Chapter 1 Introduction to How Asians View Democratic Legitimacy╱Yun-han Chu

(excerpt)

Global Trend and Regional Context

For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from self-evident. Indeed, we are witnessing the end of "the-endof-history" triumphalism. Instead, democracy is facing a global crisis. The long-expected democratic transitions in authoritarian regimes and consolidation of new democracies have come to a halt or even been reversed. In Western democracies, the rise of authoritarian populism poses critical challenges to the practices of liberal democracy. Many basic tenets that explain the resiliency of American democracy were called into question under Donald Trump, and the country is likely to be consumed by divisions for the foreseeable future despite Biden's victory in 2020. The European democracies have suffered two consecutive economic crises, the Great Recession of 2008-2009 and more recently the Great Lockdown of 2020, the latter of which caused the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression. On both occasions, their system of governance turned out to be not so well-equipped to mitigate the contagion of either the financial crisis or the Covid-19 pandemic.

The momentum of the Third-Wave democratization had lost its steam well before the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. As Larry Diamond astutely observed, the world slipped into a democratic recession at the turn of the century (Diamond 2008). In the first decade and a half of this new century, the rate of democratic breakdown has been substantially higher than the pace of the preceding fifteen-year period. A majority of young democracies that emerged during the third wave are unstable and illiberal, if they remain democratic at all (Diamond 2015). East Asia was not immune from the trend of democratic backsliding. Democratic backsliding in the region sometimes occurred suddenly and dramatically in the form of military coups, as in the case of Thailand in 2006 and 2014 and once again Myanmar in 2021. In other instances, backsliding has occurred through subtle and incremental degradations of democratic rights and procedures as in the cases of Cambodia under Hun Sen and the Philippines under Macapagal Arroyo and more recently Rodrigo Duterte, who vows to be a "dictator" against "evil."

Over the last decade, the allure of the Western-style liberal democracy has significantly declined in the eyes of Asian elites and citizens alike. The reality of contemporary democracies looks much less appealing than the end-of-history story might suggest. The incapacity of Western governments to come to necessary decisions and take actions in a timely manner poses significant questions for their effectiveness vis-à-vis Asian countries. Scholars have picked up many worrisome signs of democratic deconsolidation. Across Western societies, citizens place less and less trust in key democratic institutions. They are increasingly willing to jettison institutions and norms that have traditionally been regarded as central components of democracy and are increasingly attracted to alternative regime forms (Foa and Mounk 2016).

In many established democracies of the West, the return to the staggering scale of economic inequality which was last seen during the Gilded Age is produced by the vast amount of political power held by the wealthy, enabling them to control legislative and regulatory activity. In turn, the concentration of resources at the top of the distribution leads to an even more disproportionate influence of wealthy elites over public life, fueling further discontent at the gap between public policies and public preferences. Elected representatives are increasingly unable to represent the views of the people, and politics has become a game for the rich and powerful (Hacker and Pierson 2011).

At the same time, East Asian authoritarian and semi-democratic regimes remain fierce competitors to democracies. In particular, Singapore is the most economically developed authoritarian state in history, while China is also poised to join the list of developed countries with large middle classes and international corporations. The resiliency of the Chinese communist regime and the economic ascendance of China has made the region's overall environment much more hospitable for non-democratic regimes until the Sino-American trade war repercussions forced countries in the region to choose sides.

With the shift of economic gravity away from the United States and Japan to China, East Asia has become one of the few regions in the world where regime type poses no barrier to trade and investment and is becoming perhaps the only region in the world where newly democratized countries are economically integrated with and dependent on non-democratic regimes. China has rapidly emerged not only as the region's locomotive of economic growth but also as the principal architect of regional integration and new rules of economic engagement, most notably with the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative and the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. In a nutshell, history no longer loads the dice in favor of Western-style liberal democracies.

Even at the height of the third-wave democratization, East Asia defied the global trend. Between 1986 and 2015, among the eighteen sovereign states and autonomous territories in the region, only five countries, namely the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Indonesia, successfully transitioned to democracy. Meanwhile, most of the region's authoritarian regimes survived the tidal wave of the global movement toward democracy, and much of East Asia today is still governed by non- and semi-democratic regimes which have displayed great resilience and are seemingly capable of coping with the multiple challenges brought about by complex economies, diverse interests, the internet revolution, and globalization. In the ideological arena, the sustained interest in "Asian values" as well as the "Chinese model of development" debate among elites suggests that liberal democracy is far from establishing itself as "the only game in town."

It is imperative to identify the structural, institutional, cultural, and ideological roots of the ongoing global democratic recession with the help of scientifically reliable empirical data and causal analyses. Much of the received wisdom about the superiority of liberal democracy can no longer be taken for granted. The neoliberal myth that liberal democracy, free markets, and economic globalization reinforce each other does not stand up to serious scrutiny. It is now necessary to reexamine the existing paradigms and refresh our analytical strategy to identify the structural, institutional, cultural, and ideological obstacles to democratic development in the region.

Chapter 1 Introduction to How Asians View Democratic Legitimacy╱Yun-han Chu

(excerpt)

Global Trend and Regional Context

For decades, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from self-evident. Indeed, we are witnessing the end of "the-endof-history" triumphalism. Instead, democracy is facing a global crisis. The long-expected democratic transitions in authoritarian regi...

Preface

This book celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS). The ABS is an applied research program on public opinion toward political values, democracy and governance, and development across the region. This research project has four main objectives, including generating scientifically reliable and comparable data, strengthening intellectual capacity for democracy studies, disseminating survey results to the public, and advancing the research frontiers of the global study of democratization under the auspices of the Global Barometer Surveys (GBS).

In the last two decades, the ABS has conducted five rounds of surveys and published hundreds of articles and books exploring and explaining important intellectual puzzles. The ABS provided empirically grounded answers to the lingering authoritarian nostalgia among citizens in the region. It dispelled the myth that contextual factors in Asia, such as political culture and electoral politics, might mitigate the negative effects of corruption on political trust. Instead, it found a strong trust-eroding effect of political corruption in Asian democracies. There was also no evidence that contextual factors lessened the corruption-trust link in Asia. The ABS is also the pioneer in systematically analyzing the demand side dynamics in making sense of the growing popular disenchantment with democracy. Now, Covid-19 is creating a new kind of stress test. There is a demand—from policy actors, investors, journalists, researchers, and ordinary people themselves—for reliable information about popular political orientations and preferences as well as about how citizens evaluate the quality of democratic governance. The ABS’s mission is to assist practitioners and policy makers in identifying areas of weakness in the existing political system, which have helped inform policy elites at many U.S.-based and international NGOs and donor organizations.

The ABS has built a solid academic foundation over the years, and there is no better way to celebrate the accomplishments than with a commemorative volume containing important findings uncovered by our colleagues in the region and around the world. We also include chapters focusing on individual countries in order to compare and contrast specific dynamics affecting the future of democracy in the region. In the past two decades, the ABS has been made possible by the contributors of this volume. Furthermore, the ABS is indebted to government agencies and international organizations for funding this ever-expanding endeavor. Among the organizations that contributed to this project are the Ministries of Education and Science and Technology in Taiwan, the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, the Henry Luce Foundation, the World Bank, and the UNDP. As well as commemorating the long-term collective efforts of those involved in the ABS in various forms, this edited volume also marks an important moment that will hopefully inspire the future generations who will work together under the auspices of ABS and GBS.

Preface

This book celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS). The ABS is an applied research program on public opinion toward political values, democracy and governance, and development across the region. This research project has four main objectives, including generating scientifically reliable and comparable data, strengthening intellectual capacity for democracy studies, disseminating survey results to the public, and advancing the research frontiers of the global s...

Acknowledgements
Figures and Tables
Preface
Editors
Contributors
1 Introduction to How Asians View Democratic Legitimacy╱Yun-han Chu
2 Revisiting Popular Understandings of Democracy in Asia: Evidence from New Survey Instruments in the Fifth Wave of the ABS╱Jie Lu and Le Bao
3 Trends in Support for Democracy in East Asian Democracies╱Larry Diamond
4 Have East Asians Embraced Their Democratic Political System as "the Only Game in Town"? Ascertaining a Variety of Their System Preferences╱Doh Chull Shin
5 Sources of Regime Legitimacy in Asian Societies: Evidence from the Fifth Wave of the Asian Barometer Survey╱Yun-han Chu and Wen-chin Wu
6 The Evolution of Democratic Legitimacy: Empirical Examination of Asian Societies in the Past Two Decades╱Yun-han Chu and Min-hua Huang
7 The Puzzle of Authoritarian Legitimacy╱Andrew J. Nathan
8 Do Liberal Democratic Values and Asian Traditional Values Have Differential Impacts on Political Participation in East and Southeast Asia?╱Ken'ichi Ikeda
9 Quality of Democracy in East Asia╱Hyunjin Oh and Chong-Min Park
10 The Corruption and Trust Nexus Revisited╱Eric C. C. Chang and Yun-han Chu
11 Inequality and Regime Support: Evidence from East Asia╱Wen-chin Wu, Yun-han Chu, and Eric C. C. Chang
12 Economic Performance, Regime Types, and Political Support╱Chin-en Wu
13 Japanese Social Capital in Liberal Democracy 2003-2019: Focusing on Tolerance and Asian Style Political Culture╱Ken'ichi Ikeda
14 Australia Compared in the "Asian Century"╱Jill Sheppard
15 Intensity of Trust in Institutions in India: The Emerging Paradox╱Shreyas Sardesai and Sandeep Shastri
16 Election Losers and Support for Democracy: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation in Taiwan╱Yu-tzung Chang and Yun-han Chu
17 South Korea's Embattled Democracy╱Jung-ah Gil and Chong-Min Park
18 The Development of Democracy in Mongolia: The Perspective of Ordinary Citizens╱Damba Ganbat
19 Mass Support for the Political System: Indonesia's Democracy 2006-2019╱Saiful Mujani
20 Philippine Citizen Attitudes toward Democracy╱Linda Luz Guerrero, Iremae D. Labucay, and Steven Rood
21 Political Identity, System Support, and Perceptions of Government Performance in Hong Kong╱Wai-man Lam, Ngok Ma, and Stan Hok-wui Wong
22 Dynamics of Thais' Political Values and Orientation toward Democracy╱Thawilwadee Bureekul and Ratchawadee Sangmahamad
23 Thriving Opposition and Political Empowerment in Cambodia Before the 2017 Party Ban╱Min-hua Huang
24 Burma's Failed Democratization╱Kai-Ping Huang and Yun-han Chu
25 Singapore: An Outlier?╱Kay Key Teo, Ern Ser Tan, and Gillian Koh
26 The Impact of Power Transition in Malaysia's Changing Democracy╱Min-hua Huang
27 Evolving Social Norms and Political Ideology in Mainland China, 1993-2019╱Jie Lu, Xuchuan Lei, and Yang Zhang
28 Ideology in Vietnam: Evidence from Asian Barometer Survey Data╱Paul Schuler, Mai Truong, and Chris Weber
Index

Acknowledgements
Figures and Tables
Preface
Editors
Contributors
1 Introduction to How Asians View Democratic Legitimacy╱Yun-han Chu
2 Revisiting Popular Understandings of Democracy in Asia: Evidence from New Survey Instruments in the Fifth Wave of the ABS╱Jie Lu and Le Bao
3 Trends in Support for Democracy in East Asian Democracies╱Larry Diamond
4 Have East Asians Embraced Their Democratic Political System as "the Only Game in Town"? Ascertaining a Variety of Their System Preferences...