Economic Crises and the Breakdown of Authoritarian Regimes

Thomas B. Pepinsky is Assistant Professor of Government and a faculty affiliate of the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University, New York. His research appears in World Politics, the European Journal of International Relations, the Journal of East Asian Studies, the Journal of Democracy, Studies in Comparative International Development, and several edited volumes. He received his PhD from Yale University and taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder from 2007 to 2008. He held a Fulbright–Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship in Indonesia and Malaysia from 2004 to 2005.

• 1. Crises, adjustment, and transitions; 2. Coalitional sources of adjustment and regime survival; 3. Authoritarian support coalitions: comparing Indonesia and Malaysia; 4. Adjustment policy in Indonesia, June 1997–May 1998; 5. Adjustment policy in Malaysia, June 1997–December 1999; 6. Authoritarian breakdown in Indonesia; 7. Authoritarian stability in Malaysia; 8. Cross-national perspectives; 9. Conclusions.

'This is an outstanding piece of scholarship, with innovative theorizing, a creative use of multiple methods, and a careful and nuanced analysis of various country experiences. Pepinsky's book tackles the elephant in the room in the crisis transitions literature – why do some crises lead to regime change while most others do not? The recognition that during crises adjustment policy and regime survival are two battles being fought simultaneously is an important insight. Adjustment is inherently political and Pepinsky's approach marries the economic exigencies of a crisis with the political realities leaders face, and explores when these two things are (or are not) compatible.' Allen Hicken, University of Michigan