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Is there an Asia-Pacific model of democracy? Over the past two decades, more than a dozen Asian and Pacific states have made the transition to democratic rule. But many of these states are also ethnically, linguistically, and regionally diverse, creating real challenges for effective government. This book explains how the Asia-Pacific's political reformers responded to the twin challenges of democracy and diversity through ambitious and often innovative political engineering. Far-reaching reforms to electoral, parliamentary, and party systems have seen the emergence of a distinctive regional m

Benjamin Reilly presents a study of the way in which the democratizing states of Asia and the Pacific have managed political change, with particular focus on innovative reforms to democratic institutions such as electoral systems, political parties and executive governments

Democracy is inherently difficult in societies divided along deep ethnic cleavages. Elections in such societies will often encourage 'centrifugal' politics which reward extremist ethnic appeals, zero-sum political behaviour and ethnic conflict, and which consequently often lead to the breakdown of democracy. Reilly examines the potential of 'electoral engineering' as a mechanism of conflict management in divided societies. He focuses on the little-known experience of a number of divided societies which have used preferential, vote-pooling electoral systems - such as Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and Fiji. Examination of these cases shows that electoral systems which encourage bargaining between rival political actors, which promote the development of broad-based, aggregative political parties and which present campaigning politicians with incentives to attract votes from a range of ethnic groups can, under certain conditions, encourage the development of moderate, accommodatory political competition in divided societies

Democracy is inherently difficult in societies divided along deep ethnic cleavages. Elections in such societies will often encourage 'centrifugal' politics which reward extremist ethnic appeals, zero-sum political behaviour and ethnic conflict, and which consequently often lead to the breakdown of democracy. Reilly examines the potential of 'electoral engineering' as a mechanism of conflict management in divided societies. He focuses on the little-known experience of a number of divided societies which have used preferential, vote-pooling electoral systems - such as Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and Fiji. Examination of these cases shows that electoral systems which encourage bargaining between rival political actors, which promote the development of broad-based, aggregative political parties and which present campaigning politicians with incentives to attract votes from a range of ethnic groups can, under certain conditions, encourage the development of moderate, accommodatory political competition in divided societies

Political reform across the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the years following the Asian economic crisis, has seen the emergence of a distinctive regional model of electoral democracy. This move has been facilitated by deliberate strategies of "political engineering" across a diverse array of Northeast Asian, Southeast Asian, and the Pacific Island electoral democracies. Political engineering focuses on the deliberate design of political institutions to achieve specified outcomes. This essay examines how regimes across the Asia-Pacific region have increasingly attempted to engineer their political systems to encourage more predictable elections, aggregative parties, and stable governments.

Political scientists have long theorized that the use of Òpreferential Ó election systems can help promote successful conflict management in divided societies.As it turns out,evidence from five real-world cases supports this conclusion.

Argues that some island nations in the region are becoming similar to sub-Saharan African states in terms of their tensions in civil-military relations, ethnic conflicts, land ownership disputes between indigenous populations, settlers, and internal migrants, and failure of democratic institutions; includes brief overviews of various countries.

Political instability, combined with poor economic performance, has placed the South Pacific on equal footing with sub-Saharan Africa in terms of the region's GDP, literacy rates, employment opportunities, & public health; ie, the region is becoming "Africanized." Several factors have contributed to this Africanization: (1) The South Pacific region is experiencing increasingly tense civil-military relations. (2) Group inequality & conflict over control of the South Pacific's natural resources are fueling violent conflict within the region. (3) The South Pacific's most basic governmental institutions are becoming vulnerable. (4) Many of the South Pacific's supposedly representative institutions have taken a decidedly unrepresentative approach, severely weakening individual states. Presently, democracy seems to be floundering in the South Pacific. 10 References. K. A. Larsen