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.
Introduction: democratic regression in Asia
Aurel Croissant and Jeffrey Haynes
1. Democratic regression in comparative perspective: scope, methods, and causes
Larry Diamond
2. Erosion or decay? Conceptualizing causes and mechanisms of democratic regression
Johannes Gerschewski
3. Democratic decoupling
Iza Ding and Dan Slater
4. Elite capture, civil society and democratic backsliding in Bangladesh, Thailand and the Philippines
Jasmin Lorch
5. Agents of resistance and revival? Local election monitors and democratic fortunes in Asia
Max Grömping
6. Pushback after backsliding? Unconstrained executive aggrandizement in the Philippines versus contested military-monarchical rule in Thailand
Mark R. Thompson
7. Democratic deconsolidation in East Asia: exploring system realignments in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan
Doh Chull Shin
8. Sources of resistance to democratic decline: Indonesian civil society and its trials
Marcus Mietzner
9. The pathway of democratic backsliding in Bangladesh
Ali Riaz
10. Exporting autocracy: how China's extra-jurisdictional autocratic influence caused democratic backsliding in Hong Kong
Brian C. H. Fong
11. China’s new regional responsiveness: passive agency and counter-agency in processes of democratic transitions in Asia
Nele Noesselt
12. Democratic backsliding, regional governance and foreign policymaking in Southeast Asia: ASEAN, Indonesia and the Philippines
Jürgen Rüland
Biography
Aurel Croissant is Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Political Science, Ruprecht-Karls-University, Heidelberg, Germany. His main research interests include the comparative analysis of political structures and processes in East and Southeast Asia, the theoretical and empirical analysis of democracy, civil-military relations, terrorism, and political violence.
Jeffrey Haynes is Emeritus Professor of Politics at London Metropolitan University, UK. His areas of expertise are religion and international relations, religion and politics, and democracy and democratization. His publications include more than 50 books, most recently: The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Politics and Ideology (ed.) (2022) and Trump & the Politics of Neo-Nationalism. The Christian Right and Secular Nationalism in America (2021).
