Southeast Asia is a vast, populous and diverse region. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) promotes democracy and human rights as central to regional order and cooperation, but most members are not democratic and have poor or questionable human rights records. This book explores why Southeast Asian countries have collectively adopted the rhetoric of democracy and human rights, and argues that they are motivated by their concerns about external regional legitimacy. It analyses ASEAN’s references to democracy and the reality of backsliding in several countries; examines the adoption of human rights rhetoric; and considers the implications for how we understand regional cooperation. The book is relevant for students and analysts who are interested in regionalism in Southeast Asia and elsewhere – particularly given growing global concerns about liberal democracy and the gaps between rhetoric and political realities.

This multi-authored book looks at one of the most dynamic regions of the Third World within the context of the rapidly changing international system of the 1990s. Among the many themes it explores are ASEAN's new political roles and new modes of economic cooperation, the growing importance of ecological and human rights issues, the policies of the major external powers towards the region, the Cambodian and Spratly conflicts, and the relevance of Southeast Asian experience in the 'New World Order' to the ongoing theoretical debates about democracy, the market, the state and multilateralism.

Critically examines ASEAN's human rights system in the context of Southeast Asian political-legal developments and the global human rights discourse

A timely look at the impact of China's booming emergence on the countries of Southeast Asia Today, Southeast Asia stands uniquely exposed to the waxing power of the new China. Three of its nations border China and five are directly impacted by its claims over the South China Sea. All dwell in the lengthening shadow of its influence: economic, political, military, and cultural. As China seeks to restore its former status as Asia's preeminent power, the countries of Southeast Asia face an increasingly stark choice: flourish within Beijing's orbit or languish outside of it. Meanwhile, as rival powers including the United States take concerted action to curb Chinese ambitions, the region has emerged as an arena of heated strategic competition. Drawing on more than a decade of on-the-ground experience, Sebastian Strangio explores the impacts of China's rise on Southeast Asia, the varied ways in which the countries of the region are responding, and what it might mean for the future balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.

Southeast Asian Affairs, first published in 1974, continues today to be required reading for not only scholars but the general public interested in in-depth analysis of critical cultural, economic and political issues in Southeast Asia. In this annual review of the region, renowned academics provide comprehensive and stimulating commentary.

This book challenges the view that liberal democracy is the inevitable outcome of economic modernization. Focusing on the stable and prosperous societies of Pacific Asia, it argues that contemporary political arrangements are legitimised by the values of hierarchy, familism and harmony. An arrangement that clearly contrasts with a western understanding of political liberalism and the communicatory democracy it facilitates. Instead of political change resulting from a demand for autonomy by interest groups in civil society, the adoption of democratic practice in Asia ought to be viewed primarily as a state strategy to manage socio-economic change.

The reigning consensus holds that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this revelatory investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These “market-dominant minorities” – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world’s most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend of globalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects.

Since the mid-2000s, the quality of democracy around the world has been in decline, and Southeast Asia is no exception. This Element analyzes the extent, patterns and drivers of democratic deconsolidation in the three Southeast Asian countries that boast the longest history of electoral democracy in the region: Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. While the exact deconsolidation outcomes differ, all three nations have witnessed similar trends of democratic erosion. In each case, long-standing democratic deficiencies (such as clientelism, politicized security forces and non-democratic enclaves) have persisted; rising wealth inequality has triggered political oligarchization and subsequent populist responses embedded in identity politics; and ambitious middle classes have opted for non-democratic alternatives to safeguard their material advancement. As a result, all three polities have descended from their democratic peaks between the late 1980s and early 2000s, with few signs pointing to a return to previous democratization paths.

Like the postcolonial world more generally, Southeast Asia exhibits tremendous variation in state capacity and authoritarian durability. Ordering Power draws on theoretical insights dating back to Thomas Hobbes to develop a unified framework for explaining both of these political outcomes. States are especially strong and dictatorships especially durable when they have their origins in 'protection pacts': broad elite coalitions unified by shared support for heightened state power and tightened authoritarian controls as bulwarks against especially threatening and challenging types of contentious politics. These coalitions provide the elite collective action underpinning strong states, robust ruling parties, cohesive militaries, and durable authoritarian regimes - all at the same time. Comparative-historical analysis of seven Southeast Asian countries (Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Vietnam, and Thailand) reveals that subtly divergent patterns of contentious politics after World War II provide the best explanation for the dramatic divergence in Southeast Asia's contemporary states and regimes.