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A review of China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy by Minxin Pei.
About the Author
Bruce Gilley is professor of political science at Portland State University. His works include The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy (2009) and The Nature of Asian Politics (2014).
Given Southeast Asia’s relatively high level of socioeconomic development, we might expect it to be a showcase of democracy. Yet it is not. To grasp why, one must look to…