Democratization And Autocratization In Comparative Perspective

Democratization and Autocratization in Comparative Perspective

This book provides balanced, critical, and comprehensive coverage of the theories and realities of autocratization and democratization. It sketches developments in the conceptions of democracy, discusses how to distinguish between different forms of political rule, and maps the development of democracy and autocracy across space and time. The book reviews the major debates and findings about domestic and international causes and consequences of democratization and autocratization. It synthesizes theoretical models and empirical relationships based on an explicit comparative perspective which focuses on similarities and differences across countries and historical periods. Key features: • Offers a coherent framework, which students and scholars can use to grasp the literature on democratization and autocratization as a whole. • Includes tables and figures as well as plentiful, illustrative in-text features, including chapter summaries, text boxes, concluding bullet points, and discussion questions. • Fully updated to account for the recent developments within the relevant academic literature as well as global and regional patterns of democratization and autocratization. • A section on democracy and autocracy today, highlighting important political challenges for democracy, such as populism and polarization, and providing an overview of the level of democratic crisis in developed democracies. Democratization and Autocratization in Comparative Perspective will be essential reading for students and scholars of political science, democracy and democratization, comparative politics, political theory, and international relations.

DEMOCRATIZATION AND AUTOCRATIZATION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

New Democracy and Autocratization in Asia

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.