Democratisation, Governance and Regionalism in East and Southeast Asia

A Comparative Study

Ian Marsh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780415376235
• eBook ISBN: 9781134184347
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This new collection of essays compares the development of central institutions of governance in the emerging democracies of East and South East Asia.

Seven key countries are covered: Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Save for Singapore and Malaysia, all have democratized over the past decade. Because of its constitutive implications for citizen identities, democratization is arguably of even greater potential significance than the economic take-off that preceded it.

But there are distinctive features that give the experience of these seven states especial relevance. First, unlike analogous western patterns, democratic transitions in Asia have been top-down in character. Second, the implementation of basic democratic forms was highly compressed in time. Third there were (and are), in most countries, no major ideological or programmatic cleavages. Thus the bases around which contending political forces might organize are not immediately clear. This may affect the outlook for partisanship and mobilization. There has been no synoptic, comparative study of these developments on a region-wide scale. This book fills the gap extremely well.

1 Introduction

Ian Marsh

This study offers comparative perspectives on the development of democracy and governance amongst seven East and Southeast Asian states – Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. It also examines the development of regional ties. These seven countries are less than half of the sixteen states that compose the East and Southeast Asian region. What these seven share is the (more or less recent) adoption of democratic forms of governance. Three of the omitted states – Japan, East Timor and Cambodia – are also democratic. But in the case of Cambodia and East Timor, democracy remains an exceedingly tender shoot. It has been imposed from without (Cambodia) or following civil war (East Timor). In neither case has it been associated with economic development. For its part, Japan is the most mature democratic country in the region and her domestic politics is already the subject of an extensive literature. The other six states – Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, North Korea, Brunei and China – are not democracies.

Thus one reason for focusing on these seven states arises from their political systems. This has significance for both intra- and inter-regional comparisons. Even if only nominal, democratic forms introduce a particular pattern of institutions and a particular discourse about the construction of power and authority that invites comparison and evaluation (but see Whitehead, 2002). A further reason for associating these seven states concerns their variation. In practice, they might be arranged on a governance scale from relatively liberal and open to illiberal and authoritarian. If it is unclear which, if any, state might be placed at the liberal and open pole, Singapore clearly occupies the illiberal one. There is also a clear scholarly consensus that the ethnic divide in Singapore, and also in Malaysia, no longer provides sufficient justification for their illiberal practices. Both these states exhibit pathologies of democracy.

The three themes that are central to this study – democratisation, governance and regionalism – are inter-related. They cover the short- and longer-term impacts of political change as well as the most prominent potential external influence. The focus on governance, and economic governance in particular, involves arguably the critical arena from the perspective of the short-term impacts of democratisation. Economic success (buttressed by nationalism) was the basis for public support of the ‘soft authoritarian’ regimes that formerly existed in five of these seven states (Kim et al., 1995; Alagappa, 1995). Weak ideological cleavages in most states imply economic performance will continue to be significant as a source of public support. But democracy changes the context for popular mobilisation. It creates new opportunities for more or less disruptive contestation. These impacts will first register in governance practices.

In the longer term, democratic consolidation might be expected to have pervasive impacts on most social institutions and ultimately on citizen expectations, attitudes and behaviours (e.g. Tocqueville). But the literature on democratic consolidation identifies varying signifiers. Some scholars emphasise procedural and institutional features such as elections, electoral practices, the rule of law, a free media, change of governments etc. More recently, attention has focused on the ‘quality’ of democracy that is the real effect of these institutions (e.g. Diamond and Morlino, 2004). This study emphasises a feature not especially remarked on in either of these approaches, namely political socialisation. This is because a democratic political order is ultimately most significant as a seedbed for citizen identities. How effective are emergent democratic institutions in seeding the development of democratic orientations at both elite and mass levels? In the absence of democratic socialisation, and despite the presence of procedural safeguards, political forms could as easily remain a veneer for a predatory and ‘illiberal democracy’ (Zakaria, 2003).

Finally, paralleling democratisation, regionalism is also an important potential frame shaping domestic politics and disseminating social, cultural and economic influences. Indeed, in some perspectives, regionalism not globalisation is a decisive influence on the domestic political agenda (e.g. Hay, 2004, see page). But Asian regionalism has hitherto been driven by national economic interests rather than by any wider vision. This present study explores the cultural, political and economic forces that are involved and asks how, if at all, Asian regionalism might develop. Distinctive cultural frames and distinctive political and economic factors are explored.

The definitions of key variables are not unambiguous. Differing conceptions of democratic consolidation have already been noted. Democratic governance is also variously conceived (e.g. March and Olsen, 1995). And economic governance in particular is a highly contested concept. For example, the World Bank has recently emphasised governance institutions such as property rights, corporate governance and administrative decision-making (World Bank, 1997). The literature on East Asia has identified a much more ambitious state leadership role which has been labelled ‘developmentalism’ (e.g. Woo-Cumings, 1999). Because of its influence in regional states, this latter perspective is the template adopted in this study.

As a group, these states merit attention for their remarkable economic and political transformations. These have been concentrated into a short two or three decades. At an economic level, and apart from Japan (and with the arguable exceptions of the Philippines and Indonesia), these are the first non-western states to have experienced sustained economic development. The Asian share of world merchandise exports was 12 per cent in 1963 and 26 per cent in 2003. These results stand in sharp contrast with Latin American experience, much less that of Africa (Kohli et al., 2003). Outcomes in the seven states covered in this study also contrast with the experience of other regional states such as Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, much less most of the South Asian states.

There is clear layering between these seven states in the timing of economic and political developments. For example, Korea went from war-ravaged backwardness to membership of the OECD in thirty years. Taiwan and Singapore have achieved similar levels of economic growth. Despite considerable differences in industry structure and sectoral approaches, the economic development of these states has followed a distinctive, state-led pattern. Starting from the mid-1980s, economic development spread to the other four states, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Their approaches to economic governance have, however, hitherto been less dirigiste.

If economic governance seeded the first wave of interest in these seven states, recent political changes provide even more arresting reasons for engagement. In a decade, autocracy has generally given way to democracy and, at least formally, democratic regimes are now the norm. The scale and pace of political change is perhaps only matched by developments in Eastern Europe. But the pattern of regimes and the associated political dynamics varies widely (e.g. Macintyre, 2003). At a formal level, Korea and Taiwan have adopted semi-presidential systems. Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore are formally at least parliamentary systems. The Philippines is a fully presidential system, modelled on that of its former colonial master, the United States. Indonesia’s regime is evolving from a fully presidential pattern towards one that seems semi-presidential. Malaysia is the only federation in the region. Both Malaysia and Thailand are also constitutional monarchies, although the king is a significant political figure only in the latter.

At an economic level, regional states were the pioneers of global, trade-led economic integration. They pioneered the export-led development strategy, now disseminated as conventional wisdom by the World Bank and the OECD. The financial crisis of 1997 then occurred. From being beneficiaries of the first wave of global economic integration, regional states became amongst the first victims of its second phase, which originated with the development of a private sector led global financial system (Fraser and Oppenheim, 1997). More recently, domestic consumption and regional trade have joined global trade engagement as engines of economic growth. Meanwhile, the development of China is both a challenge to the Southeast Asian states and an alternative focus for their trade. At the political level, the financial crisis precipitated a democratic turn in Indonesia and was the catalyst for democratic consolidation in Thailand. It has imposed demanding tests on all seven economic and political systems. It has fractured elite and popular expectations and fuelled nationalism and populism. For example, according to the World Bank, the financial crisis reduced some three million Thais to poverty-level incomes.

As noted earlier, a number of these states have adopted a distinctive approach to economic development: the ‘developmental’ approach that was pioneered in Japan. Johnson’s pioneering study of Japan (1982) initiated scholarly attention to this pattern. Wade (1990) and Amsden (1989) showed the relevance of this analysis to East Asia and its subsequent evolution has been traced in a number of works (e.g. Evans, 1995; Weiss and Hobson, 1995; Aoki et al., 1996; Woo-Cumings, 1999; Weiss, 1998). The modes, instruments and to a lesser extent rhetorics of state-led development have been documented and operationalised in numerous specialised, secondary and derivative texts. At an official level, these approaches were picked up and elaborated in two World Bank studies: ‘The Asian Miracle’ (1993) and the World Development Report (1997). This latter document marked official acknowledgement that the scope and quality of governance is an essential ingredient of developmental strategies. However, the particular governance capacities that have since been nominated focus primarily on the support of markets, not on those that might give the state a leadership or catalytic role in economic governance (e.g. Doner and Ramsay, 2003).

A complementary stream of literature has focused on the technological capacities and approaches of regional states (e.g. Matthews and Cho, 2000; Kim and Nelson, 2000; Keller and Samuels, 2003). This literature explores the ways regional states have built strong positions in advanced areas of manufacturing such as electronics. Matthews has coined the term ‘fast followership’ to characterise their approach. More recently, the development of science-based industries has introduced new imperatives. This is because of the relatively much greater returns accruing to intellectual property over wages and salaries (West, 2001, see page). The engagement of local firms is essential to success in these emerging sectors. In a discussion of economic strategy in Taiwan, Amsden and Chu (2003) have introduced another description, ‘second mover advantage’, and explored the associated requirements, including the development of local scale and the associated ‘catalytic’ or ‘enabling’ role of the state.

The situation is different, but no less challenging, in Southeast Asia. Here FDI has hitherto been a primary mode of technical transfer. MNCs have been seen as catalysts in the development of local capabilities, with varying results (e.g. Jomo and Felker, 1999). The switch of FDI to China and the continuing impacts of ITC (information technology, communications) technologies on global production systems, amongst other factors, also transfigure the environment for economic governance in the Southeast Asian states (e.g. Doner and Ramsay, 2003).

Japan’s developmental state theory and rhetoric has been particularly influential in Korea and Taiwan and, albeit to a much lesser extent, in Malaysia and Indonesia (Kim et al., 1995). State leadership capacity has been institutionalised in such elements as a strategic planning agency (Economic Planning Board – Korea; Council for Economic Planning and Development – Taiwan; Economic Development Board – Singapore), an autonomous bureaucracy and close business–government relations. Over the course of the 1990s, the role of the state, at least in East Asia, evolved from directive towards catalytic patterns based on more collaborative relationships with business. This was associated with a change of policy instruments (e.g. from allocated capital to ‘Science Parks’). In parallel, the focus of activity has moved from specific structural outcomes to technology and cluster development (e.g. Weiss and Thurborn, 2003).

In practice, the ‘developmental state’ analysis particularly fitted Taiwan, Singapore and Korea. Malaysia, and Indonesia for a few years in the mid-1990s, might be considered intermediate cases. Thailand and the Philippines have not sought to guide industry development. Further, Taiwan and Korea mobilised indigenous capital and based their economic development on indigenous firms. The other states used FDI as the engine of development, augmented in the case of Malaysia and Indonesia by local ‘platform’ projects. Most recently, in the case of Singapore, so-called GLCs (government linked companies) have also been used to spearhead development. ‘Developmentalism’ has, however, everywhere provided much of the rhetoric used by elites to mobilise public support.

In comparison with other developing regions, the states covered in this survey have displayed unusual levels of state capacity in social as well as economic areas: for example, levels of educational attainment and participation. Participation in tertiary education in the relevant age cohort in South Korea increased from 9 per cent in 1970 to 69 per cent in 1997. In Singapore, the equivalent result was from 5 per cent to 42 per cent; in Thailand from 2 per cent to 21 per cent; and in the Philippines from 18 per cent to 30 per cent (The Economist, Survey of Technology and Development, 10 November 2001, see page). Relative income equality (‘shared growth’) has been another feature of the economic development of regional states (Campos and Root, 1996). For example, income dispersion in these Asian states is much less than in Latin America (Chu, 2003, see page). ITC capabilities and access also vary widely. South Korea and Singapore have both deliberately sought to build broadband access. South Korea has the highest rate of connection in the world (68 per cent). The International Telecommunications Union has ranked countries according to mobile telecommunications and internet capacities based on such factors as the quality of network infrastructure, network usage etc. South Korea was ranked 7 and Singapore 13. By contrast, Germany ranked 17 and Australia 18.

The developmental state literature has glanced at state capacity for business mobilisation but has not hitherto taken account of capabilities for citizen participation and integration. A social consensus backing economic development was assumed. State authority sufficient to achieve policy objectives was taken for granted. Political and ‘technocratic’ authority was thus aligned. These assumptions were overturned by developments in the late 1980s and 1990s. Over this period, political systems in regional states have been transfigured. At the start of the 1990s, no election of a president had yet occurred in Taiwan, Korea or Indonesia, indeed in the latter case democratic development looked particularly improbable. Meanwhile, Thailand and the Philippines had only recently, and in the former case precariously, returned to democratic rule. Malaysia and Singapore had nominal democratic regimes although both were constrained by their ethnic legacies. By the end of the decade the reversals were remarkable. Democratic regimes were installed in four states and Indonesia had embarked on a democratic experiment. Transitions of presidential and prime ministerial power had occurred in nearly all countries relatively peacefully and smoothly.

Have economic and political changes involved progressively greater conformity to patterns o...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Representation
• Part II Governance
• Part III Regionalism
• Part IV Conclusion