you aren’t going to convince your prof.
the term democracy is defined in many different ways by many different people. it’s an argument of semantics.
if your prof is a political scientist they are likely to be using/familiar with Polity, VDem, Freedom House, and the Democracy-Dictatorship Index. The important thing to note is that each of these essentially defines democracy as a government in which there are competitive multiparty elections. Anyone who defines democracy as requiring that will find it lacking in China and will never be convinced.
I would suggest stating that outright before explaining the ways in which the demos have say in government and control over government actions and ONLY if it is in line with your assignment.
China is not a democracy by any common definition used in western academia. Acknowledge this, and instead use it as an example of how the mainstream definitions of democracy are limited.How do I use it as an example I don’t understand that part
you can explain how having the public (specifically the demos using the greek idea of democracy) have input in government policy within the Chinese system. i only know about cuba’s system tho which is, in my opinion, the most democratic one there is.
do the public in China have the ability to recall their delegates?
do their delegates in the national assembly bring drafts of bills to them for community input at public meetings?
do they have referendums for major changes to laws and the constitution?
what portion of the delegates in the highest levels are people who aren’t career politicians?
etc. etc.these are all things Cuba has but I don’t know if China has them. China might not be a democracy by any reasonable definition and even if you support its ruling party you should be open to that possibility while researching.
a major thing you might come across is that Chinese citizens will say that democracy means a government that does what the people want. it’s outcomes based. in the west we often focus entirely on process for defining democracy. but some are very restricted and insist that a democracy is a government made up of regular people, who are chosen by regular people, and who act for regular people (of, by, and for the people). it seems that in liberal circles they care more about the “by” and in China they care about the “for” and in ancient greece they cared about the “of”.
I know what it’s not— it’s not an ornament
Whether a country is a democracy or not depends on whether its people are really the masters of the country. If the people are awakened only for voting but enter a dormant period soon after, if they are given a song and dance during campaigning but have no say after the election, or if they are favored during canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy.
Sacha Baron Cohen has its broken clock moments.
https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#is-china-a-democracy
You may want to compare and contrast the USA for example. What is democracy exactly? If people got to vote once every 20 years would it still be a democracy? What about every 4 years, and then the only two candidates were Trump, who doesn’t respect the process, or Harris who has never received a single vote in her life and has zero actual policies announces a short time before the election?
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1828169812738220402
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1828361816931524980
I think it’s much harder to argue that the USA is a democracy than it is for China.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_65.htm
As the other poster says, define democracy.
Exploring Communist, read: statist, notions of what democracy is as well as what Western notions of democracy is, especially in the context of multiculturalism is at least an interesting angle.
The United States is democratic by its own definition, and China isn’t democratic by American definitions. China is democratic by its own definition, and the United States isn’t democratic by Chinese definitions (look up bourgeois democracy).
This is a more interesting angle than simply arguing that China is a democracy by Western definitions, and if you have time, you can also consider Iran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole-process_people's_democracy
Wikipedia can’t be cited, but you can always steal its sources.
Whole process people’s democracy
https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202403/03/content_WS65e47e91c6d0868f4e8e494c.html https://archive.is/FNP6x#selection-423.0-426.0
IIRC, the Chinese were exploring similar processes to the Singaporeans, who also have a one-party state (except theirs is a cross between social democracy and fascism, as opposed to a cross between classic AES and social democracy). This employs the use of polling, surveys, and focus groups to constantly investigate what the people want, and put it into consideration for policy decisions.
Another buzz word in China is the mass line, so if you don’t have time or can’t extend the scope to compare and contrast different countries’ definitions of democracy, you can simply explore how the notion of democracy has evolved in China from Sun Yatsen (Sun Yixian) to Xi Jinping, and how China, mostly, lives up to its own definition of democracy.
Wikipedia can’t be cited, but you can always steal its sources.
True, and this will work for a school paper (teachers and professors never check sources because there are too many), but you should critically look at all the sources they use as well. Many of them are not only unsupportive, but actually support the opposite of what they are cited for. Science, politics, and history.
Is China a democracy? w/ Carlos Martinez
This is part of a 3 part episode on China. I haven’t read Carlos’s book, The East is Still Red - Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, but check it out here.
