Is it possible to be committed to both Confucianism and democracy? If not, which should have priority in cases of conflict? Political theorists have heatedly debated these questions over the last few decades. Sungmoon Kim has emerged as one of the most original voices in these debates, and he defends his views with rigor and erudition.

In the 1980s and 1990s, scholars such as Theodore de Bary and Tu Weiming argued that there is no essential conflict between Confucianism and democracy. For them, the Confucian tradition has democratic roots, and theorists can and should promote “Confucian democracy” in the modern world. Kim is skeptical of such efforts. He shows that the democratic ideal of equal political participation is largely absent from and inconsistent with the Confucian tradition. If Confucians are to defend democratic ideals, they must recognize that those ideals come largely from outside.

More recently, “Confucian meritocrats” such as Jiang Qing, Bai Tongdong, and Joseph Chan argue that the Confucian commitment to political meritocracy—the idea that the political system should aim to select and promote public officials with superior ability and virtue—is central to the Confucian tradition. Public officials need to respect diversity in society, but not everybody has the equal capacity to make morally informed political judgments, and rulers with above-average ability and virtue need to make the final decisions. If democracy in the sense of political participation by ordinary people is to be reconciled with Confucianism, it must be compatible with, if not subordinate to, the ideal of political meritocracy. Kim is equally skeptical of such arguments. Even if political meritocracy is central to the Confucian tradition, it is not appropriate for the modern world.

Kim’s position is that democratic ideals and practices must come first, even if they come from outside the Confucian tradition. Societies that strongly prioritize Confucian values in everyday life can and should find room to promote those values within a democratic context.

Why should democracy come first? Kim says that democracy is valuable “because of its practical capacity, in comparison with other types of political arrangements, for social coordination and its legitimate authority in achieving this critical political goal effectively, if not perfectly” (p. 37; Kim’s emphasis). In modern, industrialized, diverse societies, democracy is necessary for effectively “coordinating various kinds of social conflict under the societal fact of pluralism” (p. 38).

Given this pragmatic justification for democracy, one might expect Kim to illustrate his argument with examples of interactions between diverse-minded citizens in democratic countries that effectively led to legitimate policies endorsed by those citizens, in comparison with relatively deficient kinds of policies in nondemocratic countries such as China. And one might expect that Kim would support his conclusions with social scientific evidence. But Kim does none of that. His “pragmatic” argument for democracy is surprisingly abstract, with no empirical basis. To be fair, Kim illustrates his theoretical commitments with implications for criminal punishment, economic distribution, and just war in part II of the book. But his arguments are almost entirely theoretical, and there is no effort to compare the “just” outcomes with others “from other types of political arrangements” (p. 37).

Still, Kim’s theorizing is pragmatic in the sense that it derives from and is largely meant for the East Asia “whose societal culture remains intelligibly Confucian” (p. 189). In the final chapter, Kim explicitly says that “a pragmatic Confucian democrat, including one who participates in its theory building, sees herself as one of those citizens—an ordinary citizen to whom the theory is addressed … with an aim to affect the public life of citizens in East Asia” (pp. 190–91). But Kim’s long and convoluted sentences, filled with micro-distinctions and esoteric terminology, are often difficult to interpret, even by experts in political theory. Ironically, “elitist” meritocrats write in clear prose that is more accessible to “ordinary” citizens.

But let’s be charitable. Kim’s theorizing can be understood as an effort to articulate and systematize the leading political ideals of the public culture of East Asian societies. His task is to make theoretical sense of those ideals so that they can serve as the standards to evaluate the political reality in East Asia. Does it work?

Kim’s basic position is that East Asians are committed first and foremost to democracy. They also share a commitment to a public culture informed by Confucian values, notwithstanding diverse conceptions of the good life at the private level (for example, Christians in South Korea are often committed to ancestor worship). Hence, it is legitimate for East Asian governments to enact policies designed to promote Confucian values, so long as they do not violate democratic norms embedded in the constitution. Those policies can be made legitimate even to non-Confucians if they emerge from public deliberation that takes everyone’s views seriously and equally in the democratic process.

It is worth asking whether Kim’s theory does express the leading ideals of the public culture in East Asia. Kim does not support his view with, say, polling data showing the political views of East Asians or evidence about policy preferences that emerge from democratic deliberation. Nor does he provide any evidence that the policy-making process in East Asia reflects the high standards of “pragmatic“ democracy of equal participation and equal social relations (though he does criticize, without any evidence, “Africa’s nominal democracies” for being “democracy without intelligence, education, and ultimately common citizenship”[p. 65]).

Kim claims that his theory is most directly applicable to democratic societies such as South Korea and Taiwan, which are also “arguably the most Confucian societies in East Asia” (p. 58). Again, Kim does not support his claims with any empirical evidence. But it is not implausible to assume that most citizens in these societies are committed to democratic values and practices as a constitutional foundation, as well as to some Confucian values as a public culture.

Chapter 4 on “state coercion and punishment” is particularly thought provoking because Kim applies his theory to the case of punishment of crimes in the family. He argues that the Confucian-inspired state can justifiably impose heavier punishment on crimes committed between family members because of the centrality of harmonious family relationships in Confucian public culture. But the opposite view is more compatible with Confucian ethics. Precisely because family relations are supposed to be informed by a strong form of love and affection, there is a case for less legal regulation of family ties. The law in mainland China, for example, basically takes a hands-off approach to family conflict, short of murder of family members, on the assumption that families can regulate themselves. The result, of course, is that there are many unreported cases of physical abuse of family members. My own commitment to Confucianism ends at the point that it allows for or encourages abuse of family members.

Mainland China is the sleeping giant in Kim’s book. It is hard to see how Kim’s theory could fit the Chinese context, even as an ideal theory. China is not a constitutional democracy, and there is no evidence that its citizens aspire to become one. Kim might argue that mainland Chinese people will eventually value democracy “as a way of life” (p. 59) after they adopt electoral democracy for instrumental reasons, as Kim claims, happened in Korea and Taiwan (chapter 2). But China is not about to become an electoral democracy. China’s long history of political meritocracy and complex bureaucracy reduces the likelihood of a transition to democracy (see, David Stasavage, The Decline and Rise of Democracy, 2020). In theory, outside powers could change mainstream political culture: in South Korea and Japan, for example, the US government could push for political change. But the United States does not have that power against China.

There are good normative reasons why China should not adopt democracy in the form of one person, one vote. For one thing, as Aristotle and Rousseau argued, democratic participation and deliberation work better in smaller societies. The Chinese government, whatever its flaws, can take the long-term view, such as implementing hard measures necessary to deal with climate change (see Peter Drahos, Survival Governance, 2020). Such policies will be controversial, but they are justified if they help save the planet.

Kim’s chapter on humanitarian intervention is most explicitly aimed at China. He criticizes the Mencius-inspired theory of just war on the grounds that only democracies have the legitimate authority to carry out such a war. But that is an absurd view. Imagine if, say, a genocide is taking place in North Korea and the Chinese government has the power to stop it, with the support of the UN. Should we object just because China does not select its leaders by means of one person, one vote?