Abstract:

The instability of liberal democracies both in Europe and in the Americas partly brought about by the COVID-19 Pandemic has shown the limits of this construct in terms of protecting the core values of liberalism itself, such as freedom of speech and the protection of private property. Riots in the United States, vandalism in several European countries, and the attempts by the media and big technology corporations to suppress free speech can be contrasted to the relative stability and calm of Asian countries with corporatist systems and with different varieties of benevolent authoritarianism. The present paper argues that an emerging Asian model combining aspects of corporatism, increasing professional engagement throughout society, and benevolent authoritarianism has shown greater resilience and greater success in protecting the core values that liberal democracies are supposed to be based on, than the open systems favored by the West.