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Sprouts of Democracy in Chinese History, Pierre-Étienne Will

In this article derived from a conference given at Columbia University in 2008, Pierre-Etienne Will discards culturalist arguments justifying the absence of a democratic regime in China and searches for “sprouts of democracy” in Chinese history.

As a historian of China, it seems impossible to me not to be concerned with present-day politics in that country. Indeed, it is as a historian that I try in this article to look into the question of democracy in China; and it is for the same reason that I will abstain from discussing the likelihood—or absence of likelihood—of a democratic transition in today’s China, of whatever sort: this is a topic for political scientists.

The immediate motives for my interest in “China and democracy” need not be detailed here, except perhaps that I have long been exasperated with a relentless kind of discourse in China and in the West, which in effect denies the Chinese the very possibility of converting anytime soon to a different political system—a system that would allow for changes in political leadership resulting from free elections, that would ensure an independent judiciary, and in which the basic liberties would be effectively protected. The reasons given are well- known: first, economic and cultural backwardness (“the quality of our people is too low”, as Jiang Zemin used to say); and then, more ominously, the weight of “tradition”: while economic backwardness and a low level of education can be corrected with proper development policies, tradition is something more difficult to deal with, especially when, as in the Chinese case, it is understood as a sort of timeless essence.

Rather than the economic argument, which has been debated by specialists drawing widely different conclusions from the same statistical data, it was the cultural argument—the obstacles raised by the so-called Chinese tradition, essentialized as the “Confuciantradition”—that made me, so to speak, intellectually cringe, and encouraged me to re- examine the problem of tradition and democracy in China (if there indeed was a problem) on a sounder basis, that is, mostly, on a historical basis. Lire la suite sur books & ideas.net

Extrait de Pierre-Etienne Will, « Sprouts of Democracy in Chinese History », Books & Ideas, 30 May 2011. ISSN : 2114-074X. URL : http://www.booksandideas.net/Sprouts-of-Democracy-in-Chinese.html

Lire aussi

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[Co-direction avec Mireille Delmas-Marty] La Chine et la démocratie.Tradition, droit, institutions, Paris, Fayard, 2007. 893 p. Sommaire de l’ouvrage

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jacqueline Nivard
Jacqueline Nivard
Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Jacqueline Nivard (18 juillet 2011). Sprouts of Democracy in Chinese History, Pierre-Étienne Will. . Consulté le 6 juin 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/me43


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