Semi-presidentialism and democratic development in East Asia

East Asia contains three of the world’s youngest semi-presidential democracies: Mongolia, Taiwan, and East Timor. In addition to having a semipresidential constitutional structure, each of these countries also represents a relatively unusual case of democratization: Taiwan is one of East Asia’s famous “tiger” economies and the world’s only Sinitic democracy, but faces an ongoing crisis of nationhood; Mongolia is one of the few unambiguous examples of a successful transition to democracy and a market economy in the postcommunist world; while East Timor is both East Asia’s poorest nation and its newest democracy. As such, each represents an important test case for assessing the effect of semi-presidentialism upon democratic development.