First published 2002
by Curzon Press
This edition published 2012 by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2002 William Case
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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ISBN 978-0-7007-1635-7 (Hbk)
ISBN 978-0-7007-1636-4 (Pbk)
For Sakda Prangpatanpon and Prapond Prasertkul who moved effectively in multiple worlds
Few books have appeared that attempt in any theoretical way to make broad sense of the politics of Southeast Asia countries. Put simply, many analysts consider the political regimes of the regions ten countries to be so diverse that meaningful generalizations cannot be made. Indeed, Southeast Asia, at the crossroads of Chinese and Indian influences and buffeted by different colonial legacies and globalizing forces displays a greater spectrum of regime types than perhaps any other part of the world. It thus encompasses sundry forms of democracy, military government, a sultanate, single party dominance, and post-totalitarianism, while historically undergoing some notorious episodes of personal dictatorship.
Hence, most broad brush analyses have done little more than scan the features of individual countries against a checklist of indicators like civil liberties, elections, levels of economic development, and social structures. No systematic explanation for the diversity of regime outcomes has been offered, merely a descriptive stock take, leaving the main organizing principle one of geographic propinquity. At the same time, more sophisticated analyses have scoured for common ground by retreating to specific issue areas, focusing tightly on institutions, legal structures, human rights, the media, economic deregulation, environmental policies, NGOs, and ethnic identities. While useful, these analyses do not cumulate in the kinds of theoretical overviews that are available for the politics of Northeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
This book tries to remedy this shortcoming. It begins by narrowing the universe of study to Southeast Asias five most developed countries, the so-called ASEAN 4 Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines and Singapore. Of course, the diversity of politics remains wide, featuring pseudo- and semi-democratic regimes, as well as democracies that are fuller, but unstable or low quality. What is more, the great cultural and linguistic diversity of even this smaller universe has encouraged intense research specialization, with separate scholarly traditions and methodologies growing up in the analysis of each country. In Indonesia, the most influential model has probably been neo-patrimonialism, reflecting the extraordinary centralization of state power in the hands of its long-time leader, Suharto, and the arbitrary ways in which he once wielded it. And even as Indonesia struggles to democratize today, many analysts note the persistence of top-down and personalist orientations amid the continuing weakness of civil society. In Malaysia, much attention has traditionally been given to ethnicity, noting the rivalries between ethnic communities constructed as the Malays and the Chinese which, with the former having gained political ascendancy, has firmed a system of single-party, even executive dominance. In Thailand, the militarys historical ascendancy and its dealings with Chinese business people gave rise to an influential bureaucratic polity model. With democratization, however, attention has shifted to a very fluid party system and its interplay with business, especially in the provinces. Investigation of the Philippines, often colored by assumptions of dependency, has focused on a uniquely landed social class, a correspondingly weak state apparatus, a pervasive clientelism that when concentrated produced Marcoss leadership, and a regime change sparked by people power. And in Singapore, analysts have pondered the fusion between the ruling Peoples Action Party and the bureaucracy, creating an incubus that has spawned good governance and economic rationality within a wholly unaccountable setting.
In order to provide some coherent and systematic explanation for these variable contours, this book takes account of the historical, cultural, and structural conditions that inform mass attitudes and behaviors. But it recognizes too that quite different combinations of these factors can produce similar political outcomes, with the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, for example, converging as the regions new democracies. At the same time, countries that display some important similarities in their structures, like Indonesia and Malaysia, have practiced dissimilar politics, with the military playing a significant role in the first case, but very rarely in the latter one.
In short, amalgams of historical legacies, cultural orientations, and structural constraints may favor political outcomes, but by themselves deliver no determinative impact. Accordingly, this book gives attention to the role of national leaders and elites, measuring the extent to which they are cohesive, thus stabilizing their regime, and the ways in which they energize social constituents, thereby making their regime either more democratic or less. As Barbara Geddes has recently observed with respect to middle-income countries, with underlying structural causes fairly evenly balanced... human choices and serendipitous events virtu and fortuna [can] most easily affect outcomes.an empirically rich, yet theoretically informed account of politics in Southeast Asias most developed countries.
I would like to acknowledge the support of the School of International Business in which I teach. While the imperatives of marketing and management do not always sit easily alongside the concerns of comparative politics, the School has nonetheless been generous in providing research leave and funding. A Griffith University research grant also made possible numerous field trips to Malaysia and Thailand. In addition, I would like to thank the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta for providing office space and arranging interviews, enabling me to observe a most important democratic transition unfold. I am especially indebted to Hadi Soesastro and Tommy Legowo. The Center of Asian Studies at Chulalongkorn University did the same for me in Bangkok, for which I would like to thank Withaya Sucharithanarugse, the former director. I am grateful also to Peter Alford, The Australians correspondent in Bangkok, who provided forceful arguments and insights over Blue Eagle. Finally, I thank all those who consented to interviews and discussions, to those who commented on draft chapters, in particular, Bob Elson, Robert Cribb, and Surin Maisrikrod, and to my wife and son, Rebecca and John, who have tolerated the field trips.
