William Case is senior lecturer in the School of International Business, Griffith University, Australia. He has taught at the University of Texas, the MARA University of Technology in Malaysia, the Australian National University, and the Australian Defence Force Academy. He has written extensively on electoral authoritarianism and semi- and pseudo-democracies in Southeast Asia.

This volume provides an introduction to the politics of the five key southeast Asian states - Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines - and is intended as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students taking courses on this subject. Using a comparative politics and political economy perspective, the author focuses in particular on the degree of democracy in the five countries, arguing that in all the countries considered democracy is, to varying degrees, imperfect. The book synthesises a wide range of scholarship, and presents the material in a concise and accessible way.