Fractured Militaries: Armed Forces and Transitions from Authoritarian Rule in Asia

Under what conditions are autocratic regimes apt to break down when popular protests against them break out?  Prof. Lee will showcase and explain the decisive role of armed forces in reinforcing or undermining the prolongation of authoritarian rule.  He will offer a theoretical framework and illustrate it with two contrasting cases:  the June 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese military suppressed protesters and safeguarded the regime; and the People Power revolt in Manila in February 1986, when the Philippine military swung its weight in favor of liberalization.

Terence Lee is associate editor of Armed Forces and Society.  His writings have appeared in Asian Survey, Armed Forces and Society, Comparative Political Studies, and Foreign Policy.  He studies civil-military relations, military organizations, and international security; other interests include Southeast Asian politics and political science theories.  He was formerly an assistant professor in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and a postdoctoral fellow in the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard.  His PhD and MA are in political science from the University of Washington, Seattle.  Other degrees include a master’s in strategic studies from NTU and a University of Wisconsin-Madison BA (with Distinction) in political science and Southeast Asian Studies.