A quick shout out to Stephen Angle, over at Warp, Weft and Way, who has a post on his evolving thoughts on the relationship of sovereignty and democracy in Mencius.  The post is short but the comments go on a bit (over 30 of them) and dig down into some interesting points on Mencius.  When I read this line of Angle's it resonated with some of my own, unarticulated, impressions of Mencius:

In other words, the argument that I end up making for what we can
loosely call Confucian democracy is not a claim that democracy is compatible with Confucianism, but rather than it is required by Confucian commitments themselves.

Although I'm not sure if the initial distinction he draws is really necessary to make this ultimate argument, I think this is a fruitful line to pursue.  When I read those passages in Mencius (can't be precise; I'm at home and the text is in the office) where he speaks of the people being the eyes and ears of Heaven, and that the people must confirm the Mandate of Heaven, it raises the question: how can we know what the people's understanding and preferences are?  Of course if the peasants are revolting, we can take that as a sign of their displeasure, but, short of that, wouldn't some sort or regular expression of popular opinion seem to be required to know what the eyes and ears of Heaven are seeing and hearing?  And wouldn't a routinized system of elections serve that purpose?  If the current leadership was acting in accordance with the Mandate of Heaven they should have a significant electoral advantage.  And if they were losing the Mandate, they the people could be the channel of Heaven's preferences.

Yes, yes, I know, electoral systems and democratic politics can get messy.  But so can authoritarian politics.  And I know that the standard, knee-jerk first reaction to this idea might be: an American system is not appropriate for China.  I agree!  There are a wide variety of electoral systems and democratic structures.  The only point here is that a democratic process could be the best way to live up to Mencian moral and political commitments.

After all, there is a fundamental way in which Confucianism failed in China historically: it never, in and of itself, was able to constitute an exclusive role for ordering the political system.  In their times, both Confucius and Mencius were not all that influential politically.  And when Confucianism was revived after the Qin disaster, it was fused with Legalism to produce a ruling ideology.  And Legalism was obviously uninterested in consulting popular opinion.  That historical failure of Confucianism points to Angle's main point: what would seem to be required for Confucianism to truly live up to its political commitments, it might require some sort of democratic practice.

Angle's argument is more sophisticated and textually informed than my initial reaction here.  I look forward to his future publications on the topic…