The Dual Narrative of “Good Governance”: Lessons for Understanding Political and Cultural Change in Malaysia and Singapore

Abstract

The narrative of good governance has become particularly relevant in understanding political and cultural change in Malaysia and Singapore. This study shows that the narrative of good governance is a double-edged sword -- that is, it can be used in rather contradictory ways. In the case of Malaysia, good governance assumes the role of a reformist discourse adopted by opposition forces to pressure the ruling regime into introducing liberal democratic reforms. In the case of Singapore, good governance plays the role of a dominant discourse employed by the ruling elite as a defence against liberal democratic reforms. Not only does this seem to suggest that the relationship between democracy and good governance is a complex one, it also puts some of the recent political and cultural developments in both these cases in a new context. Introduction Prior to the Asian financial crisis, scholars were intrigued with the question of whether Southeast Asian societies that had developed the economic requisites for liberal democratic reforms would actually follow through with these political reforms. [1] With the political changes that have swept through Southeast Asia in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, it seems less justifiable now for scholars to label this region as being recalcitrant to liberal democratic reforms. Nevertheless, two cases in this region continue to stand out as puzzles of political development -- Malaysia and Singapore. In the case of the former, while there have been some signs in the past two years of a democratic awakening, it is still too premature to conclude based on these developments that these forces for political change will lead to any sustained liberal democratic reforms. In the case of the latter, the prospects of change towards a more liberal democratic system seem even less so. Malaysia As is well known by now, the Asian financial crisis precipitated a series of fundamental changes to the Malaysian political landscape. This article will focus less on the actual sequence of events and more on the implications of some of the main political developments in this period. [2] The economic excesses and abuses that had accompanied Malaysia's rapid growth in the early 1990s have been well documented by scholars. [3] It was not until the financial crisis of 1997, however, that some of the real costs to Malaysian society of the illicit nexus between political patronage and wealth creation were realized. During the period of accelerated growth in the early 1990s, the middle class was by and large willing to go along with the trade-off between civil and political freedoms and economic goods since the overall economic pie was clearly expanding even though a small minority was benefiting disproportionately. Scholars who were studying this phenomenon at the time had concluded that as long as the middle clas s was still benefiting from the economic policies of the government, they would largely be compliant with the political structure. [4] Yet, when the opposition forces, with the help of the Internet, brought into the full glare of public scrutiny some of the exploitative practices of corruption, collusion, and nepotism at the highest levels of the political and economic elite, the public opposition to the ruling coalition began to grow. [5] Indeed, when the economy showed signs of a slowdown (and even a collapse), the excesses of the government were no longer tolerated as willingly. To make matters worse, in their desperate attempts to contain the economic fallout from the financial crisis, the ruling elite had taken some bold and reckless steps, which included moves perceived by many to be aimed at rescuing some of their closest economic beneficiaries. [6] We will perhaps not know for some time to come all the reasons behind the sudden fall from grace of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's deputy, Anwar Ibrahim. However, it does seem clear that overt attempts by some in the ruling elite to shelter failing beneficiaries from the full thrust of market forces in the wake of the financial crisis largely contributed to the friction between the two leaders, with Anwar commonly believed to have been less willing to acquiesce to the government's financial bail-outs of these cronies. …