What Democracy Indices Tell Us about Political                        Regimes in Asia

MINATO Kazuki

doi:10.11479/asianstudies.66.2_42

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

民主主義指標にみるアジア諸国の民主主義の現状
ミンシュシュギシヒョウニミルアジアショコクノミンシュシュギノゲンジョウ

Search this article

Description

<p>Against a backdrop of growing concern over democratic decline, many scholars have debated whether democracy has been in a global recession for the past decade or so. Based on two major democracy indices, this article presents how political regimes in Asian countries have changed since the mid-2000s—the period when, according to its proponents, a global democratic recession started. Both the Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) measures suggest that the Asian countries that have lower scores now than in 2005 are mostly emerging democracies, but that there is no clear pattern of democratic decline across the region since the mid-2000s. Notably, there was a significant gap between the two indices for some countries, including the Philippines and India, both of which are featured in the current issue of this journal. This seems quite natural, given the different methodologies adopted by the indices to measure democracy. I conclude that country case studies are critical for assessing the extent to which democracy indices can capture the political reality of each country and for determining which index is more sensible than others.</p>

Journal

Asian Studies

Asian Studies 66 (2), 42-51, 2020-04-30

Japan Association for Asian Studies