Cultural Hybridization in East Asia: Exploring an Alternative to the Global Democratization Thesis

Abstract

Is democracy emerging as the universally preferred political system, as advocates of the global democratization thesis claim? This paper seeks to explore this question in the context of East Asia, a region known for democratic underdevelopment. To this end, we first provide a critical review of how previous survey-based studies were conducted to estimate the relative preference of democracy as a political system. We then introduce hybridization as a new conceptual tool for ascertaining the emerging patterns of political orientations among citizens of authoritarian and post-authoritarian societies. Finally, we analyze the latest, third wave of the Asian Barometer surveys conducted in 11 East Asian countries conducted in 2010 and 2011. On the basis of this analysis, we argue that it is premature to claim that democracy is emerging as the universally preferred system.

Notes

1. In recent years, a growing number of Confucian scholars have raised serious questions about the validity of this assumption and argued for a hybrid system of mixing Confucian meritocracy with democracy (Bell 2006, 2012; Shin 2012; Tan 2003).

2. On this 10-point scale, it is quite possible that people choose a score of 5 or 6 to express preference for a hybrid system.

3. The politically informed are those who were able to answer all pairs of questions tapping regime and process preferences.