1st Edition
Deliberative Democracy in Asia
Featuring cases from India, China, Nepal, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Mongolia and Malaysia, the authors demonstrate and compare the differing uses of public deliberation in Asia.
Many countries in Asia have long traditions of public deliberation, in both democratic and undemocratic settings, some of which continue today. Yet in the face of pressures from complex governance, popular protests and democratization, certain deliberative practices – notably deliberative polling – have been ‘parachuted’ into the region without regard to historical or traditional practices of deliberation. And, the motivations differ. Some states have made use of public deliberation in order to contain dissent, while others have more emancipatory goals in mind. The contributors to this book take a comparative perspective on the emergence and evolution of deliberative practices in Asia, and their relationships with democracy. They analyse the main motivations for introducing public deliberation in different political regimes and the effectiveness of public deliberation in Asian countries for solving problems and improving governance. In doing so they evaluate whether deliberative democratic tools, can apply to all societies regardless of their political and cultural differences.
Essential reading for students and scholars of Asian Politics, this book will also be of great use to all political scientists with an interest in deliberative democracy.
1 Deliberative Democracy in Asia: Past, Present and Future Baogang He and Michael G Breen PART 1: Village Deliberation 2 Village Deliberative Democracy and Village Governance in China Baogang He, Huang Zhenhua and Wu Jinjin 3 Indonesia: Deliberate and Deliver – Deepening Democracy through Social Accountability Hans Antlöv and Anna Wetterberg 4 Deliberative Democracy in Indian Villages Prabhat Kumar Datta PART 2: Deliberation in Divided Societies 5 Nepal: Participatory and Deliberative Constitution-making in a Divided Society Michael G Breen 6 Deliberative Democracy versus Elite Deliberation in Malaysia Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani 7 Consultation as Non-Democratic Participation: Singapore and its Implications Garry Rodan 8 The Philippines: An Uneven Trajectory of Deliberative Democracy Nicole Curato PART 3: Deliberative Polling 9 Democracy and Deliberative Poll on Policy Making in Japan Yasunori Sone 10 Deliberative Democracy in South Korea: Four Deliberative Polling Experiments Jieun Park 11 Deliberative Polling on the Amendment of the Press Law and the Audio-Visual Broadcasting Act in Macao Angus Cheong, James S Fishkin and Alice Siu 12 Mongolia: Piloting Elements of a Deliberative System James S Fishkin and Alice Siu 13 Conclusion: Comparative Questions About Deliberative Democracy in Asia Mark E Warren
Biography
Baogang He is Alfred Deakin Professor, Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Chair in International Relations since 2005, at Deakin University, Australia, and was inaugural Head of Public Policy and Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Michael G Breen is a McKenzie Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Melbourne and is the author of The Road to Federalism in Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka: Finding the Middle Ground (2018, Routledge).
James S. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University where he is Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science, is Director of Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy and Chair of the Dept of Communication and in 2014, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The book opens new directions for future research as it pushes the reader to think further. The acknowledgement by the authors of the diversity of deliberative practices will also have larger implications at a theoretical level of democracy. The purpose of deliberative democracy is to allow citizens to have an active role within the political process, and that can be achieved by developing a renewed approach to understanding the social, political, economic and cultural aspects of their countries. Therefore, deliberative democracy in Asia is an invaluable contribution to the discipline of political science and political theory overall. - Ekta Shaikh, University of Delhi, India in Asian Studies Review
https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2022.2040081
