Do East Asians Perceive Democracy as a Lesser Evil? Retesting Churchill’s Lesser-Evil Notion of Democracy in East Asia

Winston Churchill once asserted ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time’. In this conception, democracy is ‘a lesser evil’, something that is not good but is less bad than its alternatives. This study offers a rigorous test of this concept in the context of East Asia. Analysis of the East Asia Barometer surveys conducted in five new democracies in the region reveals that small minorities of these countries actually perceive the current democratic regime as a lesser evil. A large majority of these ‘lesser-evil perceivers’, moreover, refuse to support democracy fully.Onthe basis of these findings,we argue that theChurchillian lesser-evil notion of democracy has limited utility as an alternative paradigm for the study of democratization among ordinary citizens.