The history of East Asian democratization has been cast in terms of negative Confucian heritage, postwar US encouragement to allies, and the positive spillover of economic “miracles.” Focused on national identities distinct from Confucian heritage and nuanced in coverage of the impact of the United States, the following four articles direct attention at forces, positive and negative, in the evolution of democratic governance in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and China from the Qing dynasty to today’s PRC. All four offer new insights into the struggles over democratization over extended periods of time, concluding with the recent period of the 2010s.

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