Weber and Confucius in East Asia: The Great Experiment

Abstract

As Korea and China have risen as economic powers, scholars from those countries often write about areas of administration considered important by the nations’ political elite. A rise in interest, especially within China, of Confucian approaches to management and perceived conflicts with “Western” approaches mirrors a generational tension between traditional Maoists, and their rejection of Confucian proclivities, and a rising intellectual class, drawn to older indigenous schools of thought. Korea, however, offers Weberian administrative approaches in the classrooms of elite universities, but the administrative culture is strongly influenced by neo-Confucian norms. A comparison of Weber’s outline of ideal types of authority, especially legal-rational, and the logic of “Confucian administrative systems” offers insight into the areas of conflict and highlights the logics of counterpoints to Weber. This approach offers propositions for policy practices in East Asia that attempt to incorporate both East and West.