Stateness and Democracy in East Asia

Comparative analysis of case studies across East Asia provides new insights into the relationship between state building, stateness, and democracy.

Aurel Croissant (Edited by), Olli Hellmann (Edited by)

9781108797382, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 April 2022

291 pages, 13 b/w illus. 12 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.432 kg

'This study contributes to the existing research by recognizing the effects of informal institutions and networks on shaping state capacity … This book will be relevant to scholars of state-democracy relations and Asian studies in general … Recommended.' X. Li, Choice Magazine

Democratization and state building are fundamental political processes, yet scholars cannot agree on which process should be prioritized in order to put countries on a positive path of institutional development. Where much of the existing literature on the state-democracy nexus focuses on quantitative cross-national data, this volume offers a theoretically grounded regional analysis built around in-depth qualitative case studies. The chapters examine cases of successful democratic consolidation (South Korea, Taiwan), defective democracy (Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor), and autocratic reversal (Cambodia, Thailand). The book's evidence challenges the dominant 'state first, democracy later' argument, demonstrating instead that stateness is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for democratic consolidation. The authors not only show that democratization can become trapped in path-dependent processes, but also that the system-level organization of informal networks plays a key role in shaping the outcome of democratic transitions.

1. Introduction: Rethinking Stateness and Democracy in Asia Aurel Croissant and Olli Hellmann
2. State Building and Democratization: The Sequencing Debate and Evidence from East Asia Tuong Vu
3. South Korea's Democracy and the Legacies of the Developmental State Olli Hellmann
4. After Hegemony: State Capacity, the Quality of Democracy, and the Legacies of the Party-State in Democratic Taiwan Kharis Templeman
5. Democratization Interrupted: The Parallel State and the Demise of Democracy in Thailand Paul Chambers
6. Weak State and the Limits of Democratization in Cambodia, 1993–2017 Kheang Un
7. The Institutional Roots of Defective Democracy in The Philippines Erik Martinez Kuhonta and Nhu Truong
8. Stateness and State Capacity in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: Securing Democracy's Survival, Entrenching its Low Quality Marcus Mietzner
9. As Good as it Gets? Stateness and Democracy in East Timor Aurel Croissant and Rebecca Abu Sharkh
10. Stateness and Democracy: Evidence From East Asia and Cross-Regional Comparisons Aurel Croissant and Olli Hellmann
Index.

Subject Areas: Government powers [LNDH], Central government policies [JPQB], Comparative politics [JPB]