One Size Doesn't Fit All: Why Western Democracy Won't Work in East Asia

Speaker: Daniel A. Bell, 2003/2004 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University

In this talk Professor Bell will highlight the dangers of implementing Western models of democracy in Southeast and Northeast Asia and argue for ways of varying these models to ensure a better fit with local contexts, including local experience and knowledge. He will begin by drawing on the example of foreign domestic workers in Singapore and Hong Kong to question the Western ideal of "equal rights for all." He will then offer a model of democracy "with Confucian characteristics" intended to remedy some of the limitations of Western-style democracy in East Asian contexts. The overall aim of the talk will be to show the advantages-indeed, the necessity-of taking local knowledge and local traditions into account when proposing political reforms for East Asia that are not only morally desirable but politically feasible as well.

Daniel A. Bell is the author of East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia (Princeton, 2000) and Communitarianism and Its Critics (Oxford, 1993) and co-editor of Confucianism for the Modern World (Cambridge, 2003) and The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge, 1999). Currently an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong, he has held teaching or fellowship positions at the University of Hong Kong, the National University of Singapore, and Princeton University. His degrees include a D.Phil. from Oxford and a B.A. from McGill.