Oi-Kuan Fiona Yap

We adopt a game theory approach that considers democratization as the result of strategic interactions between government and nongovernment actors in East and Southeast Asia, and test the implications systematically with data from South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. This makes three contributions to scholarship. First, the synergy of a game theory framework based on area studies information draws attention to the conditions under which players’ threats or actions are credible, to support inclusive theory-building. Second, the consistent findings across East and Southeast Asian countries often cited as critical cases on opposite sides of larger debates in the discipline, and across different operationalizations of democratization, support the idea that democratization occurs under weak economic conditions. Third, our rigorous tests beyond regime change-over, and across empirically derived heuristics of time span, fill theoretical and empirical lapses in order to adjudicate democratization in the region and provide a clear theoretical and empirical lens for current and future analyses.

This article assesses the role of local councils as a conduit for democratic consolidation through the examination of the legislative performance of the members of a South Korean metropolitan city council. We collected data on ordinance proposals in Busan Metropolitan Council from 2006 to 2018 (the 5th to 7th Councils) and analysed, first, the effects of individual attributes of local council members on legislative performance through negative binomial model analysis and, second, the effects of legislative networks on council members' performance. Three findings contribute to the literature: first, the number of proposed ordinances by council members increased over time, while those by the mayor decreased in the same period, suggesting an erosion of executive dominance of policymaking in local councils. Second, female and newly elected council members are most active in legislative proposals, which underlines that these members are more connected to the electorate than long‐serving incumbents. Third, network analyses show increasingly diverse and multi‐centred communities behind ordinance proposals; this suggests a move from personalistic politics to institutionalised politics.

What is COVID-19’s impact on development? What lessons can be drawn from development studies regarding the effects of and recovery from COVID-19? The

Due to unfortunate oversight during the Copy Editing process, the funding note has been omitted. It should be read: Research funding in part by the Researc

Crises and dislocations home in on social, economic, and political weaknesses that are often sidestepped or pushed to the backburner in the interests of ma

How does political trust affect the competing pressures of policy versus political performance in emergent democracies? Studies suggest that political trust buffers against these pressures, but empirical evidence is lacking in regard to if or how, given the focus in the literature on mature democracies where democratic institutions and practices are unlikely to be upended by either policy or political underperformance. However, in emergent democracies where the risks of democratic reversal loom large, the distinction is highly relevant. This article investigates how political trust matters in emergent democracies, specifically, if political trust buffers against public pressures, and whether it is system-directed versus incumbent-directed, for East and Southeast Asia. The evidence from multiple waves of survey data provides three useful insights: first, it shows that political trust supersedes economic expectations in support for the democratising system; this supports political trust as a buffer for the political system and is system-directed. Second, political trust goes hand-in-hand with economic performance to explain support for the incumbent government. This finding clarifies that political trust does not buffer the government against public pressure for performance. Third, taken together, the results show that economic growth may keep a government in office but institution-building leads to political trust that undergirds the political system, so that institution-building is a priority for stability in emergent democracies. These results expand the political trust literature to underpin democratic progression and consolidation issues that are unique to emergent democracies.

What are the effects of weak economic performance in East and Southeast Asia? In particular, does weak performance lead to citizens’ dissatisfaction and, correspondingly, increase preference for stronger governments who may achieve economic targets more quickly? Recent elections in less-democratic nations and emergent democracies of East and Southeast Asia suggest growing support for political parties carries over from previous authorities. And, governments are harking back to policies of the past that emphasise economic performance over political development in order to motivate political support. However, few studies systematically assess how weak economic performance affects citizens’ political support. This paper addresses this neglect. Using public opinion surveys from the Asian Barometer, we track how economic performance affects political support over time in countries with a multiparty system. The results offer two useful insights. First, economic performance is robustly and positively related to government approval. Thus, strong economic performance corresponds with strong support for government while weak performance yields weak support. Importantly, this finding is consistent with the large amount of literature on economic voting. Second, economic performance is not consistently related to democratic support; instead, political influence plays an intervening role in how economic performance affects democratic support. This underlines the significance of institution-building for political stability and political development in the region. Equally important, the results tie to the literature on political institutionalisation and democratic support. In conjunction, the results embrace East and Southeast Asia into the broader disciplinary research of motivation theory-building and empirical studies.