Comparative Politics of Southeast Asia: An Introduction to Governments and Political Regimes (Springer Texts in Political Science and International Relations)

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the political systems of all ASEAN countries and Timor-Leste from a comparative perspective. It investigates the political institutions, actors, and processes in eleven states, covering democracies as well as autocratic regimes. Each country study includes an analysis of the current system of governance, the party and electoral system, and an assessment of the state, its legal system, and administrative bodies. Students of political science and area studies also learn about processes of democratic transition and autocratic resilience, as well as how civil society and the media influence the political culture in each country.

This second edition features revised and updated versions of all country studies and a new chapter that discusses the trends of democratization and autocratization in Southeast Asia in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Aurel Croissant is a professor of political science at Heidelberg University, Germany. His main areas of research include comparative politics of East and Southeast Asia, democratization studies, civil–military relations, conflict studies, and comparative authoritarianism. He has twenty years of experience in teaching undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral courses in Germany, the USA, and several Asian countries. He has published 15 books, co-edited about 25 volumes and special issues, and published about 200 articles in edited volumes and academic journals such as Democratization, Party Politics, Japanese Journal of Political Science, Journal of East Asian Studies, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Pacific Review, Journal of Democracy, Asian Survey, Electoral Studies, and European Political Science Review. His publications appeared in English, German, Korean, Spanish, Indonesian, and Russian. He is the co-editor of the Journal Democratization (with Jeffrey Haynes).