In the past two decades, Confucian meritocrats have justified the unequal distribution of political power by appeal to the ideal of Confucian virtue politics. In this article, I demonstrate that at the heart of Confucian virtue politics lies a political leader’s affective accountability and show that non-democratic Confucian meritocracy fails to embody this moral ideal. Then, I argue that the ideal of Confucian virtue politics can be better realized in democratic system. To this end, I first describe how ordinary citizens’ moral demand for a political leader’s affective accountability in a consolidated democratic society can make theoretical space for a Confucian political leader. Next, I articulate the role of a Confucian political leader in contemporary democratic society from a normative standpoint and show that at the core of Confucian democratic meritocracy lies ‘mutual moral transformation’, formed by dialectical interactions between a virtuous Confucian political leader and empowered citizens.

中文翻译：

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走向儒家民主的任人唯贤

在过去的二十年里，儒家贤能者通过诉诸儒家美德政治的理想来为政治权力的不平等分配辩护。在这篇文章中，我证明了儒家美德政治的核心在于政治领袖的情感问责制，并表明非民主的儒家贤能政治未能体现这种道德理想。然后，我认为儒家美德政治的理想可以在民主制度下更好地实现。为此，我首先描述了在巩固的民主社会中普通公民对政治领导人情感问责的道德要求如何为儒家政治领导人提供理论空间。下一个，