Trusting the Cops but Not Much Else: East Asia’s Skeptical Democratic Citizenry
It would be an exaggeration to say that democracy in East Asia is hanging on by a thread. But if the views of citizens toward the fundamental institutions that underpin democracy — including governments, legislatures, the judiciary, the civil service and to a lesser extent the police — is anything to go by, there is certainly a deficit in trust between citizens and those institutions, a deficit that seriously threatens the future of democracy in the region, writes Marlene Mauk. the BACKSLIDING of democracies around the globe has worried observers everywhere. east Asia is no exception. Yet history and recent events alike have shown that not all countries are susceptible to anti-democratic trends to the same extent. For example, authoritarian populist candidates failed miserably in indonesia in the 2019 presidential elections (and in 2014); and most recently in taiwan’s on Jan. 11 (see the essay by Aurel Croissant and Kim Jung-eun on page 22).
What, then, makes democracies vulnerable to backsliding? scholars bring forward a whole range of potential causes, but one factor that is often overlooked are a country’s citizens. this seems like a strange oversight: after all, democracies by definition are built on the rule of the people and heavily rely on at least some level of goodwill and compliance from their citizens to function. if citizens decline to participate in democratic politics or to accept its outcomes, democracy may become easy prey for anti-democrats. On the other hand, when the support of citizens for the democratic political regime is strong and stable, antidemocratic actors will have a hard time gaining a foothold. Without the consent of citizens, abolishing democracy can become very hard work — as recent events in hong Kong have demonstrated again, people tend to fight for what they hold dear (see the essay by Brian Fong on page 30).
Political trust as KEY source of democratic resilience
Research on political culture thus considers the attitudes of citizens toward the political system to be crucial for the stability of democracy. A