Pride and prejudice: Chinese citizens’ evaluations of democracy in the United States, India and Taiwan
| Published date | 01 November 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221125140 |
| Author | Yida Zhai |
| Date | 01 November 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221125140
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2023, Vol. 25(4) 701 –722
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13691481221125140
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Pride and prejudice: Chinese
citizens’ evaluations of
democracy in the United
States, India and Taiwan
Yida Zhai
Abstract
How citizens in authoritarian regimes evaluate the practice of democracy in both new and
established democracies has important implications on the prospect of democratisation in their
own country. As an authoritarian country with the largest population around the world, China
has resisted waves of democratisation and maintains the one-party rule. This study examined the
Chinese case and explored how Chinese citizens evaluated democracy in the United States, India
and Taiwan. It theorised that the tendency towards ingroup favouritism and attitudes towards
democracy are the factors that primarily influence citizens’ evaluations of democracy in other
countries. The results show that Chinese citizens perceive the democratic level of China as being
as high as that of the United States and Taiwan, whereas they gave lower evaluations in the case of
India’s democracy. The effects of the aforementioned factors varied between the three countries.
After presenting the findings, the theoretical implications are also discussed.
Keywords
evaluations of democracy, liberal democratic values, national pride, perceptions of democracy,
regime support, the Democracy Index
Introduction
Citizens’ positive evaluation of the value of democracy and the desire for a democratic
government are widely recognised and important factors in democratisation. Accordingly,
many existing studies have concentrated on citizens’ domestic attitudes towards democ-
racy; for example, whether they are satisfied with their country’s democratic levels and
whether they believe that democracy is suitable for their country or is preferable over
alternative political systems (Chu et al., 2008; Shin, 2012; Zhai, 2019, 2020). Clearly,
such attitudes towards democracy indicate the levels of public support for democracy and
School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, P.R. China
Corresponding author:
Yida Zhai, School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Xin Jian Building, 1954
Huashan Road, Shanghai 200030, P.R. China.
Email: yidazhai@hotmail.com
1125140BPI0010.1177/13691481221125140The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsZhai
research-article2022
Original Article
702 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 25(4)
influence the political dynamics of a country (Chu et al., 2020; Zhai, 2022a). However,
this inward-looking perspective also has its limitations. The situation of democracy in
other fledgling or established democracies equally affects citizens’ attitudes towards
democracy in authoritarian regimes (Bratton and van de Walle, 1997; Carothers, 2015;
Masoud, 2021). The development of democratic systems in international contexts pro-
vides clues for them to judge whether democracies perform better than non-democracies
and whether democracy is worth pursuing (Zhai, 2022b).
The global democratic recession and the resilience of autocracies complicate the
dynamics of pro-democracy movements in authoritarian contexts. On the one hand, since
2006, not only have democracies stagnated; global democracy has also incrementally
declined (Diamond, 2015). New democracies performed poorly and an erosion of free-
dom has been prevalent; even several supposedly consolidated democracies have experi-
enced significant setbacks (Bogaards, 2018; Plattner, 2015; Son, 2020). Freedom House,
the Economist Intelligence Unit, and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project unani-
mously reported a worldwide deterioration in democracy (Mainwaring and Bizzarro,
2019; Wike and Fetterolf, 2018). Democracies encounter various challenges, such as eco-
nomic downturn, political polarisation and corruption, a rise of populism, worsening pub-
lic security, and escalations of tensions in terms of race, immigration, religion and so on
(Galston, 2018; Krastev, 2020; Repucci and Slipowitz, 2021). Problems within democra-
cies have been overstated and propagandised by autocrats to dampen their citizens’ faith
in and enthusiasm for democratising authoritarian regimes.
On the other hand, competitive authoritarianism and various forms of autocracies con-
tinue to exist (Levitsky and Way, 2020; Nathan, 2015; Perry, 2012). Over the past decade,
we have witnessed an ‘authoritarian resurgence’ (Barany, 2021). Some one-party regimes
continue to resist multi-party elections and stress the advantages of centralised, unchecked
power. Some military regimes seize power by overthrowing elected civic governments.
Other fledgling democracies regressed to hybrid regimes where elections are regularly
held, but citizens’ liberties and political rights are severely violated. Among these authori-
tarian regimes, some have achieved satisfactory economic development and seem capa-
ble of addressing emergent problems more efficiently through formidable state power and
coercive measures. Therefore, they tend to look down on liberal democracies and arro-
gantly advocate for their own political systems (Chen and Liu, 2020; Rolland, 2020; Zhai
et al., 2022). If citizens of authoritarian regimes evaluate the practice of liberal democra-
cies as being worse than their own, they may become more tolerant of their authoritarian
governments and remain satisfied with the status quo.
As the authoritarian system with the largest population in the world, this study took
China as a case study to examine how citizens in an authoritarian system evaluate the
practice of democracy in both new and established democracies. We selected three target
democracies – the United States, India and Taiwan.
First, the United States has the world’s greatest economic and military power and often
criticises China for its non-democratic system. The United States is proud of its system
and always claims that it is committed to promoting democracy internationally.
Evaluations of US democracy indicate how Chinese citizens perceive democracy to be in
the most powerful country in the world.
Second, as India established its democracy in 1950, it is a second-wave democracy.
More than 50 years later, India continues to struggle with high levels of poverty and illit-
eracy. Although the government is responsible for parliament and elections are held every
5 years, India’s democracy is fraught with weaknesses, including corruption, the caste
To continue reading
Request your trial