Values and democracy in East Asia and Europe: a comparison

Abstract

AbstractThis article deals with values and democracy in East Asia and Europe, comparing them. Based on the data collected by the WVS, we address the following questions: To what extent does cultural-religious background, such as Confucianism in the case of East Asia, affect the direction of value change? Is this influence even stronger than structural settings? Is there a link between value change, ethic-religious background, and democracy? We clearly distinguish between the value change that occurred in the ‘first’ or ‘simple’ modernity, and that during the ‘second’ modernity. According to Western value change discourse, the ‘first’ modernity witnessed a value change from traditional-religious to secular-rational values, but this did not necessarily lead to democracy. For the ‘second’ modernity, a shift from material to post-materialist values and an intensifying of the demand for self-expression values was predicted. Triggered by rising education levels, this leads to a rising demand for democracy. The researches of the WVSs also found a paradox: that people in authoritarian nations also tended to support liberal democracy, which is why it has been argued that it is more important to research support for authoritarian notions of democracy. Our analysis shows that the Confucian countries rank high concerning the level of secular-rational values. Concerning self-expression values, in contrast, these countries show only low change levels. Therefore, democracy finds relatively low levels of support among these countries. Specifically, in Japan, where education levels are as high as in Germany, the support for liberal notions of democracy was comparatively low, what can be called the `second paradox’. Thus, the expectations of Western value change discourse, which predicts a general shift to more democracy in the ‘second’ modernity, are unfulfilled. Overall, our analysis revealed that the ethic-religious background plays a key role in value change and seems to be as influential as structural setting.