A good article, Wei, but your starting point is incorrect. You are using democracy without declaring which form of democracy you are using (there are basically two forms: winner-take-all and full representation, and they lead to different societal outcomes) -- and then you are using Liberalism as if it were something that belongs to the overall level of society. Rather, liberalism is a mechanism that some people support and others do not support; some nations follow it strictly, other nations incorporate it more loosely.
Let's discuss quickly how the free market is not an overall word either that one can use to declare a nation. Close to all nations in the world are capitalist nowadays, but voter empowerment is quite distinct.
The best democracies hands down are the Scandinavian countries. They have one House only and they do not have an empowered president. That single House is populated by representatives elected in full format, not winner-take-all. These are capitalist nations, but all voters have equal power to move their version of capitalism in the direction they want.
Very powerful nations, such as UK and US, do not have the inclusive form of democracy, but the exclusive form of democracy. Only the winners end up representing the voters (many voters actually lose; they get nothing), which means a doubled mechanism is in place to control the capitalistic forces in their nations. Voters vote for a winner, and next the winners declare which rules pass via a majority vote. That is majority-of-the-majority. The (two) parties end up having more power than the voters.
Many voters in winner-take-all are repressed and are not represented by the representatives. For the US Senate in 2006, I saw that just less than 60 percent of the voters got the candidate they wanted. That means the majority decision is based on about 30 percent of all voters. I hope you realize how that is truly a distinct system and the mean part is that nobody ever talks about that. The two parties keep this a secret and declare themselves the best there ever was.
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True democracies will control businesses better. Scandinavian companies are still very successful, so it is not some kind of soviet-style outcome. Don't underestimate how businesses can thrive in real democracies.
But the voters in real democracies can make sure that they are not taken for a ride because they are truly empowered. Voters in full democracies tend to be very smart people because the system educates them well; parties must speak their truths and lying parties are punished in the next election.
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There is another caveat and that is the number of institutions that are politically empowered. In the US these are: the House of Representative, the Senate, and the Presidency. Voters can vote three times and each of their vote can then start fighting with their own other votes. That means yet again that voter empowerment is diminished when there are too many institutions to vote for, while the voters can think they are better off voting more often.
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Asia is a very interesting continent, very diverse and a truly rich history. The influence of the West was/is probably just as pronounced as the influence of the East was/is on the West.
Still, when reviewing, for instance, China, we see how they moved from being communist (putting people in the center spot and money around it) to being fascist (putting money in the center spot and people around it), meanwhile not changing the overall setup of control. China has a hard time becoming a democracy because it does not understand the different versions of democracy (and loves to hang the single truth in the air and not base the diverse truths on the ground). My suggestion: start at the local level with any form of democracy and figure it out as you go. The full version of democracy is better, but it does require willingness to compromise among the elected.
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Just to give you one example how nations can pick the wrong form of democracy:
Egypt, in the Arab Spring, picked the most complicated version of democracy possible. They picked the South-American version of democracy which is an empowered president and full representation. So, they have a winner-take-all (one version of democracy) and put it on top of full representation (the other version of democracy). It did not work out, and one would almost think that the Egyptian military were already in the know. They wanted to make sure democracy wasn't going to be successful. Everything possible for doing it the wrong way, they did.
Let me finish quickly describing the best example to follow (for a large and important nation):
Germany has the most experience with democratic systems and their system today is diverse but not too diverse. They incorporated stability together with real choice (and did not go for a dumb and numb two-party system).
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Wei, good luck figuring out how Asian nations can best embrace stability while also incorporating choice and voter empowerment. I will answer any question you have. I studied/have followed political systems for years now. I lived in three nations, each with a different political system.
Thank you again for your article, with very good insights indeed. What I am hoping for is that you can work out your concepts better so that they don't float around as absolute truths, but rather that they end up based on solid ground as specific and detailed truths.
