ABSTRACT
The clichéd “endogenous” version of modernization theory-that a country’s own economic development leads it to eventually undergo democratic transition-has fallen on bad times recently. A major study based on a quantitative comparison of development and democracy in nearly 135 countries over the last 40 years has even claimed to have falsified it (Przeworski and Limongi 1997; Przeworski et al. 2000). But East and Southeast Asia are proving to be the theory’s last redoubt. Using a simplified version of postwar modernization theory, it has been suggested that democratic transitions in the Pacific Asia region have been “driven by growth” (Morley 1993; Laothamatas 1997). The result of a successful industrialism drive-according to this well-known narrative-is an economy too complex, a social structure too differentiated, and a (middle-class-dominated) civil society too politically conscious for non-democratic rule to be sustained.
