From China’s “Political Meritocracy” to “Just Hierarchy”: the Elusive Search for a Viable Post-Democratic Governance Regime in the Era of Coronavirus

What is it about?

As liberal democracies have stumbled from one crisis to another, whether actual or perceived, concerns have emerged about the quality of governance of the constitutional order which they represent. At the same time, the attractions of an alternative institutional pattern, supposedly featuring a sage-like and virtue-rich political meritocracy at the apex of a purposeful and well-oiled bureaucratic hierarchy, capable of continuously satisfying any conceivable material needs and outpacing all its primary competitors in the process, have drawn growing attention and have come to be viewed favourably as a vehicle for pursuing national prosperity and stability. The Chinese governance regime is said to be the embodiment of that institutional pattern. As Elizabeth Economy has elaborately documented, this perspective is not vaguely articulated and it is not the product of mere armchair theorising. According to her, none other than Xi Jinping has been actively promoting such a portrayal of the putatively changing balance between democracy and the authoritarian paradigm reflected in the supposedly merit-propelled sturdy hierarchy over which he mightily presides by emphatically claiming that “[t]he China model for a better social governance system offers a new option for other countries and nations to speed up their development while preserving their independence. Not content with it serving as a source of developmental inspiration, he has added that the model encapsulates “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind.” Exporting the model passively and even through official policy channels may have its limitations. A finely constructed intellectual platform is required to reinforce the message and render it more impactful. Daniel Bell, a (presently) China-based influential and prolific political philosopher, has systematically built such a platform. It is vast and selectively furnishes valuable insights. As this article illustrates, however, it falls short, both conceptually and empirically, of persuasively demonstrating the enduring perils of liberal democracy and establishing a compelling case for hierarchically underpinned Chinese-type political meritocracy as a viable constitutional and organisational ideal. Beyond this shortfall, Bell’s broad and punctilious exploration of democratic governance and its hierarchical meritocracy alternative does not do justice to the former in two noteworthy respects. First, it brushes aside several institutional and technological innovations, some far-reaching in nature, that have the potential to enhance the effectiveness of the democratic model. Access to these innovations is readily available as they are regularly monitored by socio-legal researchers who contribute to the “theories of institutional design” series of books published by Cambridge University Press under the general editorship of Robert Goodin, himself an influential and prolific scholar, who holds a professorship of philosophy and social and political theory at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Second, Bell presents a one-dimensional picture of the democratic space and consequently turns a blind eye to solutions to constitutional problems found within that multi-layered space.

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Photo by Ling Tang on Unsplash

Photo by Ling Tang on Unsplash