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How the West Constructed Its Discourse on Democracy—Anatomy of the Theory and Logic of Liberal Democracy

Published:2018-06-14 Published:2018-06-14   Author:Zeng Yi and Yang Guangbin   [Small] [Middle] [Big] [More]

It took “three steps” to construct today’s prevailing theory of liberal democracy: the first step was to revise the definition of democracy; the second was to impose the framework of liberalism upon democracy; and the third, to revise the concept of legitimacy and to maintain that only liberal democratic regimes with competitive elections as the core characteristic are legitimate. Liberal democracy is highly conditional. That is to say, it has to be associated with advanced capitalism, power-constraining liberalism, and a homogeneous political culture. However, liberal democracy in theory with competitive elections as its core runs contrary to the logic of “timeliness” during the process of Western nation-building.

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