Description

Industrialization has meant sweeping social transformations across Asia. Some political commentators have predicted that the expansion of civil society and the rapid development of liberal democracy will necessarily follow. The contributors to this volume dissect the extent of political opposition in Asia and analyze the nature of new social movements outside institutional party politics which are contesting the exercise of state power. Nine original case studies explore the variety of political oppositions across Asia, from non-governmental organizations and the formal opponents of the PAP in Singapore to Chinese dissidents based outside the People’s Republic of China. All take up the challenge of looking at political opposition in the light of the new social phenomenon of the rising middle class or ‘new rich’ of Asia. Garry Rodan’s hard-hitting analysis of the problems of current political theorizing in relation to Asia sets the case studies firmly in the context of wider debates about democratization. Political Oppositions in Industrialising Asia shatters complacent assumptions about the progress of liberal democracy.