The Third Wave in East Asia: Comparative and Dynamic Perspectives
An Asian Barometer Conference on The State of Democratic Governance in Asia Session I. A Historical and Theoretical Overview The Third Wave in East Asia: Comparative and Dynamic Perspectives By Doh Chull Shin University of Missouri The Third Wave in East Asia: Comparative and Dynamic Perspectives* “More than any other region, Asia will determine the global fate of democracy in the next to three decades.” Larry Diamond 2008 “Generalizing the achievement of East Asia for democracy and development promises emancipatory observations and projects hidden by Occidentalism.” Edward Friedman 1995 Asia, the world’s largest continent, is also the most populous continent on Earth. More than 60 percent of the world’s population lives on the mass of land stretching from the Middle East to the South Pacific islands and as many as 60 countries have their homes there. Asia’s cultural contributions include the birth of Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Shintoism, and Daoism, and it is also home to the largest Muslim population in the world. Economically, Asia encompasses countries of great wealth, including Japan and Singapore, and countries of extreme poverty, including Bangladesh and Myanmar. Politically, as well, it covers a startling range of regimes, from the oldest non-Western democracies of India and Japan to the world’s most oppressive regimes of Myanmar and North Korea. All in all, it is hard to overstate the enormous differences among countries in Asia in terms of their natural resources, cultural and religious heritages, socioeconomic development, and political legacies. Indeed, Asia is so large and so diverse that it is difficult to compare all of its countries and identify even a few general patterns of “Asian democratization.” In an attempt to ascertain such patterns, we follow the customary practice of separating the continent into regions and focus on the region known as East Asia, which covers the Northeastern and Southeastern parts of the continent (Croissant 2004; Gomez 2002; World Bank 2005).
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