Democratic Conceptions and Regime Support among Chinese Citizens
Using the 2011 mainland China national survey (as a part of the ABS III), this paper examines the possible relationship between Chinese citizens support for their one-party regime and their democratic conceptions. This paper argues that the puzzling coexistence of and a positive correlation between high regime support and prevailing acceptance of democracy as the best form of government in mainland China could be, at least partly attributed to Chinese citizens distinct democratic conceptions that are shaped by different political discourses, i.e., a guardianship discourse vs. a liberal democracy discourse. Empirical evidence based on comparable survey instruments from mainland China and the US confirms the validity of this differentiation between the two democratic conceptions on how democracy should be understood and practiced. Moreover, once Chinese citizens have embraced distinct democratic conceptions, their regime support responds to different governance issues. And the relationship between regime support and acceptance of democracy as the best form of government varies following distinct democratic conceptions.
Democratic Regime support Distinct political discourses Popular understandings
LEI Xu-chuan LU Jie
School of Economics and Management, School of Public Administration, Southwest Jiaotong University, Department of Government, School of Public Affairs American University, D.C, USA
国际会议
2012 International Conference on Public Administration(8th)(2012年公共管理国际会议 ICPA)
印度海德拉巴
英文
367-374
2012-10-25（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）