This panel invites papers that examine what Asian experiences can tell us about democracy under conditions of uncertainty. Instead of using Asian democracies simply as cases to be measured against established models, the panel asks how developments across the region might actually challenge, refine, or broaden our understanding of democracy.
The panel welcomes different approaches and cases, including work on democratic institutions, political contestation, everyday political life, and changing public expectations. It is especially interested in papers that take Asian experiences seriously as a basis for thinking about how democracy is understood, practised, strained, sustained, and reimagined.
Possible paper themes include:
1. Meanings, trajectories, and futures of democracy: How is democracy understood, contested, and reimagined across Asian contexts?
2. Institutions, power, and democratic contestation: How do political institutions and struggles over power shape democratic uncertainty?
3. Everyday democracy, publics, and new sites of politics: How is democracy experienced and negotiated in everyday life and emerging political spaces?
