The political dimensions of the 1997-99 Asian financial crisis have been largely ignored. Yet political factors are crucial to understanding the crisis and the differing ways in which the democracies and authoritarian regimes in the region responded to it.
About the Author
Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies and director of the Korea-Pacific Program in the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego.
Given the unaccountable authority of the supreme leader, the Islamic Republic should be classified as a sultanistic regime. In such regimes, democratic change is more likely to come from nonviolent…