Confucian justification of leadership democracy

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Recent debates in Confucian political theory have been fueled not only by attempts to find compatibility between Confucian values and democracy but also by efforts to identify theories of "Confucian democracy" and "Confucian meritocracy" that can provide cultural and political alternatives to Western-style democracy revolving around liberal values. Aware of the huge potential of Confucian values to contribute to democratic theory, many Confucian democrats attempt to justify democracy in Confucian terms by reinterpreting and reconstructing Confucian texts. Equally concerned with the complex interplay between Confucianism and democracy, Confucian meritocrats try to make the most of meritocratic values-which many of them take to be pivotal to traditional Confucian thought-in ways that grapple with the tantalizing promise of liberal democracy. For meritocrats, the ascendance of democracy as "the only game in town" undermines what renders Confucianism normatively appealing and conceptually intelligible. There are also what David Elstein (2010) calls "Confucian-inspired democrats" who tend to view Confucianism as a cluster of cultural habits and mores and commit themselves to addressing practical problems faced by East Asians embedded in Confucian culture.