Workshop IV: Hong Kong
East Asian Perspectives on Political Legitimacy and Governance
The University of Hong Kong, August 2011
Whether in ancient or modern times, East or West, rulers claim to possess legitimacy, and those who are ruled demand that they justify their power. But the criteria for legitimacy take a long time to develop and are subject to conflicting interpretations. This is especially true in East Asia, as traditional conceptions have lost their grip on people’s minds but new norms have yet to be clearly articulated and embraced. This workshop aims (1) to critically reconstruct East Asian traditional philosophical conceptions of legitimacy and governance; (2) to understand the flux of contemporary articulations of legitimacy and governance, and their institutional expressions; and (3) to explore innovative accounts of legitimacy and their implications for regime type (e.g., guardianship vs. democracy) and institutional design.
Lead organizers: Joseph CHAN (Hong Kong University) and Yun-han CHU (National Taiwan University)
