Ever since the concept of soft power was introduced, there has been debate about what it is and how it works. We join the debate by studying how the success of Korean cultural products in Taiwan has improved the relationship between South Korea and Taiwan. The two countries normalized their relationship in 1948 and maintained cooperation until the severance of formal ties in 1992 because of South Korea’s rapprochement with China. Beginning in early 2000, however, South Korea’s cultural products have enjoyed great success in Taiwan. Since that time, the relationship between the two countries has significantly improved, including trade and tourism expansion, increased Taiwanese direct investment in South Korea, and policy changes by Taiwan’s government. These changes provide empirical evidence of soft power.

We adopt a game theory approach that considers democratization as the result of strategic interactions between government and nongovernment actors in East and Southeast Asia, and test the implications systematically with data from South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. This makes three contributions to scholarship. First, the synergy of a game theory framework based on area studies information draws attention to the conditions under which players’ threats or actions are credible, to support inclusive theory-building. Second, the consistent findings across East and Southeast Asian countries often cited as critical cases on opposite sides of larger debates in the discipline, and across different operationalizations of democratization, support the idea that democratization occurs under weak economic conditions. Third, our rigorous tests beyond regime change-over, and across empirically derived heuristics of time span, fill theoretical and empirical lapses in order to adjudicate democratization in the region and provide a clear theoretical and empirical lens for current and future analyses.

In May 2018 the Malaysian governing coalition Pakatan Harapan (PH) lost in national elections for the first time since independence. But the subsequent reform process came to a sudden halt in February 2020. During transitions, unpredictability and risks for political actors are higher, and political conditions are extremely volatile. Multiparty coalitions such as PH have trouble sustaining the cohesion that was instrumental in their electoral victory. The highly polarized environment and the differing strategic calculations of PH coalition partners after the elections prompted the early downfall of the government. At the same time, the opposition, weakened shortly after the transitional elections, increased its cohesiveness and mobilized its supporters against the government in an environment of deep ethnoreligious cleavages. This paper traces the reform successes and failures of the PH government as well as the reconsolidation and strengthening of the new opposition, up to the emergence of the new Perikatan Nasional government.

India is the recipient of substantial aid flows but also a nuclear-armed power and an emerging donor. Why have developed countries provided aid to one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world? Answering this question requires understanding the underlying determinants of these aid flows. Using data from 1960 to 2015, the domestic conditions of India and the external conditions of donors are empirically explored with time-series analysis and panel-data analysis. We find that during the Cold War India received more foreign aid from donors with a larger volume of trade and arms transfers, but from 2000 to 2015 the effect of arms transfers declined while countries with high trade volumes continued to give more aid. Although these findings broadly support the realist interpretation of aid, we conclude that post–Cold War structural shifts in the international aid regime and defense industries need to be considered by future researchers.

In recent years, the economic development of China and India and their border confrontations have intensified bilateral strategic competition. This study used the State of Democracy in South Asia survey to identify dual mindsets of competition and contingency that drive how Indians perceive China’s influence in Asia. These two mindsets are based on a cognitive schema characterized by a political predisposition against China. However, this negative orientation is moderated as more information is acquired regarding the impact of China on India. The competition mindset does not always manifest itself, and is only cognitively activated when a change is perceived in India’s power status. On the other hand, the contingent principle appears whenever competition seems to have abated, or disadvantage seems unavoidable. The mindsets of competition and contingency are not only relevant to the evolution of Sino–Indian relations, but also explain how Indian policymakers behave and respond in international society.

Many democracies start with aspirations to rectify wrongs that occurred under the preceding authoritarian regime. To what extent can a new democracy address political repression and violence by dictators, given that key actors from the past often remain politically powerful? What determines the success of those efforts? We construct and analyze a novel data set on 102 retrials of allegedly fabricated espionage cases in South Korea to explain the political conditions under which a democratic judiciary reverses past errors. We find that the time since democratization, a leader’s policy drive for transitional justice, and the degree of fabrication in the past all affect retrial acquittal rates. We also find that judges who were appointed under the authoritarian regime are less likely to nullify past verdicts. Furthermore, national survey analysis suggests that the overturning of past fabricated verdicts significantly enhances citizens’ overall trust in the judiciary.

The biggest stories of the year 2020 were the COVID-19 pandemic and a trade dispute between the United States and China. The pandemic significantly damaged the Asian economies. The US-China trade war halted after a phase one trade deal and the pandemic, but the future is unclear.

In 2020, Cambodia experienced its sharpest economic contraction in more than a quarter-century as COVID-19 crippled its tourism industry, hampered foreign investment, and reduced demand for exports from its crucial garment and textile sectors. Wary of simmering popular unrest, the government of long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen sought to support the battered economy with one hand while stifling domestic political dissent with the other. Domestic crackdowns brought further erosion of Cambodia’s ties with the European Union, and relations with the United States and some Southeast Asian neighbors remained tense as Cambodia drifted closer into a dependent relationship with China.

In 2020, the United States sought to implement its policy of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific to address the challenge of a rising China. US–China antagonism increased, spurred on by economic tensions and concerns for Beijing’s actions with respect to Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and the Uighurs, with all this occurring in the context of the global pandemic. As the Trump administration came to a close, the most pressing question was how the turn to great power competition, which intensified in 2020, would evolve under a Biden administration.

The NLD was reelected in 2020 with more seats than it won in 2015. Myanmar’s transition is not regressing, but many priorities remain before the state truly democratizes: conducting transparent trials of military officers who were involved in the killings of Rohingyas, solving the conflict between the Arakan Army and the Tatmadaw in Rakhine State, ensuring that enduring armed conflicts do not undermine citizens’ ability to vote, making sure the National Ceasefire Agreement prevents the resurgence of old animosities, demilitarizing the constitution, and restraining the military’s ability to sue opposition for defamation.

In July 2020, Singapore went to the polls amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the People’s Action Party remained the perennial party-in-power, the opposition Workers’ Party made modest electoral gains. The rise of the Workers’ Party may usher in a one-and-a-half-party system in the city-state within the next decade or two.

The coronavirus dominated Indonesian politics in 2020. Rather than propelling Indonesia in new directions, however, the pandemic amplified existing political and societal dynamics.

In 2020, Laos successfully contained the spread of COVID-19, with very few cases and no deaths. The key elements of the COVID-19 response reflect not only public health advice but also the core values of the political culture promoted by the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. These include unity, solidarity, struggle, respect for science, guidance by a strong center, and the extension of the state into everyday life in the form of designated roles, committees, and organizations. These significantly shaped the social fabric drawn on in the COVID-19 response. This success, then, can be read as a reaping of some of the benefits of this political culture. More ominously, the global pandemic exacerbated Lao PDR’s public debt crisis. Born of years of government backing of megaprojects such as hydropower, this debt is the dark harvest of the LPRP’s reign.

In 2020, attention in Thailand focused on the pandemic and on political protest. After some early missteps Thailand managed the pandemic well, eliminating community transmission with a strong curfew, essentially a lockdown, and effective tracking and tracing. Yet the economic impact on Thailand’s tourism-dependent economy will continue into 2021. The pandemic interrupted student-led protests against a regime they considered undemocratic, in the wake of the dissolution of the opposition Future Forward Party. After the pandemic was brought under control, the demonstrations resumed, with students demanding constitutional amendments (already under consideration by the parliament), the resignation of the prime minister, and the dissolution of parliament. They added unprecedented calls for reform of Thailand’s monarchy. Students argued that reforms designed to fully remove the monarchy from politics would increase respect for the institution. But there were concerns that violence between students and royalists or security forces might ensue.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Timor-Leste in 2020 was great, and the ripple effects may be felt for years. Paradoxically, it was not that the population was directly impacted—indeed, the small half-island nation stands out with only a score or so of cases, and no deaths—but that the oil-dependent economy and the status of financial reserves took a major hit with the collapse of oil and stock prices. In the interest of managing the pandemic, the incumbent prime minister declared a state of emergency, withdrawing his earlier resignation and thus averting a political crisis. Still, as the new economic realities surrounding oil-related mega-infrastructure projects hit home, we see churn among the concerned ministers and technocrats, amid a major rethink of the way ahead, and with many of the choices invidious in the challenging new economic environment.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic initially threatened the populist legacy of Philippine President Rodrigo R. Duterte. Despite implementing one of the longest and strictest lockdowns globally, the country is still struggling to control the virus. While Duterte appears victorious in his assault on human rights and media freedom, his government’s record in fighting the virus is spotty at best. Yet, Duterte’s populism proved resilient. He remains extremely popular, with a September national survey reporting 81% approval of his government’s response to the pandemic and 91% of respondents expressing trust in his leadership.

Ultimately, 2020 turned out to be an ordinary year for Papua New Guinea. Other than the COVID-19 crisis, much remained the same in the country. Any expectations that the new prime minister, James Marape, would change its direction fell apart quickly when it was clear that “business as usual” would continue. Despite their best efforts, Australia and its allies failed to stop the rising Chinese influence in the country.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladeshi economist Mushfiq Mobarak argued that in developing countries, lockdown-based social distancing would not be feasible to mitigate its spread. This was because they would be unable to impose restrictions, undertake mass testing, or provide adequate safety nets to the poor. Bangladesh was one of the first countries to allow the reopening of work places (as early as April 28, 2020), especially in the export-oriented garment industry, and has done economically better than its South Asian counterparts. A crucial enabling factor for this pandemic-era economic growth has been the explosive boom in digital money. On the downside, free speech has been sharply curtailed, and women’s futures were further jeopardized when the garment industry was severely hit by order cancellations. But perhaps the most frightening development is the effect of climate breakdown and the mass movement of populations within Bangladesh as well as in and out of the country.

The year 2020 in Bhutan was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, a decline in state revenues, and territorial claims by China. In 2019, Bhutan’s strong economy suggested that the country would graduate from the least developed country category in 2023. The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy makes this less certain.

The year 2020 was one of multiple challenges for India and for the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government. The year began with mass protests against the Citizen (Amendment) Act, which minority Muslims saw as threatening their citizen rights and was widely felt to be unconstitutional, and ended with mass protests by farmers against market-oriented farm reforms. The coronavirus pandemic arrived in January and by the end of the year had caused the world’s second-largest caseload (10.3 million infections) and 149,000 deaths. The government responded with a strict lockdown, resulting in a severe economic contraction, although the economy and foreign investment picked up in the last quarter, buoyed by vaccine hopes and a partial economic recovery. On the foreign front, Chinese incursions in June along the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border, led to a tense standoff that remained unresolved at year-end. Politically, the BJP remained not only entrenched but somewhat further empowered against a weak and divided opposition, with Modi’s popularity ratings high.