There are two competing approaches, namely, the “Asian exceptionalism” and “Universalism,” in regard to the political economy of the Asian tigers. The former argues that authoritarianism based on the “Asian values” has performed better than the democratic regimes in terms of influencing the course of economic development and income distribution. By contrast, following the democratization of Korea and Taiwan, the universalism approach claims that the Asian experience is not exceptional at all.

The recent debates on the impact of globalization upon the nation-state increase among political scientists in the past decade. However, there still lacks systematic investigation on the relation between globalization and democracy. This article aims to fulfill this theoretical gap. Firstly, democracy is analyzed as three forms: liberal, social democratic and deliberative democracy. Given the different forms, the development of modern democracy is based on the territorial-bounded nation-state. The impact of globalization on democracy is channeled via the nation-state.