Critical reflections on Samuel Huntington’s thesis of regimes and political science

Abstract

Samuel Huntington once remarked that authoritarian societies are unable to produce great political scientists, that political science is closely linked to democracy, and that political scientists have a moral duty to promote political reform. Huntington did not, however, discuss in detail why authoritarianism cannot produce great political scientists. He also overlooked a number of other issues with regard to the relationship between regimes and political science. Through an examination of the case of China, this article confirms the main finding of Huntington’s thesis through a discussion of why democracy is associated with political science and why authoritarianism does not produce great political scientists. The article, however, also points out the problems associated with Huntington’s thesis on connections between regimes and political science. The article offers a number of causal mechanisms and constructive criticisms of Huntington’s thesis.

Keywords

authoritarianism China democracy political science regime

Introduction

No great political scientist has influenced contemporary Chinese political thinking more than Samuel Huntington.¹ His theory of political stability constituted an intellectual source of, and justification for Chinese theorizing of neo-authoritarianism in the 1980s and 1990s. His writing on the third wave of democratization has framed Chinese thinking and debates on democracy and democratization. His influential book on the conflict of civilizations has generated a counter-argument about civilizational harmony, coexistance and equality in China. President Xi Jinping, for example, has formulated a new principle of civilizational equality, which claims that ‘civilizations are equal, and such equality has made exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations possible. Moreover, Huntington’s writing on American identity feeds into the development of a Chinese version of conservatism.

In March–April 2015, the Vice Governor of the Shanghai government told a small panel of top Chinese political scientists, who had reviewed research funding worth 200 million Chinese yuan for the development of political science at Fudan University, that ‘we [the government] will be very pleased if you [Fudan University] could produce a figure like Samuel Huntington, and if not, then Francis Fukuyama’.² A year later, on 16–17 April 2016 a conference organized by Zhongshan University was devoted to Huntington’s theory of political development. It seems that some Chinese officials and political scientists take Samuel Huntington as a benchmark or golden standard for what a great political scientist should look like.

In the above context, Huntington’s 1987 Presidential Address at the American Political Science Association in Chicago (subsequently published in the American Political Science Review) is of far greater relevance to China than his other writings. Yet it has been unfortunately overlooked by Chinese political scientists as far as the development of Chinese political science is concerned. In the 1980s, when the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea embarked on democratization, Huntington, in this short, eight-page essay, examined the close relationship between democracy and political science and the role of political scientists in promoting democracy. He states that ‘it is impossible to have political science in the absence of political participation, and political science has only developed with the expansion of political participation…Command economies have no use for economists, nor authoritarian politics for political scientists’ (Huntington, 1988: 6). Given that the development of political science depends upon democracy, political scientists must promote democracy as a moral duty and a political commitment, which ‘is embedded in our profession’ (Huntington, 1988: 4–6). Political scientists must do more than conduct empirical studies; they have to explore important normative questions concerning the course of democracy. In this essay, Huntington articulates a bold view of the public role of political science in terms of the close relationship between political science and democracy.

Importantly, Huntington’s thesis can be used to explain the gap between the call for great political scientists and the poor reality of the Chinese intellectual contribution to the discipline of political science. In the early 2000s, the rise of China generated excitement over the prospect of producing great Chinese political scientists. It is argued that China’s political science should be parallel to that of the US rather than subordinate to it (Taylor, 2010). However, such excitement quickly gave way to the disappointment of the regressive development of political science in recent years. A detailed and extended discussion of Huntington’s thesis can explain how the Chinese political science community has moved from feeling great excitement to disappointment. Ideally one should leave the democracy-authoritarianism dichotomy behind and recognize that all political scientists in the world are equal in making contributions to the discipline of political science. However, there is strong evidence that demonstrates how authoritarianism constitutes an obstacle to the development of political science in many authoritarian countries, including China.

Elsewhere I have examined the impact of the rise of China on the development of Chinese political science and briefly touched on the relationship between regimes and political science (He, 2011). In this article I expand my discussion and fully focus on the question of regime types and political science. I will start with Huntington, who does not discuss in detail why authoritarianism cannot produce great political scientists. Presumably Huntington took it for granted and did not bother to argue the point clearly. However, an examination of why authoritarianism cannot produce great political scientists can further develop Huntington’s thesis; in particular, in the context of a Chinese call for great political scientists, an extended version of Huntington’s thesis is valuable and offers both a convincing explanation and sober caution.

Huntington also overlooks a number of other issues with regard to the relationship between regimes and political studies. Through an examination of the case of China, this article confirms the main finding of Huntington’s thesis through a discussion of why democracy is associated with political science and why authoritarianism does not produce great political scientists. The article, however, also points out the problems associated with Huntington’s thesis on connections between regimes and political science. The article adds to and modifies Huntington’s thesis through an examination of a number of causal mechanisms and constructive criticisms.

It should be acknowledged that historically kings and emperors protected and promoted new philosophers and political thinkers; and scholars under authoritarian regimes have developed sophisticated ideas of ruling, and have offered valuable insights and political wisdom. Nevertheless, their writings are limited to being used by elites and for elite policy making processes, and they have not met the standard of the disciple of modern political science.

This article consists of three sections. The first section discusses the linkage between democracy and political science. The following section explains why authoritarianism cannot produce great political scientists, by identifying several causal mechanisms (which exist in most authoritarian states with certain variations). The final section offers several criticisms of Huntington’s thesis on regimes and political science.

Democracy and political science

Democracy is crucial for the development of political science. Democratic institutions facilitate the development of political science. Many leading theorists have commented on the relationship between social science and democracy. John Dewey (1927) advocated a bridge between knowledge and democracy. A politically-oriented science is helpful in building such a bridge. Fuller (1993) states that democracy and social science are two basic value systems that dominate our life, with the most important issue being how to integrate the two.

Democracy and political science are interconnected in a number of ways. Huntington discusses the historical linkage between democracy and political science in the US. America was lucky to have a group of brilliant senior politicians who mastered a science of politics and designed well-balanced democratic and federal institutions. Huntington cites Austin Ranney who states that ‘Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson all stressed the central importance of the study of the “science of politics” and the “science of government” to the work they were engaged in of creating a new nation’ (Huntington, 1988: 6). In contrast, China, Myanmar, and Nepal are currently not lucky enough to call on such political scientists when they want to design and build federal and democratic institutions to meet the challenge of issues such as ethnicity and religion.

The emergence of modern American political science was also a part of the Progressive movement at the end of the 19th century. Huntington (1988: 4–6) claims that ‘the creation of a republic and the development of democracy called forth political science and political scientists’. In contrast, despite Germany and Italy having strong traditions of scholarship in history, social theory, and sociology prior to the Second World War, they did not have robust scholarship in political science.

In Asia, the dramatic development of political science often followed the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Inoguchi (2015: 633) points out, ‘a more fully fledged development of research infrastructure came in tandem with democratization’. In the Philippines the birth of modern political science, in particular with public opinion research, was closely associated with democratization. ‘The development of political studies in Thailand paralleled the country’s democratization program; it thrived better in a democratic atmosphere’, as Swaasdee (2016: 97) points out. In Mongolia, political science emerged and developed with the erosion and end of socialist ideology in the wake of democratization in the late 1990s. Even in Japan, when the Liberal Democracy Party (LDP) lost its monopoly on power in the 1990s, the Japanese doctrine of uniqueness was eroded and comparative politics, a sub-discipline of political science, emerged (Inoguchi, 2016: 78–79). The development of political science in the wake of democratization is well explained by Stephen Noakes (2014), who explores the mutually supportive relationship between democracy and political science. He finds that a political science community is more likely to exhibit three characteristics under a democratic system: autonomy from the state, internal pluralism, and scholarly criticism and scrutiny of state behavior.

At the methodological level, the methodology of political science is largely based on methodological individualism, and individualism is associated with liberalism (see Hayek, 1944, 1948, 1979). Inherently tolerant, democracy views the individual as an equal sovereign unit. Democracy empowers all citizens in terms of granting and protecting individual rights. Democratization makes the individual the central entity in electoral politics. Democracy is a regime, a form of government, and, importantly, a method of choosing leadership, a method of giving all individuals equal rights and freedom. By contrast, authoritarianism is always associated with moral elitism and philosophical absolutism. It is inherently intolerant, intellectually arbitrary, and imposes a top-down approach. Under authoritarianism, the ideal model of a leader is one who is capable of commanding knowledge, morality, and spirituality, and who does not recognize the limits of knowledge. Such an epistemological view constitutes an intellectual source for unlimited power.

Both democracy and political science are fundamentally based on the idea of reducing uncertainty. Political science aims to discover political regulations or law. Democratic institutions and rules provide conditions under which political science can produce law-like findings. Democratic institutions such as electoral systems are able to create controllable conditions under which political scientists can produce predictive knowledge. Liberal constitutionalism is designed to reduce the level of uncertainty in political life through a set of well-defined procedures. In contrast, authoritarianism is full of uncertainty and surprise. China under Deng Xiaoping made great efforts to institutionalize and regularize political life through the introduction of limiting positions of office to two terms. He also began to develop certain political expectations under regularized authoritarian politics. However, Xi Jinping’s leadership currently generates new apprehensions related to the uncertainty of China’s political future. One wonders whether Xi will extend his tenure after two terms. Such worries about political uncertainty are inherent within authoritarian systems. Perhaps China’s political system could become more predictable if it introduced democratic institutions and rules akin to those of democratic states.

Why is there an absence of great political scientists in authoritarian systems?

To date, the contribution by the Chinese political studies community in China to political science in general remains very limited. China has developed an impressive practice of local public deliberation or consultation (He, 2011). If this is properly conceptualized or theorized, it can make a great contribution to the study of deliberative democracy (e.g., the notion of authoritarian deliberation, see He and Warren, 2011). However, the Chinese government currently frames such a development as a Chinese invention based on Chinese socialist theory and it is conceptualized as unique in the world. Such an official ideological theorization immediately inhibits the scientific development of Chinese political studies on this specific issue. Taking another example, despite the world’s most sophisticated practice of social control in China, Chinese scholars have not yet developed a science of social control. In failing to formulate original concepts, Chinese scholars have not made an impact on the discipline of political science. Conversely, the writings of James Scott and Clifford Geertz on Southeast Asia have succeeded in influencing social science.

Authoritarianism cannot produce great political science, primarily because of its knowledge production model. This opinion can be supported by a brief comparison of the liberal and authoritarian intellectual production models. The liberal production model is in place in the UK, US, and many other advanced democratic societies. This model enables intellectuals and scholars to develop competing ideas and theories under conditions of academic freedom. Many Chinese political scientists argue for this model of knowledge production and openly demand academic freedom as a necessary condition for the development of Chinese political science. Nevertheless, it should be noted that liberal political science has at times been used by the state to teach or even ‘bully’ others. The former Soviet Union developed an ideology-based rivalry intellectual production model, which was designed to provide an alternative system of ideas and values. Yet the contribution made by scholars in the Soviet Union to the development of social sciences has often been dismissed as it produced almost no top political scientists, although Russia did produce some great economists like Nikolai Kondratieff.

Not all authoritarian states favor this model of knowledge production. South Korea and Taiwan under authoritarian regimes did not adopt this ideological rivalry model because they were allies of the US. In the 1980s and 1990s, when China was focused on its economic development, it also played down any ideological rivalry with the US. The rising China discourse, however, is likely to return to this rivalry model, as China wants to expand its own sphere of influence and focus on its soft power to frame issues and set up agendas, and even use Chinese terms and language. For example, the term ‘authoritarianism’ is regarded as a Western intellectual product, and should not be used in China (however the refusal of the term of ‘authoritarianism’ cannot change the fact that Chinese national leaders are not produced by free and competitive elections). The Beijing government has also banned terms such as constitutionalism.

It seems that strong authoritarianism tends to favor this ideology-based rivalry model. Currently, the Chinese government has provided an enormous amount of funding for political scientists to offer a viable alternative worldview and approach (such as the ‘scientific concept of development’) and to develop robust and more assertive Chinese political science with distinctive Chinese characteristics.

The authoritarian intellectual model has three key features: ideological control, bureaucratic control, and the doctrine of uniqueness. It seems that these three mechanisms are an inherent part of authoritarian systems, and constitute permanent conditions under which political scientists live, although there are variations of hard or soft control, and more open or closed systems under different leaderships. These three mechanisms deem impossible the idea that the rise of China’s political science should follow the rise of China’s economic and political power.

Ideological control

The political justification of authoritarianism relies on ideology. Thus, authoritarian governments often exercise ideological control to varying degrees using different methods and techniques within different periods. The ruling class under an authoritarian regime is often reluctant to adopt many political science inventions, such as elections or consociational institutions. Defeating a privileged power-holder, autocrat, or authoritarian leader, therefore, is the necessary condition for the development of political science. Overcoming the narrow interest of the privileged ruling class is the necessary condition for the spread of political science inventions, such as a variety of electoral systems. For example, political science has proved that the public release of official assets is an effective anti-corruption device. However, despite the presence of public demand for such an institutional mechanism, the Beijing government has not yet established this practice. Behind the refusal of this common practice adopted by many countries is the interest of the privileged ruling class which has refused public scrutiny of their assets.

For authoritarian leaders, politics is the most important matter in the discipline of ‘political science’. For them, the politics of survival overrides all concerns with the so-called scientific study of politics. They do occasionally take the scientific study of politics seriously when it serves them in developing good policy and in maintaining their power. Authoritarianism does not accept pure political science, because a commitment to the scientific study of politics inevitably does away with ideology. In the most severe cases, political science is not even allowed to exist. For example, political studies were attached mainly to the traditional Law Schools under the Franco regime in Spain in the 1940s, and under the military regime in Japan, but such a practice continued in the post-war period (Inoguchi, 2015: 632). In China, the Institute of Political Science at CASS was merged with the law institute after events in 1989.

Political science is often seen as a threat to the authoritarian regime itself. Often political science research institutions and departments are hostile to authoritarian control simply because the political science community naturally demands the reduction or abandonment of ideological control in favor of academic freedom. Franco’s regime created the first political science school in Madrid, which was more open and more critical of the regime. In China, many political scientists are extremely condemning of the authoritarian system. Even within the Central Party School, when I was invited to give a talk on deliberative democracy a few years ago I received much criticism, as electoral democracy was considered to be superior to deliberative democracy and critics believed that China desperately needs electoral democracy rather than deliberative democracy. In this context, it is no wonder political science has been under more scrutiny than economics in China. While authoritarian regimes have made great efforts to develop modern economics and sociology, they have suppressed the development of critical political science.

Propaganda methods, such as the repetition of slogans (e.g. ‘increase China’s voice through the Chinese social sciences’) and the mobilization of scholars behind certain important policies or ideological concepts, have too much influence over the social sciences and detract from the core tasks of conducting solid research and subjecting that research to critical scrutiny. Some Chinese scholars forget that critical contributions are not generated simply from the political power of the researcher, institution, or country in which research is conducted, but rather from the process of scientific enquiry itself. Social sciences are a form of scientific enquiry, which involves gathering data and subjecting it to rigorous testing.

There is no doubt that Chinese scholars have been demanding more academic freedom. As Professor Mao Shuolong at the People’s University of China has argued, in today’s China increasing academic freedom is a more important issue than the issue of developing political science (Mao, 2008). Given the substantial restriction on academic freedom, it is less likely that the liberal intellectual production model discussed below will prevail in China.

Authoritarian control has hindered the development of critical political science in China. There are three schools of constitutionalism in China. The liberal school interprets constitutionalism as the institutionalization of a check and balance system on CCP power. Its features are general elections, bicameralism, multi-party competition, and an independent judicial system. The Confucian school, in contrast, sees Confucian values as the core of its constitutional design. It advocates the establishment of a House of unelected Confucian scholars as a deliberative and legislative body (Jiang, 2012). The socialist school of constitutionalism attempts to go beyond both liberal and Confucian schools of constitutionalism in defending socialist constitutional principles and mechanisms that are suitable to China. On the one hand, it confronts questions concerning the role of one party domination in constitutionalism and, on the other hand, it challenges the presuppositions of liberal constitutionalism (He, 2016).

However, the current government has imposed tough censorship on public deliberation over constitutionalism. Yet such intellectual suppression has produced or strengthened, ironically, the domination of discourse on American liberal constitutionalism among the Chinese academic communities. Subsequently, even the more conservative ranks within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) confuse constitutionalism with liberalism, regarding it a dangerous doctrine that will constrain the power of the CCP or even eradicate the CCP (Zhen, 2013), and consequently reject constitutionalism completely. As Yang Xiaoqing argues, constitutionalism belongs to capitalism and the bourgeoisie only (Yang, 2013). Such a mistaken perception will not do any good for China’s constitutional cause.

The authoritarian appropriation of the doctrine of uniqueness

The ideological control discussed above naturally extends to the control of political discourse, including the doctrine of uniqueness. While the discussion of this uniqueness doctrine can be combined with the section above, the issue itself is so important that it deserves a separate section.

The doctrine of uniqueness is not necessarily related to authoritarianism; it is a wide cultural product. Exceptionalism is popular in the US (Lipset, 1996), in Japan (Inoguchi, 2016), and in other Asian countries. The discipline of humanities often celebrates the uniqueness of one culture. There are many legitimate concerns and justifications for the various claims about uniqueness. However, I will not discuss this issue in depth here as it goes beyond the scope of this article. Instead I would like to demonstrate how the authoritarian appropriation of the doctrine of uniqueness hinders the development of political science in China.

The doctrine of China’s uniqueness (or Chinese characteristics, or China’s special situation) holds the view that an emphasis on universalism underestimates the importance of individual unique properties, on occasion justifies the dominance or intervention of one power over another, and carries the risk of distortion. Authoritarianism relies on the uniqueness doctrine to justify why China needs an authoritarian system. Despite more and more neighboring countries of China having embarked upon democratization, it is argued that China needs the rule of the CCP due to its unique history and so-called Chinese special national characteristics (‘guoqing’). Thus, this doctrine of uniqueness leads to a denial of the universal trend of democratization, and to the ideas of human rights and democracy being criticized as inappropriate for China as they are not universal values. The doctrine even argues that universal values (‘pushijiazhi’) do not exist. The doctrine of uniqueness renders the scientific study of politics unnecessary, as it has already assumed unique features and a universal law is not expected to be found. The doctrine undermines the scientific effort of political studies. As a result, political studies are appropriated by the government as a way to provide evidence, or proof of the effectiveness of the current political system.

The dominance of the doctrine of China’s uniqueness has constrained the development of political science in China. The great irony is that while the rise of China provides a golden opportunity for Chinese scholars to develop political science, the political system still controls the intellectual production system, and the political system needs to reproduce the ‘the uniqueness of China’ discourse to maintain its political legitimacy. The over-emphasis on the uniqueness of China has hindered the development of political science, ignoring all universal laws, denying the very possibility of social sciences, and reducing the role of historian to that of an aimless balladeer (Jones, 1981). Stressing the uniqueness of China and raising theoretical issues relevant only to China contradicts the basic principles of political science, which often transcend national boundaries.

Take the example of China’s ‘one country two systems’ policy for Hong Kong. It was celebrated as China’s political invention, born out of China’s unique conditions. However, such a practice can be understood and explained as a variant of federalism. If China used the language of federalism to describe the special autonomy of Hong Kong, Chinese practice would be generalized as something that makes a contribution to the worldwide practice of federalism. Another example is the widespread practice of local deliberative democracy in China. Recently the Ministry of Education offered a large grant for the study of this new phenomenon, but its theoretical framework is China’s own theorization. The study of deliberative democracy has now become an ideological task: how can an indigenous Chinese theory be established that contrasts with, even fights back against, Western theories of deliberative democracy? Thus, China will lose a great opportunity to utilize its rich experience to generate universal knowledge on public deliberation.

In reality, this so-called uniqueness is often problematic. Li Luqu points out that the ‘uniqueness’ of China’s transformation reveals more about the narrow-mindedness of the person using the term than it does about any really unique properties that might exist in the real world (Li, 2010). Many unique properties appear if one is confined to one’s own social world. However, in looking beyond our own society, it becomes clear that the level of uniqueness often decreases, or even disappears. Take for example the cultural practice of sexuality. While each culture or individual has its unique way of satisfying sexual desire, some physical and medical universal laws indeed regulate the behavior of sexuality.

In a contemporary setting, it is difficult to maintain the purity of uniqueness amid external influences. In terms of a cultural encounter, the interaction of culture A with culture B reduces the uniqueness of each culture. The development of political science has taken place from within Western culture and relies heavily on the uniqueness of this culture, history, and experience to generate hypotheses. Marx, Durkheim, and Weber generated their theories from within their own cultures. Despite this, their theories extend beyond the uniqueness of one culture in the search for universal knowledge based on testing and verification. As a result, their concepts have had a long-lasting influence.

With the rise of China, China’s political science is required to help China exercise influence beyond its borders. This requirement demands a sort of ‘universalism’, that is, an increasing number of peoples or countries will share common properties and conform to certain rules or patterns that have been developed in China or by Chinese social scientists. This might be called the ‘universalization’ or ‘globalization’ of Chinese experiences and characteristics. However, China’s uniqueness doctrine constrains such development because Chinese experience is largely viewed as exclusively Chinese.

The bureaucratization of the political science community

In an authoritarian state, political science is seen as a part of the state machine, a necessary component of ideological work. Therefore, authoritarian states tend to control the institutions of political study (also sociology, economics, and even history), and thus the political science community lacks institutional protection and autonomy from the state. The state controls research agendas, funding, and appointments of major academic positions. Officials are often in charge of research funding as they set the priorities of research themes, and award funding to political loyalists. In contrast, Australia, for example, as a democratic state has set up the Australian Research Council which is managed by scholars and is independent from the state and free from state intervention.

Often research funding provided by authoritarian governments is designed to improve ideological efforts. In, 2015 the top five research grants from the Chinese government were all related to Xi Jinping’s political ideas. The government’s research grants aim at promoting Chinese-centric theories that are service-oriented, people-centric (Shen, 2010), and problem-driven, and that stress order and authority, and the advantages of governance over freedom. Research institutes and think tanks dedicated to the study of official doctrine continue to receive funding even though they are producing research that has little academic importance. Political considerations have been the main influencers of funding decisions, rather than a research evaluation system based on peer review.

The political preferences of scholars are often taken into account at the expense of the quality of academic scholarship. Recently, deans of social sciences departments have had to participate in special training at the Central Party School to learn the government’s ‘correct line’. Scholars also often need to compete against political officials for academic-administrative positions and there has been a process of ‘administrative invasion into the academic world’. Zhu Rongji, former Premier of the State Council (1998–2003), was the Founding Dean of the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University (1984–2001); Li Zhaoxing, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs (2003–2007), is now the Dean of the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University; and Long Yongtu, the Former Secretary-General of the Bo’ao Forum for Asia, is the Dean of the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University. These individuals hold formal academic positions but do not come to their universities very often. While it is advantageous for universities to be associated with high profile officials, these appointments do not generate any scholarship. Such appointments involve an exchange of material interests whereby the official receives benefits from the university and the university uses the official’s name to attract more funding. Certainly, universities in the West also benefit from having former senior politicians and public servants associated with their institutions, but this is probably more intangible than in China; for example, a former official in Australia cannot use their renown to secure funding, but they might be able to gain better access to sources for interviews, draw more media attention, and attract students. In Australia, a number of former high-level officials have been given academic positions but are still expected to do regular scholarly work. Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke was based at an office at the Australian National University (ANU), former Australian Ambassador to China Stephen FitzGerald worked at the University of New South Wales where he published his influential policy-oriented work on Australian Asia policy (FitzGerald, 1997), former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe works out of an office at the University of Melbourne, and former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans currently conducts research at both ANU and the University of Melbourne.

One result of the rise of China has been the increased capacity of the state to allocate resources. This, however, has had some detrimental effects such as the bureaucratization of the scholarly community and the restriction of intellectual creativity and independence. In developing political studies, China places great importance on establishing a hierarchical academic rank system without first understanding and incorporating the Western concepts of academic autonomy and scientific inquiry. It supports the maintenance of the Chinese tradition of societal hierarchy and state domination.

Chinese universities encourage their scholars, often through a reward system, to produce policy-oriented papers that are read and commented on by top politicians. Today, it is common for universities such as Qinghua, Beijing, and Fudan to offer the most prestigious awards to short executive summary papers or documents that have drawn the attention of Chinese political leaders. Leaders’ preferences therefore determine the direction of political studies. One influential scholar commented that political science has become a ‘loser’ because in the last two years, no PhD in the discipline has been included in the list of the best 100 PhD theses as assessed by the Ministry of Education. When judging the quality of social science research, official selection and endorsement is a much more important criterion than peer review.

It is very difficult for a self-regulated academic community to develop in China due to the bureaucratization of political research. This bureaucratization also makes it difficult to maintain intellectual autonomy and freedom. As a result, there is a lack of independent scholarly work in China. Scholars are more inclined to do consultation work for the government than to develop independent scholarship.

In this environment, very few theoretical studies have been developed. Knowledge production is situational and determined by political and economic developments. In contrast, at universities in the US, Europe, Canada, and Australia, scholars have developed problem-driven and theory-driven approaches, and theoretical paradigm shifts have occurred as a result of independent academic activities.

The Ministry of Education assigns contradictory tasks to social scientists. Researchers are required to develop the best governmental policies, provide theoretical justifications for state activities, create indigenous theories, and other political tasks. As part of this work, Chinese exceptionalism has often been stressed. The Ministry also emphasizes the need to keep up with other countries in a global knowledge production chain, even using publications listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) to measure the level of success of Chinese scholars in terms of globalization and integration, and to compare their work with international research.

There have been intensive debates about the SSCI. Some Chinese scholars have avoided its use as an evaluation criterion because they see the system as being biased toward English writing. However, at the administrative level, many universities offer higher rewards to publications that are included in the SSCI. For example, a researcher who publishes an article that is listed in the SSCI will receive approximately 10,000 yuan, the equivalent to one or two months’ salary (in contrast, while variation exists within different countries and different universities, approximately US$1000 is awarded in Indonesia, $1500 in the Philippines, $6000 in South Korea, and none in Japan where there is strong resistance to English journals and Japanese publications are still favored). One famous leading professor openly criticized the SSCI system but then hypocritically tried to publish his article in a SSCI-listed journal.

Authoritarian states have discovered a new set of sophisticated control mechanisms in the name of the development of political science. Rather than directly exercising control, soft control is a new type of self-censorship exercised by scholars themselves in the selection of research topics. When ‘global’ standards for academic output are taken most seriously, Chinese scholars are under pressure to conduct research that follows global research standards and agendas; however, since those agendas may be less relevant to Chinese society, these scholars are then discouraged from engaging in critical work on their own society, and in particular their local community. The great irony is that while the SSCI may set up platforms for social scientists to access dates, compare their research outputs, and standardize political studies, these platforms can also be used by authoritarian states to develop new forms of control mechanisms.

Criticisms of Huntington

A non-linear relationship

Huntington (1988: 7) claims that ‘where democracy is strong, political science is strong; where democracy is weak, political science is weak’. His conceptualization of this linear relationship between democracy and political science is deeply problematic. The development of political science is complex and depends on a number of other conditions such as the institutional infrastructure of political science, the research culture of the political science community, research funding, and, most importantly, the talent of researchers. Even if one country becomes a strong democracy, it cannot automatically develop political science. Moreover, authoritarianism is not simply suppressive. Often authoritarianism creates hybrid conditions or mixed systems. For example, there may be centralization at the top, but democratization at the local level, thus providing a space for political scientists. The cases of the Philippines and Mongolia demonstrate that a strong and vibrant democracy is associated with weak political science mainly when research funding is lacking and the infrastructure of political science is poor. To compare China and Japan, Chinese political scientists enjoy a higher level of internationalization, and a higher number of English publications than their Japanese counterparts despite Japan having a better record of democracy than China. In Thailand, Swaasdee (2016: 98) points out that:

this relationship [between regimes and political science] has never been dichotomous. Given the authoritarian inclination of Thai society in general, interference and obstructions occurred both under the military regimes and in a more democratic atmosphere, but to different degrees and to varying extents.

The linear relationship between democracy and political science overlooks an important issue – the internal tension and even contradiction between democracy and political science. As discussed earlier, the standardization of social sciences through the SSCI can be used by authoritarian states to develop a sophisticated form of self-control. Dryzek (1992) points out that one orthodoxy of American political science is to focus on opinion research and voting behavior studies, which constitutes a conservative defense of American liberal democracy. Dryzek advocates discourse democracy to break down the monopoly of opinion research and voting behavior so as to deepen democratic enterprise.

In addition, the argument for democracy promotion as a moral duty of political scientists will lead to ‘democratic narrowness’, which may overlook governance issues or development issues. Political scientists ought to have another moral duty to critique democracy, and to deepen democracy; one should not take democracy as orthodoxy. For political scientists it is vital to study all political issues and problems beyond democracy.

The due recognition of political studies under authoritarianism

Huntington (1988: 7) asserts, ‘authoritarian societies may produce and in some cases have produced Nobel Prize-winning physicists, biologists, novelists and statesmen; they do not produce great political scientists’. While this statement is true in most cases, it must be qualified to give due recognition to the great political scientists who were produced without modern democracy. Think of the Socratic political philosophers Plato (427–347 BC), Xenophon (c. 430–354 BC), and Aristotle (384–322 BC), who can be regarded as ‘the fathers of political science’. Take the example of Jean Bodin (1530–1596), the French political philosopher who coined the term ‘political science’, who supported the strong central control of a monarchy. And Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527), who lived in a princely-controlled city-state, who can be regarded as one of the greatest political scientists.

To say that only democracy produces great political science leads to ‘democratic arrogance’, an arrogance that overlooks and looks down on political studies under authoritarianism. Political scientists in democratic countries should not adopt a dismissive attitude toward political studies under authoritarian societies. When political scientists live under authoritarian societies and face disorder and potential wars, they have strong incentives and determination to take political studies seriously. If they are lucky enough to be in a situation in which some spaces are provided by internal competition, or to be funded by benign authoritarian sponsors, they may produce great works.

In China, an infrastructure of political science has been well-established, and many political science departments are located in public administration or management schools, which have been established extensively throughout Chinese universities. China’s infrastructure of political studies is relatively better placed than in other Asian countries. In comparative terms, China has produced the largest number of English articles published in SSCI journals among the Asian countries. The Ministry of Education has funded 100 area studies centers or institutes, and given them one million yuan each to meet the demand of accumulating new knowledge driven by Chinese globalization. In the next decade, these centers and institutes will be able to collect a significant amount of data and accumulate knowledge, and thus possibly make a contribution to global south studies.

Despite tough controls, the Chinese political science community still enjoys certain limited intellectual space as a result of the fragmented authoritarian system, competition among different agencies and provinces, and the gap between the national denial of general elections and the holding of local, regular elections in villages. For example, deliberative polling as a social science method and political communication technique has been applied and developed in China (Fishkin et al., 2010).

One impressive area of study conducted by the Chinese political science community is policy work for a variety of governments. Policy impact is one criteria of the evaluation of scholarly work. The award system is in favor of policy input and contributions to public policy. Scholars are highly rewarded in terms of financial remuneration if top leaders read and comment on their brief policy papers. For example, if Xi Jinping reads and comments on a policy paper submitted by a scholar at CASS, this scholar will be awarded 30,000 yuan; and if it is read by a standing politburo member, then 25,000 yuan is awarded. Moreover, the acceptance or endorsement of policy papers is increasingly reliant on the quality of policy papers that incorporate solid data, statistical analysis, and scientific reasoning. This system has been developed nationally and locally. In short, there is a close connection between academics and policy-makers.

Of course, this tight connection makes scholars dependent upon the government and takes away their ability to maintain an independent stance. Thus pure academic research is sacrificed. As a contrasting example, Australian political science is often detached from the daily practice of political administration and even social life. When then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed an Asia Pacific Community in 2008 many Australian scholars were critical of the concept and reluctant to support the idea.

Democracy promotion by Chinese political scientists

Huntington (1988: 8) examined the role played by political scientists in countries such as Chile and Brazil in pushing democratic transition. In Asia, Asian political scientists have played important roles in facilitating democratic transition. The themes of political science conferences are often focused on democracy and democratization. For example, nine out of 22 of the themes at the 1993–2014 Philippine Political Science Association Conferences were devoted to democracy and democratization, and three out of 15 of the Thailand Political Science Conferences between 2000 and 2015 were on themes of freedom, democracy, and democratization (Sawasdee, 2016: 90).

With regard to China, Huntington noticed that in the 1980s an increasing number of Chinese students were studying political science in the US. He then anticipated three options for the Chinese government:

the leaders will have to accept a massive brain drain from their society; or will have to find room in their society for a highly intelligent, articulate, and well-connected group of scholarly lobbyists pushing for truly meaningful democratization; or will have to expand their prison system. (Huntington 1988: 8)

While the first option proves true today, the other two options have met contemporary challenges. The Chinese government exerts extreme effort to control returning Chinese political scientists to prevent them from occupying important positions in the Party or in government. Political scientists are allowed to conduct public opinion surveys or statistical studies, but cannot undertake research on big issues such as constitutionalism in China. The Chinese government does not arrest political scientists and put them in prison in large numbers; they only select and punish a very few to scare off followers.

One option that Huntington overlooks in his 1988 article is the promotion of democracy by Chinese political scientists. Noakes (2014) suggests that the Chinese political science community ‘deviates from this pattern [the criticism of the status quo]’ (Noakes, 2014: 259) and that it ‘fortifies CCP rule’ or ‘supports the current regime’ (Noakes, 2014: 258). Certainly, a section of the Chinese political science community has done as Noakes suggests. Nevertheless, a significant number of Chinese political scientists seem to fit well with a pattern of democracy promotion, and they have been actively promoting democracy in a variety of ways. It seems that the promotion of democracy by the political scientists in China is more than a “duty” argued by Huntington; it is out of necessity for the profession. Political Science as a profession naturally demands freedom and democracy. There are at least three networked groups working in the field of democracy promotion in China. One group of more than 100 political scientists formed in the 1990s has actively promoted village democracy through studying and working with local governments to improve democratic procedures. Professors Zhang Zhonghuo, Xu Yong, Xiao Tangbiao, and many others have made an impact on policy in this area.

The second group is the deliberative democracy network which has been active since the 2000s. Professor Yu Keping and many others have actively promoted the idea of deliberative democracy. The third group is the constitutionalism network which has emerged in last 10 years (He, 2016). This group unfortunately continues to be suppressed. There are many other groups and individual scholars. For example, Li Fan, a returned political scientist from the US, has established an NGO and promoted a variety of political reforms in China. Recently Professor Yu Jianrong at CASS defied the current tough controls to call for political reforms. Others have openly called for a political resistance. A list of Chinese political scientists who engage in such criticism is too long to be included here.

Conclusion

The case of the development of political science in China has confirmed the main finding of Huntington’s thesis, that is, democracy is associated with political science and authoritarianism does not produce great political scientists. While China’s rise creates favorable conditions for Chinese political scientists, it empowers the state by providing funding to control research agendas and key institutions, penetrating its power into academic communities, dictating the direction of political studies, and favoring the ideology-based knowledge production model. Despite Chinese scholars’ calls for great political scientists, the prospect that China’s political science will make even a modest contribution to the enterprise of political science is likely to be dim due to the operation of the causal mechanisms discussed in this article. China’s political science has encountered significant problems and obstacles which are unlikely to be overcome in the next decade.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Takashi Inoguchi for his invitation, and Laura Allison-Reumann for her editorial assistance.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

References

Dewey

(1927) The Public and Its Problems. New York: Holt.

Dryzek

(1992) Opinion research and the counter–revolution in American political science. Political Studies 40(4): 679–694.

Fishkin

Ruskin

. (2010) Deliberative democracy in an unlikely place: Deliberative polling in China. British Journal of Political Science 40(2): 435–448.

FitzGerald

(1997) Is Australia an Asian Country? Can Australia Survive in an East Asian Future? Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Fuller

(1993) Philosophy, Rhetoric and the End of Knowledge. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Hayek

(1944) The Road to Serfdom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Hayek

(1948) Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Hayek

(1979) The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies of the Abuse of Reason. 2nd edn. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.

(2011) The dilemma of China’s political science in the context of the rise of China. Journal of Chinese Political Science 16(3): 257–277.

10.

(2016) Socialist constitutionalism in contemporary China. In: Dowdle

Wilkinson

(eds) Constitutionalism Beyond Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 176–194.

11.

Warren

(2011) Authoritarian deliberation: The deliberative turn in Chinese political development. Perspectives on Politics 9(2): 269–289.

12.

Huntington

(1988) One soul at a time: Political science and political reform. American Political Science Review 82(1): 3–10.

13.

Inoguchi

(2015) Social science infrastructure: East Asia and the Pacific (research and teaching). In: Wright

(ed.) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2nd edn. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 631–636.

14.

Inoguchi

(2016) The emergence of comparative politics in Japan. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 1(1): 77–87.

15.

Jiang

(2012) A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past can Shape Its Political Future. In: Bell

Fan

(eds) Trans. Ryden

. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

16.

Jones

(1981) The European Miracle: Environments, Economics, and Geography in the History of Europe and Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

17.

(2010) Bijiao Shiyexia Zhongguo Moshi de Sikao. [The thinking of China’s model from a comparative perspective]. In: Zhongguo Zhengzhi Yanjiu: Lilun yu Fangfa’ Yantaohui Lunwenji. [A Collection of Essays Presented at the Workshop of ‘Research on Chinese Politics: Theories and Methodology’]. Tianjin: Nankai University, China, September, pp. 177–190.

18.

Lipset

(1996) American Exceptionalism: A Double-edged Sword. New York: W.W. Norton.

19.

Mao

(2008) Remarks at the international conference on China’s Social Sciences in the Age of Globalization, 6–8 October, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

20.

Noakes

(2014) The role of political science in China: Intellectuals and authoritarian resilience. Political Science Quarterly 129(2): 239–260.

21.

Shen

(2010) Yirenweiben: Zhengzhixue yanjiu de benzhi liuxiang. [People-oriented: The natural flow of political science]. In: Zhongguo Zhengzhi Yanjiu: Lilun yu Fangfa’ Yantaohui Lunwenji. [A Collection of Essays Presented at the Workshop of ‘Research on Chinese Politics: Theories and Methodology’]. Tianjin: Nankai University, China, September, pp. 259–272.

22.

Swaasdee

(2016) The development of political science in Thailand. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 1(1): 88–103.

23.

Taylor

(2010) Political science with Chinese characteristics: Why a mixed-methodological approach better serves China. In: Zhongguo Zhengzhi Yanjiu: Lilun yu Fangfa’ Yantaohui Lunwenji. [A Collection of Essays Presented at the Workshop of ‘Research on Chinese Politics: Theories and Methodology’]. Tianjin: Nankai University, China, September, pp. 58–71.

24.

(2014) The Governance of China. Beijing: Foreign Language Press Co. Ltd.

25.

Yang

(2013) A comparative study of constitutionalism and people’s democratic systems. Hongqiwengao (Red Papers) 10: 4–10.

26.

Zhen

(2013) Understanding the essence of ‘Constitutionalism’. Dangjian (Party Construction) 6: 29–31.