The Political Resurgence of the Military in Southeast Asia

Conflict and Leadership

Marcus Mietzner

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781136682223
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Freedom
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the late 1990s, prominent scholars of civil-military relations detected a decline in the political significance of the armed forces across Southeast Asia. A decade later, however, this trend seems to have been reversed. The Thai military launched a coup in 2006, the Philippine armed forces expanded their political privileges under the Arroyo presidency, and the Burmese junta successfully engineered pseudo-democratic elections in 2010.

This book discusses the political resurgence of the military in Southeast Asia throughout the 2000s. Written by distinguished experts on military affairs, the individual chapters explore developments in Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, East Timor, Indonesia and Singapore. They not only assess, but also offer explanations for the level of military involvement in politics in each country. Consequently, the book also makes a significant contribution to the comparative debate about militaries in politics. Whilst conditions obviously differ from country to country, most authors in this book conclude that the shape of civil-military relations is not predetermined by historic, economic or cultural factors, but is often the result of intra-civilian conflicts and divisive or ineffective political leadership.

1 Conflict and leadership

The resurgent political role of the military in Southeast Asia

Marcus Mietzner

In 2001, Muthiah Alagappa’s edited volume Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia evaluated the state of civil–military relations in 16 countries across the region. Despite significant differences between the analysed nations, the study diagnosed a general decrease in the political significance of the armed forces in East Asia. The Southeast Asian cases presented in the book seemed to confirm this trend. To begin with, Thailand had seen its last coup in 1991 and had marginalized the military since then. The Philippines had emerged successfully from the Marcos dictatorship and the post-authoritarian transition under Aquino, stabilizing politically and economically during the strong leadership of Fidel Ramos. Indonesia, for its part, was undergoing a messy democratic transition, but it had nevertheless ended three decades of Suharto’s military-backed rule in 1998. In Vietnam, the military gradually adjusted to a new, less prominent role after decades of wars against France, the United States, and China. Finally, Singapore’s semi-authoritarian, civilian regime remained in control of its large and modern armed forces. The only exception from the rule was Burma:¹ there, the military junta showed no signs of softening its repressive grip on the country that it had ruled more or less continuously since 1962. Overall, however, the Southeast Asian region appeared to go down the same road that Latin America had travelled in the 1980s and 1990s: sidelining the armed forces from politics and establishing functioning civilian regimes.

A decade later, however, the decline of the military’s political role in Southeast Asia had been stopped, if not reversed. In Thailand, the military launched a coup in 2006 after mass protests had demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The coup failed to restore order, however. In 2010, Thailand saw the worst political violence since 1992, with more than 100 people killed and Bangkok’s streets turned into a civil war zone. Similarly, the Philippines descended into chaos in 2001, with President Estrada removed in a violent popular uprising. His successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, became dependent on the armed forces, using them to secure victory in the 2004 elections and to survive subsequent protests against her rule. Southeast Asia’s youngest nation, Timor-Leste, witnessed divisions in its military that contributed to widespread violence in the country in 2006 and 2007. The Burmese military government, not unsurprisingly, clung to power, despite organizing farcical parliamentary elections in November 2010.

Singapore and Vietnam, while not recording an increase in the political role of their militaries, could not report a decline in that role either. The only case that somewhat bucked the trend was ironically a country that had received very mixed reviews in Alagappa’s volume: Indonesia. Under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the post-autocratic polity consolidated, and the previously all-powerful military watched events unfolding from the margins. Once decried as one of the most feudal and underdeveloped states in the region, Indonesia in 2010 suddenly stood out as the only country in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that was considered a democracy by the Freedom House index (Freedom House 2010).

The discrepancy between the assessments made in the Alagappa volume and post-2001 developments raises questions about the reasons for this divergence. Why did Southeast Asia not continue on the path of declining military influence on political affairs, but instead experience a revival of the armed forces’ role in politics? In the same vein, it is important to note that the evolution of Southeast Asian civil–military relations after 2001 not only defied the predictions implied by Alagappa, but also contradicted some of his key theoretical assumptions. According to Alagappa, the political power of the military rises (or declines) with the weight of coercion in governance. If governments rely mostly on coercion to establish their authority, the role of the military in politics is likely to be high. Conversely, ‘when the weight of coercion in governance is low, civilian supremacy is likely to be the norm’ (Alagappa 2001: 5). In turn, the ‘weight of coercion in governance declines with increasing levels of economic development.’ In other words, the extent of economic growth is a vital determinant of the levels of military interference in politics. Yet all countries in Southeast Asia that saw the influence of their militaries increasing after 2001 registered healthy expansions of their GDPs in the same period. Thailand, for example, was booming in the early years of the Thaksin government. In 2008, the Global Financial Crisis led to a temporary weakening of growth, but did not create serious disruptions in economic activity. Even Burma, while still plagued by poverty, grew its economy significantly throughout the 2000s. It seems, then, that the extent of economic growth is insufficient to explain the rise and fall of military influence in states that still undergo processes of democratic consolidation or have yet to begin such processes.

This volume takes stock of the dynamics of civil–military relations in seven Southeast Asian countries after 2001, and it offers explanations for the developments that have occurred in each state. Analyzing in detail the political role of the military in Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and Singapore, the authors of the various country chapters assess whether the influence of the armed forces has grown, declined, or remained stable. Subsequently, they explore the reasons that could account for the changes or the stagnation. While each of the countries has very specific political, historical, religious, and social features, the chapters point to one dominant factor that caused military interference in politics to increase, fall, or stay the same: with the exception of Burma, failures of civilian governance and leadership in Southeast Asia provided entry points for military interventions, whereas stable civilian polities were able to keep the armed forces at bay. Civilian governance, in turn, became unstable not because of economic factors, but because key leaders sought to aggressively defend their positions against their opponents, causing polarization and escalating tensions. By contrast, inclusive, non-polarizing leadership, even if exercised in countries with low levels of economic development, managed to avoid the politicization of the armed forces. This volume, therefore, suggests that the extent to which militaries engage in politics is neither primarily related to the motivations, actions, or beliefs of the military, nor is it predetermined by a country’s economic indicators. Instead, it is the quality of governance and the leadership approaches of key politicians that either stabilize a polity or make it vulnerable to military interference.

This overview of the volume introduces some of the main findings of the individual chapters, and locates them within the comparative debate on civil–military relations and the political role of armed forces. While not claiming that the results of this study provide the foundations for a new theoretical model that exhaustively explains military interference in politics, this chapter nevertheless offers the data from Southeast Asia as an invaluable addition to the scholarly debate on civilian control of the military. The conclusion drawn from this material, as indicated above, can serve as an important corrective to existing models and theories. The first section of this chapter discusses the state of civil–military relations in Southeast Asia after 2001, looking closely at military involvement in political institutions, the economy, military organization and domestic security, and society. The second segment tests the findings of the country chapters against several hypotheses that are usually advanced in the scholarly literature to explain the degree of military involvement in politics. These explanatory propositions include historical legacies, the quality of civilian governance and leadership, international factors, and internal military dynamics. The conclusion, finally, weighs the importance of these various factors and highlights the centrality of the quality of governance and leadership. It also examines how this emphasis sits with existing models of civil–military relations, arguing that approaches with a narrow focus on structural explanations of path dependence can particularly benefit from taking the evidence from Southeast Asia into account.

The political role of the military in Southeast Asia

Scholars have used a wide variety of methods to assess the depth of military involvement in political decision-making in individual states. One of these approaches has been to evaluate the level of civilian control in a number of key areas related to policy-making, especially in the defense and security sector (Cottey, Edmunds, and Forster 2002). Obviously, the stronger the capacity of civilians is to exert control in these areas, the weaker the influence of the military – and vice versa (Born, Caparina and Haltiner 2002). Defining ‘full-fledged democratic civilian control’ as a condition in which ‘elected civilians enjoy institutionalized and uncontested decisionmaking power,’ Croissant and Kuehn (2009: 190) have identified three main areas of concern: elite recruitment and overall public policy, national defense, and internal security. Other authors have expanded this set of vital arenas by including military organization (Chambers 2010). Most of these assessment criteria concentrate heavily on defense and security issues, however. As such, they overlook critical fields of military engagement, such as the economy and society at large (Philip 2001; Diamond and Plattner 1996; Brömmelhörster and Paes 2003). Consequently, this chapter analyses the extent of military participation in a country’s political infrastructure by focusing on four main areas: the involvement of militaries in political institutions; their entanglement with the economy; their autonomy to manage their own affairs (including their ability to play a role in domestic security); and their engagement with society as a whole (Mietzner 2009). By investigating the level of military penetration of these four arenas of civil–military contestation, this volume aims to produce a comprehensive picture of the socio-political role of the armed forces in contemporary Southeast Asia.

The military and political institutions

The most important avenue for militaries to seek influence on or dominance of policy-making is involvement in the political institutions of the state (Koonings and Kruit 2002). In consolidated democracies, military officers typically advise civilian politicians on defense matters and implement the eventual decisions made by elected public officials (Feaver 2003). Officers can also influence the political process by voting in elections, lobbying political parties and government officials, or shaping public opinion through media appearances and engagement with civil society organizations. In all of these activities, however, senior officers are expected not to openly contradict the viewpoints taken by their civilian superiors. When General Stanley McChrystal publicly criticized President Barack Obama for his Afghanistan strategy in a magazine in June 2010, even the president’s opponents agreed that the most senior commander of US troops at the Hindu Kush had to go. By contrast, states with less consolidated democratic systems may witness much stronger military participation in political institutions through both direct and indirect means. These include the placement of military officers in the executive, legislature, and judiciary (either in the form of reserved representation or other mechanisms), the granting of emergency powers in conflict areas, a role for the armed forces in electoral management, or specific military institutions that ‘parallel, supersede, or control the civilian administration’ (Croissant and Kuehn 2009: 190). In addition, the military can possess formal or informal veto powers, whether guaranteed by the constitution or as a result of its coercive weight.

In Southeast Asia, military involvement in political institutions has ranged from complete dominance of the state to weak influence from the margins. As Susanne Nyein Prager’s chapter in this volume explains, Burma has experienced the most extreme form of political hegemony by a military in Southeast Asia – and possibly in the world. Since 1962, the armed forces, or tatmadaw, have effectively run the state (Callahan 2003). Reinventing itself every decade or so in order to respond to changing political, economic, or ideological trends, military government in Burma has taken the shape of direct junta rule, socialist one-party dominance, and – most recently – a heavily manipulated, pseudo-democratic polity. Between 1988 and 2010, the military ruled through its executive councils, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) and the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), not even bothering to create the impression of formal democratic procedures. A constitution was only re-introduced in 2008, in preparation for the junta’s transformation into a semi-civilian administration led by retired and active military officers. In this new polity, which began to take shape after the November 2010 elections, former members of the junta hold the presidency and lead the strongest party in parliament, the USDP (Union Solidarity and Development Party). In addition, 25 percent of legislative seats have been reserved for the armed forces. And should these important power blocs still not be enough to protect the interests of the military, the constitution allows the head of the tatmadaw to take over power again if he deems the state to be in crisis.

In Thailand, the military’s involvement in post-2001 politics has been less crude than in Burma, but it was extensive nevertheless. Pavin Chachavalpongpun’s chapter demonstrates how the 2006 coup returned the armed forces into the center of Thai politics, making it once again the country’s ultimate veto power. While the military has no reserved representation in the government or legislature, civilian governments rely heavily on its support (Chambers 2010). Pro-Thaksin governments installed in 2007 and 2008 were short-lived because they lacked military backing, while Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva owed his coming to power in December 2008 to intense lobbying efforts by the army. Moreover, the military oversaw the drafting of a new constitution in 2007, which weakened the role of democratic governments, decreed that almost half of all senators would be appointed instead of elected, and reinvigorated the role of the military. The constitution protects all generals involved in the 2006 coup from legal prosecution, and Article 77 stipulates that the ‘state shall arrange adequate provision of military forces and modern weapons, ammunition, military equipment and technology necessary to protect and maintain national independence’ (Lintner 2007).² Equally significant is the fact that Article 20 provides for the head of the King’s Privy Council to act as temporary regent should the King be incapacitated or die without having appointed a regent. The current President of the Privy Council is Prem Tinsulanonda, a former general, prime minister, and widely viewed as the patron of the alliance between the monarchy and the military (McCargo 2005). The military is therefore likely to have a crucial say in the imminent royal succession in Thailand, the dynamics of which could define the shape of Thai politics for decades to come.

The Philippines have also recorded an increase in military influence on political institutions since 2001. Like in Thailand, the military in the Philippines is not granted reserved seats in parliament or cabinet, but President Gloria Arroyo’s administration (2001–2010) offered generals more power and positions in exchange for their support. In his chapter, Aries A. Arugay describes how Arroyo appointed 12 generals to the post of armed forces chief of staff during her 10 years in office, subsequently shifting them into influential civilian posts after retirement.³ By doing so, Arroyo managed to achieve two goals in one strike: she was able to reward a large number of ambitious generals with the military’s top post and cushy post-service jobs, while at the same time preventing the emergence of a single powerful military leader who could challenge her rule. In addition to receiving senior posts in Manila, the military has effectively assumed the role of a parallel government in Mindanao, where separatist movements have fought for the independence of the majority Muslim area since the 1970s (Collier and Cook 2006). The escalation of the Mindanao conflict under Arroyo has given the armed forces extraordinary powers in the troubled territory, which they exploited to mobilize local support for the president’s re-election campaign in 2004. Accordingly, Arroyo won Mindanao with a large margin, giving her a slight advantage over her challenger at the national level. When the manipulations became publicly known, however, the legitimacy of the Arroyo presidency was irreparably damaged, and she had to rely on the military even more heavily than before (Hutchcroft 2008).

In Vietnam and Singapore, military involvement in post-2001 political institutions has remained low but not insignificant. In Vietnam, the armed forces continue to have one member on the 14-member Politburo of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) elected in 2011, and 19 officers sit on the 175-member Central Committee. While not formally reserved for the military, these seats have traditionally been given to senior officers in order to maintain the close relationship between the armed forces and the VCP. Carl Thayer’s contribution to this volume highlights that, despite a slight decline in the 1990s, the military’s representation in key institutions of the party and state gives the armed forces a stake in the defense of the communist regime as it faces demands for greater economic and political liberalization. Similarly, Singapore’s armed forces have remained clearly subordinated to the political elite organized in the People’s Action Party (PAP). But, as Tan Tai Yong’s chapter illustrates, the military continues to form an integral part of the regime, with an institutionalized and regular crossover between civilian and military elites. The current Prime Minister, Lee...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• 1 Conflict and leadership: The resurgent political role of the military in Southeast Asia
• 2 The armed forces of Burma: The constant sentinel
• 3 Thaksin, the military, and Thailand’s protracted political crisis
• 4 Military politics in contemporary Vietnam: Political engagement, corporate interests, and professionalism
• 5 The military in Philippine politics: Still politicized and increasingly autonomous
• 6 The armed forces in Timor-Leste: Politicization through elite conflict
• 7 The political marginalization of the military in Indonesia: Democratic consolidation, leadership, and institutional reform
• 8 The armed forces and politics in Singapore: The persistence of civil–military fusion
• Glossary and Abbreviations
• Index