The Political Economy of Southeast Asia

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Frontmatter

2. Southeast Asia’s Political Economy: Theory and Historical Evolution

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Chapter 1. Theorising Political Economy in Southeast Asia

      Shahar Hameiri, Lee Jones

      Abstract

      This chapter discusses contending theoretical approaches to political economy relevant to the study of Southeast Asia and outlines the approach taken in the rest of this book. After introducing the basic notion of “political economy”, we outline three contending approaches used to understand it: Weberianism, historical institutionalism, and the Murdoch School.

   3. Chapter 2. The Political Economy of Southeast Asia’s Development from Independence to Hyperglobalisation

      Toby Carroll

      Abstract

      This chapter details evolving state development strategies in Southeast Asia, from post-colonial developmentalist agendas to the embrace of neoliberalism. The politico-business complexes established under import-substituting and export-oriented industrialisation have often been able to consolidate their positions within the context of globalisation and neoliberalism, leveraging new patterns of growth and investment and mediating neoliberal reform, while organised labour and the left have seen their power further eroded. Nonetheless, despite much hubris regarding “industrialisation” and growth, recent developments underscore the highly contingent position of Southeast Asian countries within the global political economy. Many countries in the region remain mired in low-value added economic activity (having failed to move up value chains) and “middle income traps”, and exhibit increasing inequality.

3. Economic Development and Governance

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Chapter 3. Explaining Political Regimes in Southeast Asia: A Modes of Participation Framework

      Garry Rodan, Jacqui Baker

      Abstract

      This chapter explains why, despite some major regime transformations including democratisation, Southeast Asian polities continue to be dominated by oligarchies and place severe limits on political participation and contestation. Using a “Modes of Participation” framework, which builds on the Murdoch School, it draws attention to the legacies of Cold War authoritarianism and state-led development in creating profoundly unequal social power relations, which are institutionalised in ways that shape and limit socio-political contestation. Nonetheless, capitalism’s dynamic, conflictual nature ensures that Southeast Asia’s oligarchs continually face challenges of political management, often manifesting as struggles over political institutions. The framework explains the outcome of these struggles, illustrated with two brief case studies from Singapore and Indonesia.

   3. Chapter 4. Transitions from State “Socialism” in Southeast Asia

      Caroline Hughes

      Abstract

      This chapter explains the way Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam underwent transitions from state socialism following the Cold War, and why this has involved only very limited economic and political liberalisation. It shows that the privatisation of public land, natural resources and state-owned enterprises and the opening of closed economies to foreign investment provided opportunities for elite coalitions of state, business and military actors to sustain authoritarian regimes. Thanks to Cold War legacies and ongoing authoritarian repression, civil society has proved unable to effectively contest this. Where protests have occurred, they have been relatively feeble, with slogans recalling the nationalist rhetoric of the past. However, widening inequality, ongoing disruptive infrastructure schemes, and a burgeoning young population are long-term trends that portend future legitimacy struggles.

   4. Chapter 5. The Post-war Rise and Decline of the Left

      Nathan Gilbert Quimpo

      Abstract

      This chapter explains why leftist movements and parties, which were major actors in Southeast Asian politics before, during and immediately after World War II, subsequently faded and have not significantly recovered. It argues that most of these groups, except in Vietnam and Laos, followed Maoist tenets, which proved unsuitable to their countries’ conditions, while authoritarian repression and developmentalism further undercut their appeal. Leftists’ inflexibility precluded a successful shift from armed struggle to electoral politics, leaving them mostly marginalised in new democratic dispensations. The few social democratic and non-party formations are constrained by oligarchic domination of political life, entrenched patronage and corruption, and political institutions that limit effective political contestation.

   5. Chapter 6. Populism in Southeast Asia: A Vehicle for Reform or a Tool for Despots?

      Richard Robison, Vedi R. Hadiz

      Abstract

      This chapter explains the rise of populist politics and why it takes different forms in Southeast Asia – specifically in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. We see populism as an integral part of larger conflicts over power and wealth that accompany the advance of global capitalism. The failure of governments and elites to deal with structural crises confronting their societies provides the circumstances in which populism can emerge. Populist movements are shaped by different forces and interests operating within cross-class alliances in particular contexts. This explains why populism can sometimes be a vehicle for long-supressed popular demands for the redistribution of wealth and social justice and, elsewhere, effectively protect the interests of established oligarchies by diverting such demands into a politics of identity and culture.

   6. Chapter 7. The Internationalisation of Capital and the Transformation of Statehood in Southeast Asia

      Faris Al-Fadhat

      Abstract

      This chapter examines the transformation of social classes and state forms in Southeast Asia. It charts in particular the emergence of a fraction of the bourgeoisie with a strong international orientation, denoted partly in the forms of cross-border corporate mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. Combined with broader shifts in the global political economy, this has generated pressures to transform Southeast Asian states, shifting them from a national-developmentalist orientation towards “regulatory statehood” with important transnationalised elements. This restructuring of the state enables its active role in facilitating the global expansion of capital through various regulations and negotiations. Accordingly, the political dominance of transnationalised capital is being organised in and through the internationalisation of the state.

   7. Chapter 8. Southeast Asian Regional Governance: Political Economy, Regulatory Regionalism and ASEAN Integration

      Lee Jones, Shahar Hameiri

      Abstract

      This chapter explains the emergence of regulatory regionalism in Southeast Asia. Departing from traditional treatments of regionalism as limited by the reluctance of states to cede sovereignty to supranational bodies, it argues that new forms of regional governance are being enabled by the emergence of regulatory statehood. Authority and decision-making are increasingly being relocated to regional spaces of governance, and domestic institutions are being reworked to impose international disciplines on domestic societies. However, this process is always contested by forces rooted in evolving political economy contexts, shaping the form, content and efficacy of regional governance. This is demonstrated with reference to the ASEAN Economic Community and other examples of economic governance.

4. Capital, State and Society

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Chapter 9. The Gendered Political Economy of Southeast Asian Development

      Juanita Elias

      Abstract

      This chapter considers what it means to focus on gender in analysing the political economy of Southeast Asian development. Drawing on examples from across the region, it uncovers the role that women in Southeast Asia play in both economic production and social reproduction. It shows that development planning is rooted in assumptions about the availability of a reserve army of low-cost female labour, with implications of widening gender pay gaps and inequalities. State planning has also been starkly non- or even anti-welfarist, placing burdens on female family members to undertake the work of care, which are exacerbated during times of economic downturn and crisis. Gender inequality has therefore played a central role in Southeast Asia’s development.

   3. Chapter 10. Labour Migration in Southeast Asia: The Political Economy of Poor and Uneven Governance

      Kelly Gerard, Charanpal S. Bal

      Abstract

      This chapter presents a political economy of labour migration in Southeast Asia. It delineates the importance of low-wage and high-wage labour migration to national development and individual livelihoods, then shows that its governance is predominantly shaped by the interests of employers and associated politico-bureaucratic interests, which typically overpower the struggles of migrant workers and their civil society allies. This produces a system geared around official development goals, the management of movement and the deployment of workers, rather than the promotion of workers’ rights and welfare, leaving low-wage migrants open to systematic abuse. High-wage migration regimes also support specific state projects and agendas, generating a highly uneven process of regional “liberalisation” for the ASEAN Economic Community.

   4. Chapter 11. Poor People’s Politics in Urban Southeast Asia

      Jane Hutchison, Ian D. Wilson

      Abstract

      This chapter explains the form, content and operation of poor people’s politics in Southeast Asia. Because their basic needs are barely met within prevailing social structures, the poor must act constantly to shore up the resource strategies and social relations they depend on to survive. Their politics reflects this: it rarely challenges prevailing power relations and is more often concerned to make immediate gains—until threats and or opportunities are such that they act more disruptively to challenge the status quo. These features and dimensions of poor people’s politics are illustrated in two case studies of informal settlers’ responses to their forced evictions, in Jakarta and Metro Manila.

   5. Chapter 12. The Changing Aid Landscape and the Political Economy of Development in Southeast Asia

      Andrew Rosser

      Abstract

      Recent changes in the aid landscape in Southeast Asia—particularly China’s growing role as a donor—have empowered predatory, populist and authoritarian elites by allowing them to reduce aid from traditional donors in favour of aid with fewer policy or institution-related conditions attached or that otherwise better fits with their political priorities. This undermines traditional donors’ efforts to promote neoliberal and liberal-democratic reform. However, this shift is not as dramatic as some contend. Concern about the impact of Chinese lending on government debt levels induces caution among many Southeast Asian governments, and China has backed some liberal policy and institutional reform initiatives, meaning that its agenda is not always at odds with those of traditional donors.

5. Capital, State and Nature

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Chapter 13. The Political Economy of Southeast Asia’s Extractive Industries: Governance, Power Struggles and Development Outcomes

      Pascale Hatcher

      Abstract

      Building on insights from the Murdoch School, this chapter provides an analysis of the political economy of extractive industries in Southeast Asia, emphasising how multi-scalar politics have shaped specific modes of governance in the sector, and in turn, regional development outcomes. It provides an overview of the region’s extractive industries’ production, exploring how domestic and international power struggles have influenced modes of governance in the sector and the socio-environmental ramifications of this. It also analyses the emerging contestation of the neoliberal norms forged by pro-extractive industry interests.

   3. Chapter 14. The Political Economy of Land and Agrarian Relations in Southeast Asia

      Philip Hirsch

      Abstract

      This chapter discusses how agrarian relations within particular national contexts have been shaped by Southeast Asia’s wider, post-colonial political economy. Class relations and conflicts surrounding agriculture have fundamentally changed in this region over the past 50 years, through a shift from a peasant rural economy to a neoliberal era defined by globalisation, marketisation, livelihood diversification, and precarity, including growing exclusions and enclosures that alienate people from their land. Capitalist development has led to dramatic changes in land access and usage, with the rise of large agribusiness plantations, the construction of hydropower dams, forestry and mining all displacing smallholders from their land. This has bred growing resentment, as well as collective and individual resistance to various forms of dispossession and quieter micro-processes of exclusion. In some cases, rural grievances have helped to fuel the rise of populism.

   4. Chapter 15. The Political Economy of Environmental Degradation and Climate Disaster in Southeast Asia

      Paul K. Gellert

      Abstract

      Forwarding an ecological dimension to the Murdoch school of political economy, this chapter examines environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change as inseparable parts of the political economy of Southeast Asian development. The chapter first reviews regional environmental indicators of biodiversity loss, air pollution, water degradation, deforestation, and climate change. It then explains this degradation as an intrinsic part of capitalist development in the region, driven by manufacturing, urbanisation, pollution, and increased resource-based production and exports. Finally, the chapter examines several examples of environmental governance efforts that have failed because they do not address the underlying mode of accumulation and fundamental social conflicts. The status quo direction of the region, the chapter concludes, is disastrous ecologically and socially.

6. Backmatter