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\"Democracy in Southeast Asia is in crisis. The contributors to this volume argue that this is a crisis of democratic governance. They look into its causes, consequences, and prospects, comparing themes of democratic governance in Southeast Asia, such as political culture, civil society, political parties, and institutions and human rights\"-- Provided by publisher.

This collection brings us up-to-date on the contemporary situations in the new democracies of East Asia, and debates on the prospect of introducing liberal democracy to this part of the world. The chapters cover a wide range of cases, including in-depth examination of China, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, and broad comparisons of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and other countries. The contributors, who are foremost experts in their fields, examine the roles performed by civil society, social classes, and strategic groups, as well as the intertwining of values and interests in the transition to, consolidation of, and reversal from democracy. They also evaluate the extent to which these new democracies have facilitated regional peace, helped extend social welfare benefits, bolstered poverty alleviation, and upheld the rule of law and human rights. Grounding their analyses in the historical development of these societies, and/or examining them through the comparative strategy they also explore the desirability of liberal democracy, whether in the subjective assessment of the Asian people or in relation to the social-political challenges faced by these Asian countries. East Asia’s New Democracies will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, political science, political sociology, East and Southeast Asian studies. Yin-wah Chu is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Baptist University. Siu-lun Wong is Professor and Director of the Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong. \"This volume is a very useful update on the status of democratic transition and consolidation in East and Southeast Asia...On the whole, this is a laudable effort to provide a comprehensive survey of democratization and its consequences in East Asia. It has succeeded, to a considerable extent, in applying mainstream theories of democratization to the region’s rich but varied experiences.\" - Minxin Pei, Pacific Affairs: Volume 85, No. 1 - March 2012 1. East Asia’s New Democracies: An Introduction Yin-wah Chu and Siu-lun Wong Part 1: Transition, Consolidation, Reversal: Actors Then and Now 2. Social and Political Developments in China: Challenges for Democratization Jude Howell 3. Civil Society and Democracy-Making in Taiwan: Reexamining the Link Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao and Ming-sho Ho 4. The Bottom-Up Nature of Korean Democratization: Civil Society, Anti-Americanism and Popular Protest Bruce Cumings 5. Modernization Theory’s Last Redoubt: Democratization in East and Southeast Asia Mark R. Thompson 6. Development and Change in Korean Democracy since the Democratic Transition in 1987: The Three Kims’ Politics and After Hyug-Baeg Im 7. Thailand’s Conservative Democratization Kevin Hewison Part 2: Democracy in East Asia? Achievements and Enduring Challenges 8. Democracy and Disorder: Will Democratization Bring Greater Regional Instability to East Asia? Amitav Acharya 9. Democracy’s Double Edge: Financing Social Policy in Industrial East Asia Joseph Wong 10. Devolution and Democracy: A Fragile Connection Ledivina V. Cariño 11. Rule of Law and Democracy: Lessons for China from Asian Experiences Randall Peerenboom 12. Group Rights and Democracy in Southeast Asia Beng Huat Chua 13. Diagnosing the Micro Foundation of Democracy in Asia: Evidence from the AsiaBarometer Survey: 2003-2008 Satoru Mikami and Takashi Inoguchi

Some fledging democracies in the world have encountered setbacks due to political parties trying to grapple with the expectations of sophisticated electorates and introducing gradual political reforms over the years.

\"ASEAN has embarked on an ambitious reform program, a key aspect being its inclusion of civil society organizations in policymaking. This \"people-oriented\" agenda parallels developments in regional and global governance institutions elsewhere, where civil society engagement is deemed necessary in addressing these institutions' \"democracy deficit\". Scholars have documented the expanded role of civil society organizations in global politics, however prevailing theoretical accounts overlook exactly why and how they are included in policymaking, and how their inclusion shapes political outcomes. This groundbreaking book harnesses political economy analysis to explain this trend. Through the lens of ASEAN, it examines how social and political conflicts define participatory channels. Charting the specific modalities of civil society participation, Kelly Gerard demonstrates that ASEAN's \"people-oriented\" agenda builds legitimacy, while sidelining ASEAN's detractors. ASEAN's Engagement of Civil Society demonstrates why and how participatory policymaking is not inherently democratizing, instead creating new sites for contestation\"-- Provided by publisher.

Over the past quarter century new ideologies of participation and representation have proliferated across democratic and non-democratic regimes. In Participation without Democracy, Garry Rodan breaks new conceptual ground in examining the social forces that underpin the emergence of these innovations in Southeast Asia. Rodan explains that there is, however, a central paradox in this recalibration of politics: expanded political participation is serving to constrain contestation more than to enhance it. Participation without Democracyuses Rodan's long-term fieldwork in Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia to develop a modes of participation (MOP) framework that has general application across different regime types among both early-developing and late-developing capitalist societies. His MOP framework is a sophisticated, original, and universally relevant way of analyzing this phenomenon. Rodan uses MOP and his case studies to highlight important differences among social and political forces over the roles and forms of collective organization in political representation. In addition, he identifies and distinguishes hitherto neglected non-democratic ideologies of representation and their influence within both democratic and authoritarian regimes.Participation without Democracysuggests that to address the new politics that both provokes these institutional experiments and is affected by them we need to know who can participate, how, and on what issues, and we need to take the non-democratic institutions and ideologies as seriously as the democratic ones.

Two questions are commonly asked about South Korea's stunning martial law decree in 2024: Why this and why now? I take a historical-structural approach to trace South Korea's recent crisis back to the nationalist origins of its democracy. South Korea democratized amid internal nationalist conflict that became entrenched into the nascent party system, polarizing the party factions along mutually exclusive nationalist visions. Such nationalist polarization is not just more intense; nationalism's state-seeking nature is uniquely damaging to the essence of what makes democracies democratic. South Korea's episode is best viewed not as an aberration, but as a symptom of endemic quality issues stemming from divided nationhood. The political galvanization of youth–the silver lining–offers optimism for party realignment away from the national axis of the Cold War past and toward a unified democratic future.

While most agree that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is an ambitious strategy to maximise its geopolitical position worldwide, policymakers and scholars have questioned whether the BRI implies an attempt to promote Beijing’s governance model. This article takes a political economy approach to analyse the domestic political dynamics of the recipient countries. Political elites tend to employ available incentives to consolidate their winning coalitions if their political survival is threatened. A regime under transition is vulnerable to external influence during political competition, and the “convenient” money from Beijing becomes an offer that the ruling elites of recipient states cannot decline. Consequently, such external influence indirectly undermines the regime dynamics of recipient states. The case studies of four Southeast Asian states — Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand — offer supportive evidence for this explanation.    

Political accountability is a crucial element of any democracy since it is a safeguard against power abuse and corruption, both urgent problems of many political systems in Southeast Asia. Based on social science theories, the author analyses from a comparative perspective the ways institutional engineering concerning different dimensions of political accountability influenced the quality of democracy in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. By highlighting the successes and shortcomings, this book evaluates the degree these institutional reforms resulted in the deepening, stagnation, or regression of the respective democratization processes in these three Southeast Asian countries.

A growing global trend towards authoritarianism has left democracy, especially its liberal form, under strain. This has occurred despite earlier promises of democratization between the end of the Cold War and the early twenty-first century. Our essay examines how the dynamics of post-democratization politics have played out across several polities in Southeast and Northeast Asia. These regions once included supposed \"third wave\" democracies and polities apparently on the cusp of political liberalization. Such expectations have not panned out. Instead, the region has generally witnessed either significant authoritarian resilience or autocratic resurgence following spurts of political openness. We examine how such autocratic dynamics have played out following earlier movements toward democratization. Specifically, we identify three key elements of post- democratization politics associated with autocratic success and democratic robustness based on contributions to this special issue, and suggest pathways through which they can a ect political outcomes. Dominant beliefs can prime accommodation with authoritarianism given pervasive acceptance of state-driven ideologies while identification with liberal values can drive democratic consolidation and resistance to autocracy, regardless of wealth and education. Ostensibly democratic institutions, such as constitutional courts, can become anti-democratic instruments when the exercise of their independent prerogatives means upholding autocratic tendencies that align with their interests and outlooks. Agents and their decisions can both prompt and stymie autocratization, whether intentionally or inadvertently; strategies to consolidate authority can fracture even dominant ruling coalitions. Examining the role ideas, institutions, and agents play in post-democratic politics can further e orts at understanding the current authoritarian wave and its limits.