TY - JOUR
T1 - Chinesestyle democracy as a political project for meaning-construction
T2 - Old wine in a new bottle?
AU - Wong, Benson Wai Kwok
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies - National Sun Yat-sen University. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/7/1
Y1 - 2017/7/1
N2 - Drawn from the textual data in the online and printed media from mainland China and Hong Kong, this article aims to identify and feature how Chinese-style democracy is constructed by engaging in discourse analysis, arguing that China-style democracy is not a political experiment aiming to critically reflect upon the weaknesses of democracy in conceptual and procedural aspects, and not a creative project focusing on how the Chinese experiences can refresh and reframe the conventional wisdom. Instead, it is a meaning-construction project surrounding the following themes explored: (1) negative Western democracy versus positive Chinese-style democracy in terms of efficiency, (2) Western democracy as the symbol ofpolitical failure, such as street politics, domestic struggles, chaos, (3) positivity of Chinese-style democracy with China's rise brought by reform and opening-up since 1978, and (4) perverting the language of Western democracy to construct Chinese-style democracy, such as rule of law, human rights. Specialty, uniqueness and adaption, in the main, are the common ground during the process of meaning reconstruction, with the intention to conduct the political performance for an undemocratic, illiberal and autocratic regime.
AB - Drawn from the textual data in the online and printed media from mainland China and Hong Kong, this article aims to identify and feature how Chinese-style democracy is constructed by engaging in discourse analysis, arguing that China-style democracy is not a political experiment aiming to critically reflect upon the weaknesses of democracy in conceptual and procedural aspects, and not a creative project focusing on how the Chinese experiences can refresh and reframe the conventional wisdom. Instead, it is a meaning-construction project surrounding the following themes explored: (1) negative Western democracy versus positive Chinese-style democracy in terms of efficiency, (2) Western democracy as the symbol ofpolitical failure, such as street politics, domestic struggles, chaos, (3) positivity of Chinese-style democracy with China's rise brought by reform and opening-up since 1978, and (4) perverting the language of Western democracy to construct Chinese-style democracy, such as rule of law, human rights. Specialty, uniqueness and adaption, in the main, are the common ground during the process of meaning reconstruction, with the intention to conduct the political performance for an undemocratic, illiberal and autocratic regime.
KW - Chinesestyle democracy
KW - Discourse analysis
KW - Efficiency
KW - Stability
KW - Street politics
KW - Western democracy
UR - https://rpb115.nsysu.edu.tw/p/404-1131-175227.php?Lang=en
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85051187028&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85051187028
SN - 2410-9681
VL - 3
SP - 819
EP - 847
JO - Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal
JF - Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal
IS - 2
ER -