Abstract
This chapter reviews democracy and governance in Asia. Contrary to the hopes of political scientists, economic development has fostered too few democracies in Asia. Asia’s political landscape is deeply flawed with oligarchic democracies in Japan and Korea; pro-business soft dictatorships in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore; Chinese client states in Cambodia and Laos; weak and fragile democracies in India, Indonesia, Philippines, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal; military-dominated governments in Thailand, Pakistan and Myanmar; and staunchly authoritarian states in China, North Korea and Vietnam. It is argued that Asia will never have decent middle-class societies and innovative economies without democracy. President Trump has made it clear that promotion of democracy and human rights is not a priority of his administration.
Highlights
Mature democracy is struggling to take hold in Asia, which is compromising the lives and freedoms of Asia’s citizens, and imposing great costs on the economy as well
The parlous state of democracy in Asia is perhaps not totally surprising, as the region was traditionally governed by communist autocracies
There has been a long series of modernization theorists starting with Seymour Martin Lipset,[4] who have predicted that economic development together with rising middle classes, education and urbanization would foster democratization.[5]
Summary
There is perhaps no issue that irritates the Chinese leadership more than America’s obsession about whether, when and how China will become a democracy. One heartening point that we can draw from President Park’s corruption scandal is that Korea’s democratic institutions have functioned well, with Park having to face up to the will of the people and the rule of law They give hope that Korea could reform its democracy and come out stronger in the end. Unlike France, Korea and many other cases, the Japanese people did not fight for their democracy This may be why Japan has been a virtual one-party state for much of the post-war period, with the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) holding nominal power. Thailand needs to establish a genuine majoritarian democracy, based on the rule of law, to ensure long-term political stability, and to return the country to a path of sustainable economic growth. Duncan McCargo of the University of Leeds once summed up the situation neatly when he said “I’ve never really been more pessimistic than I am at the moment.”[34]
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