The Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in Southeast Asia examines how global and domestic forces of autocratization affect regional and local politics. It analyses how the interactions of international and domestic factors affect actors and institutions in both democracies and autocracies in the region.

Bringing together a representative slate of both local and international, junior and senior scholars of different methodological backgrounds, the handbook cross-examines regional trends and provides an insider view of the causes and effects of autocratization in a region with diverse experiences with de-colonization, state-building, economic and political developments. The 28 chapters are organized into three sections: The first section examines how a range of structural, international, socio-political, technological and ideological causal factors of autocratization. Section two offers a comparative analysis of the consequences of autocratization on key actors and democratic institutions. The third section provides a more a detailed study of autocratic consolidation and push-back in each country in Southeast Asia. Taking into account structural-historical, institutional and cultural factors, the contributors analyse how domestic actors and democratic institutions withstand the global forces of autocratization.

The handbook fills a glaring empirical gap in the current scholarship by focusing on all nation-states in the Association of Southeast Asia Nation and Timor Leste; varied regime types with diverse socio-religious backgrounds. It is the first authoritative reference work dedicated to Southeast Asia’s autocratization and will be an indispensable reference work for academics and policy makers interested in democracy and autocracy, regime transition, and Southeast Asian politics.