East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia

Is liberal democracy a universal ideal? Proponents of "Asian values" argue that it is a distinctive product of the Western experience and that Western powers shouldn't try to push human rights and democracy onto Asian states. Liberal democrats in the West typically counter by questioning the motives of Asian critics, arguing that Asian leaders are merely trying to rationalize human-rights violations and authoritarian rule. In this book--written as a dialogue between an American democrat named Demo and three East Asian critics--Daniel A. Bell attempts to chart a middle ground between the extremes of the international debate on human rights and democracy. Bell criticizes the use of "Asian values" to justify oppression, but also draws on East Asian cultural traditions and contributions by contemporary intellectuals in East Asia to identify some powerful challenges to Western-style liberal democracy. In the first part of the book, Bell makes use of colorful stories and examples to show that there is a need to take into account East Asian perspectives on human rights and democracy. The second part--a fictitious dialogue between Demo and Asian senior statesman Lee Kuan Yew--examines the pros and cons of implementing Western-style democracy in Singapore. The third part of the book is an argument for an as-yet-unrealized Confucian political institution that justifiably differs from Western-style liberal democracy. This is a thought-provoking defense of distinctively East Asian challenges to Western-style liberal democracy that will stimulate interest and debate among students of political theory, Asian studies, and international human rights.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments xi INTRODUCTION 3 PART I THE EAST ASIAN CHALLENGE TO HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY. REFLECTIONS ON EAST-WEST DIALOGUES 21 CHAPTER 1 TOWARD A TRULY INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS REGIME 23 1. Trade-offs 35 1.1. Rights vs. Development: A Zero-Sum Game? 35 1.2. The Need for Specificity 37 2. An Asian Voice on Human Rights? 49 2.1. Human Rights: A Western Invention? 49 2.2. Increasing Commitment to Human Rights in East Asia: Strategic Considerations 55 2.2.1. On the Prospects of Exporting American Ideals to East Asia 56 2.2.2. Appealing to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Asia 63 2.2.3. Local justifications for Human Rights 68 3. A Different Moral Standpoint? 82 3.1. Cultural Respect vs. Liberal Neutrality 84 3.2. Justifiable Constraints on Western-Style Rights 87 3.3. New "Asian" Rights: Expanding the Set of Internationally Recognized Rights 95 Summary 103 CHAPTER 2 DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCAL KNOWLEDGE 106 1. Trade-off Issues 110 1.1. On the Possibility of Decent Nondemocratic Regimes 110 1.2. The Costs of Democratization 116 2. Democratic Rights: Different justifications 130 2.1. Limiting the Power of the State 130 2.2. Democracy as a Means for Nation-Building 137 2.3. Identifying the Agents of Democratization 142 2.4. Nation-Building and Social Consensus in Confucian Democracies 149 3. Democratic Rights: Different Constraints 158 3.1 Democracy vs. Civil Rights 158 3.2 Democracy vs. Social and Economic Rights 16 3.3 Democracy vs. Future Generations 16 Summary 170 PART II THE PROS AND CONS OF DEMOCRACY IN SINGAPORE: A FICTITIOUS DIALOGUE WITH LEE KUAN YEW 173 CHAPTER 3 IS LIBERAL DEMOCRACY SUITABLE FOR SINGAPORE? 175 1. Democracy Defined as Free and Fair Competitive Elections 176 2. Democracy justified (Only) by Its Consequences 185 3. Democracy and Security 201 4. Democracy and Civil Liberties 213 5. Democracy and Prosperity 219 Summary 232 CHAPTER 4 A COMMUNITARIAN CRITIQUE OF AUTHORITARIANISM: THE CASE OF SINGAPORE 233 1. Community and Democracy 233 2. Democracy and the Family 236 3. Democracy and the Nation 239 3.1. Singapore: A Patriotic Nation? 239 3.2. How Authoritarianism Undermines Patriotism 241 3.3. On the Need for Patriotism in Singapore 253 Summary 271 PART III DEMOCRACY WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS 277 CHAPTER 5 A POLITICAL PROPOSAL FOR THE POST-COMMUNIST ERA 279 1. Constraining Democratic Populism 281 1.1. On the Need for Capable and Far-Sighted Rulers in Modern Societies 281 1.2. A Confucian Tradition of Respect for a Ruling Intellectual Elite 286 2. Alternative Proposals 289 2.1. Plural Voting Schemes 292 2.2. A Corporatist Assembly 294 2.3. A Parliament of Scholar-Officials 299 3. The Proposal 307 3.1. Selection Procedures 307 3.2. The Problem of Cormption 318 3.3. The Question of Universalizability 323 3.4. The Problem of Gridlock 328 3.5. Implementation of the Proposal 332 Closing Scene 335 Select Bibliography 337 Index 353

About the Author :
Daniel A. Bell is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Public and Social Administration at the City University of Hong Kong He has also taught at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Communitarianism and Its Critics, the coauthor of Towards Illiberal Democracy in Pacific Asia, and coeditor of The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights.

Review :
Bell has produced a tour de force of great depth ...[A] solid philosophical work, respectful but tough minded, that illuminates East Asian political perspectives and forces Americans to reexamine their own assumptions. -- Lucian W. Pye Foreign Affairs Daniel Bell has produced a book that is as creative and intriguing as it is scholarly and substantial. He has created three dramatic, engaging, philosophically penetrating dialogues illuminating the 'Asian Values' debate... These dialogues are accessible and even entertaining, but they are also thoroughly researched and tightly argued. -- Steven Wrage Millenium Bell's East Asian interlocutors express some of the bewilderment felt by the recipients of America's moral advice, and the offer a robust critique... American advocates of human rights tend to argue from principle: East Asians from how things currently are on the ground. -- Alex de Waal London Review of Books Bell criticizes 'West-centric perspectives,' which assume that every society aspires to the ideal of becoming a Western-style liberal democracy. [This is an] extremely rich new book. -- Jerry Burke Philosophy East & West