Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:23:24.882Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Strength to Concede: Ruling Parties and Democratization in Developmental Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2013

Dan Slater  and
Joseph Wong
Dan Slater
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Joseph Wong
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Authoritarian ruling parties are expected to be exceptionally resistant to democratization. Yet some of the strongest authoritarian parties in the world have not resisted democratization, but have embraced it. This is because their raison d'etre is to continue ruling, not necessarily to remain authoritarian. Democratization requires that ruling parties hold free and fair elections, but not that they lose them. Authoritarian ruling parties can thus be incentivized to concede democratization from a position of exceptional strength as well as extreme weakness. This “conceding-to-thrive” scenario is most likely to unfold when regimes (1) possess substantial antecedent political strengths and resource advantages, (2) suffer ominous setbacks signaling that they have passed their apex of domination, and (3) pursue new legitimation strategies to arrest their incipient decline. We illustrate this heretofore neglected alternative democratization pathway through a comparative-historical analysis of three Asian developmental states where ruling parties have democratized from varying positions of considerable strength: Taiwan, South Korea, and Indonesia. We then consider the implications of our analysis for three “candidate cases” in developmental Asia where ruling parties have not yet conceded democratization despite being well-positioned to thrive were they to do so: Singapore, Malaysia, and the world's most populous dictatorship, China.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 717 - 733
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James A.. 2006. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Albertus, Michael, and Menaldo, Victor. Forthcoming. “Gaming Democracy: Elite Domination during Transition and the Prospects for Redistribution.” British Journal of Political Science.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict R. O'G. 1983. “Old State, New Society: Indonesia's New Order in Comparative Historical Perspective.” Journal of Asian Studies 42(3): 477–96.Google Scholar
Aspinall, Edward. 2005. Opposing Suharto: Compromise, Resistance and Regime Change in Indonesia. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Billet, Bret. 1990. “South Korea at the Crossroads: An Evolving Democracy or Authoritarianism Revisited?” Asian Survey 30(3): 300–311.Google Scholar
Brownlee, Jason. 2007. Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chao, Linda, and Myers, Ramon. 1998. The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Cotton, James. 1989. “From Authoritarianism to Democracy in South Korea.” Political Studies 37: 244–59.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 2009. “Authoritarian Elections and Leadership Succession, 1975–2004.” Presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, September.Google Scholar
Crouch, Harold. 2011. Political Reform in Post-Soeharto Indonesia. Singapore: ISEAS.Google Scholar
Dickson, Bruce. 1996. “The Kuomintang Before Democratization: Organizational Change and the Role of Election.” In Tien, Hung-Mao, ed., Taiwan's Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe), pp. 42–78Google Scholar
Doner, Richard, Ritchie, Bryan, and Slater, Dan. 2005. “Systemic Vulnerability and the Origins of Developmental States: Northeast and Southeast Asia in Comparative Perspective.” International Organization 59(2): 327–61.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara. 1999. “What Do We Know About Democratization After Twenty Years?” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 115–44.Google Scholar
Gilley, Bruce. 2004. China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Jeff. 2001. No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945–1991. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grzymala-Busse, Anna. 2002. Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of Communist Parties in East Central Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan, and Kaufman, Robert. 1995. The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Han, Sung-Joo. 1988. “South Korea in 1987: The Politics of Democratization.” Asian Survey 28(1): 52–61.Google Scholar
Harjanto, Nico. 2010. “Political Party Survival: The Golongan Karya Party and Electoral Politics in Indonesia.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Northern Illinois University, Department of Political Science.Google Scholar
Kim, Byung-Kook. 2011. “The Leviathan: Economic Bureaucracy Under Park.” In The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea, eds. Kim, Byung-Kook and Vogel, Ezra. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Namhee. 2007. The Making of Minjung: Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Sang-Chul, and Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. 1994. “Korean President Roh Tae-Woo's 1988 Inaugural Address: Campaigning for Investiture.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 80(1): 37–52.Google Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Way, Lucan A.. 2010. Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Andrew. 2001. “Institutions and Investors: The Politics of the Economic Crisis in Southeast Asia.” International Organization 55(1): 81–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattlin, Mikael. 2011. Politicized Society: The Long Shadow of Taiwan's One-Party Legacy. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Press.Google Scholar
Moody, Peter. 1992. Political Change on Taiwan: A Study of Ruling Party Adaptability. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Moon, Chung-In, and Jun, Byung-Joon. 2011. “Modernization Strategies: Ideas and Influences.” In The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea, eds. Kim, Byung-Kook and Vogel, Ezra. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nalepa, Monika. 2010. Skeletons in the Closet: Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O'Donnell, Guillermo, and Schmitter, Philippe C.. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Pei, Minxin. 2006. China's Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rigger, Shelley. 1999. Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Slater, Dan. 2009. “Revolutions, Crackdowns, and Quiescence: Communal Elites and Democratic Mobilization in Southeast Asia.” American Journal of Sociology 115(1): 203–254.Google Scholar
Slater, Dan. 2010. Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slater, Dan. 2012. “Strong-State Democratization in Malaysia and Singapore.” Journal of Democracy 23(2): 19–33.Google Scholar
Slater, Dan, and Fenner, Sofia. 2011. “State Power and Staying Power: Infrastructural Mechanisms and Authoritarian Durability.” Journal of International Affairs 65(1): 15–29.Google Scholar
Smith, Benjamin. 2007. Hard Times in the Lands of Plenty: Oil Politics in Iran and Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Tomsa, Dirk. 2008. Party Politics and Democratization in Indonesia: Golkar in the Post-Suharto Era. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Verdugo, Lorenzo Ernesto Bernal, and Hernandez-Company, Jose Antonio. 2012. “Why Parties? The Logic of Opposition Party Formation and Endurance in Authoritarian Settings.” Presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, April.Google Scholar
Wade, Robert. 1990. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Wedeen, Lisa. 1999. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Wong, Joseph. 2004a. “Democratization and the Left: Comparing East Asia and Latin America.” Comparative Political Studies 37(11): 1213–37.Google Scholar
Wong, Joseph. 2004b. Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wong, Joseph. 2011. Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia's Developmental State. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ziblatt, Daniel. Forthcoming. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy in Modern Europe, 1848–1950. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar