chinese and Thai cases, in particular, the leaders of
the prodemocracy movements tended to be relatively well educated, "middle-class," and
cosmopolitan citizens--the type of individual that began to emerge during earlier periods of rapid
economic growth. The only anomaly in this picture is the Philippines, which, despite having the
lowest per-capita income of all the noncommunist states in Southeast Asia, has been a democracy
since the election of Corazon Aquino in 1986. Clearly, though, democracy would never have
come to the Philippines had it not been for the direct influence of the United States; moreover,
democratic practice is not well institutionalized there, and the country retains a semifeudal authority
structure in the countryside and features one of Asia's few remaining communist insurgencies. It
would not be [End Page 21] surprising, in fact, if Philippine democracy were suddenly to
collapse, a scenario that is difficult to imagine in South Korea or Japan.
Although modernization theory proposed a correlation between development and democracy, it
was hazy on what the causal connections between the two phenomena were. Some proponents,
such as Talcott Parsons, argued that democracy was more "functional" than authoritarianism in a
modern industrialized society. 5 I have argued elsewhere that the linkage between the two cannot
be understood in economic terms. 6 That is, the fundamental impulse toward liberal democracy
springs from a noneconomic desire for "recognition." The relationship between economic
modernization and democracy is therefore indirect: Economic modernization raises living and
educational standards and liberates people from a certain kind of fear brought on by life close to
the subsistence level. This permits people to pursue a broader range of goals, including those that
remained latent in earlier stages of economic development. Among those latent urges is the desire
to be recognized as an adult with a certain basic human dignity--a recognition that is achieved
through participation in the political system. Poor peasants in the Philippines or El Salvador can be
recruited by landlords to take up arms and form death squads, because they can be manipulated
relatively easily on the basis of their immediate needs and are accustomed to obeying traditional
sources of authority. It is much more difficult to persuade educated, middle-class professionals to
obey the authority of a leader simply because he is wearing a uniform.
The case of Japan seems to provide further confirmation of the proposed link between
development and democracy. Japan, of course, has been a formal democracy since General
MacArthur imposed a democratic constitution on the country during the U.S. occupation.
Nevertheless, many observers both within and outside of Japan have noted that Western-style
democracy, with its emphasis on public contestation and individualism, did not seem to sit well with
traditional Japanese culture. Some commentators even went so far as to argue that, despite its
democratic legal structure, Japan was not a democracy in the Western sense at all, but rather a
mildly authoritarian country run by an alliance of bureaucrats, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
officials, and business leaders. 7
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The political upheaval that has occurred in Japan since the fall of the LDP government in July
1993, however, would seem to bear out some of the premises of modernization theory. The
Japanese people deferred to the authority of the bureaucracy-LDP-business triangle for much of
the postwar period because that alliance delivered a high rate of economic growth to a nation that
had been devastated by the Pacific war. Like many an authoritarian leadership, however, it
ultimately failed to hold up its end of the bargain: it presided over the creation and subsequent
puncturing of a "bubble economy" in the 1980s, and suffered [End Page 22] from creeping and
pervasive corruption. There is no guarantee that such a system will be self-correcting in the
absence of popular "feedback loops"; moreover, as the Japanese population grew wealthier and
more able to take its prosperity for granted, its willingness to defer to the political leadership and
overlook abuses diminished. Although it is very difficult to predict the outcome of Japan's current
political struggle, it seems unlikely that the old ruling triangle will carry its power and authority intact
into the next generation.
Modernization theory came under heavy attack in the 1960s and 1970s from two principal
sources. First, Marxist critics argued that capitalist democracy was not the proper goal of political
and economic development, and that modernization theorists were apologists for an unjust global
economic order. Another group of critics, who might be labeled "cultural relativists," argued that
modernization theory was Eurocentric and did not take account of the diversity of ends dictated by
the world's different cultures. While the Marxist critique is less prominent today owing to the
collapse of communism, the relativist critique remains very powerful, and has intimidated many
people out of arguing for the existence of a universally valid development path whose ultimate
outcome is free-market democracy.
Some of the criticisms to which modernization theory was subjected did have a certain amount of
validity. Clearly, for the theory to retain its strength, it would have to be modified somewhat in light
of subsequent experience. The developmental history of England or the United States cannot be
held up as a standard against which subsequent experiences must be measured. It is evident that
there is not a single path to modernity: the "late" modernizers have taken a very different route to
development (with the state playing a more powerful role) than earlier ones. Indeed, it is difficult to
come up with a universally valid rule for the sequencing of political and economic liberalization.
Although many states, particularly in Asia, have succeeded in following the "authoritarian" transition
to democracy, it would have been absurd to propose that the former communist regimes in Eastern
Europe delay democratization until their economies were liberalized. 8 Moreover, there is
considerable variation in the way that both capitalism and democracy are implemented: Japanese
corporations and labor markets are structured very differently from those in the United States, and
there is no reason to think that Japanese and American practices will converge any time soon.
Finally, the time frame required for economic development to [End Page 23] produce conditions
favorable to stable democracy is longer than anyone anticipated 40 years ago: sustained economic
growth is difficult to achieve, and democratic institutions are even harder to create.
Nonetheless, a significant connection between development and democracy has been borne out
over the past 50 years. Few of the original formulators of modernization theory are still around to
defend it and willing to do so. 9 But they gave up too easily. If we define democracy and capitalism
sufficiently broadly, and are not dogmatic about the means by which either one can be achieved,
then the experience of the Asian nations can be seen as proof of the underlying hypothesis.
Asia's Confucian Traditions
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Despite the positive relationship that has obtained between development and democracy in the
past, many observers today would argue that Asia will not continue to democratize in the future, or
that the form democracy takes there will be so specifically rooted in Asian traditions as to be
unrecognizable to Westerners.
The most prominent proponent of an Asian alternative to democracy has been former Singaporean
prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. Singapore under Lee developed a model of what might be called a
"soft" or paternalistic form of authoritarianism, which combined capitalism with an authoritarian
political system that suppressed freedom of speech and political dissent while intervening, often
intrusively, in its citizens' personal lives. Lee has argued that this model is more appropriate to East
Asia's Confucian cultural traditions than is the Western democratic model. In fact, he has said that
Western-style democracy would have deleterious effects in a society like that of Singapore,
encouraging permissiveness, social instability, and economically irrational decision making.
Many Western authorities on democracy would agree with this assessment of the relationship
between Confucianism and democracy. Samuel P. Huntington, for example, has written that
"Confucian democracy" is a contradiction in terms:
Almost no scholarly disagreement exists regarding the proposition that traditional
Confucianism was either undemocratic or antidemocratic. . . . Classic Chinese
Confucianism and its derivatives in Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, and (in
diluted fashion) Japan emphasized the group over the individual, authority over
liberty, and responsibilities over rights. Confucian societies lacked a tradition of rights
against the state; to the extent that individual rights did exist, they were created by the
state. Harmony and cooperation were preferred over disagreement and competition.
The maintenance of order and respect for hierarchy were central values. The conflict
of ideas, groups, and parties was viewed as [End Page 24] dangerous and
illegitimate. Most important, Confucianism merged society and the state and provided
no legitimacy for autonomous social institutions at the national level. 10
According to Huntington, the only Asian countries to experience democracy prior to 1990 were
Japan and the Philippines, and democratic transitions there were possible only because both
countries were influenced directly by the United States and were less Confucian than other Asian
societies.
In my view, the arguments of both Huntington and Lee greatly overstate the obstacles that
Confucianism poses to the spread of a political system that is recognizably democratic in a
Western sense. The most striking area of apparent incompatibility between democracy and
Confucianism is the latter's lack of support for individualism or a transcendent law that would stand
above existing social relationships and provide the ground for individual conscience as the ultimate
source of authority. Despite this important difference, it is not clear that a Confucian society is
incapable of creating workable democratic institutions that meet democracy's essential
requirements.
Let us begin with the ways in which Confucianism is obviously compatible with democracy. First,
the traditional Confucian examination system was a meritocratic institution with potentially
egalitarian implications. In traditional China, the examination system was not--for various reasons--
truly open to all who were qualified (neither, of course, are Harvard and Yale). In their modern
form, however, the examination systems implemented in many Confucian societies as gateways
into higher-educational systems and bureaucracies are significant paths to upward mobility that
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reinforce the relatively egalitarian income distributions that prevail throughout much of Asia. The
second main area of compatibility is the Confucian emphasis on education itself. Although an
educated populace is seldom noted as a formal requirement of democracy, in practice a society's
general level of education has been an important underpinning of democratic institutions. Without a
high level of literacy, people cannot know about and therefore participate in democratic debate;
moreover, as indicated above, education tends to make people wealthier and more concerned
with noneconomic issues such as recognition and political participation. Finally, like most Asian
ethical systems, Confucianism is relatively tolerant. In the past, Confucianism has coexisted with
other religions, notably Buddhism and Christianity; while Confucianism's record of tolerance is not
perfect (witness the periodic persecutions of Buddhists in China), it is arguably better than that of
either Islam or Christianity.
The compatibility of Confucianism with modern democracy goes even deeper than this, however,
and in ways that are less often recognized. Huntington describes Confucianism as if it were
comparable to Islam, [End Page 25] being essentially a doctrine that unified the political and
social spheres and legitimated the state's authority in all areas of life. Yet to say that Confucianism
merely strengthens the group against the individual and the state against all subordinate
organizations or institutions vastly oversimplifies the doctrine's real impact. The scholar of
Confucianism Tu Wei-ming distinguishes between what he calls "political Confucianism," which
legitimates a hierarchical political system culminating in the emperor, and what he calls the
"Confucian personal ethic," which regulates day-to-day life. 11 In China, political Confucianism
was very much tied to the imperial system and its supporting bureaucracy of gentlemen-scholars.
This system was abolished with the overthrow of the Qing dynasty in 1911. Despite efforts by the
Communists in Beijing and other Sinitic governments overseas (such as that of Singapore) to
appropriate the legitimacy of the imperial system, the continuity of political Confucianism has been
disrupted in a fundamental sense. Tu argues that in fact the more important legacy of traditional
Confucianism is not its political teaching, but rather the personal ethic that regulates attitudes
toward family, work, education, and other elements of daily life that are valued in Chinese society.
It is these attitudes, rather than inherited ideas about political authority, that account for the
economic success of the overseas Chinese.
One could go even further and argue that the essence of traditional Chinese Confucianism was
never political Confucianism at all, but rather an intense familism that took precedence over all
other social relations, including relations with political authorities. That is, Confucianism builds a
well-ordered society from the ground up rather than the top down, stressing the moral obligations
of family life as the basic building block of society. Beyond the traditional Chinese family, or jia,
are lineages and larger kinship groups; the state and other political authorities are seen as a kind of
family of families that unites all Chinese into a single social entity. But the bonds within the
immediate family take precedence over higher sorts of ties, including obligations to the emperor. In
classical Chinese Confucianism, one's obligation to one's father is greater than to the police; in a
famous story related about Confucius, "The king boasted to Confucius that virtue in his land was
such that if a father stole, his son would report the crime and the criminal to the state. Confucius
replied that in his state virtue was far greater, for a son would never think of treating his father so."
12 (The Chinese Communists tried to change this state of affairs, but that is a different story.) Of
course, in a perfectly ordered Confucian society, such conflicts between rival obligations should
not occur. But occur they do, and while in classical Chinese dramas
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