From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia

by Dan Slater

From Japan after America’s post–World War II occupation to Myanmar in the 2010s, and with Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand in between, incumbent authoritarian regimes in developmental Asia have repeatedly conceded democracy without conceding defeat. They have opened themselves up to freer and fairer electoral competition, not as a way of exiting power and transferring power to their opponents but as a way of shoring up their own power in a democratic game. The defining feature of democracy through strength in developmental Asia has been regime confidence, not regime collapse. Specifically, we see authoritarian regimes embarking on democratic reforms when their historically accumulated strengths give them two distinctive kinds of confidence. The first is victory confidence. This is the expectation among incumbent authoritarian elites that they can fare well, or even continue to dominate outright, in democratic elections. The second is stability confidence. This is their expectation that political stability—and with it, economic development—will persist under democratic conditions.