Democratic Conceptions in East Asian Societies a Contextualized Analysis

Jie Lu

《Taiwan Journal of Democracy》 9卷1期 (2013/07) Pp. 117-145

並列摘要

Using a new survey battery of democratic conceptions from the third wave of the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS III), this essay (1) examines the validity of this new survey battery in varying political contexts, and (2) explores the possible origins of democratic conceptions in the sampled East Asian societies. There are three major findings. First, measurement models confirm the validity of this new survey battery across different contexts. This new instrument effectively taps a unidimensional latent construct that registers the surveyed East Asians' propensity to understand democracy in varying ways. The latent construct falls on a continuous spectrum, ranging from one end of a substancebased democratic conception to the other end of a procedure-based conception. Second, within each sampled society, there is a significant amount of variance regarding its citizens' democratic conceptions. This within-society variance overwhelms the across-society variance in the East Asians' democratic conceptions. Finally, regression analyses show that two factors are critical for understanding the within-society variance: government performance and the extent to which people appreciate the intrinsic value of democracy. And, the impact of government performance is conditional upon its surrounding political context.

並列關鍵字

Democratic conceptions ； East Asia ； contextualized analysis

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