Western Democratic Concepts in Non-Western Contexts

Abstract

Western Democratic Concepts in Non-Western Contexts Alexander Weiß Political Theory at Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg (alexander.weiss@hsu-hh.de) Within the global history of democratic thought from late 18th Century onwards many references to Western democratic concepts shaped non-Western lineages of democratic thought to a great extent. From discussions on Rousseau’s concept of ‘liberty’ and ‘checks’ from the Federalist Papers in Latin America in the early 19th Century over J.S. Mill and other liberal authors or Dewey’s concept of a ‘social’ democracy in China or India, up to contemporary receptions of Carl Schmitt in China, Rawls or Habermas in the Muslim world or Luhmann in Latin America: While research on each of these and other constellations has been pursued, a comparative or even conceptual perspective is still missing. Papers investigating such constellations of travelling concepts under the following or contiguous perspectives are invited: • From Cambridge School and contextualism: How do non-Western contexts reshape concepts due to the confrontation with new counter-concepts – e.g., concepts from liberalism not against republicanism but against Confucianism in China? • From translation or cultural studies: When Western concepts are interwoven with autochthonous concepts, which hybrid concepts do emerge and how are they related to the ‘original’ versions? • From the general level of conceptual history and comparative political theory: How are Western democratic concepts reframed, reformulated, adapted, iterated, or vernacularized within non-Western contexts? • From democratic theory: which normative standards are applicable over cultures or regions, and how is the universalism-particularism-dichotomy affected by research on travelling concepts?