The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy by Daniel A Bell
Beijing-based political philosopher Daniel A Bell admits in the forward to his new book, The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy, that the reception to some of his ideas when they appeared earlier were “ruthlessly savaged” by critics. That he has returned to the barricades to mount another defence of his position, this time in full length book form, shows an admirable robustness of self-confidence, if nothing else.
And for most of this book, Bell makes a solid and worthy case for why the outside world might want to think about the Chinese experiment in governance a bit more deeply. The main motivation behind this is an understanding that on the whole, in democracies at least, electorates are giving increasing evidence through low election turn out rates and highly ambiguous outcomes (look at the recent unexpected result of the Conservatives in England and the Scottish National Party in Scotland) of dissatisfaction, disenchantment and disengagement. Bell goes at lengths to show that expectations towards politicians in terms of their knowledge, empathy, and ability to articulate clear holistic visions is constantly disappointed by the sort of dysfunctional politics seen in Washington, Canberra or London, where short-term, parochial concerns seem to constantly trump long-term ones. Are the sort of attributes seen in leaders produced in more meritocratic systems the cure for this?
Bell admits up front that the “one person, one vote” model has an almost mystical appeal for much of the world, and any aspersions cast on it carry a risk for the person doing the casting. This does not prevent him from outlining four structural reasons why democracy is problematic on its current model in his first chapter: it either privileges majorities and never lets minorities get their point in, or it does the reverse and gets hijacked by minorities who then do injustice to majority views; or it gives too much power to a limited pool of voters who don’t undertake their tasks responsibly and are solely guided by short-term aims; or it ends up causing more conflict and competition in society, and results in a political class of ruthless, hard-skinned ego-maniacs, the only people who seem to be able to survive the trauma of a long, searching campaign.
Bell pays attention in the second chapter to answering the question: what do we actually expect from our politicians? What sort of qualities do we need? He outlines a number of intellectual, administrative and ethical standards that they should have, arguing in the end that the perfect leader, much as in a large business, must have strong social skills, a well-ordered but not necessarily brilliant mind and levels of self-control that mean while they might not be paragons of virtue, neither should they be venal or corrupt. In chapters three and four, he moves on to how the Chinese and Singaporean model in particular have elements of leadership selection that at least try to cultivate these core qualities. In China, he finally argues for a system where meritocratic government starts from the basement up, with local leaders selected on the basis of “controlled” elections, within a one party system, peer review, and constant evaluation.
This is a very clearly written book, and, for lack of a formal statement by the Chinese government itself trying more completely to justify the maintenance of their administrative and political system in the face of almost constant outside criticism, a reasonable proxy. He confronts some of the problems with the Chinese (and Singaporean) meritocratic model as they currently stand, but concludes that unilateral declarations of their imperfection are unjust. They have intrinsic benefits in leading to good quality central leaders who often have greater administrative qualities and abilities than those produced by democracies.
As far as his argument goes, it is one very much worth considering. But there are two questions that nag at his thesis the more into the book one goes. The first is that he does not really acknowledge the extraordinary flexibility and durability of democracy, despite its flaws. According to the annual Freedom House monitor, 89 countries out of almost 200 in 2014 were electoral democracies. These spread across continents, language communities, religions and ethnicities. For his book, the only two examples of meritocracy he gives are China and Singapore. The idea that from their experience any new model of governance might be extrapolated has to confront the fact there are just two of them.
Secondly, there is the question of what, in fact, politicians in modern societies actually do. Bell gives the impression in his book of the world being a rational place, and the best societies being like large machines where the function of leadership is simply to drive them well. Were this the case, then it would be as easy to produce good politicians as it is to produce good doctors or lawyers. Training courses would be run, people would graduate from them, and then head of to run parties and governments. This is pretty much the model China now has, but it clearly misses something of the unpredictability and emotionality of political life.
Politicians are there not just to do the rational, evaluative stuff, but they also have to assess public mood and speak to (and lead) public emotions. To an extent, Chinese leaders do try to do this, but in a much more limited and circumscribed way than those in multi-party democracies. Bell may have interesting things to say about this, but if so, they don’t appear in this book. It is a valiant attempt to defend what is, in some ways, the indefensible.
Even Chinese politics is a scrappier, messier and more open-ended world that the one conveyed in The China Model. And Bell’s blithe assumption, for instance, that Xi Jinping arose as Party Secretary after a smooth, consensual inner-Party consultative process, and that this will be replicated in a few years when Xi is meant to step down underlines this problem, because there is every possibility that both, in fact, are fallacies.
Xi’s rise had more to do with sometimes brutal and complex calculations inside and outside the Party, in which while he was certainly a highly active agent, there were many other factors involved. And as for his retirement, it would be best to write about this when it happens.
Power in the real world, unlike in Bell’s book, is a mysterious and enigmatic thing, inside China as much as outside.