The Civil Sphere in the Cultural and Political Transformations of Modern East Asia

Abstract

Scholarship on civil society in East Asia has suffered from a weak theorization in which civil society is generally defined as voluntary organizations that exist in the “third sector” outside the state and private sector. Civil Sphere Theory (CST) aims to describe and explain the moral codes and institutional foundations of democratic solidarity, manifested within a distinct social sphere. This chapter explores the possibility and challenges of applying CST in East Asian contexts. We begin by discussing three general issues that need to be addressed in such an endeavor: (1) how the cultural codes of the civil sphere relate to traditional values and moral codes such as those of Confucian civility; (2) the role of East Asian developmental states and authoritarian regimes in the shaping and emergence of civil spheres; and (3) the relationship between civil spheres, associational civil society, and democratic transitions. We then take a macro-historical approach to trace the transformations of modern civil spheres in relation to the above-mentioned three structural factors, in each of the polities covered by the case studies in this book: Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.