How can the democratic transition in South Asia be explained? What are the domestic and external determinants that facilitated the change?
South Asia is the southern region of the Asian continent, consisting of the eight-member countries—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—of intergovernmental economic cooperation, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) established in 1985. The states in the region have moved to or away from democracy to a greater or lesser degree since their idiosyncratic state-building processes. Despite their various paths of regime transitions, many of the states have further moved to democracy in the past decade. Even their timing of democratic changes is similar. For instance, Bangladesh restored democracy in 2008 after a political crisis that the interim government involved. It also recently observed the student-led protests to oust an autocratic leader, Sheikh Hasina, who was once a pro-democracy icon. Bhutan has transformed into a constitutional monarchy implementing the democratic elections since 2008. The Maldives has also moved to presidential democracy by completing a new constitution having democratic features in 2008. Nepal has enhanced its parliamentary democracy by establishing the elected representative government in 2008. Pakistan attempted to move to parliamentary democracy in 2008 by holding the first general election. Afghanistan also tried a transition to democracy earlier, although it is currently struggling the most among all nations in South Asia. Meanwhile, India’s parliamentary democracy and Sri Lanka’s semi-presidential democracy have survived longer than others, regardless of the quality of their democracy.
This panel will discuss the endogenous and exogenous determinants of such democratic transitions and predict the future paths of democratic development in South Asia.