Democracy and meritocracy: Toward a confucian perspective

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 179-193

  Chan, Joseph ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG   (Hong Kong)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61049510050     PISSN: 03018121     EISSN: 15406253     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6253.2007.00408.x     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (22)

1. Sun Guangde, Zhongguo Zhengzhi Sixiang Zhuanti Yanjiu Ji (Taipei: Guiguan Tushu Gufen Youxian Gongsi, 1999), 159-211
2. Hu Shaohua, "Confucianism and Western Democracy," in China and Democracy: The Prospect for a Democratic China, ed. Suisheng Zhao (London: Routledge 2000), 62
3. Francis Fukuyama, "Confucianism and Democracy," Journal of Democracy 6 (1995): 20-33
4. See, for example, Li Chenyang, "Confucian value and democratic value," The Journal of Value Inquiry 31 (1997): 183-93
5. David Beetham, "Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Democratization," in Prospects for Democracy, ed. David Held (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 55
6. People's rights to make public decisions can be expressed directly, through full democratic procedures where everyone participates, such as referenda, or indirectly, through representative democratic procedures. Representative democracy requires certain basic institutions, such as free, fair, competitive elections and universal suffrage, and some basic rights, such as freedom of association and expression
7. Brian Barry, Democracy, Power and Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 25
8. See Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)
9. An abbreviated English version of the Manifesto has been published under the title of "A Manifesto for a Re-appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture" in Carsun Chang (Zhang Junmai), The Development of Neo-Confucian Thought, vol. 2 (New York: Bookman, 1962)
10. For further bibliographical details of the Manifesto and a detailed analysis of its views, see Albert Y. H. Chen, "Is Confucianism Compatible with Liberal Constitutional Democracy?-The 1958 Manifesto on Chinese Culture and the World Revisited," in this issue
11. James Legge, trans., Book VII: The Liyun, sec. I, 2, The Liji, vol. 27, 365, in Sacred Books of the East, vols. 27-28 (Delhi Varanasi Patna Madras: Motilal Banarsidass, 1964)
12. John Knoblock and Jeffery Riegel, trans., chap. 4, Book 1, in The Annals of Lu Buwei (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 71-73
13. D. C. Lau, trans., Book V, A:5, in Mencius (London: Penguin Books, 1970), 143
14. Mencius, Book IV, A:9, 121-122
15. Similarly, the fact that the people are regularly consulted by their government does not imply that they have the institutional right to participate in decision making on public affairs
16. Xunzi, Book 27.72
17. The phrase is taken from Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 56
18. I do not mean to suggest that China has all these conditions today and is ready for democracy. So democracy remains an ideal for China
19. For an explanation of the idea of modus vivendi as a balance of forces, see John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 44-45
20. Yu Yingshi, "The Idea of Democracy and the Twilight of the Elite Culture in Modern China," in Justice and Democracy: Cross-cultural Perspectives, ed. Ron Bontekoe and Marietta Stepaniants (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), 207
21. Tang Junyi, Zhongguo Renwen yu Dangjin Shijie (xia) (Hong Kong: Xinya Yanjiusuo, 1955), 500-539
22. For an attempt to tackle this issue, see Daniel A. Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 152-179, "Taking Elitism Seriously : Democracy with Confucian Characteristics."