This essay focuses on the subset of semiauthoritarian systems that Beatriz Magaloni calls hegemonic-party autocracies. In such autocracies, a single party or coalition holds power without interruption for several decades under semiauthoritarian conditions while conducting regular multiparty elections. Within this category, the experiences of Mexico and the Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan) from the l980s to 2000 are particularly helpful in illuminating the current political dynamics in Malaysia and its prospects (or lack thereof) for democratization.
About the Author
Joan M. Nelson, scholar in residence at American University’s School of International Service, held the Pok Rafeah Chair in International Studies at the National University of Malaysia’s Institute of Malaysian and International Studies in 2006–2007. She is coeditor (with Jacob Meerman and Abdul Rahman Haji Embong) of Globalization and National Autonomy: The Experience of Malaysia (2008).
Since the 1990s, Moroccan civil society groups have been proliferating, and they are increasingly influential in addressing society-wide matters including the rights of women, ethnic minorities, and the poor.
From small beginnings, democracy aid has become a sizeable enterprise. Today it is beset by problems, however, as it must operate in a less friendly environment. Hard decisions will need…
If Iraq is to become the free and self-governing country that an overwhelming majority of its citizens want it to be, a "useable past" made accessible by historical memory will…
