BEPPU, Oita Pref. — Around the world, our generation is witnessing the three Ds: deregulation, decentralization and, ultimately, democratization. The export of democracy is no doubt one of the most important items on the Western foreign policy agenda. Nevertheless, the effort seems to bring more failures than successes. Why is that?
To the Western mind, liberty and democracy are two sides of the same coin. Without liberty, there can be no democracy, and vice versa. However, in non-Western societies, this is not always true. Just pick an Asian country at random and we find anomalies in democratic practice by the Western point of view.
News commentator Fareed Zakaria calls this phenomenon "illiberal democracy," a mixture of authoritarian and conservative practices under the framework of electoral, democratic politics. That's why strong guys remain powerful in some countries, such as Vladimir Putin in Russia and Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore.