Exploring Overseas Chinese Middle Class’s Democratic Orientations amid China’s Modernization
(2024) COSM40 20241Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University
- Abstract
- China’s impressive socioeconomic development amid its modernization over the past decades has not been paralleled with political liberalization as modernization theory assumed. State-led development gave rise to a more-educated middle class, and yet previous studies have controversies over whether the middle class can be a harbinger of the country’s democratization. There has been a research gap concerning overseas middle-class Chinese’s democratic orientations. This thesis aims to fill in this gap using primary data from qualitative interviews in light of previous research findings. Informed by the Gerschenkronian hypothesis of a late modernizer and contemporary state-centered paradigm as well as a neo-Weberian approach—Hofstede’s theory... (More)
- China’s impressive socioeconomic development amid its modernization over the past decades has not been paralleled with political liberalization as modernization theory assumed. State-led development gave rise to a more-educated middle class, and yet previous studies have controversies over whether the middle class can be a harbinger of the country’s democratization. There has been a research gap concerning overseas middle-class Chinese’s democratic orientations. This thesis aims to fill in this gap using primary data from qualitative interviews in light of previous research findings. Informed by the Gerschenkronian hypothesis of a late modernizer and contemporary state-centered paradigm as well as a neo-Weberian approach—Hofstede’s theory of national culture dimensions, this thesis traces what and why overseas middle class Chinese’s attitudes are to Western democratic values, political activism, and their perceived desirability and feasibility of China’s democratization. The findings suggest that despite their Western education a significant proportion of the interviewees are skeptical about Western democratic values, and a predominant proportion deem it infeasible for China to embrace Western democracy, due to not only the middle class’s state dependency but more importantly cultural values. China’s COVID policies have exerted limited impact on their attitudes. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9171161
- author
- Jiang, Hong
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- COSM40 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Overseas Chinese, middle class, democratic orientations, Chinese modernization
- language
- English
- id
- 9171161
- date added to LUP
- 2024-08-07 09:36:11
- date last changed
- 2024-08-07 09:36:11
@misc{9171161, abstract = {{China’s impressive socioeconomic development amid its modernization over the past decades has not been paralleled with political liberalization as modernization theory assumed. State-led development gave rise to a more-educated middle class, and yet previous studies have controversies over whether the middle class can be a harbinger of the country’s democratization. There has been a research gap concerning overseas middle-class Chinese’s democratic orientations. This thesis aims to fill in this gap using primary data from qualitative interviews in light of previous research findings. Informed by the Gerschenkronian hypothesis of a late modernizer and contemporary state-centered paradigm as well as a neo-Weberian approach—Hofstede’s theory of national culture dimensions, this thesis traces what and why overseas middle class Chinese’s attitudes are to Western democratic values, political activism, and their perceived desirability and feasibility of China’s democratization. The findings suggest that despite their Western education a significant proportion of the interviewees are skeptical about Western democratic values, and a predominant proportion deem it infeasible for China to embrace Western democracy, due to not only the middle class’s state dependency but more importantly cultural values. China’s COVID policies have exerted limited impact on their attitudes.}}, author = {{Jiang, Hong}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Exploring Overseas Chinese Middle Class’s Democratic Orientations amid China’s Modernization}}, year = {{2024}}, }