tortoisetortoise
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2025
- Messages
- 2
- Gender
- Female
- HSC
- 2025
Hi first time posting here! My topic area is Taiwan's democratisation - problem is the topic is too interesting and I keep get caught up by tangents!
An interesting idea I kept finding was that a lot of (Western) historians/writers start their journal articles (jstor is the loml) describing Taiwan as an "anomaly", and a successful blip of democracy. Sort of strange that the country ranked #1 Asian country by the EUI Democracy Index is called an anomaly... Like obviously it didn't come out of nowhere, it was the efforts of Chiang Ching-Kuo and arguably more importantly the reforms under President Lee.
Anyways, I was wondering if there was an argument about how democracy is documented in history - very historiography! I don't know much about Cold War Era, but the Third Wave of democratisation led by the U.S. might've created this framework of democracy, that made it ingrained with Western ideals - and that when they applied to Asian countries (which are sometimes interpreted as incompatible with democracy due to Confucianism) this is a big shock, and makes it sort of an obsession in Western political science. So basically, racism ig??
Ah I'm ranting - so what do you think? I want to make sure it's centred around Taiwan, do you think literature exists on the obsessive/almost patronising perspective of it's democratisation? I was also thinking of perhaps identify features that does make it an anomaly - like the "top down" revolution or something. Any ideas for that as well?
An interesting idea I kept finding was that a lot of (Western) historians/writers start their journal articles (jstor is the loml) describing Taiwan as an "anomaly", and a successful blip of democracy. Sort of strange that the country ranked #1 Asian country by the EUI Democracy Index is called an anomaly... Like obviously it didn't come out of nowhere, it was the efforts of Chiang Ching-Kuo and arguably more importantly the reforms under President Lee.
Anyways, I was wondering if there was an argument about how democracy is documented in history - very historiography! I don't know much about Cold War Era, but the Third Wave of democratisation led by the U.S. might've created this framework of democracy, that made it ingrained with Western ideals - and that when they applied to Asian countries (which are sometimes interpreted as incompatible with democracy due to Confucianism) this is a big shock, and makes it sort of an obsession in Western political science. So basically, racism ig??
Ah I'm ranting - so what do you think? I want to make sure it's centred around Taiwan, do you think literature exists on the obsessive/almost patronising perspective of it's democratisation? I was also thinking of perhaps identify features that does make it an anomaly - like the "top down" revolution or something. Any ideas for that as well?
