Author Description

"Some Asian political leaders and Western academics have claimed that China is unlikely to produce an open political system. This claim rests on the idea that "Confucian culture" provides an alternative to western civil values and that China lacks the democratic traditions and even the horizontal institutions of trust that could build a civil society. An opposed school of thought is far more optimistic about democracy, because it sees market economies of the kind China has begun to foster as pushing inexorably against authoritarian political control and reproducing western patterns of change."--BOOK JACKET. "Alternate Civilities argues for a different set of political possibilities. By comparing China with Taiwan's new and vibrant democracy, it shows how democracy can grow out of Chinese cultural roots and authoritarian institutions."--BOOK JACKET.