The Role of Institution
The Role of Institution
This chapter argues that although the Confucian ideal of the authoritative ruler–ruled relationship is an attractive ideal that would appear to be relevant even in contemporary democratic societies, in reality not all officials are trustworthy and genuinely care for the people. Here arises the challenge of how to properly handle the interplay between the ideal and reality. On one hand, there should be a social device that helps prevent officials from abusing power and removes bad officials from office; on the other hand, such a device must be able to express the Confucian ideal relationship and hopefully also promote it. The solution lies in the nature of institutions, which are devices that simultaneously perform socially useful tasks to tackle real-life problems and uphold standards of normative appropriateness that express ideal aspirations.
Keywords: Confucianism, ruler–ruled relationship, democratic societies, bad officials, social device, institutions
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