Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book assesses and ascertains whether democratic regimes in East Asia are enjoying a solid foundation of popular support by applying an integrated framework of evaluating the popular perception of and the orientations toward democracy. It reviews the history of democratic development in Japan, the region's only established democracy and one of the first non-Western, non-European, non-Christian countries in the world to democratize. The book also reviews three distinctive characterizations of the South Korean regime since democratic transition: democratic completion, democratic erosion and democratic stagnation. It examines the impacts and consequences of the previous two rounds of power rotation for Taiwan's democratic consolidation across five analytical domains: avoiding democratic breakdown, avoiding democratic erosion, completing democracy, deepening democracy and organizing democracy. The book provides a succinct historical review of Mongolia's trajectory of regime evolution since the beginning of twentieth century.