Democratization in the states of Southeast Asia: the example of Myanmar and Cambodia

The article analyzes the modern political processes of two Southeast Asian states: the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (an authoritarian regime with a military junta at its head) and the Kingdom of Cambodia (a monarchy in which the Prime minister has full power). The paper refers to the works of modern Russian political scientists and foreign specialists, for example, on an article from Huanqiu Shibao, the largest Chinese observer of world politics, and on classical researchers of democratization, Samuel Huntington and Lucien Pai. The authors study the period from the beginning of the democratization of these states to the present, as well as the brief history of Cambodia and Myanmar since gaining independence, as it is with the acquisition of sovereignty that the full-fledged political history of these states begins, marked by authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. The authors pay special attention to political and social factors, as in Southeast Asia, a developing region, the process of rollback of democracy begins. Thus, the paper emphasizes a number of mistakes that did not allow both Myanmar and Cambodia to finally pass to democracy. The authors highlight the common problems peculiar to developing countries which try to make a democratic transit with an authoritarian legacy.