In three of the six democracies surveyed by the East Asia Barometer, a majority of respondents prefer democracy to its alternatives. In the other three, however, a lingering nostalgia for authoritarianism stands in the way of democratic consolidation.
About the Authors
Jason Wells
Jason Wells is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
China’s 1989 democracy movement was brutally suppressed, but a former student leader argues that it also planted the seeds for the growth of Chinese civil society and for future democratization.