Conditions of Successful Communist Movements in Asia: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis

Why did some communist movements successfully seize the governmental power in Asia while others failed? Previous research on communism in this region, albeit abundant and diverse, produced few comparative studies on the reasons of communist success and rarely covered the states where communist parties were weak. This paper analyzes the conditions that made possible the communist’s seizure of power in East, Southeast and South Asia during inter-war era using the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) method. We examine major hypotheses advanced in the existing studies on this question, including socioeconomic, institutional, historical, geopolitical, and cultural factors. The results exhibit the respective strengths and weaknesses as well as contradictions of the various theories.