Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
Notes:
The course “Hybrid Regimes: Democratic Challenges in Southeast Asia” is designed as a standalone course or as a follow-up course for students who have completed the introductory course “Politics in Southeast Asia: Change and Continuity”. The course delves deeper into the socio-political development in various authoritarian and hybrid regimes in Asia, thereby allowing students to survey, compare and analyze the different, yet persistent, challenges of democracy that these nations are facing. While this course focuses on Southeast Asia, many of these countries’ politics are influenced by their relations to East Asian countries such as China, Taiwan and Japan. Cambodia’s failure to democratize, for many scholars, was partly due to its close relations to China. With this logic, democratization in Southeast Asia can be helped when they have good relations with democratized countries such as Taiwan and Japan. Therefore, this course is in line with Taiwan’s foreign policy initiative, the NEW SOUTHBOUND POLICY which seeks to promote closer relations to countries to the south of Taiwan, including Southeast Asian countries.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, a wave of democratization took the world by a storm. The collapse of the Soviet Union shook the foundation of authoritarian regimes in different parts of Asia, as it did in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. This post-Cold War wave toppled many one-party systems as well as authoritarian regimes and replaced them with new governments seeking to embark upon liberal reforms and democracy. However, transitioning into substantial democracies was not a simple task, and as the euphoria dissipated, many nations soon found out that regime transitions were at times not synonymous with democratic consolidation.
While pure authoritarian regimes are less common in Asia, many nations are in fact “hybrid regimes” or “electoral autocracies” stuck between authoritarianism and democracy. One of the main characteristics is the existence of multi-party elections, yet these are manipulated by government elites, thereby robbing the opposition of the chance of winning. In these nations, the thin veneer of quasi-democratic institutions and multi-party elections became a façade for abuses of power, manipulation and corruption. In Thailand, in the aftermath of the 2019 election the military-backed government dissolved an opposition party and arrested anti-government activists, sparking students’ protest demanding political reforms and a new constitution which would guarantee free and fair election and improve civil liberties. However, in 2023, the opposition Move Forward Party, has won the election and brought a new hope for Thailand’s democracy. In the Philippines, voters frustrated with crime and elite-based status quo had voted overwhelmingly for the populist Rodrigo Duterte, who employed extra-judicial killings in his “war on drugs”. In 2022, the majority of voters voted for the son and namesake of the former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.
Some of the questions the course seeks to answer are: What is democracy good for? Why do some states democratize while others continue to exhibit authoritarianism? How do highly corrupt political regimes survive for decades? How do populist leaders gain and maintain power in Asia? What is the legacy of political violence in newly democratic states? What is the legacy of military-rule in the region? How do global human rights values and “Asian values” play a role in the nations’ politics? The beginning of the course introduces core concepts, regime typologies and indicators for assessing democratization. It subsequently discusses in-depth the development in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia.
能力項目說明
This interdisciplinary course explores various challenges to democracy in Asia in the post-Cold War period by using case studies. The course provides students with a deeper understanding of each nation’s individual roadblocks for democratic governance, as well as the challenges faced in terms of structure and institutions. The course introduces various analytical concepts, tools and methodologies which will help the students to analyze possible ways of strengthening democratic traditions in the East and Southeast Asian regions. Upon completing the course, students will be able to: firstly, understand the differences between various regime types and able to identify the typologies across the East and Southeast Asian regions; secondly, analyze the democratization trajectory of various nations and understand the trend of democratic roll-backs in several case study nations, such as Myanmar, Indonesia, and to some extent, Malaysia; thirdly, identify each country’s specific impediments to further democratization; lastly, understand the role of each country’s individual trajectories of nationalism and modernization on their democracy.
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
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Week |
Topic |
Content and Reading Assignment |
Teaching Activities and Homework |
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1 |
Introduction 9/12 |
Syllabus Evaluation Criteria Class Regulations |
Introduction of syllabus and regulations
Students choose the 6 (six) weeks in which they want to submit their individual essays.
No Homework |
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2 |
Exploring democracy as a concept as opposed to “Hybrid Regime” 9/19 |
Required Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way, 2010. Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold War. Cambridge University Press. [Introduction chapter] Diamond, Larry, 2002. "Elections without democracy: Thinking about hybrid regimes." Journal of democracy 13.2: 21-35. Additional Diamond, Larry, 2008. "The democratic rollback: the resurgence of the predatory state." Foreign Affairs 86: 36-48. |
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3 |
The problems of democracy in Southeast Asia 9/26 |
Required Dan Slater & Joseph Wong, 2013. “The Strength to Concede: Ruling Parties and Democratization in Developmental Asia” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 11, Vol.3, pp. 717-733. Dan Slater, 2008. “Democracy and Dictatorship Do Not Float Freely” in Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region and Qualitative Analysis, edited by Erik Martinez Kuhonta, Dan Slater, and Tuong Vu, pp. 55-79. Additional Morlino, Leonardo, Björn Dressel, and Riccardo Pelizzo, 2011. “The quality of democracy in Asia-Pacific: Issues and findings.” International Political Science Review 32.5: 491-511. |
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4 |
The persistence of authoritarian regimes 10/3 |
Required Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan A. Way, 2002. "Elections without democracy: The rise of competitive authoritarianism." Journal of democracy 13.2: 51-65. Levitsky, S, and Lucan A. Way, 2006. “Linkage versus Leverage. Rethinking the International Dimension of Regime Change.” Comparative Politics, vol. 38, no. 4, 2006, pp. 379–400. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20434008 Additional Morgenbesser, Lee, and Thomas B. Pepinsky. 2019. "Elections as causes of democratization: Southeast Asia in comparative perspective." Comparative Political Studies 52.1: 3-35. |
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5 |
National Day Holiday 10/10 |
NO CLASS |
NO CLASS |
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6 |
The rise of populist leaders 10/17
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Required Aspinall, Edward, 2015. "Oligarchic populism: Prabowo Subianto's challenge to Indonesian democracy." Indonesia 99 (2015): 1-28. Curato, Nicole, 2017. "Flirting with authoritarian fantasies? Rodrigo Duterte and the new terms of Philippine populism." Journal of Contemporary Asia 47.1: 142-153. Additional Hadiz, Vedi R., and Angelos Chryssogelos, 2017. "Populism in world politics: A comparative cross-regional perspective." International Political Science Review 38.4: 399-411. Phongpaichit, Pasuk, and Chris Baker, 2008. "Thaksin's populism." Journal of Contemporary Asia 38.1: 62-83. |
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7 |
Grasping the “Asian Values” 10/24 |
Required Barr, Michael D, 2000. "Lee Kuan Yew and the “Asian values” debate." Asian Studies Review 24.3: 309-334. Subramaniam, Surain., 2000. "The Asian values debate: Implications for the spread of liberal democracy." Asian Affairs: An American Review 27.1 (2000): 19-35. Additional Thompson, Mark R, 2004. "Pacific Asia after ‘Asian values’: authoritarianism, democracy, and ‘good governance’." Third World Quarterly 25.6: 1079-1095. Thompson, Mark R, 2001. "Whatever happened to" Asian values"?" Journal of Democracy 12.4: 154-165. |
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8 |
Thailand: between populism, the monarchy and military-rule 10/31 |
Required McCargo, Duncan, 2019. "Southeast Asia's Troubling Elections: Democratic Demolition in Thailand." Journal of Democracy 30.4: 119-133. Schaffar, Wolfram, 2018. "The iron silk road and the iron fist: Making sense of the military coup d’état in Thailand." Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies 11.1: 35-52. Additional Sombatpoonsiri, Janjira, 2017. "The 2014 military coup in Thailand: Implications for political conflicts and resolution." Asian Journal of Peacebuilding 5. Winichakul, Thongchai, 2016. "Thailand's hyper-royalism: Its past success and present predicament." ISEAS Trends in Southeast Asia 7. |
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9 |
MID TERM WEEK 11/7 |
NO CLASS
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NO CLASS Students start writing on Final Paper at home. |
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10 |
The Philippines: when democracy begets populism and violence 11/14
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Required Heydarian, Richard Javad. The rise of Duterte: A populist revolt against elite democracy. Springer, 2017. Noble, Lela Garner, 1986. "Politics in the Marcos era." In John Bresnan, ed. Crisis in the Philippines: The Marcos era and beyond, Princeton University Press. 70-113. Additional Ordoñez, Matthew David, and Anthony Lawrence Borja, 2018. "Philippine liberal democracy under siege: The ideological underpinnings of Duterte’s populist challenge." Philippine Political Science Journal 39.2: 139-153. Thompson, Mark R, 2016. "Bloodied democracy: Duterte and the death of liberal reformism in the Philippines." Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs 35.3: 39-68. |
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11 |
Indonesia: the rise of pragmatic authoritarianism, religious populism and identity-politics 11/21 |
Required Fukuoka, Yuki, 2012. "Politics, business and the state in post-Soeharto Indonesia." Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs 34.1: 80-100.Hadiz, Vedi R, 2018. "Imagine all the people? Mobilising Islamic populism for right-wing politics in Indonesia." Journal of Contemporary Asia 48.4: 566-583. Honna, Jun. 2019. "Civil-Military Relations in an Emerging State: A Perspective from Indonesia’s Democratic Consolidation." Emerging states at crossroads. Springer, Singapore, 255-270. Additional Pisani, Elizabeth, and Michael Buehler, 2017. "Why do Indonesian politicians promote shari’a laws? An analytic framework for Muslim-majority democracies." Third World Quarterly 38.3: 734-752. Simandjuntak, Deasy “Challenges to Indonesia’s Democracy: Beyond Religious Polarization”, Asia Pacific Research Forum No. 69 (2021.06), pp.9-47《亞太研究論壇》第 69期 (2021.06), pp. 9–47. |
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12 |
Singapore: the pragmatism of an authoritarian capitalist state 11/28
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Required Chua Beng Huat, 2010. "The cultural logic of a capitalist single-party state, Singapore." Postcolonial Studies 13.4: 335-350. Tan, Kenneth Paul, 2012. "The ideology of pragmatism: Neo-liberal globalisation and political authoritarianism in Singapore." Journal of Contemporary Asia 42.1: 67-92 Additional Ortmann, Stephan, and Mark R. Thompson, 2014. "China's obsession with Singapore: learning authoritarian modernity." The Pacific Review 27.3: 433-455. |
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13 |
Cambodia: undemocratic elections and dependence on China 12/5 |
Po, Sovinda & Kearrin Sims, 2022. The Myth of Non-interference: Chinese Foreign Policy in Cambodia, Asian Studies Review, 46:1, 36-54, DOI: 10.1080/10357823.2021.1887813 Ngoun, Kimly, 2022. Adaptive Authoritarian Resilience: Cambodian Strongman’s Quest for Legitimacy, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 52:1, 23-44, DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2020.1832241 |
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14 |
Vietnam: authoritarian resilience 12/12 |
Giang, Nguyen Khac. "Succession Politics and Authoritarian Resilience in Vietnam." Southeast Asian Affairs (2020): 411-426. Thanh Hai, Do. "Vietnam and China: ideological bedfellows, strange dreamers." Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies 10.2 (2021): 162-182 |
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15 |
Myanmar: military-rule and a democratic roll-back 12/19 |
Required Crouch, Melissa, 2021. "States of Legal Denial: How the State in Myanmar Uses Law to Exclude the Rohingya." Journal of Contemporary Asia 51.1: 87-110. Stokke, Kristian, and Soe Myint Aung, 2019. "Transition to democracy or hybrid regime? The dynamics and outcomes of democratization in Myanmar." The European Journal of Development Research: 1-20 Additional Egreteau, Renaud, 2021. Why veterans lose: the decline of retired military officers in Myanmar’s post-junta elections, Third World Quarterly, 42:11, 2611-2628, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2021.1976060 |
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16 |
FINAL Presentation 12/26 |
Presentation Week |
Student Final Presentations |
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17 |
Film Week 1/2 |
Film Week |
WATCH FILM: The Lady (2011) about Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar |
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18 |
Final Paper Week 1/9 |
NO CLASS FINAL PAPER SUBMISSION |
NO CLASS No Homework Submission of Final Papers |
Evaluations
***The use of generative AI is prohibited. The essays and papers for this course will be evaluated based on how we express our understanding of theories based on our discussions in the classroom, and how we can use these theories to analyze contemporary case studies. Written pieces generated by AIs do not reflect such understanding or connection between theories and case studies as they do not capture the classroom discussions.***
Please see the course weekly schedule
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