Fairbank Center

Political Legitimacy in China: A Confucian Approach
Daniel Bell, Jiaotong University and Tsinghua University

The Chinese government has managed to achieve a high degree of political legitimacy without democracy in the sense of free and fair competitive elections for the country’s leaders. The main explanation is that the Chinese government has recently revived and drawn upon three sources of non-democratic legitimacy: performance legitimacy, political meritocracy, and nationalism. In a critical spirit, Professor Bell suggests that those sources of legitimacy may not be sustainable and justified from a moral point of view. He argues that a modified version of Jiang Qing’s theory of political legitimacy may help to remedy some of the defects of “actually-existing” legitimacy in China. Professor Bell concludes by asking if this model of legitimacy is relevant and desirable outside of China.

Daniel A. Bell obtained his BA at McGill University and his graduate degrees at Oxford University. He is the Zhiyuan Chair Professor of the Arts and Humanities at Jiaotong University (Shanghai), and professor of ethics and political philosophy and director of the Center for International and Comparative Political Philosophy at Tsinghua University (Beijing). He is the author of China's New Confucianism (rev. ed. 2010), Beyond Liberal Democracy (2006), East Meets West (2000), and Communitarianism and Its Critics (1993). He is the coauthor, with Avner de-Shalit, of The Spirit of Cities (2011). He has edited and coedited eight books, and he is the series editor of the new Princeton-China translation series. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, and to Chinese language publications.

Jointly sponsored with the Harvard-Yenching Institute

Location: CGIS South, Belfer Case Study Room (S020), 1730 Cambridge Street, Harvard University