[Book Chapter] Comparative Study on the Implementation and Consolidation of Asian Democracy (2017.06)

• Author: Eunju Chi
• Book title: Democratization of Korea: Evaluation of 30 Years
• Coauthor: Won-Taek Kang and others
• Publisher: Korea National History Museum
• Publication date: June 2017
• Abstract: This paper examines the implementation and consolidation of democracy in the East Asian countries that transformed into the democracy in the third wave of democratization in the 1980s. Starting with the democratization of the Philippines in 1986, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia shifted from authoritarianism to democracy. However, while the democracy of Korea and Taiwan was consolidated in these five cases, the Philippines and Indonesia in Southeast Asia were on the unstable democracies, and the democracy of Thailand was overthrown. This paper explores the causes of these differences through different political systems and economic conditions in each country. As a result, differences in economic conditions rather than political institutions seem to have made a difference in the achievement of democracy. Comparing the economic wealth, economic growth and economic inequalities of each country from the democratic transition to 2015, countries with high levels of democratic consolidation have high economic wealth, relatively stable economic growth, low economic inequality index. In East Asia, economic wealthiness has the highest correlation with the continuity of democracy.