ABSTRACT
For several years ‘Asian values’ have been increasingly turning up in international debates about prospectively emerging cultural conflicts on a world scale. In particular, in discussions on human rights they keep on being conceptually confronted with Western values. And also in debates on development issues the positive influence of ‘Asian values’ on economic growth and modernization is often pointed out. As far as political order is concerned, ‘Asian values’ are said to refer to a specific definition of democracy that is not comparable to the Western notion of democracy. These values are, moreover, extolled as a guarantor against the social pathologies of the Western type of modernity. And, finally, it is even predicted that the clash of Asian and Western values could be the beginning of a new systemic competition or even antagonism in international politics.1 Which values are these and what does this discussion imply?
