Zhichao TONG’s article “Defensible Democratic Meritocracy: A Competition-Based Account” has been published in the British Journal of Political Science; see here. The abstract follows.
Category Archives: Comparative Political Theory
New Article: Jin on Xu Fuguan
Jin Yutang (Politics and public Administration, HKU) has published a new article in The History of Political Thought titled “Confucian Virtue Politics in Modern Times: A Reappraisal of Xu Fuguan’s Confucian Democracy.” See here for abstract and other information.
Roundtable on Radical Democracy in Chinese Thought at Univ. of Toronto
On September 5, there will be a “Roundtable on Radical Democracy in Chinese Thought” at the University of Toronto — details here, including free registration.
Angle Reviews Ziliotti, Meritocratic Democracy
The Review of Politics recently published a review I wrote of Elena Ziliotti’s excellent book Meritocratic Democracy: A Cross-Cultural Political Theory (Oxford, 2024). Please see here for the review.
New Book: Yong LI, Confucian Comparative Political Philosophy
Routledge has just published Yong LI’s new book, Confucian Comparative Political Philosophy; see here for the publisher’s webpage. Here’s its description and Table of Contents:
New Book: Marchal and Wang, eds., Subjectivity and Selfhood in Chinese Philosophy
The inaugural volume of Amsterdam University Press’s “East Asian Philosophy and Political Thought” series has just been published: Subjectivity and Selfhood in Chinese Philosophy: Phenomenological, Comparative and Historical Perspectives, eds. Kai Marchal and Ellie Hua Wang. Please click the link here for more information.
The series is generally interested in any work in East Asian philosophy, but also aims to promote East Asian political thought and political philosophy. Those working on a book project, including an edited volume, that engages with East Asian thought and philosophy broadly defined are welcomed to submit to the series through this link.
ToC: Journal of Social and Political Philosophy 4:1
The latest issue of the Journal of Social and Political Philosophy contains several articles on political meritocracy (with a focus on China) as well as a symposium on Wang Hui’s The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought. See here for the full Table of Contents.
New Book: Angle and Jin, eds., Progressive Confucianism and Its Critics

I am happy to announce the publication of a new book, Stephen C. Angle and Yutang Jin, eds., Progressive Confucianism and Its Critics: Dialogues from the Confucian Heartland (Routledge, 2025). More information on the book can be found here. This book is a translation into English of a series of dialogues that I held with Chinese Confucians in Beijing in the spring of 2017. The Introduction and part of the first dialogue are available at Amazon here, in case you’d like to learn more. Enjoy!
Loy Reviews Kim, Confucian Constitutionalism
Sungmoon Kim, Confucian Constitutionalism: Dignity, Rights, and Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2023, 296pp., $83.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780197630617.
Reviewed by Hui-chieh Loy, National University of Singapore
Sungmoon Kim’s book continues his long-standing project of bringing together insights from Confucianism and a political theorizing meant to be fit for the modern world. Like his earlier works, the new book combines interesting discussions of pre-modern texts and thoughtful applications of ancient ideas to modern concerns. The ambition of the book, as stated early on, is to articulate a “democratic theory of Confucian constitutionalism” (1). This ambition situates Kim’s book within the ongoing debate between the two main competing strands of modern Confucian political theorizing: Confucian political meritocracy and Confucian democracy. Kim advocates for the latter, putting his proposals…
New Book Series: East Asian Philosophy and Political Thought
A message from Sungmoon Kim:
I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new book series with Amsterdam University Press called “East Asian Philosophy and Political Thought.” As a series editor, I am joined by Ellie Wang, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at National Chengchi University, as the series’ associate editor. Please check out this link for the series web page: https://www.aup.nl/en/series/east-asian-philosophy-and-political-thought
As a series editor, my primary role will be identifying talented (young) scholars in East Asia and beyond and helping them find an intellectual platform in which their original ideas can be taken seriously and critically engaged by other scholars. I hope this will turn out to be a helpful academic venue for all of you who engage in East Asian philosophy and political thought, broadly understood. Please note that this series publishes both authored books and edited volumes that engage in East Asian philosophy and political thought, broadly defined. You can download the book proposal from our web page above.
