The Taiwan Research Hub and The Research Centre for the Study of Parties and Democracy (REPRESENT) presents an online book launch
The President’s Dilemma in Asia
by Don S. Lee, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University.
Wednesday 15 October 2025
11-12.30 pm UK Time
Online Event only register at https://forms.office.com/e/qmWzNQrdGX
Talk abstract
This book provides the first comprehensive and comparative theory of presidential government formation. In the authoritarian era, presidents had greater control over key institutional actors in the process, such as the legislature, the ruling party, and the bureaucracy. However, after democratic transition, they have to navigate competing pressures from these political institutions. This book highlights the major trade-off that presidents of new democracies face in their relationship with the different political institutions, the so-called “president’s dilemma,” and their strategy in dealing with the dilemma. Existing studies of presidential government formation in new democracies have largely overlooked the entirety of the structure of the political institutions surrounding the president and its impact on the president’s government formation strategy. This book offers a view that government formation is a window to understanding how presidents weigh the benefits of appointing ministers representing different political institutions under a variety of given institutional circumstances. The question of which institution presidents attempt to accommodate through government formation is a high stakes one, and addressing it is important, because particular patterns of personnel distribution can influence the kind of policies political leaders adopt and the level of accountability and responsiveness to constituents these policies represent.
About the Speaker
Don S. Lee is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University. Formerly, he was a Leverhulme Trust fellow and a faculty member at the University of Nottingham and Sungkyunkwan University. He received a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego. His first book, titled The President's Dilemma in Asia, was published with Oxford University Press. His second book manuscript on party system closure in Asia (with Fernando Casal Bertoa) is under contract with Cambridge University Press. His research has been introduced in the Washington Post and the Conversation, mentioned in the Economist and TV Chosun News, and published or forthcoming in peer-reviewed academic journals, including Comparative Political Studies, Governance, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, Policy & Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, Regulation & Governance, and others. He has also been interviewed for a commentary by TIME and BBC.
Chaired by
Dr Fernando Casal Bértoa, REPRESENT
Dr Kevin Fahey REPRESENT and
Dr Chun-yi Lee, Taiwan Research Hub