Demin DUAN : Tocquevillian democracy, beyond the East-West dichotomy

Demin Duan is Deputy Dean, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, and Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, School of Government, Peking University. He has published many books and articles in Chinese and English on political theory.

The lecture takes an Eastern or Chinese perspective on Alexis de Tocqueville’s political thought, highlighting the ‘aristocratic’ nature of his theory of freedom. By doing this, it also takes the great traveller in the 19th century Europe to the East. What kind of freedom he would identify in the Chinese social contexts ? This book transcends the usual distinction between democracy and authoritarianism today, and analyzes how ‘equality of conditions’ has affected both China and the West, albeit in different forms In the Tocquevillian spirit, it argues that, although ‘democracy’ is inevitable for human societies, it is not an ‘end’ as such, but rather a condition, according to which we must adjust ourself in order to stay free, be it in the West or in the East. The ‘Chinese’ way of attaining freedom in modern times has a lot to do with intermediary bodies and common beliefs—corner stones of Tocqueville’s political ideas, and thus differs greatly from western liberal democracy that usually highlights a notion of ‘natural’ human rights. But this fresh look at what China is about may also enticed us to question what we think we know as the West.