Description: This book provides a comprehensive empirical and theoretical analysis of the development of parties and party systems in Asia. The studies included advance a unique perspective in the literature by focusing on the concept of institutionalization and by analyzing parties in democratic settings as well as in authoritarian settings. The countries covered in the book range from East Asia to Southeast Asia to South Asia.
Brief description: Allen Hicken is Associate Professor of Political Science, a research associate professor at the Center for Political Studies, and director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies (Cambridge, 2009) and the editor of Politics of Modern Southeast Asia: Critical Issues in Modern Politics (2010). His articles have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of East Asian Studies, Asian Survey, and Electoral Studies.
Review Quotes: 'In Party System Institutionalization in Asia, Allen Hicken and Erik Kuhonta assemble an impressive series of chapters with a quality and analytical coherence that is difficult to achieve in an edited volume. ... This is a worthwhile volume, containing chapters that can be assigned in class as standalone pieces while reaching a level of rigour that will inform future research.' Nathan Allen, Pacific Affairs