Coalition Politics and Democratic Consolidation in Asia
E. Sridharan
Abstract
This volume is a comparative study of coalition politics and democracy in Asia, drawing on the experiences of four countries in coalition governments: India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Japan. It examines coalition politics in relation to the consolidation of democracy or its qualitative improvement, particularly inter-ethnic consensus and harmony. More specifically, it looks at whether coalition governments, characterized by power sharing between two political parties or more, promote or contribute to democratic consolidation or help improve the quality of democracy in weak democracies. It analy ... More
This volume is a comparative study of coalition politics and democracy in Asia, drawing on the experiences of four countries in coalition governments: India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Japan. It examines coalition politics in relation to the consolidation of democracy or its qualitative improvement, particularly inter-ethnic consensus and harmony. More specifically, it looks at whether coalition governments, characterized by power sharing between two political parties or more, promote or contribute to democratic consolidation or help improve the quality of democracy in weak democracies. It analyses the relationship between coalition politics and the deepening of democracy in India, a developing country and former British colony with a federal system of government, since 1989. It also looks at the underlying factors that have contributed to the formation and development of electoral and governmental coalitions by political parties in Malaysia, with emphasis on the impact of the dominant party, Barisan Nasional (National Front), on democracy and public policy in the country. In addition, the book discusses the factors that have made coalition politics a recurring dimension of regime formation in post-independence Sri Lanka and considers whether coalition governance has provided opportunities for ethnic minority parties to influence the processes of public policy making. In the case of Japan, the book explores how coalition politics since 1993 has influenced the nature of democracy in the country.
Keywords:
coalition politics,
democracy,
Asia,
coalition governments,
India,
Malaysia,
Sri Lanka,
Japan,
political parties,
public policy
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198079392 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198079392.001.0001 |
