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CCD Board Member Larry Diamond Predicts an East Asian Democratization Wave
January 19, 2012
By: Garrett Nada | Printer Friendly

In the January 2012 edition of the Journal of Democracy, CCD Board Member Larry Diamond predicts that the next major wave of democratization will come out of East Asia. Diamond states, “If there is going to be a big new lift to global democratic prospects in this decade, the region from which it will emanate is most likely to be East Asia.”

Diamond begins the article by comparing East Asia to the Arab world. Although some analysts have focused on the democracy wave in the Arab world with great optimism, Diamond believes “only Tunisia has a good chance of becoming a democracy in the relatively near future.” He forecasts several years of regime evolution in the region before true democracies emerge. On the other hand, East Asia already has a critical mass of democracies, including seven of the seventeen states in the region. While Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are considered liberal democracies, East Timor, Indonesia, Mongolia and the Philippines are considered “electoral democracies.” Diamond cites data suggesting that at least three-quarters of the populations of these electoral democracies agree that “democracy may have its problems, but it is still the best form of government.”

Diamond sees significant prospects for democratic change in the more authoritarian states in the region. Singapore, an anomaly in many ways, is “the most economically developed nondemocracy in the history of the world.” Surveys suggest there is general support for greater political pluralism and the opposition has been more active and successful than in previous years. Diamond predicts Singapore’s gradual change will accelerate once the founding generation of leaders, including 88-year-old Lee Kuan Yew, exits the political scene. He posits that Singapore has a “competitive authoritarian” regime, due to the ruling party’s easing of censorship and the rise of more free news and social media. This type of autocracy is most likely to undergo a democratic transition.

Diamond also examines Malaysia, which is also somewhat of an anomaly since it has a higher per capita income than most other third-wave countries did when they democratized. On the United Nation’s Development Programme’s Human Development Index, which also takes health and education into account, Malaysia scores better than Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Hungary, Poland and Ukraine did when they became democracies. As in Singapore, the opposition in Malaysia has grown stronger over the years and the increasingly educated and pluralistic population seems to be tiring of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), which has ruled the country for over fifty years. The ruling party recognizes the possibility for real change, evidenced by Prime Minister Razak’s pledge for electoral and security law reforms following the Arab Spring. For these reasons Diamond labels Malaysia as “ripe” for a democratic transition.

Diamond also sees a lot of potential for Thailand to continue its transition to democracy. Though less developed than Malaysia, he cites that Thailand’s per capita income and human-development score are similar to those of Poland when it democratized around 1990. The Thai opposition won a decisive victory in recent elections that seemed to be “free and fair,” but a period of uncertainty might follow if King Bhumibol steps down or the military interferes with politics again.

Burma, which is even less developed than Thailand, is beginning to show signs of gradual democratization. Over the last few years labor unions have been legalized, Internet censorship has been eased and political prisoners have been freed. Democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy is set to run in parliamentary by-elections later this year. Democratic developments worldwide seem to have influenced Burma’s authoritarian rulers. Diamond quotes an advisor to President Thein Sein, who said “The president was convinced about the global situation; he saw where the global stream was heading.”

Diamond devotes more attention to analyzing China’s status and potential for democratization. From an economic viewpoint, annual per capita income in China is slightly more than half of what it is in Malaysia, but is continuing to rise and will hit the same level that Korea did when it democratized within the year. Diamond seems confident about a future democratic transition due to the rise in income and access to information coinciding with the spread of democratic values and capacities. He borrows from his colleague, Yun-han Chu, who believes the increasingly close ties with Taiwan are also contributing to the “growth of democratic norms and aspirations” in mainland China. 

While the other East Asian states are more likely to gradually democratize, Diamond argues that “it seems increasingly likely that political change in China will be sudden and disruptive.” The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) shows no sign of beginning any sort of gradual liberalization. As his colleague, Francis Fukuyama, argues, the CCP also does not have the ability to adapt. It has failed to deal with issues of corruption, abuse of power and strict curtailments of expression. Agreeing with Fukuyama, Diamond does not think the CCP will come up with viable methods for dealing with the “looming social and economic challenges” resulting from the one-child policy and the slowing of urbanization and economic growth. Overly ambitious education efforts have already begun to create shortages of blue-collar labor and a lack of white-collar jobs for college graduates.

Diamond is cautiously optimistic about China’s prospects for transitioning to democracy. He believes the CCP may lose its grip on China within the next ten years. If a large social and/or economic crisis emerges in China, and the CCP falls, there is a possibility that a more dangerous form of authoritarianism could temporarily arise amidst the chaos. Overall, Diamond argues that “China cannot keep moving forward to the per capita income, education, and informational levels of a middle-economy country without experiencing the pressures for democratic change that Korea and Taiwan did more than two decades ago.” He concludes the article, saying that it is reasonable to envision a mostly democratic East Asia within a generation or so.  In Diamond’s opinion, “no regional transformation will have more profound consequences for democratic prospects globally.”

Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, director of Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and coeditor of the Journal of Democracy.

Source:   
Journal of Democracy - The Coming Wave