Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T15:07:00.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do East Asians Perceive Democracy as a Lesser Evil? Retesting Churchill's Lesser-Evil Notion of Democracy in East Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

DOH CHULL SHIN
DOH CHULL SHIN*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Missouri at Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Winston Churchill once asserted ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time’. In this conception, democracy is ‘a lesser evil’, something that is not good but is less bad than its alternatives. This study offers a rigorous test of this concept in the context of East Asia. Analysis of the East Asia Barometer surveys conducted in five new democracies in the region reveals that small minorities of these countries actually perceive the current democratic regime as a lesser evil. A large majority of these ‘lesser-evil perceivers’, moreover, refuse to support democracy fully. On the basis of these findings, we argue that the Churchillian lesser-evil notion of democracy has limited utility as an alternative paradigm for the study of democratization among ordinary citizens.

Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , April 2009 , pp. 59 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, C. and Guillory, C. A. (1997), ‘Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy’, American Political Science Review, 91: 66–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratton, M., Mattes, R., and Gyimah-Boadi, E. (2005), Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Camp, R. (ed.) (2001), Citizens Views of Democracy in Latin America, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Y., Chu, Y., and Park, C. (2007), ‘Struggling Democracies in East Asia: A Diagnosis Through Citizens’ Eyes’, Journal of Democracy (July).Google Scholar
Cheng, T. (2003), ‘Political Institutions of the Malaise of East Asian New Democracies’, Journal of East Asian Studies, 3: 1–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chu, Y., Diamond, L., Nathan, A., and Shin, D. (eds.) (2008), How East Asian View Democracy, New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colton, T. (2000), Transitional Citizens: Voters and What Influences Them in the New Russia, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croissant, A. (2004), ‘From Transition to Defective Democracy: Mapping Asia Democratization’, Democratization, 11 (5): 156–78.Google Scholar
Cusak, T. R. (1999), ‘The Shaping of Popular Satisfaction with Government and Regime Performance in Germany’, British Journal of Political Science, 29: 641–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, R. (1999), ‘Political Support in Advanced Industrial Democracies,’ in Norris, P. (ed.), Critical Citizens, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 57–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, R. (2004), Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, Russell and Shin, Doh Chull (eds.) (2006), Citizens, Democracy, Markets around the Pacific, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, L. (1999), Developing Democracy Toward Consolidation, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.Google Scholar
Diamond, L. (2001), ‘How People View Democracy? Findings from Public Opinion Surveys in Four Regions’, http://democracy.standord.edu/seminar/diamond2001.htm.Google Scholar
Evans, G. and Whitefield, S. (1995), ‘The Politics and Economics of Democratic Commitment: Support for Democracy in Transition Societies’, British Journal of Political Science, 25: 485–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuchs, D., Guidorossi, G., and Svensson, P. (1995), ‘Support for the democratic system in Germany’, in Klingemann, H. and Fuch, D. (eds.), Citizens and the State, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 323–53.Google Scholar
Gibson, James (2004), Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. L., Duch, R. M., and Tedin, K. L. (1992), ‘Democratic Values and the Transformation of the Soviet Union’, Journal of Politics, 54: 329–71.Google Scholar
Haerpfer, C. (2001), Democracy and Enlargement in Post-Communist Europe: The Democratization of the General Public in 15 Central and Eastern European Countries, 1991–1998, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Klingemann, H (1999), ‘Mapping Political Support in the 1990s: A Global Analysis’, in Norris, P. (ed.), Critical Citizens, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 31–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klingemann, H. and Fuchs, D. (eds.) (1995), Citizens and the State, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Junhan (2002), ‘Primary Causes of Democratization’, Asian Survey, 42 (6): 821–37.Google Scholar
Lijphart, A. (1999), Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Linz, J. and Stepan, A. (1996), Problems of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe, Southern America, and Post-Communist Countries, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattes, R. and Bratton, M. (2007), ‘Learning about Democracy in Africa: Awareness Performance, and Experience’, American Journal of Political Science, 51: 192–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonough, P., Barnes, S., and Pina, L. (1998), The Cultural Dynamics of Democratization in Spain, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, A. H., Hesli, V. L., and Reisinger, W. M. (1997), ‘Conceptions of Democracy Across Mass and Elites in Post-Soviet Russia’, British Journal of Political Science, 27: 157–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mueller, J. (1999), Capitalism, Democracy, and Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Norris, P. (ed.) (1999), Critical Citizens, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pharr, S. J. and Putnam, R. D. (eds.) (2000), Disaffected Democracies, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Powell, G. Bingham Jr. (1982), ‘Social Progress and Liberal Democracy’, in Almond, G., Chodorow, M., and Pearce, R. (eds.), Progress and Its Discontents. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 375–402.Google Scholar
Reilly, B. (2006), Democracy and Diversity: Political Engineering in the Asia-Pacific, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, R. (1997), ‘Where are Postcommunist Countries Going?’, Journal of Democracy, 8 (3): 92–108.Google Scholar
Rose, R. and Mishler, W. (1996), ‘Testing the Churchill Hypothesis: Popular Support for Democracy and its Alternatives’, Journal of Public Policy, 16 (1): 29–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, R., Mishler, W., and Haerpfer, C. (1998), Democracy and Its Alternatives, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, R., Shin, D., and Munro, N. (1999), ‘Tensions between the Democratic Ideal and Reality: South Korea’, in Norris, P. (ed.), Critical Citizens, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 146–65.Google Scholar
Shin, D. (1999), Mass Politics and Culture in Democratizing Korea, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shin, D. and Wells, J. (2001), ‘Testing the Churchill Notion of Democracy as a Lesser Evil in Post-Communist Europe’, Central European Political Science Review, 2 (4): 6–24.Google Scholar
Simon, J. (1994), ‘What Democracy Means for Hungarians?’, Presented at the World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Berlin, 21–25 August.Google Scholar