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Democracy, Zhengdao (政道), and “The Last Man”

Pi, Kyung-hoon 1

1목포대학교

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ABSTRACT

Since the early 20th century, Chinese intellectuals have tried to constitute their own civilization which is different from the Western one. From this catchphrase “Being different from the Western,” however, what we have to see is that no matter how Chinese intellectuals desire to “be different from the West,” but they still care about the West. 1989 Francis Fukuyama proposed “the end of history.” In this controversial thesis, Fukuyama argued that the Western democracy is the final stage of human history, then there could not be any other political institution better than the Western liberal democracy. Contrary to this Fukuyama’s thesis, Wang Shaoguang, who is the significant intellectual of China, argued that the Western liberal democracy is not the only legitimate political institution in human history. According to his view, “democracy” had been seen as a dangerous and, even worse, harmful system in the history; and a political system has been judged by “the form of government (政體)” hitherto. Wang insisted that instead of “the form of government,” the concept “Zhengdao(政道)” should replace the existing Western criterion “the form of government.” In fact, the Western liberal democracy has confronted with serious challenges nowadays, so Wang’s theoretical challenge could be seen as a “symptomatic” phenomena in 21st century. This article tried to accurately analysis this Wang Shaoguang’s theoretical challenge and critically examine its structures.

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