"Why Didn't China Give Birth to Democracy? " Topic

"Yuhua Wang and Mark Dincecco have an interesting paper out in the Annual Review of Political Science. The paper offers and tests a new hypothesis for why European governments developed "political representation" while China did not. The paper is interesting and the data they have collected is fascinating. However, the case they have made is flawed in a few important ways. The most interesting of these flaws is conceptual—and as I read the paper I could not help but think that it is a good example of how the normative-focused 'political theory' subfield of political science can contribute to live debates in the 'empirical' side of their departments. I submit that the categories we have developed to make sense of Western history are sometimes a poor fit for the history of China. Analyzing Chinese history means taking Chinese conceptions of their own institutions seriously. Failure to take Chinese political philosophy with the seriousness it deserves may cause us to miss some of the most interesting patterns of China's political history…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Well, that was a very interesting read!

Thanks, Armand!

The commie's got in the way duh.

They do have democracy, 1 man and 1 vote.

Because way back in those bad old days, being a "political representative" of your people and trying to convince a conquering warlord to practice your "democracy" idea would most likely end in you losing your head…(?)

The Chinese people have always been "followers," that's why. They need a central authority figure, whether it's the Emperor, Mao Zedong or Xi Jinping.

No mention my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

A lot of irrigation required for their crops. Requires a bureaucracy to manage. Bureaucracies don't like democracy.

Dictators generally don't like competition.

Socialist/communist dictators even more so.

100 million killed in the last 100 years by them should be enough to prove the point.