Abstract
What citizens know and think about democracy is key to whether and how democracy endures in any country. Traditional interpretations of Asian political cultures suggest that people anchor their support for democracy on cultural values, or socio-economic circumstances, or knowledge of what democracy is and does around the world. Instead, this chapter argues that citizens anchor their support for democracy on their understanding of the concept of democracy, which becomes key to understand the dynamics of democratization and democratic consolidation in Asia. The chapter further discusses the tension between citizens’ views of democracy and their attitudinal support toward authoritarian, technocratic, military, and democratic political systems and shows that the consistency and depth of support for democracy as ‘the only game in town’ is shallow at best, and that in Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand authoritarian attitudes are as popular and appealing as democratic ones in spite of their citizens’ conceptions of democracy.
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Notes
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© 2014 Giovanna Maria Dora Dore
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Dore, G.M.D. (2014). Democracy Is Not the Only Game in Town! Democratic and Authoritarian Attitudes in Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand. In: Dore, G.M.D., Ku, J.H., Jackson, K.D. (eds) Incomplete Democracies in the Asia-Pacific. Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137397508_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137397508_2
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