Deliberation, East meets West: Exploring the cultural dimension of citizen deliberation

The current conceptualization of deliberation may represent Western Enlightenment ideals in that it values rationality, publicity, equality, argumentation and reasoning. This essay explores the potential of deliberative democracy in non-Western contexts, such as the Confucian East Asian societies where it is often considered that the public sphere is less developed and people are reluctant to engage in public argumentation. Herein, several cultural traits of the collectivist East Asian societies relating to deliberation are identified, including the lower value of public talk, the strong influence of social position in talk and the unique traits of their cognitive reasoning processes. Considering these traits, the promises and perils of deliberation in the East Asian context are discussed. Acta Politica (2009) 44, 439-458. doi: 10.1057/ap.2009.10