How East Asians View Democracy

Edited by Yun-han Chu, Larry Diamond, Andrew J. Nathan, and Doh Chull Shin

Paper, 328 pages, 33 illus., 58 tables
ISBN: 978-0-231-14535-0
$26.50 / £18.50

September, 2008
Cloth, 328 pages, 33 illus., 58 tables
ISBN: 978-0-231-14534-3
$50.00 / £34.50

"A fascinating study." — Business Times Singapore

"This rigorously designed study . . . will surely become a classic in the field." — Foreign Affairs

"A valuable but also complex book. . . . It is impossible, in this short review, to do justice to the richness of the data compiled and of the conclusions proposed. . . . Essential reading." — China Perspectives

"A careful, fascinating, and sobering cross-national analysis of East Asian public attitudes about democratic ideals and practice. The contributors make the persuasive argument that democratic consolidation has yet to be established in East Asia's new democracies and that even in its older ones, it is more lack of support for authoritarian alternatives than enthusiasm for the established system that keeps these polities democratic. This book not only provides an important analysis of East Asian democracy but also adds a new level of sophistication to the literature on democratic consolidation." — Gerald Curtis, Columbia University

"The editors of this book have assembled a distinguished group of public opinion scholars to describe citizen orientations toward democracy in eight East Asian nations. The findings make valuable contributions to documenting both the progress toward the consolidation of democratic political cultures and the challenges that still remain." — Russell Dalton, University of California at Irvine

"How is democracy faring in the world's most economically dynamic region? In this first systematic analysis of that question, the contributors conclude that it has been faring surprisingly well. Mass publics have displayed 'democratic resilience' in the face of coups (in Thailand) and coup attempts (in the Philippines) while 'authoritarian detachment' (a suspension of judgment about democracy while reserving authoritarian values) remains fairly limited, compared to what similar surveys in Latin America and Africa have found. Yet democracy is still in a tenebrous 'twilight zone' in the region, with democratic decision making bringing uneven economic results and thriving neighbors such as China displaying satisfaction with their own less democratic political arrangements. All students of contemporary East Asia will benefit from this penetrating, comprehensive analysis." — Lowell Dittmer, University of California at Berkeley and editor, Asian Survey

Related Subjects

• East Asian Studies
• International Affairs

About the Author

Yun-han Chu is distinguished research fellow at the Institute of Political Science of Academia Sinica and professor of political science at National Taiwan University. The coordinator of the East Asian Barometer Survey, Chu is an associate editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies, and his recent publications include Crafting Democracy in Taiwan, China Under Jiang Zemin, and The New Chinese Leadership: Challenges and Opportunities After the Sixteenth Party Congress.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy. A member of USAID's Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, Diamond has also advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development. He is the author of Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq and Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation.

Andrew J. Nathan is the Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He is cochair of the board, Human Rights in China, a member of the board of Freedom House, and a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch, Asia. Nathan's authored and coedited books include China's Transition; The Tiananmen Papers; Negotiating Culture and Human Rights: Beyond Universalism and Relativism; China's New Rulers: The Secret Files; Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization; and Chinese Democracy.

Doh Chull Shin holds the endowed chair in comparative politics and Korean studies at the Department of Political Science, University of Missouri. For more than ten years, Shin has directed the Korean Democracy Barometer surveys. He has also systematically monitored the cultural and institutional dynamics of democratization in Korea. Shin's latest book, Mass Politics and Culture in Democratizing Korea, has been called one of the most significant works on Asian democracies and the third wave of democratization.

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