Stateness and democracy in East Asia /

This volume examines the complicated relationship between stateness and democracy in East Asia and Southeast Asia. The dominant approach to this topic in political science assumes that state-building should occur before democratization. However, some scholars have also argued for a non-linear relationship, resulting from the intervention of informal institutions and networks into state-society relations. This book includes a comparative analysis of country case studies of South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and East Timor. As detailed here, South Korea and Taiwan embrace strong states and solid democracies, while Cambodia combines a weak state with weak democracy. Indonesia and Thailand display moderate state capacity and differ in their democratic measurements. Similarly, the Philippines and East Timor diverge noticeably in the quality of democracy. These cases reveal a notable variation in the degree of stateness, making Asia an ideal place to investigate the complex state-democracy nexus. This study contributes to the existing research by recognizing the effects of informal institutions and networks on shaping state capacity. To conclude, the authors demonstrate how their findings can be applied to other regions. This book will be relevant to scholars of state-democracy relations and Asian studies in general. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty. --Xiaofei Li, York College of Pennsylvania