Democracy, Meritocracy, or Both? The Case of China / Perspectives: Asia

https://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au Presented by: Professor Daniel A. Bell, Chair Professor of the Schwarzman Scholar Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing and director of the Berggruen Institute of Philosophy and Culture

Westerners tend to divide the political world into “good” democracies and “bad” authoritarian regimes. But the Chinese political model does not fit neatly in either category. Over the past three decades, China has developed a genuinely new approach to governance, rooted in its long history and at odds with the “Western” idea that electoral democracy is the only legitimate form of government. This political model can best be described as “political meritocracy” although there remains a large gap between the theory and the practice and a large democratic deficit. How do the ideals of political meritocracy set the standard for evaluating political progress (and regress) in China? How can China avoid the disadvantages of political meritocracy? How can political meritocracy best be combined with democracy? And what can the West learn from the Chinese approach to governance? Drawing on his new book The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (Princeton, 2015), Daniel A. Bell will discuss one of the most important political developments of the twenty-first century.

Professor Bell was educated at McGill University and Oxford University. He has taught in Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and has held research fellowships at Princeton’s University Center for Human Values and Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He is the author of numerous books including The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (2015), China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (2010), Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (2006), and East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia (2000), all published by Princeton University Press. He writes widely on Chinese politics and philosophy for the media including the New York Times, Financial Times, Global Times, Nanfengchuang, Worldpost, Project Syndicate, and the Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog, and he has been interviewed in English, Chinese, and French. His articles and books have been translated into Chinese and twenty-two other languages.

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