The Localization of Power in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The article analyzes the localization of power in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia after 1998, when the institutional frameworks of the authoritarian New Order of Soeharto quickly unravelled and new ones were rapidly constructed, associated both with electoral democracy and decentralization policy. Comparisons are made in the process with the trajectories of the Philippines and Thailand, two other major post-authoritarian societies in Southeast Asia (though the label can only problematically be applied to Thailand after the coup of September 2006), which have undergone democratization and varying degrees of decentralization. It is argued that the collective experience of these Southeast Asian societies displays some of the more tangible limits to technocratic power. In Indonesia, there are two sets of interests being marginalized under decentralized electoral democracy: class-based interests in opposition to the brand of predatory capitalism that has survived the demise of the New Order; and foreign and domestic supporters of decentralization as ‘good governance’ that threaten local coalitions of predatory power deploying money politics and developing greater economic and political aspirations and ambitions. While the rise of electoral democracy has meant broader political participation, political contestation remains confined to competing coalitions of local predatory interests.