A Review of Democratisation, Governance and Regionalism in East and Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study

Ian Marsh, Professor at the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney, Australia and an expert in this field, has coherently put together 10 well-written chapters by renowned contributors. This book not only offers comparative perspectives on the development of democracy in different seven states in this region, but it also examines the development of regional ties and discusses the ‘Asian values' debate. This is not just a textbook to learn more about the political systems in East and Southeast Asian region, but a major contribution of this book is detailed and in-depth empirical assessments of political cultures, political systems, bureaucratic, policy, and administrative capacities, regional integration, concept of ‘Asian values', and impact of globalisation on the role of state in these seven fascinating countries from the perspective of contemporary comparative politics.

As its three major themes are democratisation, governance, and region, this book is thus divided into three sections: representation, governance, and regionalism.

Following the introduction by the editor, in the first section on representation, Richard Sinnott interestingly examines regional political cultures in the second chapter. Drawn on the Asia-Europe Survey (ASES) conducted in 2000, he presents these countries in two sides of the spectrums: on one hand, the countries that he describes as passive, deferential, acquiescent, and lacking in political mobilisation (for example, low levels of political efficacy, high levels of political deference, low level of political knowledge and a widespread belief that notion of left and right are unimportant with a weak national identity, etc.), these countries include for example Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia; but South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines belong to the other end of the spectrum, which are opinionated, malcontents with multiple group ties, and have higher than average propensity to engage in political action. However, Thailand is the middle case, where her citizens rank quite high in terms of identity variables and they are low on deference and low on aspects of institutional confidence, but they score low on political action variables thus indicating a lack of political mobilisation.

The third chapter, by Jean Blondel, evaluates the role and form of political parties. He divides the seven states into two broad groups: the first group is the five polities which have become fully ‘liberal-democratic', South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, the other includes Malaysia and Singapore, the two polities which, in the early years of the twenty-first century, were at most partially democratic and should be referred to as ‘semi-pluralistic'. He observes, for example, the absence of national social cleavages in South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand, which means that although these countries had become a liberal-democratic system, the parties in these three countries did not become mass parties. Rather, most of these parties are the property of their leaders who often create them. Moreover, the parties in the three countries cannot be said to have consistent policies.

In the second section on governance, Chapter 4 also by Jean Blondel, explores the background of political elites covering both leaders and ministers. He observes that military participation in the government is declining and that the influence of the military is also declining as a result; however the changes are also partial and rather slow. However, it is important to note here that the chapter is written before the recent military coup d'etat in Thailand in September 2006, thus this point has not been taken into account by the author.

Martin Painter in Chapter 5 examines and assesses the impact of democratisation on bureaucratic capacity in these seven states. In terms of policy and administrative capacity, Martin Painter shows that there is the bureaucratic incapacity in five states due to internal failings, uncertainties arising from the political context, or some combination of these factors, with two exceptions of Malaysia and Singapore.

Ian Marsh, in Chapter 6 explores the distinctive character of economic governance in these seven states in the globalising world, by dividing these seven states into two broad approaches, namely a developmental approach of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, and a FDI-driven approach of Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, which is considered to be a second-best approach. In this chapter, he also raises a number of interesting points concerning the level of regional integration in the region and current political and economic situation of these states in adjusting to the globalising world.

In the section on regionalism, Chapter 7 by John Ravenhill surveys effort to build stronger regional political linkages, particularly through multilateral and bilateral trade agreements. He explores regionalism through the states capacity perspective, which shows that two main regional integration projects in the region, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have only modest contribution in strengthening the capacity of weaker states to trade liberalisation.

Takashi Inoguchi in Chapter 8, while raising question whether Japan has ceased to be a template for East and Southeast Asian region, he explores the changing form of Japanese influence amongst regional states.

Chapter 9 by Jean Blondel focuses on the concept of ‘Asian values', particularly accessing the extent to which the citizens shared standpoints, typically described as constituting ‘Asian values'. He argues that typical ‘Asian values' are usually seen as relating to norms of a ‘communitarian' character, as opposed to the ‘individualistic' value of the Westerners. He also interestingly relates ‘Asian values' to the concept of human rights, communitarian values, socio-economic values.

Finally, the concluding chapter by the editor summarises the findings of the study and identifies specific issue that merit further analysis. He focuses on the concept of state capacity and adds some interesting points on the role of media, social movements, and NGOs in the region. He argues, for example, that there is still an absence of basic socialisation in East and Southeast Asian states.

It can be observed that variation in pattern, characters and process of democratic governance in different seven states is a key of this book. The empirical assessments in this book help us clearly understand what these seven states share or differ in the adoption of democratic forms of governance and to what extent the ‘Asian values' exists. Moreover, it seems to give an emphasis that the dynamic development of democracy in East and Southeast Asia is different from that hitherto encountered in Western experience. This book shows in what ways these seven states' experience in developing and building democracy, governance, and regionalism differ from the Western models. For example, in terms of political representation, Jean Blondel in Chapter 2 points out that top-down democratisation is the superficially familiar formal structure in East and Southeast Asia, unlike the bottom-up structure in Western experience. This book also reflects that the process of building democracy, governance, and regionalism in this region is still in transition, and perhaps still ‘young' from the Western standards, and that the ‘Asian way' is profoundly different from that of the West.

Students of International Political Economy (IPE) might particularly find a number of chapters from Ian Marsh fascinating to read, as well as students of Political Sciences, comparative politics, Asian studies and other fields might find some empirical chapters very interesting and thought-provoking for further research.

Democratisation, Governance and Regionalism is East and Southeast Asia would make a fine text book not only for students in politics, IPE, Asian studies, etc., but also for anyone who is interested in having a better understanding on the democratic development in East and Southeast Asian region.

Dr. Ajaree Tavornmas
Royal Thai Embassy/ Mission of Thailand to the European Communities,
Brussels, BELGIUM
a.tavornmas@gmail.com