Democracy’s mixed fortunes in Southeast Asia : torpor, change, and trade-offs

In his book Authoritarianism in an Age of Democracy, Jason Brownlee (2007) observed that throughout the Third Wave a strand of authoritarian regimes, distinguished by dominant parties, managed to persist. Indeed, this category began to swell as dictators observed that they could best avoid democracy by mimicking its procedures (Carrothers 2002; Diamond 2002; Ottaway 2003; Levitsky and Way 2010; Schedler 2013). Holding multiparty elections atop an uneven playing field, the dominant parties that they formed generally prevailed, gaining some legitimating cover, ordering elite-level relations, energizing constituencies, and exposing opposition refuges. In this context, Larry Diamond lamented in 2008 that, after a run of more than three decades, democracy was suffering from “rollback” and recession. Taking stock, Freedom House (2014) declared in its annual Freedom in the World report that 2013 marked the eighth consecutive year in which civil liberties and political freedoms had contracted globally. Analysts took commensurate flight, with David Art (2012: 351) remarking that the “‘transitology’ paradigm . . . now has the taste of ashes.” A sudden “switch in scholarly focus” has swept research agendas from questions about democratic change to authoritarian durability.