Wang Shaoguang (born 1954; ) is a Chinese political scientist. He is currently an emeritus professor at the Department of Government and Public Administration of the

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university and ...

. A critic of Western

representative democracy Representative democracy, also known as indirect democracy, is a type of democracy where elected people represent a group of people, in contrast to direct democracy. Nearly all modern Western-style democracies function as some type of represe ...

, his particular research interests include the history of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

sortition In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lottery, selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, stochocracy, aleatoric democracy, democratic lottery, and lottocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger ...

, the

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...

, and the

comparative politics Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the ''comparative method'' or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relatin ...

of East Asia.

Life

Born in

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city an ...

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The ...

, Wang worked as a high school teacher in Wuhan from 1972 to 1977. He then studied at Peking University, graduating in 1982, and moved to

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in the U.S., where he received a doctorate in 1990. He taught at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

from 1990 to 2000 before moving to the

, where he became a professor at the Department of Government and Public Administration. In 1993, Wang co-authored the "Wang Shaoguang Proposal" with economist

Hu Angang Hu Angang () is an economics professor at Tsinghua University. Hu Angang was born on 27 April 1953. He is a professor in the School of Public Policy & Management at Tsinghua University as well as Director of the Center for China Study at Tsing ...

, a public policy report that argued that the taxation reforms of

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CCP ...

had weakened the Chinese state, and advocated fiscal centralisation in response.

Views

Wang is a leading member of the

Chinese New Left The Chinese New Left () is a term used in the People's Republic of China to describe a diverse range of left-wing political philosophies that emerged in the 1990s that are critical of the economic reforms instituted under Deng Xiaoping, which ...

. He is a critic of Western

, which he believes has failed and degenerated into " electocracy", and more generally of the focus on competitive

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

s as part of political reform. Wang argues that the view of democracy as primarily ''electoral'' democracy only became accepted in the postwar period, owing mainly to the work of

Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...

and his book ''

Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy ''Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy'' is a book on economics, sociology, and history by Joseph Schumpeter, arguably his most famous, controversial, and important work. It's also one of the most famous, controversial, and important books on s ...

''. Instead, he states, the "people should be involved in the whole process of decision-making, not only in choosing the decision-maker ''per se''". He also distinguishes accountability from responsibility and political responsiveness, holding that genuine democracy must combine all three: "democratic" governments are often accountable in that they may be removed in competitive elections, Wang posits, but they are still not responsive to popular needs and demands.

Works

* * , with

. * , with

References

External links

Faculty page
at Chinese University of Hong Kong {{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Shaoguang Living people 1954 births Chinese political scientists Chinese political philosophers Chinese New Left Academic staff of the Chinese University of Hong Kong Peking University alumni Cornell University alumni Yale University faculty 21st-century Chinese philosophers Date of birth missing (living people)

Life

Views

Works

References

Further reading

External links