Interpretation of Power: A Comparison Between Christian-based West and Confucius-based East

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.220110.171How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Christianity; Confucianism; Power

Abstract

Mainstream IR theories are largely western-focused and little attention has been paid to theories from other parts of the world. With the development of IR discipline in China, many scholars tend to form a ‘Chinese School’. However, the rise of China is often seen as a threat by the West, yet the Chinese way of thinking is often undervalued therefore causing many clashes of civilizations between the West and the East. This essay aims to compare how the West and the East vary in interpreting power, and the reason behind such variation. In order to do so, this essay compares political philosophy between the West and the East to demonstrate that the mainstream IR theories today are highly influenced by Christian traditions. They went through a secularisation process to make it more acceptable. Yet, compared with Confucian-influenced East, although it is not a religion, it still exerts impacts on Chinese society. After comparing philosophies from Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke with Confucius, Mencius and other Confucian ideas, this essay argues that the West and the East have fundamentally different perceptions of power. The West usually regards power and analyzes it from a ‘bottom-up’ way, while the East focuses on the macro-level of power and often analyses from up to bottom. Finally, this essay later uses Foucault’s interpretation of power as an empirical analysis while Fei Xiaotong’s model is an example from the East.

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

Open Access

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yingying Du
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/01/28
TI  - Interpretation of Power: A Comparison Between Christian-based West and Confucius-based East
BT  - Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Public Art and Human Development ( ICPAHD 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 902
EP  - 908
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220110.171
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220110.171
ID  - Du2022
ER  -