The Role Of The Elite In East Asia During The Stage Of Political Modernization

Political modernization is a process,which transformed from traditional political to modern political system.It is comprised of three basic aspects,that is,the rationalization of authority,the separation of structure and the expansion of political participation.As to economic modernization,political modernization becomes a people’s dogged pursuit in modern times.However,people soon discovered that political modernization is more harder than economic modernization and “one size fits all” has not been fined until now.There are two important approaches in the study of political modernization,the analysis of structure and the analysis of actors.The former focus on the importance of macro conditions, the latter focuses on the agency of political elites in the course of political modernization.And,the analysis of actors becomes more interpretative than the analysis of structure in the third wave.Especially the "East Asian Model" have provided new study subjects for the analysis of actors.For example,Japan is a bellwether for political modernization of East Asia.Although the political modernization road is difficult,elite group lead Japan walks firmly forward on the road in the past140 years.Now Japan have established the bourgeois democratic political system and realized the stability of politics under elite group.So the process is something worth of studying.Singapore is the only country that the main minority group are the Chinese in Southeast Asia.From1960 s,Singapore has got profound achievement in all aspects under People’s Action Party,such as economy, politics and society,especially its distinctive political development Pattern,which catch international attention.So the study on Singapore’s political modernization road is very useful.The article is mainly comprised of four parts expect introduction and conclusion.The first part of the article discusses the theoretical basis for political modernization,and mainly consists of the concept,path and pattern of political modernization,the concept,content and analysis of the elitist politics,the relation of elitist politics to political modernization.The second part of the article describes in detail the relation of Japan’s elite group to political modernization,mainly including Meiji Constitution System,new constitution and Five-Five-Year System.The third part of the article describes in detail the relation of Singapore’s elitegroup to political modernization,mainly including Five-Nine-Year System, elitism and the governing philosophy of People’s Action Party.The fourth part of the article discusses the inspiration of political modernization in Japan and Singapore.Based on the comparative analysis of the process of Japan and Singapore’s political modernization,summing up several important significances to China’s political modernization.