Polarizing Figures: Executive Power and Institutional Conflict in Asian Democracies

Abstract

Polarization does not necessarily pit left against right, rich against poor, secular against religious, or ethnicity against ethnicity. Rather than polarizing along deep social or ideological cleavages, today’s democracies often polarize over the perceived abuse of power by popularly elected chief executives. We argue that such conflicts are built into the definition and design of democracy, which requires both vertical accountability (i.e., inclusivity) and horizontal accountability (i.e., constraints) and divides sovereignty into separate institutions. We illustrate our institutional theory of polarization through a comparative analysis of polarizing crises in five Asian democracies since 2000. What mattered most for these crises’ severity and eventual resolution was not the depth of social cleavages, but how the leading elite opponents of polarizing figures managed their removal from office.