Asian Democracy In World History

Taking a comparative approach, Alan T. Wood traces the evolution of democracy from its origins in prehistoric times and describes democratic growth in thirteen Asian countries from Japan in East Asia to Pakistan in South Asia and examines key issues such as: * How does the democratic experience in Asia, in countries with unique and totalitarian political traditions, compare with democracies worldwide? * Is the aspiration to freedom universal or is it a product of western ideas and institutions?

Traces the evolution of democracy from its origins in prehistoric times and describes democratic growth in thirteen Asian countries from Japan in East Asia to Pakistan in South Asia.

A new edition of this widely used text covers the last two centuries of Indian history, concluding with an epilogue written from the perspective of the 1990s. It thematically and analytically discusses the emergence of India as one of the world's largest democracies and one of the most stable of the states to emerge from the experience of colonialism. The foundations of this rare phenomenon in either Asia or Africa are seen in India's society, the ideas and beliefs of her people, and the institutions of government and politics which have developed on the subcontinent, in a process of interaction between what was indigenous to India and the many external influences brought to bear on the country by economic, political, and ideological contact with the Western world. Modern scholarship has shown how diverse and complex was India's socio-economic and political development; and this theme runs through the study which eschews any simple understanding of India's political development as a clash between "imperialism" and "nationalism", or the making of a new nation. The complexity reflects many of the continuing ambiguities and inequalities in the subcontinent's life and suggests why the structures of the state, and indeed the very nature of the Indian nation, are now being questioned, often with unprecedented public violence. India's dilemmas are not hers alone: they also raise economic, political, and social issues of profound significance throughout the contemporary world.

Democratization scholars believe that the next regional wave of transitions to democracy may unfold in East and Southeast Asia. In their introduction to the 1998 edition of Democracy in East Asia, Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner predicted that East Asia, with its remarkable diversity of political regimes, economies, and religions, would likely be the most critical arena in the global struggle for democracy, a prediction that has proven prescient. Although the recent political upheavals in the Middle East have understandably grabbed the world’s attention, there is reason to doubt whether the overthrow of some authoritarian regimes there will lead to the establishment of stable democracies any time soon. On the other hand, East Asia, the world’s most populous and economically dynamic region, already boasts several consolidated democracies and provides a fascinating laboratory for studies of both authoritarian resilience and the prospects for democratization. This updated volume, which features contributions by distinguished scholars in East Asian studies, will be welcomed by instructors and students in the field, particularly as U.S. foreign policy is in the process of undertaking a “pivot” toward Asia. Democracy in East Asia offers a comprehensive treatment of the political landscape in both Northeast and Southeast Asia, including discussions of China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Burma (Myanmar). Contributors: Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner, Francis Fukuyama, Minxin Pei, Yun-han Chu, Hyug Baeg Im, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Dan Slater, Martin Gainsborough, Don Emmerson, Edward Aspinall, Mark Thompson, Benjamin Reilly, Joseph Wong, Chong-Min Park, Yu-tzung Chang

Taking a comparative approach, Alan T. Wood traces the evolution of democracy from its origins in prehistoric times and describes democratic growth in thirteen Asian countries from Japan in East Asia to Pakistan in South Asia and examines key issues such as: * How does the democratic experience in Asia, in countries with unique and totalitarian political traditions, compare with democracies worldwide? * Is the aspiration to freedom universal or is it a product of western ideas and institutions?

East Asian democracies are in trouble, their legitimacy threatened by poor policy performance and undermined by nostalgia for the progrowth, soft-authoritarian regimes of the past. Yet citizens throughout the region value freedom, reject authoritarian alternatives, and believe in democracy. This book is the first to report the results of a large-scale survey-research project, the East Asian Barometer, in which eight research teams conducted national-sample surveys in five new democracies (Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Mongolia), one established democracy (Japan), and two nondemocracies (China and Hong Kong) in order to assess the prospects for democratic consolidation. The findings present a definitive account of the way in which East Asians understand their governments and their roles as citizens. Contributors use their expert local knowledge to analyze responses from a set of core questions, revealing both common patterns and national characteristics in citizens' views of democracy. They explore sources of divergence and convergence in attitudes within and across nations. The findings are sobering. Japanese citizens are disillusioned. The region's new democracies have yet to prove themselves, and citizens in authoritarian China assess their regime's democratic performance relatively favorably. The contributors to this volume contradict the claim that democratic governance is incompatible with East Asian cultures but counsel against complacency toward the fate of democracy in the region. While many forces affect democratic consolidation, popular attitudes are a crucial factor. This book shows how and why skepticism and frustration are the ruling sentiments among today's East Asians.

Intellectual interest in the growth and study of democracy is not a post-Cold War phenomenon, but its intensified interest is. Recently new questions have been asked, such as whether the widespread democratization process will yield similar end-products in different parts of the world which are endowed with vastly different heritages and history, or whether we will see the emergence of variants in democratic models. In the same way, the growth of the capitalist system and practice of a free market in some situations lead the state to play a role not anticipated in the traditional free market observed to be distinct from those in the industrialized West, and most certainly different from that of the United States.It has been the growing concern of many academics and policy-makers that in the post-Cold War era these differing perspective and practices of democracy and the free market could become the substance of the new ideological debate in the coming decade between countries in East Asia and the West, led by United States. The four essays published in this volume were presented as keynote papers defining the major themes of the Conference "Asian and American Perspectives on Capitalism and Democracy" organized by the Asia Society, the Institute of Policy Studies, the Singapore International Foundation, and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies held in Singapore, 28-30 January 1993. The essays serve as useful contributions to the current rigorous and ongoing debate.

Bringing together scholars of inequality, both inside and outside of Asia, this book examines how the distribution of income has affected political institutions, representation, and behaviour in Asia. Through detailed data analysis, the international team of contributors engages with the existing literature, arguing that the connection between inequality and political institutions is much more complex than has been suggested by previous studies from outside the region. Instead, Inequality and Democratic Politics in East Asia demonstrates that the micro-level evidence for the correlation between inequality and democracy is mixed and the impact of distributive politics is conditioned not only by institutional but also by historical and geopolitical factors. As such, this volume suggests that the median voter theorem and simplified partisan models prove to be ineffectual in accounting for distributive politics in East Asia. Analysing history, structure, and context to further understand the politics of inequality in East Asia, this book will be invaluable to students of Asian politics, as well as students of inequality, democracy, and political economy more widely.