July 2026, Volume 37, Issue 3
It was long thought that, to be successful, oppositions needed to form broad-based alliances ahead of elections. But Hungary and Turkey show that a single challenger has real advantages against a would-be autocrat.
October 2025, Volume 36, Issue 4
The Chinese Communist Party is dreaming an authoritarian techno-dream that is a democrat’s nightmare: ever more fine-grained state control made possible by using AI networks to pry and spy everywhere. But human unpredictability remains a force the party-state cannot tame.
April 2025, Volume 36, Issue 2
When South Korea’s president declared martial law last December, he shocked the country and sparked a political crisis that laid bare deep-seated divisions. Can Korean democracy overcome the nationalist polarization that has always defined it?
October 2023, Volume 34, Issue 4
A review of Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World, by Bethany Allen.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
The same technologies that are making traffic flow faster, cities run better, and ad-targeting more precise are also helping authoritarian governments to crush protests, hunt dissidents, and control their populations.
April 2022, Volume 33, Issue 2
China’s ability to shape the global entertainment industry extends well beyond films, and it no longer rests solely on the allure of big markets. Beijing is exerting newfound leverage that is making giant U.S. media companies do its bidding.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
India’s covid-19 response has accelerated the country’s slide toward competitive authoritarian rule by centralizing decision making, undermining federalism, and providing new pretexts for stifling dissent.
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
Liberty flourished in Hong Kong, but the Chinese Communist Party has crushed it. Beijing wants “capitalism without freedom” in the city, but can there be one without the other?
October 2020, Volume 31, Issue 4
Despite impressive achievements in socioeconomic development, Bangladesh has struggled with establishing democracy and is now effectively under one-party rule.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
No country in the world is more intensely targeted by Beijing’s influence operations than Taiwan. The lead-up to the January 2020 elections saw China putting a full-court press on the island, but Taiwanese democracy broke it.
July 2020, Volume 31, Issue 3
Although South Korea is praised for its success at fighting covid-19, the triumph came at a cost to rights and privacy, and is drawing attention away from a larger drift toward illiberalism and bitterly factionalized politics.
April 2020, Volume 31, Issue 2
The coronavirus outbreak has exposed the corrupt and rotten core of the Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorial rule over China. It is a moment of revelation. Can it also become one that leads to change?
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
Chinese authorities are wielding facial-recognition software, big-data analytics, and other digital technologies to control China’s citizens by monitoring and assessing their activities, both online and off.
January 2019, Volume 30, Issue 1
A crackdown on the opposition, followed by sham parliamentary elections in July 2018, has deepened and extended the decades-long personalist dictatorship of Hun Sen.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
After a presidential corruption scandal sparked peaceful mass protests leading to the impeachment and removal of the incumbent, South Koreans went to the polls to choose her successor. Was this drama a window on the troubles of South Korean democracy, or a testament to its strength and resilience?
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
Liberal democracy can never put down truly firm roots in Asia unless and until the fundamentals of democratic constitutionalism take hold. There are seven practical imperatives that friends of constitutionalism in the region must pursue.
October 2017, Volume 28, Issue 4
A review of China’s Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative by Nadège Rolland.
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
The CCP regime has lost support among three groups it should normally be able to count on: street-level police, retired military officers, and state employees who are drafted into stifling dissent on the part of their own relatives.
April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2
Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to the presidency of the Philippines reflects a broader trend in Southeast Asia of voters favoring politicians who elevate order above law. What does the history of “voting against disorder” in Indonesia and Thailand imply for the future of democracy in the Philippines?
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
When parts of the Turkish military attempted a coup in July 2016, the competitive authoritarian AKP regime was able to bring both its competitive and its authoritarian features to bear, stopping the coup and launching a crackdown.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Ennahda has long felt an especially strong kinship with Turkey’s AKP, which has seen as representing a combination of piety, prosperity, and democratic credibility. How might their relationship be affected by the AKP's more recent authoritarian turn?
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
This sparsely populated, landlocked country sandwiched between much larger authoritarian neighbors has nonetheless managed to maintain a fairly robust democracy. The secret lies in its energetic civil society.
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
Following the end of the Cold War, an international norm against coups began gaining strength, but it seems to have lost momentum in recent years. What has happened?
January 2017, Volume 28, Issue 1
The September 2016 Legislative Council election marked the rise of a new political force that emphasizes the specific interests and identity of Hong Kong. It has especially been championed by many of the young people who swelled 2014’s Umbrella Movement protests.
July 2015, Volume 26, Issue 3
A review of The Nature of Asian Politics by Bruce Gilley.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Burma’s troubled transition is imperiled by the reluctance of the military to loosen its grip. What lessons can the Burmese learn from other East Asian countries that have emerged from military rule?
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
The resilience of the Chinese authoritarian regime is approaching its limits. A breakthrough moment could be triggered by several kinds of events.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Despite the considerable resilience demonstrated by the Chinese authoritarian regime, its power experiences continuous atrophy. With the weakening of the totalitarian control imposed on Chinese society, the current stability-maintenance system has been decreasing in its effectiveness.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
There are two sharply contrasting and controversial perspectives on China’s near- to medium-term future: top-level reform and bottom-up revolution.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
China is heading toward a tipping point, with two likely scenarios for how a political opening will come about. Most Chinese intellectuals think that only gradualism—“slow and steady,” step-by-step reform—can offer China a safe and feasible path toward liberal democracy. But they are wrong. Instead of “taking it slow,” China should shun gradualism and opt…
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Although the Chinese Communist Party has tried to institutionalize the political system in the reform era, such efforts have been hampered by the Maoist legacy. To cope with challenges from the society, the CCP mainly relies on a highly centralized and resource-intensive weiwen system, and shows little respect for institutional differentiation and formal procedures.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Over the past decade, Chinese authorities have turned against many of the legal reforms they themselves had enacted in the late 20th century. Lawyers have come under increased pressure. Political campaigns warning against rule-of-law norms have rippled through the courts. And central authorities have massively increased funding for extralegal institutions aimed at curtailing and suppressing…
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
The response of the Chinese state (and of Chinese society at large) to the problems of the country’s periphery—Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, as well as hundreds of counties, prefectures, and townships in Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan, and other areas—is piling more tension and misery upon the populations there, but it is not undermining state power.
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
In recent years, Chinese netizens have shown boundless creativity and ingenuity in expressing themselves despite government restrictions on online speech. Will new political discourse give birth to a new political identity? Are new forms of networked communication enhancing opportunities for social change and helping to move China toward a “threshold” for political transformation?
January 2013, Volume 24, Issue 1
Given Southeast Asia’s relatively high level of socioeconomic development, we might expect it to be a showcase of democracy. Yet it is not. To grasp why, one must look to deeper factors of history and geography.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The Burmese transition that began in 2011 will be a protracted process. The main challenge now is to build a state in which democracy can take root and grow.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
Although active or retired military officers still hold top government posts, direct rule by the military as an institution is over, at least for now.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
Elections alone will not answer the question of how to build a lasting democracy. Minority rights also must be protected.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
For the country to develop, it needs an informed and engaged citizenry that has the knowledge and freedom to question those in power.
October 2012, Volume 23, Issue 4
The hardest work of the transition—negotiating political pacts—has not yet begun. Burma’s democrats must help to forge a system of mutual security that can allow democratization to proceed.
July 2012, Volume 23, Issue 3
A review of The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi by Peter Popham.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
The strong state in Malaysia and Singapore best explains why their authoritarian regimes have proved so stable and enduring. That is also the reason why democratization would go smoothly in both countries—yet, paradoxically, might never happen there at all.
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Vietnam and its smaller neighbors Laos and Cambodia remain bastions of illiberalism and one-party rule despite rapid economic growth and falling poverty. What will it take to reform their elitist political cultures and curtail the use of public office for private ends?
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
In 2011, Thais reelected a party backed by deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Why is his brand of populism so irrepressible, and what can be done to reconcile the voting power of Thailand’s rural lower classes with the establishment dug in around the Thai monarchy?
April 2012, Volume 23, Issue 2
Do democracy and good governance necessarily go hand-in-hand? In most Southeast Asian countries, a gap exists between the two. How should we understand good governance in an authoritarian context? And what does poor governance mean for the legitimacy of democracy?
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
If there is going to be a great advance of democracy in this decade, it is most likely going to emanate from East Asia.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
The legitimacy and appeal of democracy in East Asia will depend on how democratic countries in the region stack up against China.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Is “authoritarian resilience” in China a passing phenomenon, or is it something more durable?
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
If the PRC moves toward democracy, it is likely to be in some part due to the influence of Taiwan.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Indonesia, a populous, poor, predominantly Muslim society, has been able to maintain democracy thanks to a vibrant associational life.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
Social activist Anna Hazare’s hunger strike has helped to turn the world’s attention to India’s rampant corruption.
January 2012, Volume 23, Issue 1
India’s Right to Information Act discourages corruption by giving every citizen the right to access information from any public authority.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Though justly vaunted as the world’s largest democracy, India will in all likelihood remain reluctant to take on the mantle of “democracy promoter” for a mix of historical, ideological, and strategic reasons.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Since its transition to democracy barely a decade ago, Indonesia has begun projecting its newly democratic values across international borders. So far, however, its efforts have been largely rhetorical.
October 2011, Volume 22, Issue 4
Singapore has long been known for combining economic development with strict limits on political opposition. But its 2011 parliamentary elections suggest that it is moving toward “competitive authoritarianism.”
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
Despite India’s impressive achievements in democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, it remains home to a third of the world’s poor. Although it has successfully averted famine since independence, it still struggles to prevent chronic hunger.
July 2011, Volume 22, Issue 3
How did South Korea lift itself from destitution to affluence? And how was its ruthlessly authoritarian regime able to metamorphose into a stable democracy? Coopting the business and voluntary sectors to deliver welfare positioned the country to accomplish both.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
Chinese authoritarianism has deftly adapted to the Internet Age, employing various forms of technological controls. China’s brand of networked authoritarianism serves as a model for other regimes, such as those of Iran and Russia.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
In China, the Internet is not merely contested space between citizen and government. It is also a catalyst for social and political transformation, offering the possibility of better governance with greater citizen participation.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
Having only recently emerged from a prolonged and remarkably bitter civil war, Sri Lanka is now slipping steadily under the hardening authoritarian control of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family.
April 2011, Volume 22, Issue 2
A review of Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea by Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
For the first time ever in the history of Hong Kong, local democratic leaders and Chinese officials have forged a pact on limited democratic reforms. That may have marked a step forward for the cause of democracy in Hong Kong, but it has also led to a sharp split in the democratic camp.
January 2011, Volume 22, Issue 1
Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, is best known for his eloquent and incisive essays. Two of them are featured here: “Can It Be That the Chinese People Deserve Only ‘Party-Led Democracy’?” and “Changing the Regime by Changing Society.”
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Religion in various forms is burgeoning in the PRC today, and the ruling Chinese Communist Party cannot decide what to make of it—or do about it.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
Over the years, the Asian Barometer Survey has yielded some surprising results. A new typological analysis helps to make sense of them.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
How can Chinese claim strongly to support both democracy and their authoritarian regime? The answer may lie in a Confucian concept of democracy.
October 2010, Volume 21, Issue 4
May 2010, Benigno Aquino III bested a crowded field to win the presidency. The election, which was remarkably clean and orderly, gave a clear victory to the reformist narrative that has long vied with populism in the Philippines.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Democratization is never easy, smooth, or linear, but as Indonesia’s experience in building a multiparty and multiethnic democracy shows, it can succeed even under difficult and initially unpromising conditions.
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
Must every state be a nation and every nation a state? Or should we look instead to the example of countries such as India, where one state holds together a congeries of “national” groups and cultures in a single and wisely conceived federal republic?
July 2010, Volume 21, Issue 3
A review of China's Long March to Freedom: Grassroots Modernization by Kate Zhou.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
Indonesia is widely lauded as a democratic success story for rolling back the military, keeping radical Islam in check, and institutionalizing democratic freedoms. But this success has had costs in terms of democratic quality.
April 2010, Volume 21, Issue 2
The 2009 electoral victories of Indonesia’s incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) and his party reveal a growing sophistication among the electorate and a robust presidency, but also a dangerously weak, highly personalistic party system.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Indian voters pulled off a surprise by allowing the Congress party to retain power at the head of a more coherent coalition that is far less dependent on a congeries of small regional parties.
October 2009, Volume 20, Issue 4
Democracy in India remains robust, but the scope and intensity of the corruption that pervades the political system are steadily eroding public trust.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
In the two decades since the Tiananmen massacre, China has enjoyed rapid economic growth and a measure of political stability. Recently, however, various forms of popular protest have been increasing. Do they represent a potentially serious threat to CCP rule?
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Despite the suppression of the Tiananmen Uprising of 1989, popular protest in China has by all accounts escalated steadily over the ensuing two decades. These protests have spread to virtually every sector of Chinese society, prompting more than a few observers to proclaim the emergence of a “rising rights consciousness”…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. The twenty years since 1989 have brought two major developments in worker activism. First, whereas workers were part of the mass uprising in the Tiananmen Movement, there is today hardly any sign of mobilization that transcends class or regional lines. Second, a long-term decline in worker power at the point…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Although China’s farmers did not play a large role in the 1989 protests, they have been quite contentious since. Rural unrest has been triggered in part by reforms and in part by savvy “peasant leaders” who quickly seize opportunities that appear. Recently, many protest leaders have concluded that tame forms…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Some of the many China stories to attract attention recently have involved NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) protests by largely middle class crowds gathering to demand a greater say in urban development plans. This article argues that such protests a) are a significant addition to the already complex landscape of…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Read the full essay here. Online activism is an integral part of the broader landscape of citizen activism in contemporary China. It assumes a variety of forms, from cultural and social activism to cyber-nationalism and online petitions and protests. Technological development and social transformation provide the basic structural conditions. A fledgling civil society of online…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
Like all contemporary nondemocratic systems, the Chinese system suffers from weak legitimacy at the level of regime type. The most likely form of transition for China remains the model of Tiananmen, when three elements came together: a robust plurality of disaffected citizens, a catalytic event, and a split in the leadership. Had China chosen the…
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
After a nearly two-year interlude of authoritarian rule, Bangladeshis voted decisively for democracy, a secular approach to politics, and the center-left. The challenge now is to show that parliamentary democracy can deliver stability and socioeconomic progress.
July 2009, Volume 20, Issue 3
In March 2008, Malaysian voters dealt the long-ruling National Front coalition an enormous shock—pushing that party closer to losing power than it has ever been in Malaysia’s entire history as an independent country.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
The same policies that fostered decades of prosperity in Singapore have also led to longer-term economic ills that might have been averted in a freer society.
January 2009, Volume 20, Issue 1
A decade after the handover of their city to China, Hong Kong’s “pandemocrats” remain able to stand their ground at the ballot box.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Elections set the stage for the General’s exit after nearly a decade in power, yet Pakistan still faces deep-seated structural problems that cannot be remedied merely by a return to competitive electoral politics.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The military is currently showing signs of wanting to back away from overt political involvement, but this should not be confused with a rejection of praetorianism or an acceptance of the principle of civilian supremacy.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Since its founding out of the partition of British India in 1947, Pakistan has labored in the shadow of critical choices made at that time.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The military regime opened up the media sector to more competition and private broadcasters in 2002, and the ramifications turned out to be vast.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
The military regime opened up the media sector to more competition and private broadcasters in 2002, and the ramifications turned out to be vast.
October 2008, Volume 19, Issue 4
Torn between populism and those who fail to respect democratic limits in combating it, Thailand badly needs to locate a middle ground where the best of its old traditions can help it adjust to the new challenges that it faces.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
Can regionalism help to redress the uneven spread and internal weaknesses of democracy in Southeast Asia? Unforeseen events in the region and positive political entrepreneurship may yet transform ASEAN into a force for democracy.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
Despite South Korea’s messy democratic trajectory, it has miraculously achieved consolidation. Though far from perfect, South Korea’s democracy has turned obstacles into opportunities for reform and development.
July 2008, Volume 19, Issue 3
A review of Pacific Asia in Quest of Democracy by Roland Rich.
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
Why has China's transition to democracy been so delayed, and what can be done to hasten it?
April 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2
A review of India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha and The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence and India's Future by Martha C. Nussbaum.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
While the people of South Asia, especially those with higher levels of education and exposure to the media, prefer democracy to authoritarianism, they are willing to relax some of the requirements of liberal democracy.
January 2008, Volume 19, Issue 1
Asia's oldest democracy is sinking into a morass of corruption and scandal. The Philippines' president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, continues to undermine the country's democratic institutions in order to remain in power.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
This article assesses the historical record and current practice to argue that a form of autonomy that is appropriately grounded in China’s Constitution and international human rights practice may offer a path out of the current dispute.
October 2007, Volume 18, Issue 4
A review of Inside Iraq's Confessional Politics by Junning Liu.
