Institutional Patterns in the New Democracies of Asia: Forms, Origins and Consequences

Abstract

This article analyzes the institutional patterns of eight young democracies in Asia. The analysis originates from Lijphart's majoritarian-consensus framework. It illustrates that neither Lijphart's two-dimensional democracy pattern, nor an alternative pattern exists in Asia. Instead, the review of possible causes for the lack of conformity between Lijphart's patterns of democracy and the reality of the situation in Asia support the criticism in existing research literature regarding some of Lijphart's main assumptions and major conclusions. Furthermore, Asian realities provide only partial support for Lijphart's advice that the consensus option is the more attractive option for countries that designed their first democratic constitutions. 173

The fatal affinity of the ‘Sonderweg’ revisited: The diffusion of emergency powers in Germany, Japan and Korea (1871–1987)

“…Even though new countries voluntarily imitated and preempively emulated successful models, this process was often dominated by the country's historical experiences. The designers' intention was sometimes informed by short‐term interests rather than the long‐term interests of the citizenry (Colomer ; Croissant and Schächter ). Political struggles between political elites with conflicting preferences at times led to the introduction of less than coherent and often self‐contradictory constitutional systems (Merkel : 326–38).…”

Democratization and Civilian Control in Asia

“…Meddling with the military's internal affairs and co-opting soldiers into personal power networks were part of a broader strategy of achieving political hegemony that Cameron et al (2006) have described as 'elective dictatorship'. Based on their party's majority in Parliament, the government was able to block the opposition, the president, and the judiciary system from placing restraints on executive power (Alamgir, 2009: 53;Croissant & Schächter, 2010). Consequently, the Prime Minister's Office became the sole seat of power for the leaders of the respective parties.…”

“…1 Nevertheless, democracy failed to consolidate. Rather, the hyper-centralization of political authority under the Westminster-style parliamentary system and the zero-sum nature of Bangladeshi politics has left the country's political system a fragile, foundationally weak democracy (Datta, 2004), or an 'elective dictatorship' (Cameron, Blanaru, & Burns, 2006;Croissant & Schächter, 2010). In addition, elite conflict and the political divide between BNP and AL, the rise of extremist Islamic forces in recent years, and the 'hartal' culture 2 of street politics and political violence have transformed politics into a zero-sum game (Islam, 2006).…”

Electoral Reform in Asia: Institutional Engineering against ‘Money Politics’

“…While Reilly is the most vocal advocate of this thesis, arguing that 'there has been a convergence in recent years on an identifiable "Asian model" of democracy characterized by aggregative electoral politics, centrist political competition, and, in some cases, nascent two-party systems ' (2007a: 1351), Croissant and Schächter (2010) find no supporting empirical evidence.…”