Lee, TerenceDefect or Defend: Military Responses to Popular Protests in Authoritarian AsiaBaltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press252 pp., $59.95 hardcoverISBN 978-1421415161Publication Date: January 2015

Abstract

This solid analytical work highlights the conditions under which militaries in Asian authoritarian regimes have determined or prevented regime change in support of popular demonstrations and why. The author, Terence Lee, is assistant professor of political science at the National University of Singapore and a noted scholar on civil-military relations in Asia. Lee uses two cases of military defection from supporting regimes (Philippines 1986, Indonesia 1998) and two cases of military defense of the state (China 1989, Burma/Myanmar 2007) to support his thesis. He argues that personalistic forms of authoritarian rule tend to lead to military fissures that become ripe for military defection when popular protests erupt. The defectors will support regime change if they can come to an agreement with leaders of the protests. On the other hand, where authoritarian regimes are organized through power-sharing mechanisms that severely reduce personalism, military defection during popular protests becomes less likely (189). In Chapter 1, Lee argues that in the literature on authoritarian transition, the role of military behavior itself in ensuring or preventing moves toward political change has been under-explored. His study fills this void. Chapter 2 presents a theoretical framework that highlights the importance of agencydetermined structure, drawing from “new institutionalism” political science literature (22). To engender elite loyalty, many tyrannies establish institutions that deliver balanced levels of carrots and sticks to the regime’s stakeholders. These power-sharing institutions provide information about the actions of regime stakeholders while offering routines designed to diminish moral hazard problems. Examples include autocratic