Are “Asian values” an impediment to the liberal democratisation of historically Confucian East Asia?

• Main Author: Soh, Ah Kiat
• Other Authors: Ana Cristina Dias Alves
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/71649
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Recent years have seen a great deal of interest in the extent to which “Asian Values,” derived from the legacies of Confucianism, inhibit a country’s acceptance of liberal democracy. This paper relies on the 2012 findings from To-Chol Sin’s analyses of the World Values Survey and Asian Barometer Surveys to determine the relationship between “Asian Values” and liberal democratisation in East Asia, the region historically known as Confucian Asia. The findings show that attachment to Confucian “Asian Values” undermines the development of liberal democratic political culture by discouraging ordinary citizens from embracing liberal democracy while encouraging them to support nonliberal democracy. Evidently, “Asian Values” play a much more important role in the process of democratisation than has been claimed.