The introductory chapter performs four key functions. First, it reviews the relevant literature on the relationship between stateness and the quality of democracy and sets out the guiding questions for the country chapters. Second, the editors define the key terms of the volume – state, stateness and democracy – and break them down into their individual components. Third, based on arguments found in the wider democratization and state-building literature, the editors theorize the causal mechanisms that may connect stateness and democracy. Fourth, the chapter develops the volume’s key argument on the relationship between stateness and the quality of democracy in East Asia more generally. The argument places particular focus on the relationship between the state and particularistic networks and on the disbritution of power between particularistic network. The chances of democratic consolidation are greatest in new democracies where the state has a strong capacity to fend off particularistic demands but political systems characterized by lower levels of state autonomy can develop into electoral democracies, depending on the systemic properties of particularistic networks. Moreover, stateness does not exert a linear effect on the quality of democracy.

The chapter analyses the simultaneous state-building and democratization process in East Asia’s newest sovereign nation-state. Since 2002, East Timor has strived to create a democratic and effective state out of the ashes of colonial rule, armed conflict and foreign occupation. With the assistance of the United Nations (UN), East Timor has thus undergone a process of simultaneous state and democracy building. Despite tremendous challenges, democracy has been surprisingly resilient against a number of severe crises. East Timor thereby represents a highly unusual mix of a fragile stateness but, given the circumstances, a relatively resilient (though, low-quality) democracy. This chapter investigates the reasons for and the implications of this surprising combination. In so doing, the chapter demonstrates that democratization and democracy have contributed to further consolidation of nation-building and statehood in East Timor. At the same time, however, limited stateness is one of the main reasons why democracy remains of low quality.

The concluding chapter summarizes and synthesizes findings across the different country. This exercise reveals two key points regarding the state-democray nexus. First, stateness is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for democratic consolidation. Not only can newly democratising regimes be subject to path-dependent effects but intervening variables – in particular, the organization of particularistic networks - also play a role. Second, democracy will only have a strengthening effect on stateness if all partial regimes are sufficiently consolidated. That is to say, defective democracies do not produce strong incentives for political elites to invest in state-building. These findings are placed in a comparative perspective with ‘third-wave’ democracies in other parts of the world, which shows that our causal mechanisms travel beyond East Asia.