Mini-Conference on Asian Political History: Shaping Asian States and Nations: Revolutions and Political Development

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Part of Mini-Conference

• Mini-Conference on Asian Political History

Session Description

This panel investigates how decolonization, nationalism, and revolution affect state formation in Asia. Kasuya aims to explain the origins of regime variation in Asia and offer a comparative historical analysis of the political dynamics at in the wake of decolonization. Paik and Vechbanyongratana study Thailand’s railroad projects in the late-19th and early 20th centuries to understand its long-term impact on local development. Lim and Kok demonstrate persistent differences in inter-ethnic contact affect voter preferences for ethno-nationalistic politics based on a large-scale resettlement program of 500,000 rural ethnic Chinese villagers in ethnic Malay-majority Malaysia. Based on an analysis of the two most similar, single-party, revolutionary autocracies of China and Vietnam, Truong argues that dynamics in the distinct sequencing of party and state formation processes during critical revolutionary antecedents fundamentally shape the relationship between the ruling party and the state.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Individual Presentations

• Historical Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship in Asia: Institutions and Movements at the Decolonization Moment - Yuko Kasuya, Keio University

• Reform, Rails, and Rice: Political Railroads and Local Development in Thailand - Christopher Paik, New York University Abu Dhabi; Jessica Vechbanyongratana, Chulalongkorn University

• Ethnic Segregation and Politics: Evidence from Malaysia - Jia De Gedeon Lim, University of Hong Kong; Chun Chee Kok, Monash University

• Party Control in Revolutionary Autocracies: Communist Penetration of the State in China and Vietnam - Nhu Truong, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Chair

• Iza Ding Northwestern University

Discussants

• Joel Sawat Selway Brigham Young University

• Joan E. Cho Wesleyan University