Читать книгу The World of Political Science - Группа авторов - Страница 10

A disaffected democracy (Pharr/Putnam 1999) is a democracy which has become mature and established, but in which distrust and indifference to politics have become a key feature. Robert Putnam has famously published Bowling Alone (2000) in which the associational propinquity of Americans has been long lost. Instead of enjoying bowling together with friends and with the family, bowling alone has become a normal phenomenon symbolically showing how the vibrant democratic spirit has been reduced. Most visibly, popular trust in political institutions has been at its nadir, with political parties accommodating members and supporters without much interest (Dalton/Wattenberg 2001, 2003; Wattenberg, 2002). A disaffected democracy is also called an established or mature democracy in which critical citizens play a key role of voicing dissent and demanding correction of wrongs (Norris 1997, 2002; Norris & Inglehart 2003). Whether a democracy had better be called a ‘critical’ democracy depends on one key feature; whether citizens demonstrate a robust commitment to democratic norms and values. Citizens’ distrust in politicians and political institutions may not automatically constitute a strong evidence of its being a disaffected democracy. Rather, as long as the basic core commitment to democratic norms and values is robust, it is positive, argues Pippa Norris. Is Japan a critical democracy? Yes, it is. I can offer two forms of evidence. Confidence in political parties, the parliament, the civil service, political leaders and the elected government are uniformly low (Pharr 1997; Inoguchi 2003). However, electorates overwhelmingly prefer democracy to authoritarianism, thus demonstrating robust commitment to democratic norms, values and institutions (Inoguchi 2002).

I have said that two adjectives, ‘disaffected’ or ‘critical’, make a difference in characterizing the nature of democracy among what are called established or mature democracies. Doh Chull Shin (2006) argues and empirically demonstrates that the distinction between critical views of democratic institutions and strong commitment to democratic values and norms was able to differentiate the durable from the fragile democracies. His deft use of survey data enables him to argue that the increasing prevalence of the procedural definition of democracy and its institutional outcomes causes the number of fragile democracies to grow after the initial phase of democratization.

Distinguished from a disaffected or established democracy is a third-wave democracy (Huntington 1993; Rose/Shin, 2001). Third-wave democracy is so called because it was born in the third wave of democratization in the twentieth century (the first was after World War I, the second after World War II and the third in the last quarter of the last century). Its key features are its focus on the procedural definition of democracy, on the electoral aspects of democracy, on the manipulative nature of democratic regimes, and on the fragile nature of democratic commitment. But democracy is normally defined in terms of substance, not just in terms of procedure. Hence we speak of government “by the people, of the people, and for the people”. And this politics and power are defined as getting things done, or as A’s ability to get B to do what B would not otherwise do. But in third-wave democracy its definition focuses on how leaders are selected in terms of free and fair elections among a number of political parties, sometimes under the monitoring of the United Nations. East Timor was a good example. It was Joseph Schumpeter (1947) who highlighted the procedural definition of democracy. He presented the somewhat cynical view of democracy, “new rascals in, old rascals out”, as the essence of democracy. As long as democracy moves the power of people (democracy), not the things of people (republic), the circulation of power among competing elites is inevitable. The dramatic shift from the substantive to the procedural conception of democracy has accelerated the increase in the number of democracies in the latter half of the 20^th century, especially in its last quarter. With the accession of Montenegro to the United Nations, democracies have numbered 125, whereas the UN member countries have amounted to 192. Also salient are the manipulative aspects of regime design and construction, such as those found in southern Europe, East/Central Europe, Latin America and East and Southeast Asia (Huntington 1993). Sartori’s notion of “crafting democracy” aptly describes this spirit. It is like democratic engineering following Karl Popper’s phrase, “social engineering”. Democracy is designed and fabricated. By whom? It is a good question. Normally it is by agreement of ‘interested powers’ and the United Nations. A regime in a peripheral country has often been fabricated by big powers’ interventions. It is not a new thing. Different now from before is the idea of a democratic regime. As long as norms and values are shared by both promoters and recipients of democracy, a democratic regime is designed and manufactured accordingly. Democratic diffusion is a phrase often used to obfuscate the blunt nature of fabricated democratic regimes. A no less important key feature is its fragility and volatility. Some regimes manifest more of this than others. In Korea, for instance, citizens’ commitment to democratic norms and values is manifestly lower than in other established democracies, for instance, Japan (Shin 2001; Inoguchi 2002).

Is Korea a third-wave democracy? Democratization took place in Korea, with the military dictatorship following the tide of democratization already underway in Southern Europe, Latin America, and East and Southeast Asia. Korean democracy has been exhibiting a volatility of public opinion, as exemplified by the dramatic anti-Americanism during the December 2002 Presidential election (Kim 2005). Furthermore, a fairly sizable number of voters prefers authoritarianism to democracy (Shin 2001).

China’s possibly fledgling democracy is, in other words, a semi-democracy or a democracy-in-the-making. Although the basic nature of the regime is doubtlessly authoritarian, one can find some features that may transform themselves into a democratic form. They include the increasingly inclusionary nature of the nomenklatura, village level democratic elections, and increasing attention to transparency and accountability. In China, for instance, Jiang Zemin’s “three representations” doctrine sought to enhance the membership of the communist party by admiring those who are capitalists and those advanced in science and technology as well as those committed to the party. Increasingly, village elections allow multiple candidates directly chosen by popular votes, although most candidates are from the communist party. Hu Jintao, the President, proclaims the “three wei”s, meaning power used for people, sentiments shared with people, and interests promoted for people. In other words, it is not quite government by, but somewhat of, and increasingly for, people.

The inept and non-transparent handling of the SARS infection in China in the spring of 2003 has reinforced the low level of transparency of the political system. Although President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao replaced the health minister of the Central Government, they were not able to do anything either about the Guangdong Provincial Government or the People’s Liberation Army, both of which were suspected at being more directly responsible.

Given the above admittedly cursory review of a disaffected democracy, a third-wave democracy and a possibly fledgling democracy, I shall describe the development of political science in Japan, Korea and China in the same order, with the different democratic characteristics kept in mind. As Japan has been a forerunner of the three in terms of democratic and disciplinary development (Easton et al. 1995), I will first examine the development of political science in Japan in good detail. Then I will turn to Korea and China.