Asian democracy

Since the early 2000s, the world has been in a protracted and deepening democratic recession—and so has Asia. The status of many of the region’s multiparty regimes is ambiguous and contested. Superficially, nearly half of Asia’s 25 states could claim to be electoral democracies. But many of these suffer serious constraints on political freedom, constitutionalism and competitiveness so ‘semi-democracy’ or ‘competitive authoritarianism’ seem more fitting.

The region’s authoritarian regimes have also remained such—or become more so. With China’s power and ambition surging and the United States’ retreating, the outlook is dispiriting. Yet there are potential wild cards which, as the 2024 youth revolution in Bangladesh demonstrated, should never be discarded.

Japan and Taiwan are the only two democracies in the region that have become (according to Freedom House scores for the calendar year 2024) deeper and more liberal democracies since the early 2000s. But even they have caveats. Japan retains high levels of freedom and rule of law but little party alternation in power. This may explain its relative lack of partisan polarisation.

By contrast, polarisation is intense and damaging to liberal democracy in Taiwan as well as South Korea. Taiwan’s democracy has deepened over the last decade with its remarkable levels of societal freedom, political pluralism and strong rule of law. But the political deadlock between parliament and president and China’s relentless efforts at penetration cast long and threatening shadows over the future.

South Korea’s democracy is vigorous but less liberal, as evidenced by former conservative president Yoon Suk Yeol’s 2024 attempt to dismiss the parliament and impose martial law to break a partisan deadlock. The impeachment and removal of a second South Korean president in less than a decade may be a sign of democratic resilience. But it also reveals the weakness of democratic norms and the existential nature of the polarised political struggle.

For Freedom House, Mongolia is a liberal democracy. For the Economist Democracy Index, it is a ‘flawed’ democracy. And for the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, it is an electoral autocracy. Some detect a weakening presidential commitment to constitutionalism and heavy-handed use of power by the ruling party. Yet electoral reforms in 2023 diminished the scope for drift to single-party dominance. Democracy is part of Mongolia’s national identity and a means to assert independence from its neighbours, Russia and China.

Having won in 2024 a third five-year term by a diminished margin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu chauvinist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, could have lightened up on the weaponisation of state power. But intimidation and religious and political hegemony continue to define their political agenda. The autonomy of the judiciary, civil service and security structures is also suffering. This is a classic case of authoritarian populism dragging a vibrant democracy towards electoral autocracy. Absent a revived and unified opposition, it is difficult to see what big factor will arrest India’s democratic backsliding.

Indonesia and the Philippines have also declined in democracy. The Philippines’ erosion owed heavily to the charismatic populist ruler, Rodrigo Duterte, who has been sent to stand trial in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

In Indonesia, under Joko Widodo’s two-term presidency, corruption, money politics and political intrigue have degraded political competition and accountability to the point where both Freedom House and V-Dem consider it an electoral autocracy. Things will only worsen under the presidency of the retired army general Prabowo Subianto who is the son-in-law of former president Suharto, a ruler with a dubious human rights record.

Some smaller Asian countries have scored democratic gains in recent years. Sri Lanka has swung back and forth between democracy and the Rajapaksa clan’s corrupt, personalistic despotism. But the unlikely victory of a former leftist outsider and now President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in the September 2024 presidential election—the first ever for a third-party candidate—has revived democratic hopes.

Despite endemic corruption and strong communist parties, democratic rights and processes have gradually strengthened in Nepal over the past two decades, with its Freedom House score improving from 28 in 2005 to 62 in 2024. Largely by royal initiative, Bhutan has emerged as a peaceful electoral democracy over the past decade. East Timor has managed to sustain and strengthen democracy through several elections.

Competitive elections brought Malaysia’s former democratic opposition leader to power in 2022. While ratings agencies disagree on whether it is now an electoral democracy, its system is more open and competitive than under over half a century of Barisan Nasional dominance.

In Bangladesh, a student-led revolution toppled the authoritarian regime of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 after over 15 years of ruthless and venal rule. The interim government has been weak, squeezed between a broken and dysfunctional state apparatus and a resurgent Islamist movement. But at least the country has a chance to get democracy right this time.

Sadly, Asia’s autocracies show little sign of exiting. The best prospect may be Thailand, where a tacit alliance between the military, monarchy and co-opted parties has once again thwarted voters’ will. But with popular opposition leader and election winner Pita Limjaroenrat disqualified and exiled and the establishment willing to sacrifice economic dynamism for political hegemony, Thai politics is in stagnation. Pakistan is worse off, with the military more nakedly dominant, corrupt and abusive as the country’s de facto ruler. Among the region’s authoritarian pseudo-democracies, Singapore at least offers continued effective and relatively non-corrupt governance.

Elsewhere, autocracy is entrenched. China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and North Korea are under extremely authoritarian ruling parties. The embers of political competition and civic space have been removed in Cambodia, and space for even slightly independent media, organisations and ideas has closed in China under Xi Jinping.

Vietnam’s Communist Party has also battened down the hatches of civic and intellectual pluralism. The only authoritarian regime on the defensive is that of Myanmar’s military, whose selfish, brutal 2021 coup transformed a series of ethnic insurgencies into a civil war in which the military is faring badly.

Democracy in Asia is down but not out. It faces challenges even where it is relatively liberal and strong. In most countries, it is weak, contested, retreating or non-existent.

The hopeful news is that ideas of popular sovereignty and accountability, according to the Asian Barometer Survey enjoy substantial support outside the entrenched one-party states where it is methodologically difficult to measure. The region’s autocrats will no doubt bear in mind the lesson of Sheikh Hasina’s sudden hard fall—her imperious rule looked stable for a long time, until it wasn’t.

This article was published by The East Asia Forum.