by Tetsuki Tamura
This essay examines a challenge faced when considering ‘Democracy beyond the West’; the dilemma of using English, the predominant Western language, for our deliberations and publications.
The problem is that even ‘non-Western’ ideas and practices of democracy cannot be made known to many people living in the West unless they are translated into some ‘Western’ language, English especially. For example, there are various forms of deliberative mini-publics in Japan, but most of them are (probably) unknown abroad. One of the reasons must be the small number of books and articles on them written in English.
The paucity of English writings on non-Western experiences of democracy brings the following problems. First, it reinforces the tendency to regard non-Western cases as particular or exceptional. Second, non-Western scholars are perceived only or exclusively as specialists in non-Western cases. They are less likely to be seen as contributors to more general theories and concepts making.
Two counter-arguments are expected. Firstly, what is important is the academic significance of the cases, not the Western/non-Western distinction. The practices of mini-publics in Japan, for example, must be of interest to Western and non-Western scholars alike, if academically interesting insights can be gained from them. The second, particularly strong, objection is that it is no longer appropriate to regard English as the ‘Western’ language. English is now the lingua franca of the world and, furthermore, now convenient and excellent AI tools for text translation and generation are available. After all, many non-English native researchers publish their research in English.
What should we think about these two objections? First, it should scrutinise whether scholars’ attention is equally paid to Western and Non-Western cases.
About the second objection, I would like to say two things. First, there is still a huge difference in the efforts required to acquire language abilities between native and non-native speakers. A Canadian colleague of mine working at the same university speaks very excellent Japanese. Nevertheless, he says that he has great hesitation about teaching in Japanese. Second, the Acquisition of a non-native language is not only possible by learning the language in a narrow sense. In her book The Social Construction of ‘Logical Thinking,’ Masako Watanabe, a Japanese scholar, reveals that the American ‘essay’, the French ‘dissertation’, and the Japanese ‘sakubun’ in secondary education differ greatly in their writing styles, the structure of writing required in each, and even the sense of what is ‘logical’ in each (Watanabe 2021). Even ‘logical’ writing in Japanese might be seen as ‘unclear’ and ‘illogical’ in English. Third, a hierarchy over English proficiency is created among non-English speakers. The top ranked researchers in it are people who can publish their research in the top academic journals in English. The bottom ranked are scholars who can publish their research only in their native language. This kind of academic hierarchy or division can be created in Non-Western countries according to language abilities.
Is there any good prescription for the ‘linguistic democratization’ of democracy research? Further development of AI tools could solve this problem and I myself am also hopeful about this possibility. Besides we can find some other interesting attempts.
One is the ‘Barcelona Principles for a Globally Inclusive Philosophy’ in the field of (analytic) philosophy. The Principles make several proposals to address ‘structural injustices between native and non-native (English) speakers’. Among them are; evaluating publications and presentations ‘without giving undue weight to their authors’ and speakers’ linguistic style, fluency or accent’; including non-English native speakers on journal editorial boards and in book series editorships whenever possible; and inviting non-English native speakers to journal special issues to the extent possible.
I would like to add further ideas. First is the multilingualization of the writing and peer review process of academic journals; permitting manuscript submissions in non-English languages, and translating them into English after their final acceptance. It has been already realised for example in the European Journal of Philosophy where submissions in French, German, Italian, and Spanish are permitted although they are still European languages. Social Science Japan Journal also permits submissions in Japanese and translates the accepted articles into English. The second idea is the broader acceptance of ‘secondary publication’, a translated version originally written and published in non-English languages. Third is a broader/general recognition of the significance of references written in non-English (or non-European) languages. I believe these ideas can contribute to the linguistic democratization of democracy research.
Tetsuki Tamura is professor of political theory at the Graduate School of Law, Nagoya University, Japan. Tamura is also an associate at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, the University of Canberra. His main research field is contemporary democratic theory especially focusing on deliberative democracy and reexamination of the private sphere as a site of democracy.
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