Democracy in Asia
Democracy has always centered its values and focus on the people. It has been here long before and has spread throughout the world including Asia.
For today’s blog, we will discuss three countries (Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines) to critically appraise their state of democracy and development. To help further analyze what is at stake for these countries and what future they may hold.
For this, we will be using a V-dem Graphing tool which will help us with data visualization.
According to the Graph shown above, only the Philippines and South Korea have shown a rise and fall between being a democratic country. Japan on the other hand remains stagnant since 1946 holding its democracy.
The Philippines gained its democracy in 1964 and lost it from the year 1964–1986 under a dictatorship from the Marcos regime. Right after then, the country has remained democratic. Meanwhile, the history of democracy in South Korea alternates from either a democratic or autocratic rule which later remains democratic after 1988 wherein their Sixth Republic remains as its main polity even until now.
As I observed through my research regarding these three countries, they all vary from how they’ve dealt with democratic reforms over the years. Many fight for democracy, others choose to a have peaceful democracy. However, it all boils down to the person who has power over a country to whether the government should follow democratic views or not. So far, all three countries remain democratic, however, we will later see the flow of increase and decrease in terms of the five V-dem indices: deliberative, egalitarian, electoral, liberal, and participatory.
Deliberative Democracy Index
The graph above shows a Deliberative Democracy Index which mainly circulates its deliberation through “Decision Making”. It is not merely reliant on voting itself but on authentic deliberation.
Results show that South Korea had a rough start but continued to rise since 1989 after starting its sixth republic showing great results of improvement. Japan also continued to rise after 1947 (a year after achieving its democracy). The line shown in the graph visibly shows its stability in maintaining a (0.8) domain throughout the years. While The Philippines shows a lower increase than South Korea even after being placed higher which results in the Philippines is the last country among the three who practice Deliberative Democracy.
Egalitarian Democracy Index
In terms of Egalitarian Democracy, it focuses mainly on material and immaterial inequalities which basically says “Equal Rights”. As shown in the graph above, Japan shows a steady flow within the (0.8) domain while Korea rises from (0.2) and switches between (0.6) and (0.8) which landed with a great increase. The Philippines is stuck between (0.2) and (0.4) which again ranks lower among the 2 other countries.
Electoral Democracy Index
Electoral Democracy mainly strives forward and removes the boundaries in regards to the current understanding of democratic politics and government. In the graph above, South Korea takes a higher increase than Japan in the past few years whereas the Philippines rating, at the very most stays at a (0.6) domain. This shows that South Korea has taken extra steps in trying to improve democratic policies as Japan tries to maintain its high rate.
Liberal Democracy Index
In the name itself, Liberal Democracy centers its form of government under the principles of liberalism. It is a type of Western democracy and can also be recognized as a political ideology. Similar to the graph before this, South Korea shows a higher increase than Japan from 2016–2018. Although Japan slightly decreased, the reduction was not as dramatic as the Philippines. As South Korea progressed, the Philippines declined and went back to a (0.2) domain despite drastically increasing from 1986 to 1988. This again shows how Japan continues to keep things stable while South Korea slowly increases through the years as a result of their effort towards a more Democratic approach in government
Participatory Democracy Index
The last graph, which is about Participatory Democracy. It emphasizes the large participation of elements in the course and operation of political systems in a democratic government. As shown in the graph above, it is entirely different from the past few graphs shown before this, but also shares the same outcome leaving South Korea with the highest increase, Japan having a lower rate but stagnant line, and the Philippines ranking lowest in the index. In the first few years, South Korea had the lowest degree but then drastically increased and peaking in around 1997 and later rising again in the end.
After seeing and analyzing the data shown above, the future of Democracy in Asia is somehow very promising with both South Korea and Japan maintaining a healthy democracy through the charts. It shows how much our countries have improved in terms of creating a better government that mainly should mainly concern its people. Although in the past 2–4 years of 2018, there is a visible decrease for both the Philippines and Japan. There is still hope for both, especially the Philippines to make better solutions to enhance and promote the importance of democracy for a country.
Sources:
Sigman, R., & Lindberg, S. I. (2015). The Index of Egalitarian Democracy and its Components: V-Dem’s Conceptualization and Measurement. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2727612
Mackuen, M. (2006). Electoral democracy. Retrieved from https://www.press.umich.edu/11988/electoral_democracy