With liberal democracies under strain and the Chinese government delivering stability and prosperity to its citizens, is democracy still an ideal worth pursuing in China? In Why China Needs Democracy, Dongxian Jiang makes a powerful case for constitutional democracy in the Chinese context. Doing so, he challenges the so-called China Model, a normative vision that seeks to preserve China鈥檚 鈥渕eritocratic鈥� one-party system while making it more open, more participatory, and less repressive. Jiang offers instead a realist defense of constitutional democracy that is grounded in a clear-eyed analysis of China鈥檚 political realities, a discerning critique of post-Mao moral and institutional problems, and a broad engagement with the findings of empirical political science on both democratic and authoritarian regimes.
Jiang shows that the China Model fails on two realist grounds: it places unwarranted faith in the willingness of China鈥檚 leadership to liberalize and share power with citizens; and even with limited power-sharing, the system would be unable to address one of China鈥檚 deepest problems鈥攖he state鈥檚 unchecked domination over ordinary people. For all its flaws, constitutional democracy remains an indispensable framework for limiting the state鈥檚 authoritarian overreach. Jiang argues that when realism is understood in a more expansive, historically grounded way鈥攏ot simply as short-term political feasibility鈥攃onstitutional democracy in China can be seen to be a realistic and necessary path forward over the long term.
Dongxian Jiang is assistant professor of Chinese studies in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Fordham University.
“Like a doctor attending a sick patient, Dongxian Jiang diagnoses contemporary China’s chief malady—the party-state domination over ordinary citizens—and prescribes constitutional democracy as the best available treatment. He compellingly argues that realists must balance short-term possibilities and cultural inheritances with visions of long-term possibilities that can solve existing dysfunctions. Why China Needs Democracy is a powerful book whose lesson of hopeful pessimism is essential for all those concerned with China’s future.”—Stephen C. Angle, Wesleyan University
“Embracing universalist ideals of constitutional democracy while exhibiting great sensitivity to China’s specific context and predicament, Dongxian Jiang charts a new way of doing political theory of, and for, the non-Western world. It is a political theory that is attuned to institutions, not just culture, to empirics, not just ideals, and to ordinary, not just elite, values.”—Loubna El Amine, author of Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation
“This is the most comprehensive, fair, and rigorous critique of the theories of the China Model I have seen in the last decade or so. It also offers a strong realist argument for China’s need for constitutional democracy. This is an important book, and there is no other that so expertly and comprehensively brings together contemporary Chinese political thought with political science studies of China.”—Joseph Chan, author of Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times
“A timely intervention in contemporary Chinese political science, which often lacks a critical evaluative perspective, and comparative political theory, which is largely driven by textual analysis and conceptual studies. I credit the author for his courage to boldly tackle some salient moral and political problems currently facing the Chinese state and society.”—Sungmoon Kim, author of Confucian Constitutionalism: Dignity, Rights, and Democracy
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