Table Of ContentROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
SOUTHEAST ASIAN POLITICS
This Handbook provides a comprehensive analysis of the major themes that have defined the
politics of Southeast Asia. It offers a comprehensive and cutting-edge examination of this
important subject. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the theoretical and ideo-
logical themes that have dominated the study of the region’s politics and presents the different
ways the complex politics of the region have been understood. The contributions by leading
scholars in the field cover a range of broad questions about the dynamics of politics.
The Handbook analyses how the dominant political and social coalitions of the region were
forged in the Cold War era, and assesses the complex processes of transition towards various
forms of democratic politics. It discusses how institutions and systems of governance are being
forged in an increasingly global environment and whether civil society in Southeast Asia has
reallyevolvedasanindependentsphereofsocialandpoliticalactivity.TheHandbookexamines
how national governments are dealing with growing tensions within the region as matters such
as labour, human rights and the environment spill beyond national boundaries, and how they
are establishing a place in the new global framework.
By engaging the Southeast Asian experience more firmly with larger debates about modern
political systems, the Handbook is an essential reference tool for students and scholars of
Political Science and Southeast Asian studies.
Richard Robison is Emeritus Professor at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University,
Australia. Hisresearch is concerned withthe political economy and the politics ofmarkets with
aspecialfocusonIndonesia.HeistheauthorandeditorofmanypublicationsonSoutheastand
East Asian Politics, including Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of
Markets (co-authored with Vedi Hadiz, 2004), also published by Routledge.
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
SOUTHEAST ASIAN POLITICS
Edited by Richard Robison
Firstpublished2012
byRoutledge
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CONTENTS
List of tables viii
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
Richard Robison
1 Interpreting the politics of Southeast Asia: debates in parallel universes 5
Richard Robison
SECTIONI
The changing landscape of power 23
2 Southeast Asia: The Left and the rise of bourgeois opposition 25
Kevin Hewison and Garry Rodan
3 Labour politics in Southeast Asia: the Philippines in comparative
perspective 40
Jane Hutchison
4 Oligarchs and oligarchy in Southeast Asia 53
Jeffrey A. Winters
SECTIONII
States and regimes 69
5 Democracy and money politics: the case of Indonesia 71
Vedi R. Hadiz
6 Populist challenge to the establishment: Thaksin Shinawatra and the
transformation of Thai politics 83
Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker
v
Contents
7 Patronage-based parties and the democratic deficit in the Philippines:
origins, evolution, and the imperatives of reform 97
Paul D. Hutchcroft and Joel Rocamora
8 Consultative authoritarianism and regime change analysis: implications
of the Singapore case 120
Garry Rodan
9 Vietnam: the ruling Communist Party and the incubation of
‘new’ political forces 135
Martin Gainsborough
SECTIONIII
Markets and governance 149
10 Politics, institutions and performance: explaining growth
variation in East Asia 151
Richard Doner
11 Donors, neo-liberalism and country ownership in Southeast Asia 174
Andrew Rosser
12 The judicialization of market regulation in Southeast Asia 186
John Gillespie
13 Global capitalism, the middle class and the shape of the new
mega cities of the region 199
Chua Beng Huat
SECTIONIV
Civil society and participation 211
14 The limits of civil society: social movements and political parties in
Southeast Asia 213
Edward Aspinall and Meredith L. Weiss
15 Decentralization and democracy in Indonesia: strengthening
citizenship or regional elites? 229
Henk Schulte Nordholt
16 The post-authoritarian politics of agrarian and forest reform
in Indonesia 242
John McCarthy and Moira Moeliono
vi
Contents
SECTIONV
Violence and state authority 261
17 Tackling the legacies of violence and conflict: liberal institutions and
contentious politics in Cambodia and East Timor 263
Caroline Hughes
18 Testing the boundaries of the state: gangs, militias, vigilantes and violent
entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia 288
Ian Wilson
SECTIONVI
The region and the world 303
19 Contested borders, contested boundaries: the politics of labour
migration in Southeast Asia 305
Michele Ford
20 Trade policy in Southeast Asia: politics, domestic interests and the forging
of new accommodations in the regional and global economy 315
Helen E.S. Nesadurai
21 Southeast Asian perceptions of American power 330
Natasha Hamilton-Hart
22 State power, social conflicts and security policy in Southeast Asia 346
Lee Jones
Index 361
vii
LIST OF TABLES
8.1 Single and multiple categorisation of NMPs by sector 128
9.1 Trends in public sector employment, 1995–2008 144
10.1 Income groups: East Asia 153
10.2 East Asian export of goods and services as percentage of GDP 153
viii
CONTRIBUTORS
Editor
Richard Robison is Emeritus Professor at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University,
Australia.Hisresearchisconcernedwiththepoliticaleconomyandthepoliticsofmarketswitha
special focus on Indonesia. He is the author and editor of many publications on Southeast and
East Asian politics, including Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of
Markets (co-authored with Vedi R. Hadiz, 2004), also published by Routledge.
Editorial Board
Richard Doner, Emory University, USA
Jeffrey A. Winters, Northwestern University, USA
Kevin Hewison, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Chua Beng Huat, National University of Singapore
Pasuk Phongpaichit, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Vedi R. Hadiz, Murdoch University, Australia
Edward Aspinall, Australian National University
John Sidel, London School of Economics, UK
Meredith L. Weiss, University of Albany, USA
Contributors
EdwardAspinallisaSeniorFellowintheDepartmentofPoliticalandSocialChange,College
ofAsiaandthePacific,AustralianNationalUniversity,Canberra.HisresearchfocusesonIndonesian
politics and on issues of democratization, nationalism and ethnic politics. His publications
include Islam and Nation: Separatist Rebellion in Aceh, Indonesia (Stanford University Press, 2009).
Chris Baker is an independent scholar and long resident in Thailand, who writes on Thai
history and politics. Together with Pasuk Phongpaichit he has written A History of Thailand
(Cambridge University Press, 2005) and Thaksin (Silkworm Books, second expanded edition
2009),andrecentlypublishedatranslationoftheThaiepic,TheTaleofKhunChangKhunPhaen
(Silkworm Books, 2010).
Chua Beng Huat is Provost Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, National Uni-
versity of Singapore. His recent research is on Singapore politics and on the regionalization of
ix
Contributors
pop culture in East Asia. He is a founding co-executive editor of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies
journal. His publications include, as editor, Elections as Popular Culture in Asia (Routledge,
2007).
Richard Doner is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Emory University in
Atlanta, Georgia, USA. His research is on the political economy of economic development in
Southeast Asia, with special emphasis on the roles and origins of institutions. His publications
include The Politics of Uneven Development: Thailand’s Economic Growth in Comparative Perspective
(Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Michele Ford is Associate Professor in the Department of Indonesian Studies at the Uni-
versityofSydney,Australia.HerresearchinterestsfocusonsocialactivisminSoutheastAsiaand
the Indonesia–Singapore borderlands. Michele’s publications include Workers and Intellectuals:
NGOs, Unions and the Indonesian Labour Movement (NUS/Hawaii/KITLV 2009).
Martin Gainsborough is Reader in Development Politics in the School of Sociology,
Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. His
research is on the politics of development, with an area specialism on Southeast Asia, and
expertise on state theory, governance and corruption. His publications include Vietnam:
Rethinking the State (Zed Books, 2010).
John Gillespie is Professor of Law and Director of the Asia Pacific Business Regulation
Group, Department of Business Law and Taxation, Monash University. His current research
focuses on non-state regulation of land and markets as well as law and development in socialist
EastAsia.HismostrecentbookisLawandDevelopmentandtheGlobalDiscoursesofLegalTransfers
(with Pip Nicholson, eds, Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Vedi R. Hadiz is Professor of Asian Societies and Politics at the Asia Research Centre,
Murdoch University and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. He is currently
researching the political economy of Islamic populism. His most recent book is Localising Power
in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia: A Southeast Asia Perspective (Stanford University Press, 2010).
Natasha Hamilton-Hart is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland Business
School. Her research is in the fields of political economy and international relations, with a
particularfocusonSoutheastAsia.SheistheauthorofHardInterests,SoftIllusions:SoutheastAsia
and American Power, forthcoming with Cornell University Press.
Kevin Hewison is Professor in the Department of Asian Studies and Director of the Car-
olinaAsiaCenter attheUniversityofNorthCarolinaatChapelHill.Hiscurrentresearch ison
precarious work in Asia andthe political economy of Thailand. He isco-editor of the Journal of
Contemporary Asia.
Caroline Hughes is Director of the Asia Research Centre and Associate Professor of
Governance Studies in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Murdoch University.
Her research interests focus ontwo related questions: the politics of post-colonial state-building
in Southeast Asia; and the politics of post-conflict reconstruction and international aid policy.
Her publications include Dependent Communities: Aid and Politics in Cambodia and East Timor
(Cornell SEAP, 2009).
x
