Public Support for Democratic Governance in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The transition and consolidation of democracy in Southeast Asia has proven fragile and tenuous some 30 years after the current wave of democratization began. A critical ingredient in the process of democratization is the role of public opinion and the extent that the public supports the democratic ‘rules of the game’. This study uses 2006 and 2007 public opinion data from the AsiaBarometer Survey of six Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore) to examine popular perceptions of democracy and democratic principles and practices. Specifically, it seeks to shed light on the following interrelated questions: Do democratic institutions in Southeast Asia work well in the short and long term? To what extent are citizens in these countries satisfied with various political and civil freedoms? Do citizens trust specific institutions to operate in the best interests of their society? Does the current political system and government perform well?     

Money-laundering in Southeast Asia: liberalism and governmentality at work

This article discusses the diffusion of a regulatory system against money-laundering in Southeast Asia. To this end, the article reconstructs how the Financial Action Task Force has securitised the issue of money-laundering into a global problem requiring a global solution and how this has spread to developing nations. The article seeks to demonstrate how these international norms and practices spread and are transformed into national law within Southeast Asia. The article further shows that these transformations reflect an increasing level of multilateral cooperation within the region and that this phenomena can be better understood as the articulation of a global expression of governmentality where a set of strategies and policing techniques emerges to effect control.     

Public support for democracy in hong kong

Hong Kong witnessed a large-scale public rally and extensive support for democracy in mid-2003. This article explains the support by means of variables extracted from cultural, instrumental and sociological approaches. Drawn from the cultural approach, ‘post-materialistic activism’ and low levels of ‘respect for authority’ are found to be most powerful in explaining mass support, among all explanatory variables. Since culture seldom changes overnight, popular support for democracy may be sustained in the short and medium term. The calculation of the economic consequences for democracy, a variable drawn from the instrumental approach, has no effect on mass support. Thus, any attempt to suppress popular demand for democracy by offering economic sweeteners alone may prove futile. The most important instrumental factor among the public is ‘their confidence in political parties’. Whether pan-democratic parties can elevate such confidence becomes pivotal to boosting and sustaining this support. The lack of relatively stronger support among the younger and more educated stratum of people in Hong Kong does not bode well for prospects of increased mass support in the future. Finally, the article offers a small footnote on the implications for the ‘Asian values’ debate.     

东南亚华人身份定位与华商经营环境

第二次世界大战后东南亚国家的华族逐渐取得了当地公民权,但1998年5月的印尼种族骚乱又使人们怀疑起他们的身份定位问题。     

朝贡贸易制度论

朝贡贸易是存在于古代中国——东亚和东南亚的一种地区合作制度,贸易成为相互联系的手段,目的是维系地区关系的和谐与秩序。它是中国传统文化的—个重要组成部分和外化,是中国古代外交思想的体现。它在有效运作的同时,也存在着因为制度缺陷而引发的矛盾和冲突。本文从历史学与国际关系学相结合的角度,客观评价了朝贡贸易制度的积极作用和不足之处。     

论东南亚贸易自由化与经济增长

战后,东南亚国家的贸易政策大致经历了三个阶段。80年代末90年代初开始,各国加快了贸易自由化的步伐。各国大幅降低关税水平,减少非关税壁垒,使之关税水平和结构呈现新的变化。东南亚国家贸易自由化推动了进出口贸易规模的扩大,提升了货物与服务的世界市场占有率,促进了产业部门尤其是制造业的出口贸易、劳动生产率和最终收入的增长,从而成为国内经济增长的引擎。在世界性和区域性贸易自由化加速发展的背景下,东南亚国家贸易自由化的进程将有所加快。     

Civil society

The idea of civil society has proved very elusive, escaping conceptual grasps and evading sure-footed negotiation of the concept itself. Resurrected in a very definite historical setting, that of authoritarian states, the concept of civil society came to signify a set of social and political practices that sought to engage with state power. The close connection with the re-emergence of the concept and the collapse of dictatorial states made civil society attractive to a variety of political agents pursuing different agendas: expanding the market at the expense of the state, transiting from mass politics to single-issue and localised campaigns, undermining confidence in accepted modes of representation such as political parties, and in general shrinking the domain of the state and that of accepted modes of politics. That the concept of civil society could suit such a variety of different political projects is cause for some alarm, for it might well mean that civil society has come to mean everything to everyone remotely interested in it.     

中亚安全形势的变化及其影响

2014年以来,中亚安全形势发生了较大的变化。塔利班频频越境袭扰,"伊斯兰国"不断向中亚渗透,加之跨境贩毒的有增无减使得中亚面临的安全压力不断增加。中亚安全形势变化的背后有着较为复杂的原因,其中既有美国对中东和阿富汗政策调整的因素,也有中亚国家自身政治经济军事体制转型过程中诸多问题的反应,此外还与中亚地区复杂的历史和民族问题有关。中亚安全形势的变化不仅迟滞了中亚国家的社会政治转型进程,还对参与该地区博弈的俄美欧等大国,尤其是对俄罗斯产生了重要的影响,对中国西北边疆的安全及即将实施的"丝绸之路经济带"战略也带来了较大的挑战。虽然目前中亚安全形势总体上仍在可控范围,但是中亚安全问题解决的前景仍然充满了不确定性,中短期内中亚的安全形势难以大幅改观。未来,我们必须要从多边、双边和个人等多个层面入手,加强国际合作,以有效应对中亚安全问题对中国的威胁。     

Russian Energy and the Korean Peninsula

The recent agreements concerning North Korea’s nuclear program raise possibilities for providing North Korea with energy (oil and gas) to compensate for the termination of its nuclear program and of integrating it more broadly into the Northeast Asian economy. Russia has long wanted to play the role of provider of oil and gas to North Korea and these agreements open up new opportunities for it to do so. However, serious obstacles in the nature of North Korea’s precarious economic situation and its consequences, international rivalries in Northeast Asia, and Russia’s own energy policies present serious obstacles to the realization of Russia’s ambitions as regards North Korea and as energy provider to Northeast Asia as a whole.     

ASEAN and evolving power relations in East Asia: strategies and constraints

This article seeks to examine constraints and challenges that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states are confronted with in formulating and implementing their strategies in response to evolving regional environments represented by the rise of China. It argues that China's southern neighbours have adopted purposeful strategies in order to mitigate potentially negative effects from China's growing capabilities in East Asia. These strategies led to the expansion of membership in the East Asia Summit (EAS) and positive involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, encouraging America's substantial commitments to the Asia-Pacific. However, ASEAN has failed to form the unified front on the EAS and TPP because its members have adopted diverse stances on and policies towards the two institutions. Moreover, an identity issue constitutes a crucial impediment to promoting cooperation between ASEAN members and the USA. While Washington has intensified diplomatic linkages with ASEAN, the US identity shown in its adherence to the results-oriented approach still provokes some concerns among the ASEAN members.