The Prospect of Confucian Democracy

Recent times have seen resolute efforts seeking to reconcile Asian traditions with democracy, specifically by bending some hierarchical features of the past in the direction of the qualitative equality and relationality demanded in our age. The chapter concentrates on debates in several Asian countries, including China, about the compatibility of Confucian teachings with the democratic requirement of equal citizenship. The chapter distinguishes between a minimalist, a maximalist, and a balanced approach. In the first case, Confucian teachings are restricted to the purely private sphere removed from public life. This model robs Confucianism of the crucial element of social relationality. In the second type, Confucianism is elevated to a dominant creed, in violation of the constitutive openness (or emptiness) of the democratic public space. The last version rejects this totalizing ambition, but without abandoning Confucianism’s educational and socializing qualities, thus arriving at a social-democratic vision.

Citizenship · Communalism · Creed · Democracy · Emptiness · Epistemology · Openness to experience · Political science · Public space · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Engineering · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology