International Studies Association 49th Annual Convention San Francisco, March 26–29, 2008.

Democratization in East Asia

Divided Democracy Index and Religious Foundation in East Asia

by Ikuro Fujiwara

Osaka University of Foreign Language Lecturer

if2116@columbia.edu Summary In East Asia, international politics is so intense based on the political division among nations. Korea is divided to North and South, China is politically divided, and Mongolian people live in part of China as inner Mongolia and outer Mongolia itself. The divided East Asia had long been categorized as non-democratic region, but after World War II, the U.S. occupation democratized Japan, and it became a fortress of democratization in the region in the following years in spite of the development of Cold War in East Asia. In this paper, various democratic indices are discussed first to evaluate the historical background and social entities on developing democratic society in East Asia: the indices are from Freedom House, Polity IV Project, and Arthur Banks. Although these Indices could not tell every democratic aspect of each society, they are at least considered as guidepost of considering the democratic transformation of East Asia. Secondly, the logistic model on religious diversity is tested with socio-economic indices and democracy index. The result shows that Buddhism is not related with democracy significantly negatively nor positively. This indicates that democratization in East Asia holds East Asian religious culture would not directly confront the development of democratic politics and society.

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1. Introduction

The relations between economy and political regimes had been long

controversial since Industrial Revolution. The researchers developed many theories

intensively while as the Cold War was intensified. For example, in the United States,

many researchers tried to show empirical evidences on how economic development is

related to political regime type, especially in developing countries. In 1959, Lipset

researched the correlation between regime type and socio-economic indices of Western

European countries and Latin American countries1). In 1960, Rostow wrote the

five-stage economic development in the Third World. These works have long been

referred as foundation researches on political regimes and economic development

thereafter.

In 1970, Robert Dahl presented Polyarchy in the form of democratic conditions

(Dahl 1970). Since polyarchy was presented, the path to democratization has been

considered mainly from the view of political participation and contestation. These

empirical researches have been further developed later to produce democratic indices,

combined with Cutright and other sociologists endeavors to relate democracy and

socio-economic indices during 1960’s (Cutright 1969).

In this thesis, East Asian countries are addressed to discuss how the region has

been evaluated from the view of those Indices: the differences among democracy indices

happen, and why? Five countries in the region are chosen: China with Taiwan, South

Korea, North Korea, Mongolia, and Japan. The regime type of all these countries are

examined from 1800 to 1966, using Arthur Banks data2) published in 1971.

Furthermore, using Freedom House and Polity IV Project data, democracy levels of East

Asian countries are examined, especially from 1972 to 2000. It is noteworthy that East

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Asian region clearly show the so-called “Third Wave” as discussed later. At the end of

the research, a logistic model is created to evaluate how religious diversity is related

with regional democratic indices3). East Asia was historically dominated by Buddhism,

and partly by Daoism only in China, and as a result, it is noteworthy to point out that

Buddhism does not directly affect democracy index, which implies that East Asia has a

potential to be democratized without concerning about strong religious confrontation

with each other.

2. Democratic Situation of East Asian Countries

1) Historical Overview

East Asia is a birthplace of one of the four great civilizations in the world.

Ancient China had long been a center of culture, governmental system, regional

exchange, and even historical events. Ancient China established Tributary System in

which other satellite countries were vested the title by Chinese Emperor only when they

dispatched envoys to the emperor to dedicate various invaluable gifts.

However, Tributary System ceased when Mongolian Empire ruled from East

Asia close to Europe. Mongolian Empire sent Jingis Kahn’s sons and grandsons to all

over Asia to establish newly independent regional territories. These Mongolian

territorial empires finally demised by mid-15th century. Whereas most former

Mongolian territorial empires such as central Asian region all became Islamic, orginal

Mongolians took on Lama Buddhism belief. Chinese Dynasty revived as regional

power again. China tried to continue Tributary System, but it turned to be rather

nominal comparing with ancient great China. Korea and Japan were more

independent from China than before.

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In 19th century, China was interfered by Western Powers and Japan from

Opium War to Sino-Japanese War. While Japan began building a modern nation state,

China could not establish modern nation state, mainly because of foreign interference,

especially by Japan. This failure in modernization became an actual factor for China

to be politically divided with the strong influence from the former Soviet Union.

Although China is now united, its political and religious division still lingers partly,

especially in Taiwan, inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Uighur.

Mongol was divided during Qing dynasty, outer Mongolia and inner Mongolia,

because Gobi Desert divided the region and the inner part of Mongolia had been

inhabited by many Chinese. In 1911, Mongol declared independence from Qing Dynasty

when Qing Dynasty itself began collapsing. However, it was backed by Russia, and this

Russian-Mongolian relations became more tightened when Bolshevik monopolized

Russia to be the former Soviet Union. Bolshevik manipulated Mongolian leaders

through its consulate in Ulaanbaatar to let them purge and kill most Lama priests in

Mongol. The purge had lasted until Batmonk was outcast in 1984. During Zedenbal and

Batmonk terror from 1922 to 1984, it is said 15% of Mongolian people were purged

(Dashpurev and Soni, 1992). During the late 1980’s, Batomonk followed Gorbachev’s

policy of Perestroika, and in 1990’s, Mongol became one of the most democratized

country in East Asia4).

In Korean Peninsular in 1945, the tragedy waited for Korean people. On August

8, Soviet attacked over Manchuria where Japan created Mancuguo to manipulate the

region. Japan’s surrender was telegraphed to the United Sates government on August

10, but It was not prepared how to handle with Korean peninsular mainly because

United Nations Trustee plan disappeared when Franklyn Roosevelt passed away in

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April (Che 1996). Therefore, the division along 38 latitude was promptly decided in

Washington, D.C. just before the end of Pacific War on August 15. Korean people had

been long united as one kingdom historically, therefore, it is politically tragic that one

people were divided into two in accord with international politics: Soviet invasion into

East Asia.

2) Obstacles to Democratization in East Asian countries

Alan Wood points out that India, Philippines, and Japan have been democratic

countries since the end of World War II, and further denotes that India and Philippines,

however, experienced the lapse of democracy for a while (Wood 2004, 32). Philippines

and India became independent in 1946 and 1947 respectively. However, Japan had been

independent through its history, and all these three countries are located different

regions in Asia with very different cultural background. Therefore, it might be required

to narrow down the region to consider democratization in Asia5)

On Japan’s democratization given by the U.S. occupation, McDougall and

Kabashima describe clear as follows: GHQ/SCAP directed the organization of labor

union, anti-trust law, and redistribution of firm lands to peasants, which consisted of

around 70% of entire Japanese agriculture workers (Kabashima and McDougall 1997).

On the other hand, South Korea, North Korea, China, Taiwan, Mongolia deeply

implicated military and secret police into domestic politics. Although South Korea,

Taiwan, and Mongolia banished military and secret police at the beginning of 1990’s,

the experience of the involvement of military and secret police should be more

considered in consolidation of democracy in the region. Huntington pointed out in

“Third Wave” that there are a backlash for democratization. Therefore, it is important

to secure the consolidation of democratization in East Asia, even though Democracy

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Index shows these countries are totally democratic now.

For example, in Mongolia, Mongol People Revolutionary Party, MPRP, which

was the political party during terror government, won a landslide victory in 2000

election. Mongolian people are said to feel that the democratic government after 1990’s

has been so corrupted that they want MPRP back onto the stage. This political backlash

seems to be serious problem, but there is a bright side of it. As Alan Wood describes,

some countries digressed from democratization as India and Philippines underwent, but

actually once a country experiences “democratic politics,” it would be rather easy to get

back to the process of democratization again. This process has not been named yet, but

it should be called “reversion process” of democratization. This process should not be

neglected because the longer “reversion process,” the more possibly consolidation will be

deferred and the level of democracy might be lowered than expected.

Along with military and secret police, cultural heritage of East Asian countries

should be considered more when democratization is discussed. First, historically East

Asia had been a region where kings and emperors usurped throne by force, not election.

In ancient India, it is said to have been highly possible that Kings were elected among

the nobles including chiefs of villages (Bains 1961). If the elected King’s governance

could not meet people’s, he would not be elected next election. To the contrary, East

Asian Kings and Emperors have (had) been all enthroned by battling each other6). In

this sense, East Asian countries should not ferment the circumstances of

democratization, but rather they should be given incentives to democratize their

domestic institutionality.

3) Standard and Process of Democracy

Kim Dae-Jun, former President of Republic of Korea, invited notable social

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science researchers from all over the world to Seoul in 1994 to discuss Asian

Democratization. He himself presented in the conference that Buddhism and

Confucianism include democracy in itself (Kim Dae-Jun 1995). Buddhism and

Confucianism are historically prevailed around East Asia. In this sense, his remark is

significant and insightful. However, some other politicians such as Lee Kuan Yew of

Singapore and Mahathir of Malasia have presented beforehand that Asian values are

different from that of the West. They imply democracy is not particularly attached to

Asian culture. How Kim Dae-Jun’s ideas are realized in Asian countries should be

observed carefully7).

Another participant in the conference on democracy in Seoul was Aung San Suu

Kyi8) though she could not attend the conference, but just committed her thesis to

Corazon Aquino, who read her thesis in the conference. Suu Kyi observed in her thesis

that all the despotic regime can be observed commonly in its character throughout all

the different cultures, but democratic system should be constructed in accord with each

culture.” This remark holds fundamental essence on power and regime: convergence of

power takes the same kind of political structure in all culture, but divergent of power

would be diversified in accord with propensity of each society.

However, Suu Kyi’s remark should be supplemented from the view of

consolidating democracy. USAID composes of the program to implement

democratization in developing and transitional countries. The program are itemized

such as “fair election,” “institutionalizing congress,” “rule of law,” and “civil society

backed by individual rights.” These items might be differently disposed in different

countries to develop democratic institution. For example, land redistribution has almost

been completed in most Asian countries. However, Southeast Asian countries such as

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Philippines are still struggling for it. In these countries, it is more urgent to strengthen

civil society and political party system. Thus, democratizing process should be different

in each Asian country. Suu Kyi did not mention about these items, but the order and

velocity of items should be considered more to implement democracy program. The

relation between Asian value and democratization will be converged into “process of

democratization.”

3 Democracy Index and USAID

1) Short History of Democracy Index

As mentioned earlier, Lipset presented the correlation between Democracy and

development. Following him, Cutright used regression model to show that the stable

political regime enhance development (Cutright 1963). However, Neubauer pointed out

that Cutright’s index actually measured not political regime at large, but rather the

level of democracy (Neubauer 1967).

Democracy Index was newly defined when Robert Dahl introduced

“Polyarchy9)” to measure democracy with two pillars: political participation and

political contestation. Dahl’s two pillars influenced the following democracy indices such

as Raymond Gastil10) and Ted Gurr11). Gastil was invited to Freedom House in 1972,

and he began producing two scores: political rights and civil liberty for all the sovereign

states and autonomous regions around the world. Ted Gurr began Polity Project since

1970’s, and he generated a new concept “anocracy,” which is a score the difference

between “autocracy” and “democracy.” Gurr measured the sovereign states whose

population more than one million with two scores of “autocracy” and “democracy,”

covering around two hundred years.

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To the contrary to those two-dimensional index on democracy, Kenneth Bollen

used structural equation model to show that those two-dimensional indices are derived

from one-dimensional source (Bollen 1981). Bollen’s contribution to political democracy

should not be underestimated since his remarks cast a caution to measure “democracy”

as unified political concept. Bollen presented his own definition of democracy:

Democracy is a political function by which people’s power is maximized and power of

political elites is minimized.” Bollen has worked on the different democracy indices to

compare with to extract specific characteristics of each index (Bollen and Paxton 2000).

In 1990’s, democracy index came to be used to measure various factors in social sciences

such as human rights and international security. Bruce Russett introduced “democratic

peace” in which he elaborated that democratic countries have not battled with each

other (Russett 1991). However, Manshield and Snyder argued that the countries on the

process to democratization have rather battled with each other historically (Mansfield

and Snyder 1995).

In 1991, Arrat published her work on how democratic level and human rights

are correlated. Arrat’s research is a good example on how democracy index could be used

for further studies in social sciences while it had been used merely to measure economic

development. Research on democracy index has been brought to European countries

where Vanhanen12) created a regression model using variables such as individual firm

area and energy consumption per capita. Vanhanen was concerned with redistribution

function of democracy. His research holds a significant aspect since it presented the

level on how much each country could be democratized at present conditions.

Since the latter half of 1990’s, Larry Diamond has been trying to show the world

is undergoing the process to be democratic world, in which each country is secured with

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each other on the basis of democratic peace (Diamond 1999). As these examples shows,

democracy index has been used for many purposes since the end of Cold War.

2) Democratization as Foreign Policy

In 1950’s, Senator John F. Kennedy was an fervent advocate to aid democracy in

developing countries. Kennedy-Cooper Resolution was adopted in the Senate in 1959,

and as soon as Kennedy was elected President in the following year, he established

USAID and Peace Corps (Carothers 1991, 21). USAID holds the purpose to aid

developing countries to create the institution of election, congress, administration, and

rule of law. In 1966, Frazer and Morse in the House Foreign Affairs Committee declared

that the committee supports Foreign Aid Act of 1961 outright. However, there were two

kinds interpretation of the Act. The Act aimed “economic development through creating

the democratic institution,” but which part should be weighed was not reached as

consensus:

USAID　Regional Fund

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Year

Million $

Global

Latin America

Asia & Middle E.

Sub-Sahara Africa

Former Soviet & E.E.

Figure 1

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economic development first or democratic institution first.

The activities of USAID came to fore during 1980’s when President Reagan

lifted up “War of Ideas.” This slogan put weight more on democratization. In 1983,

National Endowment for Democracy was established, backed by business circle. NED

has been supported at large, including AFL-CIO. When the Cold War was over, the

activities of NED was accelerated to promote “Democracy Revolution.” In this revolution,

the main theme was “Transition Paradigm,” which asserted that all the countries

governed by authoritarian, only one party, and totalitarian regimes would undergo the

process of democratization without any exception linearly. USIAD provided to the

transitional countries the programs to promote political party, institutionalize

multi-party system and democratic election.

USAID Fund on Items

0100200300400500600700

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

Year

Million $

Others

Election andPolitical ProcessCivil Society

Governance

Rule of Law

Figure 2

The Figure 1 and 2 show how the fund of USAID has been spent from 1991 to

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1999. “Transition paradigm” was criticized late 1990’s since so-called transitional

countries, having undergone “democratic revolution,” seemed to take more time to be

democratized than scheduled before. At present, the number of countries categorized as

“transition paradigm” is said to be around a hundred (Carothers 1999), and most of

them have shown some reversible tendency to support political parties that are aiming

at autocratic government and one-party domination regime. Carothers pointed out that

“transition paradigm” was too linear to understand actual process of democracy.

As for USAID expenditure to East Asian countries, the amount is small,

especially comparing with those countries in Near East. In 2004, the total of $3.6 billion

was funded to Near East, and it occupies around 41% of the total expenses to entire Asia.

In 2003, the allocation to East Asia is as follows: North Korea is aided with $150 million,

Mongolia for $10 million, and China for $5.96 million, and securities for East Asian

region for $31.86 million. The total fund was just 0.7% of entire Asian countries. USAID

fund to East Asia is very limited.

4. Democracy Index and East Asia I

1) Polyarchy

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Robert Dahl described modern democracy

from the view of two pillars: “political participation” and “political contestation.” The

reason why Dahl uses “polyarhy” is that modern democracy is different from ancient

Greek democracy. Dahl did not precisely give the level of polyarchy to each country, but

rather categorized from 1 to 31 in political contestation, and in the same level, he

categorized how much legitimate voters are counted.

Coppedge and Reinicke measured polyarchy in accord with Dahl’s two pillars to give

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each country the level of poliarchy (Coppedge and Reinicke, 1991). The following is the

polyarchy level for East Asian countries.

Polyarchy Indices in East Asia in 1985

Polyarchy

Level

Fair

Election

Freedom of

Expression

Media

Multiplicity

Freedom of

Association

Universal

Election

Japan 0 1 1 1 1 1

S. Korea 4 2 2 2 2 1

N. Korea 10 3 4 3 4 1

China 10 3 4 3 4 1

Taiwan 7 3 4 3 4 1

Mongol 10 3 3 2 3 1

Table 1: (Coppedge & Reinicke 1991)

As Table 1 shows, Japan is leading polyarchy index followed by S. Korea and

Taiwan. China, Mongolia, and N. Korea were at the bottom in 1985. It is interesting to

notice that S. Korea and Taiwan became democratic in 1990’s, but the most

democratized in East Asian countries was Mongolia since 1990. Mongolia’s

democratization was so first that it should be followed year by year around 199013).

2) Polity Project

Polity Project was first created by Tedd Gurr after he wrote “Persistence and

Change in Political System, 1800-1971” in American Political Science Review in 1973.

The project has been researched continuously to Polity II and III Project and now it is

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Polity IV Project. All the data was first in ICPSR, but now available at the web site14).

The research is based at University of Maryland.

In Polity Project, democracy index and autocracy index are first measured from

0 to 10: 10 is the highest and 0 is the least. Gurr generated the concept of “anocracy,”

which is measured to subtract autocracy index from democracy index. Therefore,

“anocracy” might be paraphrased to “de-autocratic democracy index.” Gurr uses six

variables to measure democracy and autocracy index: 1) closure level to obtain

administrative office, 2) competitiveness to obtain administrative office, 3) openness to

obtain administrative office, 4) independence level of head of administration, 5)

oppression of political expression and organization, 6) non-elite access to political

institution.

Next, the anocracy levels of East Asian countries, including Malaysia and

Singapore, are shown in Figure 3So-called “Third Wave” can be easily read in East Asia

since the latter half of 1980’s. However, China, N. Korea have been staying at the same

level. It is noteworthy that Singapore tilts toward autocracy and stay at the same level

from 1972 to 2000. Malaysia also stay at the same level, but it is in the middle level of

democracy.

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Anocracy in East Asia

-10

-8

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 0

Year

Level

Japan

Mongolia

Taiwan

Korea, South

Malaysia

Singapore

China

Korea, North

Figure 3

To compare with East Asia, I created Figure 4: the regional average level of

democracy of the world. Third Wave can be observed clearly here again, but Central

East (Near East) shows its level almost of the same through 30 years. The democracy

program for this region should be very different from other regions around the world. As

for other Asian countries, their

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World Average Acores of Polity IV Project

-10.0

-5.0

0.0

5.0

10.0

72 76 80 84 88 92 96 0

Year

W. Europe

N&C America

S. America

E. Europe

Asia

Sub-Sahara

C. East

Figure 4

However, in the longer span, that is, anocracy levels of East Asian countries

from 1800 to 2003 for two hundred years, it is noteworthy that only Japan was

categorized as military government from 1to 1867: this was Samurai landlord period.

Other countries held better anocracy levels until Japan began modernization around

1870’s. Japanese anocracy level was staying around “1” until the end of World War II.

After Japanese surrender, the U.S. occupation democratized Japan successfully.

Anocracy Level in East Asia 1800-2003

-10

-5

0

5

10

1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990 2015

Year

Leve

l

Japan

Mongolia

Taiwan

S. Korea

Korea

China

N. Korea

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The democratic circumstances in East Asia are severely divided since 1990’s.

The upper countries are consisted of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and

the lower ones are China and N. Korea. This regional divided democracy might cause

serious problems such as territorial conflicts and the interpretation of historical events

in the region. To avoid any armed conflicts, it might be the best policy to cooperate in

some framework. Such framework would be “East Asia Union” or “East Asia Economic

Cooperation” or etc.

2) Freedom Score

Freedom scores give 1 to 7 levels in two segments, political rights and civil

liberty, to all 192 sovereign states and 18 autonomous regions around the world in 2000.

Gastil paved the way to generate each level with 27 items in which researchers allocate

the number of 0 to 4, and then without putting weights they are summed up to

categorized from 1: the highest to 7: the least.

As for political rights, election process, political multiparty system, government

function are categorized. Among them, political multiparty system is further itemized

such as freedom of generating political party, minority party’s opinion, freedom to

choose political party and religions. Government function are consisted of legislative

election, government corruption, and government accountability.

As for civil liberty, freedom of speech and belief, right to associate civil society,

rule of law, individual subjectivity and freedom are indexed. Freedom of media, studies,

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civil association, and equality under judiciary, individual rights and eare centered to be

measured.

Political Liberty　１－７

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 00

Year

N. Korea

China

Mongol

S. Korea

Taiwan

Japan

Civil Liberty 　１－７

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

73 75 77 79 81 83 85 87 89 91 93 95 97 99 01

Year

N. Korea

China

S. Korea

Mongol

Taiwan

Japan

Freedom House was established in 1943 by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell

Wilkie, but it was in 1972 that Gastil was invited to produce freedom scores to each

country. It is characterized the most byfreedom such as individual enterprise.

Furthermore, Gastil wrote that to scofreedom of society is directly related with scoring

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democracy (Gastil 1991). Now political rights is considered as electoral democracy, and

civil liberty as liberal democracy. Liberal democracy is different from electoral

democracy in the fact thit includes property rights and individual enterprises, which is

the civil liberty. However, how two democratic systems undergo is different: some

advocate that democracy begins with electoral democracy and evolutes to be liberal

democracy (Bova 1997). Others advocate that those two kinds of democratic system

proceed in tandem (Beetham 1994). In F economic re at r. acy igure 6 and 7, Freedom

Scores of East Asian countries are shown. ivil o . Democracy Index and East Asia II s

publishes “Cross-polity time-series data,” in which he e From 1972 to 2001, Japan is

given the highest scores in political rights and cliberty. As Ted Gurr’s “anocracy index”

clearly shows, Freedom House scores alsindicates that East Asia is divided in

democracy index: China and N. Korea are around the bottom and the others are almost

on the top.

5) Arthur Banks Data

In 1971, Arthur Bank collected all the date on political and socio-economic indices

from 1815 to 1966. Figure 8 shows the graph of his data on political regimes in East

Asian countries for 150 years. Only Japan’s regime was categorized as no civil

government before 1868. For 150 years that Arthur Banks researched, Japan has the

longest history of non-civil government regime in East Asia. This might not

necessarily lead to the conclusion that other East Asian countries were more democratic

in the 19th century. Category 4 shows the different type of government from

civil-military regime. Japan’s Shogun government is solely militarily, but its

foundation was based under the system of Emperor. Nominal regime authority lied in

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Emperor while its substantial regime formational authority was provided by Shugun.

However, it is significant that Emperor was supported to begin modernizing Japan right

after the demise of Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868, where the graph of Arthur Banks

clearly showed its regime change from 4 to 1. Thus, in Japan the regime change is not

called “revolution,” but “restoration” because it restored the ancient Japan’s Emperor

system first, then quickly adopted the Western political and social system almost within

twenty to thirty years.

Re g im e T yp e in Jap an

012345

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Ye ar (1815-1966)

Type

1 to

4

Re g im e T yp e in C h in a

012345

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Ye ar (1815-1966)

Type

Re g im e T yp e in M o g o lia

012345

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Ye ar (1921 - 1966)

Type

Re g im e T yp e in Ko r e aT h in : S.Ko r e a Dar k : N.Ko r e a

012345

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Ye ar

Type

Figure 8 Regime Type of East Asia from 1815 – 1966 ( A. Banks 1971)

Arthur Banks created the levels of legislative effectiveness. Figure 9 shows Banks data

on East Asian countries.

Japan is remarkable in legislative effectiveness while other East Asian

countries were categorized ineffective or non-effective in 1900’s. However, Japan’s level

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should be reduced since it annexed Korea from 1910 to 1945. If Japanese occupation in

Korea as well as Manchuria had not occurred, these countries might have gained more

effective legislature after World War II. In this sense, Japanese government should be

cooperative in establishing democratic governments around East Asia more.

Lagislative Effectiveness in Japan1: none 2: ineffective 3: partial 4: effective

0

1

2

3

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Year

Leve

l

Legislative Effectiveness in China0: no 1: ineffective 2: partial 3 : effective

0

1

2

3

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Year

Leve

l

Figure 9 Legislative effectiveness from 1800 to 1966 (A. Banks 1971)

2) Kenneth Bollen’s Analysis

Kenneth Bollen17) wrote many articles on democracy index since the latter half

of 1970’s. He utilizes statistical methods such as multivariable regression and

structural equation models. He cast caution on the two-dimensional measures on

democracy, and he showed the results of SEM to imply that democracy indices are

derived from one-dimensional data (Bollen 1981). His remark is intriguing since Gastil’s

freedom scores of political rights and civil liberty are highly correlated18).

Legislative Effectiveness in Korea0: no 1: ineffective 2: partial 3: effective

0

1

2

3

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Year

Leve

l

Legislative Effectiveness in Mongolia0: no 1: ineffective 2: partial 3: effective

0

1

2

3

1800 1850 1900 1950 2000

Year

Leve

l

21

In 1979, Bollen developed a linear regression model in his thesis, “Democracy and

timing of development.” He used democracy index as explained variable and state

economy regulation, population ratio of protestants, and energy consumption per capita

as explanatory variables. The results of his time-series regression model are as follows:

Model： Y(t) = b + a0 * Y(t-1) + b1 * X1 + b3 * X3 + b4 * X4 ＋ e Y(t) = Political Democracy Level in 1965 Y(t-1) = Political Democracy Level in 1960 (proxy variable) X1 = Energy Consumption per capita in 1960 X3 = Population Ratio of Protestants ％ X4 = State Regulation of Economy in 1960 e = Error term

Results： Y(t) = (-7.76) + (.814) * Y(t-1) + (3.75) * X1 + (.019) * X3 + (-5.20) * X4 5% sig. 5% sig 10％ sig.

R-squared =.835 Adjusted R-squared =.827

Table 2 Kenneth Bollen’s Regression Model

This model shows meaningful results. First, the most significant factor is energy

consumption per capita. Energy consumption might be a good index for redistribution

function of democracy. If a state government regulates more, people cannot benefit

redistribution such as energy consumption.

Second, state economy-regulation is not 5% significant, but 10% significant in

the model. This factor might be negatively correlated with energy consumption per

capita, but the state economy-regulation might be more widely facilitated in society, so

that it does not necessarily indicate all the restriction on redistribution and democratic

factors in society. Protestant population ratio does not show significant level. However,

this does not necessarily the relations between Christian countries and democracy.

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3) Logistic Model on Democracy and Religions

In this thesis, the relation between democracy and religion is tested with logistic

model19).

Political Rights in 2000 Civil Liberty in 2000

Score Christian Islam Buddhism total Score Christian Islam Buddhism total1 2 3 4 5 6 7

60 13 11 12 8

10 2

0 1 5 7 7

20 9

1 4 1 1 1 1 5

61 18 17 20 16 31 16

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

32 30 24 13 7 9 1

0 0 1 9 23 9 7

0 3 2 2 1 2 4

32 33 27 24 31 20 12

Total 116 49 14 179 Total 116 49 14 179

Table 3 Cross-Tabulation of Freedom Score with Religions

I used Freedom House Score, and the cross-tabulation clearly shows Christian

countries are likely to be more democratized than other countries whose major religions

are other than Christianity. The results of logistic models are as follows:

Source SS df MS Number of obs = 135

F( 4, 130) = 34.83

Model 241.96926 4 60. 492314 Prob > F = 0.0000

Residual 225.764074 130 1.73664672 R-squared = 0.5173

Adj R-squared = 0.5025

Total 467.733333 134 3.49054726 Root MSE = 1.3178

Coef. Std. Err. t P>t [95% Conf.Interval]

.453477 .0614125 7.38 0.000 .3319797 .5749743

christian -.7466244 .3991622 -1.87 0.064 -1.536319 .0430703

islam .9405397 .4275567 2.20 0.030 .0946698 1.78641

buddhism .3676226 .5399655 0.68 0.497 -.7006346 1.43588

cons 1.934755 .4539765 4.26 0.000 1.036616 2.832893

Table 4 Logistic Regression Political Rights with Religion and GDP

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Christian countries are 120 times more possible to be democratized than Islamic

countries20). Buddhism countries are 53 times as high as Islamic countries, but almost

half of Christian countries. This implies that Buddhism is not significant hindrance to

democracy. I would like to point out that Christian countries matters individual belief

more than anything else. Therefore, communication among different social classes can

be promoted as much as possible, maximizing individual utility. However, restricted

religious customs sometimes do not offer proper communication opportunities in society.

In this sense, Buddhism society offers a certain amount of communication among

different social classes although it is not so free as Christianity.

I conducted another regression model, using three religions and Television

possession ratio as explanatory dummy variables21) and civil liberty as dependent

variable. The results show TV is the most positively affective to civil liberty among

these variables.

Source SS Df MS Number of obs = 195 Model 268.806109 4 67.2015271 F( 4, 190) = 34.16 Residual 373.788763 190 1.96730928 Prob > F = 0.0000 Total 642.594872 194 3.3123447 R-squared = 0.4183

Adj R-squared = 0.4061 Root MSE = 1.4026

Cl00i Coef. Std. Err. t P>t [95% Conf. Interval] christian -.8725778 .3828276 -2.28 0.024 -1.627716 -.1174396 Islam 1.430131 .4053042 3.53 0.001 .6306568 2.229605 buddhism .838294 .514436 1.63 0.105 -.1764455 1.853034

tv2 -.8827185 .2124225 -4.16 0.000 -1.301728 -.4637092 _cons 3.98534 .3516559 11.33 0.000 3.291689 4.678991

Table 5 Regression Model with dummy variables

If a country is a Islamic and possesses less than 250 TV sets per 1000 persons,

its civil liberty score will be: 3.985 + 1.430 = 5.415. The reason why the coefficients of

24

Christians and TV are negative is that level of civil liberty is 1: the highest and 7: the

lowest. If a country has Christians as majority with more than 250 TV sets per 1000

persons, its civil liberty score will be: 3.985 - .883 - 873 = 2.229, close to the highest level

of civil liberty score of 1. As for Buddhism countries, if it holds more than 250 TV, the

score will be 3.94, but otherwise 4.823. The number of TV sets affects Buddhism

countries’ civil liberty by almost score of 1. In this sense, Buddhism countries should

promote communication among different classes to be more democratized.

6. Conclusion

All the democracy indices on East Asian countries show the divided scores since

late 1980’s: North Korea and China are at the bottom and the others on the top. This

divided democracy should not make room to insecure the region. Non-democratic

countries are apt to be reluctant to communicate with other democratic countries. Such

faults might cause further intensified armed conflict. Thus, leaders of the regions

should promote communication as much as possible. In 2008, China holds the summer

Olympics, and this kind of occasion should be used not only for China’s economic boost,

but also good communication opportunity among East Asian countries.

Democratic division is observed not only in democracy index, but also politically divided

people: China-Taiwan, North-South Korea, and Outer-Inner Mongolia. Fortunately,

Japan is not divided in this sense. However, Japan should contribute to democratization

in the region far much more than expected since Japan’s past experience of invasion and

annexation of East Asian countries cannot be wiped out by economic contribution

because people’s memory cannot be wiped out. Thus, Japan must take a responsibility

to democratization in the region to offer and respond any opportunities to mutual

25

understanding. East Asian Democracy Conference should be convened by Japan baked

by the United States for the sake of avoiding any warfare in the region. This IS a real

hope for people in East Asia.

Notes: 1) Some researchers regard Lipset’s idea that economic condition is a foundation for political

stability. However, the correlation index shows only symmetrical relations between socio-economic indices and political regime type.

2) Arthur Banks and his staff of State University of New York at Binghamton complied the data.

He utilized Statesman’s Book, United National Year Book, British Royal Academy, and the resources from various institutions such as AT&T.

3) These religions are Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. I categorized a country as Christian if

majority population is Christian, and Islam and Buddhism are of the same way. As explained or dependent variable, I used Freedom House civil liberty scores in 2000. Furthermore, I created linear regression model, which include TV set possession per 1000 people with religion variables. All the explanatory variables are dummy: “0” or “1.”

4) In 2000 election in Mongolia, the former communist party won a landslide victory. The reason

why Mongolian people chose the party is said that the democratic government during 1990’s was not actually democratic, but rather corrupted.

5) India is a center of South Asia, and Philippines is a part of Southeast Asia. Japan is located in

East Asia. Therefore, these democratized countries are far away from each other, and its influence on democratization cannot be discussed as a whole.

6) Chinese Qing Dynasty obtained power from Ming Dynasty by revolt and lasted until 1912.

Korean Choson Dynasty overturned Koryo Dynasty in 1392 and lasted until Japanese annexation in 1910. In Japan, Emperor had been nominal during Tokugawa Samurai military regime, but it was brought to actual head of state after Meiji restoration in 1868, which was actual Civil War in Japan.

7) Kim Dae-Jun was an labor union activist in 1950’s and his political view had long been regarded

as radical. However, his political leadership toward democracy strongly moved people in Korea, finally to be President of Korea. It is noteworthy that he respects Abraham Lincoln the most as political leader in history.

8) Aung San Suu Kyi graduated from Oxford University, B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics

at St. Hugh's College (elected Honorary Fellow, 1990). In 1991, she was awarded Nobel Peace Prize. From 1989 to 1995, she was detained at home, and still limited her activity. http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1991/kyi-bio.html

9) Dhal used the term of “polyarchy” in 1953. In 1971, he presented how developing countries

undergo the process toward “polyarchy.”

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10) Raymond Gastil obtained Ph.D. on political science at Harvard University. He was teaching at University of Washington when Freedom House invited him in 1972.

11) Ted Gurr obtained Ph.D. on International Relations at NYU. His book, Why Men Revolt, was

awarded in 1972. He is a distinguished professor in University of Maryland now. 12) Vanhanen is a professor at University of Helsinki. His work on regression model was published

in 1997. His regression model is consisted of several explanatory variables such as energy consumption per capita, and when plugging in theactual data of each country, the level of democracy will be calculated. From 1 to 30, the most West European countries hold around 30, and less democratic country is around single digit.

13) Mongolia began democratization in 1987, and reached the top of level around 1991. It took only 4

years for democratization, according to Freedom House and Polity Project. Fast democratization need to expect “backlash,” but so far it has not occurred. Mongolia’s democratization should be more researched to reveal how developing countries had been badly affected by the former Soviet Union.

14) The web site address is: http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/ After registration, all the data

from 1800 to present year is available. The scores are given to countries with more than population of 500,000, so the number of polity is around 150.

15) Eleanor Roosevelt was engaged in human rights and for working people. Her memorial room was

kept in Catskill in Dutches County near FDR Library and Museum. Eleanor contributed to write Declaration of Universal Human Rights of the United Nations by request of then-President Harry Truman.

16) Wendell Wilkie was Republican presidential candidate in 1940. After he lost the election, he

cooperated and worked for FDR to be a President Special envoy visiting many countries around the world to support FDR’s foreign policy. He wrote One World in 1943.

17) Kenneth Bollen is a professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He introduced

Structural Equation Model, SEM, in research on democracy index. He wrote a book on SEM in 1989, which is still a fundamental textbook on SEM in social sciences.

18) The correlations between political rights and civil liberty during 1972 to 2001 among 192

countries are more than .875 in each year. The all the values are shown as follows.

Coore lation Coe ffic ien t be tween Po litic al and Civil L ibe rty

0 .84

0 .86

0 .88

0 .9

0 .92

0 .94

0 .96

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00

Year

Coeffic

ient

27

19) The coefficient of Logistic Model shows “odds ratio” among them. It represents how much a explanatory variable causes the explained variable.

20) However, p-value of the coefficient of Christians is not significant. Thus, the result is not

statistically siginificant. 21) Dummy variables are consisted of “0” or “1.” Therefore, the estimates actually show the predicted

values of sum of each category with constant value as a base.

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