GCS webinar #002 Political culture in East Asia and research agenda

Dr Tianxiang Liu, Assistant Professor in the School of Sociology and Political Science at Anhui University, China, will present his research, “Political culture in East Asia and research agenda.” Dr. Liu received his Ph.D. in Political Science through a joint training program between Renmin University of China and George Washington University, where he studied under the supervision of Prof. Jie Lu (RUC) and Prof. Bruce Dickson (GWU). Dr. Liu’s research focuses on comparative politics, with particular attention to how institutions, technological evolution, and state–society relations shape public political attitudes and behavior.

• Webinar Overview: The remarkable diversity of political and economic development across East Asia has long inspired scholarly debates about the region’s distinctive political culture, particularly the so-called Asian Values Thesis. At the heart of this debate lies a fundamental question: to what extent do Confucian traditions shape citizens’ political attitudes, values, and understandings of the relationship between state and society, and how do these orientations differ from those associated with liberal democratic traditions? Drawing on evidence from major cross-national survey projects, including the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS) and the World Values Survey (WVS), this lecture reviews key developments in the study of East Asian political culture over the past decade. It introduces major dimensions of political culture that have been used to assess the validity of the Asian Values Thesis and examines how scholars have theorized, operationalized, and measured these concepts. The talk also addresses several methodological and theoretical challenges that continue to shape the field. In particular, it explores three critical questions: What constitutes “East Asia” as a meaningful analytical category? How can researchers effectively conceptualize and measure political culture across societies? And what are the most appropriate empirical strategies for evaluating the Asian Values Thesis? By revisiting these issues, the lecture offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary debates and future directions in the study of East Asian political culture.