Description
Successful transitions to enduring democracy are both difficult and rare. In Scandal and Democracy, Mary E. McCoy explores how newly democratizing nations can avoid reverting to authoritarian solutions in response to the daunting problems brought about by sudden change. The troubled transitions that have derailed democratization in nations worldwide make this problem a major concern for scholars and citizens alike.
This study of Indonesia's transition from authoritarian rule sheds light on the fragility not just of democratic transitions but of democracy itself and finds that democratization's durability depends, to a surprising extent, on the role of the media, particularly its airing of political scandal and intraelite conflict. More broadly, Scandal and Democracy examines how the media's use of new freedoms can help ward off a slide into pseudodemocracy or a return to authoritarian rule. As Indonesia marks the twentieth anniversary of its democratic revolution of 1998, it remains among the world's most resilient new democracies and one of the few successful democratic transitions in the Muslim world. McCoy explains the media's central role in this change and corroborates that finding with comparative cases from Mexico, Tunisia, and South Korea, offering counterintuitive insights that help make sense of the success and failure of recent transitions to democracy.
Author: Mary E. McCoy
Publisher: Southeast Asia Program Publications
Published: 03/15/2019
Pages: 222
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.87lbs
Size: 10.00h x 7.00w x 0.47d
ISBN13: 9781501731044
ISBN10: 1501731041
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Political Process | Media & Internet
- History | Asia | Southeast Asia
- Social Science | Media Studies
About the Author
Mary E. McCoy is a faculty associate in the Department of Communication Arts and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a PhD in Communication Studies, and teaches courses on rhetoric, politics, and freedom of speech.