Economic Development and Semi-Democracies: The Relationship between Economic Development and Political Regimes in Malaysia and Singapore, 1960-2004.

While whether economic development determines transition to democracy has been studied and retested several times, the relationship of economic development and semi-democracies has been understudied. Does economic development and semi-democracies have any relationship? Why have they not been fully democratized while their economies have performed well? This paper studies whether economic development has an impact on semi-democracies in terms of whether economic development has a significant impact on semi-democratic regimes and how semi-democracies are related to economic development. It hopes to find the answer of whether economic development can lead to transition to full democracies in semi-democratic regimes. To examine whether there is a significant relationship between economic development and semi-democracies, it uses the economic development and political regimes of Malaysia and Singapore as the case study. The finding is that economic development does not have significant impact on semi-democracies and there seems to be no significant between economic development and semi-democratic regimes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]