Democratic Regression in East and Southeast Asia – Retrogression, Resistance, Revival

Democracy’s vulnerability to creeping autocratization is increasingly at the center of both academic and public discourses. East and Southeast Asia are of particular importance in this debate. For one, the region seems to contradict the widely held view that democracy does a better job raising living standards in poor countries than does authoritarian government. It comes therefore as no surprise that scholars discuss the possibility of a new Asian alternative to capitalist democracy and democratic liberalism. Moreover, democracy has long been the exception in the region. It was only with the third wave of democratization, which reached the shores of Asia-Pacific in the mid-1980s that the number of democracies increased substantially. While the region as a whole is still more democratic than 30 years ago, scholars note an alarming trend of erosion of democratic practices, principles, and processes in current Asia. This panel aims to bring together early career researchers and senior scholars from Asia and Europe to facilitate and enrich transcultural academic dialogue and help to develop new analytical perspectives, conceptual approaches, and theoretical views in the research on how to understand democratic regression and revival. The panel will discuss two broad research questions: First, do types of democratic recession and breakdown in Asia differ in the structural conditions under which they occur? And second, what roles do political parties, civil society organizations, and social movements play in mobilizing for or against would-be authoritarians and democratic regression? Are they guardians of democracy or passive bystanders of democratic regression? The panel is organized by the journal Democratization.