Democratic Recession Autocratization And Democratic Backlash In Southeast Asia

This book presents a new organizing framework for studying democratic recession and autocratization in Southeast Asia. By introducing a new concept, “democratic backlash,” the book details how democratic recession inevitably provokes resistance that often forms the nucleus of new democratic movements, and in doing so, argues that it is important to identify these reverse trends that may eventually become dominant. The book contributes to current literature which thus far has sought to understand the causes and consequences of the decline in democracy around the world. Previous literature has focused primarily on advanced democracies, or alternatively, on large scale quantitative comparison. As such, this book helps fill a research gap with its focus on Southeast Asia, employing a comparative case study approach. Chapter authors are experts on Southeast Asia, a region that has experienced democratic recession and autocratization in a variety of ways, from rising populism to military coups.

This book examines the quality of democracies in Asia and determines why current democracies—especially during the so-called “new normal” era following the 2008 financial crisis—have become less stable and less resilient to increasing authoritarianism. Based on the assumption that the concept of democracy consists of three elements—procedure (participation, competition, and distribution of power); effectiveness (representation, accountability, and responsiveness); and performance (social welfare, inequality, and trust)—the contributors to this book determine which elements are responsible for diverging trajectories within the Asian democratic recession. Examining South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, and China, the authors employ different research methods—quantitative, comparative, or individual case studies—to explore the conditions under which democratic rules and norms erode over time, and which type of governance is preferred by citizens in this region as an ideal type. The book puts forward the argument that a procedure-oriented concept of democracy is not sufficient for understanding the source of democratic recession and develops a new concept of “new democracy” based on procedure, effectiveness, and performance. It also demonstrates to what extent the experience changes and how the countries respond to these changes. A novel contribution on the state of democracy in Asia written by experts from the region, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of political science, especially comparative politics and international relations, regional study of East and Southeast Asia, sociology, public policy, economics, and social science methods. Also, this book will appeal to think tanks and policy-oriented researchers.

The book studies and compares causes, catalysts and consequences of democratic regression and revival in South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia. The Asia-Pacific presents social scientists with a natural laboratory to test competing theories of democratic erosion, decay, and revival and to identify new patterns and relationships. This volume combines conceptual and comparative research with single case studies. Overall, the collection of studies in this volume captures different forms of democratic regression and autocratization, examine how Asia-Pacific experiences fit into debates about democracy’s deepening global recession and what the Asia-Pacific experiences contribute to the understanding of the causes, catalysts, and consequences of democratic regression and resilience in the comparative politics literature. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Democratization.

Since the mid-2000s, the quality of democracy around the world has been in decline, and Southeast Asia is no exception. This Element analyzes the extent, patterns and drivers of democratic deconsolidation in the three Southeast Asian countries that boast the longest history of electoral democracy in the region: Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. While the exact deconsolidation outcomes differ, all three nations have witnessed similar trends of democratic erosion. In each case, long-standing democratic deficiencies (such as clientelism, politicized security forces and non-democratic enclaves) have persisted; rising wealth inequality has triggered political oligarchization and subsequent populist responses embedded in identity politics; and ambitious middle classes have opted for non-democratic alternatives to safeguard their material advancement. As a result, all three polities have descended from their democratic peaks between the late 1980s and early 2000s, with few signs pointing to a return to previous democratization paths.

Courts around the globe have become central players in governance, those in Southeast Asia have been no exception. This Element analyses the historical foundations, patterns, and drivers of judicialization of politics by mapping critical junctures that have shaped the emergence of modern courts in the region and providing a basic typology of courts and politics that extends the analysis to the contemporary situation. It also offers a new relational theory that helps explain the dynamics of judicial recruitment, decision-making, court performance-and ultimately perceptions of judicial legitimacy. In a region where power is often concentrated among oligarchs and clientelist political dynamics persist, it posits that courts are best comprehended as institutional hybrids. These hybrids seamlessly blend formal and informal practices, with profound implications for how Southeast Asian courts are molding both the rule of law and political governance.

This edited book examines the growing worldwide phenomenon of civilizational populism in democratic nation-states and brings together research that explores this in a wide variety of religious, political, and geographic contexts. In doing so, the book shows how, from Europe to India and Pakistan, and from Indonesia to the Americas, populists increasingly define national belonging through civilizational identity, claiming that the world can be divided into several religion-defined civilizations with incompatible values. The volume also discusses the complex relationship between civilizational populism, democracy and nationalism and shows how nationalists often use civilizational identity to help define ingroups and outgroups within their society. With this, the book investigates the salience of the concept, its widespread and influential nature, and also explains how populists construct civilizational identities, and the factors behind the rise of civilizational populism.

Drawing on evidence from eight case studies from across three Asian subregions, this volume highlights the distinctive features of Asian populism in comparison with Western experiences. In contrast to the latter, populist practices in Asia tend to exhibit an ambiguous nature, often characterized by ad hoc and mixed ideological add-ons. The case studies shed light on the cultural dimension of populism, an aspect that has been largely overlooked in Western contexts. Empirical evidence shows that political culture and identity politics exert an influence on populist practices in Asia. In the meantime, populist attitudes towards the role of politicians, the popular will and the relationship between the elite and the people can serve as an explanatory variable for political outcomes. The relationship between populism and democracy in Asia is observed to be more intricate than that in Western contexts. Populism is not necessarily endogenous to democracy, and thus its emergence may not solely be a response to the crisis of democracy. The book presents a valuable resource for scholars and students of Asian politics and those looking at the phenomenon of populism through a comparative lens.

This book focuses on the dynamics of democracy and populism in Muslim-majority countries, such as Turkey and Indonesia. It does so by examining the complexities of democratic development in these areas, ranging from 'flawed' to 'hybrid' regimes. Despite the aspirations for democratic progress, recent democracy indices reveal a concerning trend of backsliding, particularly in the last decade. This regression can be attributed, in part, to the ascendancy of populist politics. Populist movements have adeptly exploited both real and perceived cultural insecurities to acquire, consolidate, and maintain political power. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in flawed democracies and hybrid regimes within Muslim-majority countries, such as Turkey and Indonesia. Notably, religion, specifically Islam, has emerged as a central tool within the populist playbook. Populist actors have constructed a religious-civilizational framework that leverages political binaries, manipulates insecurities, and fosters traditional anti-elite and anti-'other' sentiments. In this book, the authors advance the notion that populism is a multifaceted phenomenon that relies on various pre-existing fractures within societies and cultures. Once in power, populism intensifies these differences to further consolidate its position, utilizing various state apparatuses such as state-controlled religious institutions. This comprehensive analysis offers insights into the growing trend of populism in the Muslim world and its impact on contemporary politics.