Confucius lived during one of the most politically and socially turbulent periods in Chinese history, a time known as the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 B.C.). During this period, China, formerly united under the Zhou dynasty, was divided into small feudal states, which engaged in repeated cycles of civil wars and political turmoil. Mencius (3B:9) describes this period in this way: “After the death of Yao and Shun, the way of the Sages declined, and tyrants arose one after another.… When the world declined and the Way fell into obscurity, heresies and violence again arose. There were instances of regicides and parricide. Confucius was apprehensive and composed the Spring and Autumn Annals.”

The people of Confucius's time desired to build a peaceful and harmonious community but struggled to restore social order and maintain political stability. Unlike medieval Europeans, however, their struggle did not center on how to “limit the power of established political authority, or secure a protected realm for individual conduct free from arbitrary coercion” (O’Dwyer 2003, 43). For Confucius and his followers, the goal was a government that promoted and secured a peaceful life for the people. Because limiting the power of established political authority was not necessarily the end sought, Confucius and his followers did not advocate the rule of law as an effective solution to the problem of incessant political strife and social disorder facing the warring states. Their main concern was how to establish and maintain a meritocratic government capable of creating datong shehui, or a community of grand harmony (Yao 2000, 275).

Today, historically Confucian East Asia represents a region of democratic underdevelopment. Are Confucian cultural legacies the force preventing the powerful third wave of global democratization from sweeping most countries in Confucian East Asia? Have these legacies also prevented new and old democracies in the region from becoming well-functioning liberal democracies, as proponents of the Asian Values Thesis have argued? The research reported on in this book sought to explore these and other related questions concerning the prevalence and dissemination of Confucian legacies, as well as their connection to democratic and authoritarian politics from the perspective of the mass citizenry.

To this end, I began with a broad conceptualization of Confucianism and democracy, describing each as a multidimensional phenomenon. Defining Confucianism as a system of political and social ethics, I considered the proper modes of both social living and political governance that Confucianism advocates for the achievement of datong shehui, a community of grand harmony. Furthermore, I regarded Confucianism as a phenomenon covering the region of East Asia identified as historically Confucian East Asia and rejected the equation of Confucian values with Asian values, which the Asian Values Thesis has often implied.

Even two decades ago, few people expected popular collective action to become common or even “normal” in China. A variety of social groups, including pensioners, laid-off workers, peasants, urban homeowners, demobilized army officers, and people with disabilities, have mounted collective protests to the government. Indeed, when such groups have strong claims to make to the government, they can seldom find a better way than through collective petitioning. From the early 1990s to present, such activities were not just common; many of them were actually a central part of protracted struggles with the government. Through forceful and often persistent collective action, many “disadvantaged” social groups have exerted considerable influence on local policies.

Contentious authoritarianism, wherein a strong authoritarian regime accommodates widespread and routinized collective protests, is a very rare phenomenon. Even in the long history of China, which witnessed numerous rebellions and occasional waves of protests and social movements, it is hard to find a relatively long period when collective protests were so common and routine. To be sure, protests movements have been substantially institutionalized and normalized in some liberal democracies, which are called “social movement societies.” However, authoritarian regimes in general are still quite hostile to popular collective action, and the opening of political opportunity for mass mobilization in such societies tends to be very brief.

Routinized Social Protests

On the early morning of July 8, 2002, more than one hundred pensioners quietly gathered around the municipal government compound in City Y, Hunan Province. They laid wood planks and bricks at the entrance, and then several of them sat down; most others remained standing near the area. Although they did not shout anything, they displayed two huge banners of slogans, one of which requested, “Implement the central and provincial policy, and distribute the subsidy of 51 RMB.” They were pensioners from a bankrupt state-owned textile mill who suffered pension arrears, which was a common problem not only in Hunan Province but also in most other provinces in China. Not being particularly noisy, they nonetheless severely disrupted the operation of the government. Because they blocked the main entrance, no vehicle could enter or exit the government compound. Although some officials tried to persuade them to stop the blockade, no security guard or police officer was called to disperse them. The entrance remained essentially closed for five to six hours. Only after a “dialogue” between protest organizers and the municipal governmental officials did those gathered around the compound gate begin to disperse.

The protest in City Y is not an exceptional event. At the local government level, China has experienced a notable increase in social protests since the early 1990s. In Hunan Province in 2001, for instance, 9,213 collective petitioning events, defined as petitions delivered by five or more participants, took place in county-level governments or above. There were twenty-four participants on average in each event. In a number of such collective petition events, petitioners employed a variety of “troublemaking” tactics, such as demonstrations, sit-downs, and highway blockades.