Chapter 32 2. Why is the quality of democracy poor?

From the perspective of Western mainstream democratic theory, the poor quality of East Asian democracy is mainly caused by two reasons.The first is the lack of judicial independence and the spirit of the rule of law.Western democratic theory holds that an ideal democratic society should be based on the independence of the judiciary and the spirit of the rule of law.Without an independent judicial system with a high degree of credibility, the quality of democracy is difficult to guarantee.Now that the Western democratic framework has been chosen, all parties should abide by the same rules of the game to play games. This requires an independent and credible legal system first, but many Asian societies have failed to achieve this.

In addition, the real implementation of this system requires the spirit of the rule of law and the culture of the rule of law that are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. As the famous jurist Harold J. Berman said: "The law must be believed, otherwise it is useless." But East Asian societies generally lack the tradition of the rule of law in the Western sense.For example, the citizens of Bangkok generally welcomed the military coup in 2006. It is difficult for Western society to understand how the people can support the army to overthrow a legitimate government that was elected through elections.The Thai court later ruled that the Thai People's Power Party and its coalition ruling party were "illegal" in a quick decision on the grounds of electoral cheating. Western mainstream media called this practice a "judicial coup."

Inadequate rule of law is also reflected in the low level of trust that ordinary citizens have in the legal system.The US "Time Magazine" reported on January 12, 2009 that even in South Korea, where the rule of law is relatively developed, South Korean polls show that the Korean people do not have strong trust in their own country's legal system, and most people think that their country's legal system cannot Ensure that everyone is equal before the law.The judicial system in Taiwan, China also does not have the credibility required for the development of a sound democratic system: In 2010, the collective corruption of judges in the Taiwan High Court was exposed; The fact that millions of red shirts took to the streets to protest in 2009 reflects the people's strong skepticism about solving problems within the existing judicial system.

The second problem is that "civic culture" is seriously insufficient. "Civic culture" is originally a specific custom and attitude, and its greatest feature is rationality and tolerance, respecting your opponents and the minority at all times.Due to the absence of "civic culture", it is easy for politicians to fool the people. The people that politicians talk about are not citizens who can rationally participate in politics as envisioned in classical western democratic theory, but the people mobilized from top to bottom by hyping up political issues. .MD Santiago, a Philippine female politician who once ran for president, said: "Filipinos never take elections seriously. Filipinos don't seem to be Asian, they seem to be closer to Polynesians in Hawaii. Filipinos are in During the campaign, they sing and dance, and regard political gatherings as a form of entertainment. Candidates also provide voters with various entertainment activities, including inviting entertainers and movie stars to sing and dance to attract voters. They do not talk about serious political issues. The election in the Philippines is a de facto It is a beauty pageant of popularity, rather than an intellectual competition of high or low ability.” When some politicians are dissatisfied with President Arroyo, they can pay to buy thousands of homeless people to march on the street. Its name is to express public opinion.

Huntington, an American political scientist, also expressed the difficulties that democratic construction is prone to encounter: "In many situations, the easiest way for political leaders to win votes is to appeal to supporters of tribes, ethnic groups, races, and religions, which leads to community and inter-ethnic conflicts.” Taiwan is an example. The serious absence of civic culture has produced “illiberal democracy” (illiberal democracy). Politicians deliberately provoke ethnic conflicts for votes, causing ethnic divisions, and “smearing” opponents. ", "smearing red", "smearing yellow", until they are put to death and then quickly.The South Korean National Assembly is also constantly staged violent conflicts.South Korea has been democratized for more than 20 years, but the level of democratization is still at the level of mandatory institutional constraints, and has not gone deep into the level of self-discipline from the concept.In Korean politics, all political parties agree with the principle of "the minority obeys the majority", but once their own party becomes a minority in the parliament, they are unwilling to obey this principle, and the majority party in the parliament tends to abuse the power of the majority Come exclusive.

If the above-mentioned reasons can roughly explain the failure of many democratic experiments in East Asia, then the prescription is naturally to strengthen the construction of judicial independence and cultivate the spirit of the rule of law and civic culture. Of course, such efforts can and should continue, but we It is also necessary to ask some deeper questions related to this. For example, why is it so difficult to establish judicial independence and the spirit of the rule of law in these societies?Why is it so difficult to cultivate a civic culture in these societies?Will these societies' efforts to improve justice and civic culture be ultimately successful?What is the opportunity cost of this effort?Can these societies afford this opportunity cost?What if Western democracy has been experimented with for nearly a century, as in the Philippines, or for more than 70 years, as in Thailand, without success?

We can further ask: Since the Western democratic system itself has exposed so many problems, and since there are almost no real successful examples of this system in the practice of non-Western countries, should we continue to copy the Western system, or even go through fire and water? ?Do we still have to follow the lead of the Western democratic model?Faced with so many failed experiences, shouldn't we consider finding another way to build democracy?I personally think that for East Asian countries, and even the entire non-Western world, the only feasible way is to learn from the experience and lessons of other countries' democratic construction and combine their own cultural traditions to carry out system innovation.

History does not end with the Western democratic system as Fukuyama said, human beings are still exploring the content and form of the best political system, and it will not end.There is no unique democratic model in the world that other cultures must copy in unison. All countries in the world should explore a democratic model that suits their own national conditions. That is to say, democratic models are diversified rather than unitized. It cannot be a one-line model of Western democracy. The influential Pew Research Center in the United States has been conducting public opinion surveys on major countries in the world for many years to understand the public's satisfaction with the status quo of their own countries. In 2005, a detailed survey of citizens in 17 countries found that people in Western countries The proportion of people who are dissatisfied with the situation in their own country is very large, but 72% of Chinese people are satisfied with the status quo of their country, which is the first among the 17 countries surveyed.This compares with 39 percent satisfaction among Americans and 29 percent among Frenchmen. In 2010, the Pew Research Center conducted the same survey, and found that the Chinese still ranked first. 87% of the Chinese were basically satisfied with their country, while 30% of the Americans were satisfied, and 26% of the French (see PEW Global Attitudes Project website).

These surveys cannot explain all the problems related to the political system, but they can at least explain one point: China's existing system must have its strengths, and the Western system must have its shortcomings, otherwise this would not be the result.An event that has attracted worldwide attention in the past three decades has been the rapid rise of China. The way the West did not expect this rise, and the ideas behind its rise are also quite different from mainstream Western political views. These ideas are of great value to our democratic innovation. inspire.The most important concept that made China's reform and opening up successful is "seeking truth from facts." Its core content is not to believe in any dogma, and to determine the right and wrong of things by examining the facts themselves.

Based on this judgment of the facts, I think that East Asian countries, and even all non-Western societies, should consider finding a new way to build democracy. If they do not do this, but continue to follow the Western democratic model, it may be a costly one. Or even completely out of the way.In fact, the reform of the Western political system itself has a long way to go. Greece, the birthplace of Western democracy, is now bankrupt. Britain, the birthplace of modern parliamentary democracy, is also in a serious financial crisis. The United States, which promotes Western democracy the most, has become the birthplace of the financial crisis.In the previous section "Is 'Game Democracy' Still Playing?", I have already discussed the plight of the Western model in the West, so I won't go into details here.But perhaps it is worth mentioning specifically the cases of Taiwan and South Korea: they have basically modernized and switched to Western political systems (most Eastern European countries also switched to Western political systems on the basis of moderately industrialized countries) , but their democratic qualities are really unsatisfactory, which makes us have to question the suitability of the entire Western democratic model and its discourse for non-Western societies.Perhaps Zachary, editor-in-chief of Newsweek, is more reasonable in his "cultural tradition determinism". He believes that countries with non-Western cultural traditions often adopt the Western democratic model as a result of "non-liberal democracy." , but there is no form and no spirit, and the true democratic quality is greatly reduced, or even disappears.