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Dr Giovanna Maria Dora Dore Advanced draft not for quotation or distribution

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Authoritarian legacies and democratization in Asia: The case of Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand

Paper to be delivered at the 24th International Political Science Association World Congress of Political Science. Poznan, Poland; July 23-28, 2016

Dr Giovanna Maria Dora Dore Research Scholar, School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins university [email protected]; [email protected]

Abstract

Following the end of WWII, authoritarian leaders or authoritarian regimes ruled many countries

in Asia, enjoying almost absolute control over the party, military, and state apparatuses. In

addition, the creation of a web of informal power networks underlying much of public

policymaking and private business arrangements laid vast claims to personal fiefdoms and family

control over political and economic powers and further protected these leaders’ authority.

Starting in mid 1980, the progressive weakening of several Asian autocracies provided a catalyst

for democratization. Yet, the movement toward democracy remained limited, with only 8 countries

becoming electoral democracies out of more than 60 that became democratic worldwide. Why

has democratization been so difficult in Asia? Limited attention has been paid to the relevance of

authoritarian influences in ushering democratization across Asia and elites’ and citizens' attitudes

towards authoritarian past. These issues could help understand why citizens in new democracies

often embrace both democracy and authoritarianism simultaneously because they might be unsure

of what political system could be more suited to met their needs, or on the levels of trust in

institutions, or Asia’s habitual deference to figures of authority in times of economic and political

instability. Combining original national-level survey data with qualitative analysis, this paper

investigates the impacts of authoritarian legacy on democratization in Indonesia, Myanmar, and

Thailand.


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Introduction Many countries in Asia are not making a decisive move toward democracy. They

remain in a “democratization gray area”, with weak political institutions and limited citizens’ political engagement. Since 1974, 8 countries have become electoral democracies out of more than 60 countries that transitioned to democracy around the world. In 1986, People Power ended President Marcos’ era and brought the Philippines back to electoral democracy after 14 years of martial law. Yet, since then, the Filipino democracy continued to encounter significant obstacles to consolidation caused by both a weak institutional structure and imperfect constitutional governance. For many years, Korea vacillated between parliamentary and military governments until 1987, when it held direct presidential elections and completed its transition to democracy. In 1991, Mongolia transitioned to democracy following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. While there is agreement that Mongolia has done well out of necessity of becoming a democracy almost overnight, the country’s shortcomings in rule or law remain a significant obstacle to further democratic consolidation. Indonesia successfully transitioned to democracy following the fall of Suharto in 1998. Incomplete institutional reforms, corruption and dysfunctional bureaucracy have been common features of the country’s progress toward democratic consolidation. The 1997-1998 East Asia financial crisis drove President Suharto out of power and kick started Indonesia democratic transition. Since then, incomplete institutional reforms, corruption and dysfunctional bureaucracy have been common features of the country’s slow progress toward democratic consolidation. In 2002, Timor Leste became independent and joined the ranks of Asian democracies with much fanfare and yet significant progress towards consolidation is disputed. Finally, even if people in Thailand remain outspoken about the need for democracy to take firm roots in their country, Thailand “stop-and-go” process toward finding a legitimate form of government, with 19 constitutions and 18 coups since 1932, is without precedent in the annals of democracy.

Understanding the reasons why democratization seems so difficult in Asia is not an easy task; the vast body of literature on this subject is, indeed, proof of it. Relatively limited attention has, however, been paid to the relevance elites’ and citizens' attitudes towards their countries authoritarian past.1 Following the end of World War II, in fact, authoritarian leaders and authoritarian regimes ruled the majority of Asia, enjoying almost absolute control over the party, military, and state apparatuses. Authoritarian legacy, however, is an angle that needs to be threaded with caution. Scholars agree that both understanding and, especially, measuring the impacts and relevance of a political legacy is difficult; moreover, few scholars use explicit definitions of what constitute a political ‘legacy’, with some emphasizing the institutional and structural features of it whereas others stressing behavioral patterns. Pop-Eleches’ definition of legacy is the more generally accepted even if it does not address how to disentangle the legacy of the previous authoritarian regimes from historical legacies more generally. Cesarini and Hite argue that ‘the more durable and institutionally innovative the authoritarian regime, the greater the potential influence of authoritarian legacies’2 thus suggesting that investigating the durability and the mode of transition from one regime to another can help understand the relevance of the legacy of authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian institutions and norms are difficult to deconstruct and so, more often than not,

1 Dore Giovanna Maria Dora, Jae H. Ku and Karl D. Jackson. Incomplete Democracies in the Asia-pacific. Evidence from Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 2


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the political institutions built by the authoritarian leadership remain the same long after the ‘strong men’ relinquishes their power. Even repeated free and fair elections cannot completely undo the entrenched bureaucracies solidified by decades of authoritarian rule, and avoid that new democracy inherit an important portion of their political class from the previous authoritarian regime. These realities are deeply woven in the countries social fabric and bound to leave a deep footprint on a new or consolidating democracy, especially when it comes to confidence in the institutions and processes of the new regime, and the loyalties of its political elites.

This paper uses data from the SAIS 2000 and 2011 Surveys, and an original set of public opinion data known as ‘Myanmar 2014: civic knowledge and values in a changing society’, and qualitative accounts from scholars of Asia to investigate the relevance and the possible impacts of authoritarian legacies on democratic transition and consolidation in Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand. The choice of these three countries resulted from their institutional and political trajectories to become democracies. When the first SAIS Survey was launched in 2000, Indonesia and Thailand were democratic countries enduring the stresses created by the 1997–1998 East Asia financial crisis. Thailand appeared to be economically fragile but politically stable as power was transferred peacefully from one political group to another. Indonesia, in contrast, was just entering democratic transition and appeared on the brink of failure from the breakdown of law and order and the possibility of secession of various regions across the Indonesian archipelago. By the time the second SAIS Survey entered the field in 2011, the list of relatively stable democracies in Asia had changed. It included Indonesia but not Thailand as the democratic stature of the country had declined as a result of military and judicial coups that ousted democratically elected governments. Myanmar is the latest East Asian country to make the transition from military-civilian dictatorship to democracy. The military regime was one of the world’s most rigidly authoritarian, and despite the efforts of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democratic opposition movement, Burma remained unfree and under the control of military from 1962 to 2011. In 2008, the military began to shift course: it drafted a new constitution and the began a gradual process of economic and political liberalization. In early 2011, it moved to a pseudo-civilian rule, and to a genuinely democratic government in 2016, following the November 2015 general elections in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won over the ruling military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. This is an encouraging political development for Myanmar even if the democratic prospects for the country are far from being all rosy.

Indonesia Indonesia is one of the most prominent democratization success story in Asia. As a

result of the financial crisis of 1997–1998, President Suharto was driven from power through protests, the collapse of local and international private sector confidence and, most importantly, the decline of support within the Jakarta elites. In the years immediate following Suharto’s fall, success seemed to elude democratic reforms. Fragile governments faced emboldened legislatures, law and order declined during the transfer of responsibility from the army to the police, and ethno-religious conflicts caused significant loss of life across the country. The dismissal of President Habibie in 1999, the impeachment of President Wahid in 2001, and the lackluster administration of President Megawati between 2001 and 2004, however, did not weaken popular and elites’ demands for political change, which allowed for Indonesia to make a successful democratic transition. And yet, the country’s progress toward consolidating democracy might just not be as successful as the transition itself. Since the


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election of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY if not otherwise specify) in 2004, the political system has been showing signs of democratic stagnation and backsliding, with the political elites trying to tighten their grip on key institutions to reduce transparency and the effectiveness of the institutions themselves, parliamentary and party systems being increasingly associated with lack of accountability and discretion, and citizens’ confidence in the strength of democratic consolidation continuing to decrease over time.

This reality has to do with how Indonesia has dealt with the legacy of its authoritarian past, and the resulting trade-off between democratic success and democratic quality, which in turn has been central to the country’s slow progress of democratic consolidation.

The trade-off had to do with the nature of President Suharto's authoritarian regime, and the way in which it was replaced: spoilers were accommodated and absorbed into the system rather than excluded from it. President Suharto’s regime was only partially coercive and tolerated opposing political and social forces as long as they did not challenge the regime or President Suharto directly, or the system of patronage distribution from which political players who commanded sizeable social constituencies could benefit. The result was the existence of a quasi opposition in which many political actors kept in check President Suharto’s authoritarian controls while at the same time they adapted to the political culture of deal making and compromise that they themselves had fostered. As such most of the political forces and leaders who played a part in the country’s democratic transition were either direct participants or belonged to the quasi opposition that existed under the regime of President Suharto. Few clear dividing lines were drawn between those who supported the old and the new regime. Rather, the tendency was to accommodate and absorb all major political forces with patronage and corruption providing the grease this arrangement needed to work. For instance, Indonesia's first, four post-1998 presidents relate in some way to President Suharto regime. President Habibie (1998–99) was President Suharto’s vice-president during his final term in office; President Wahid (1999–2001) was the leader of a prominent Islamic organization under President Suharto, famous for how he played the regime factional politics; President Sukarnoputri (2001–2004) was the leader of one of the regime's three tolerated political parties articulated a political vision clearly marked by President Suharto’s New Order; finally, President SBY was a senior military officer in the late years of Suharto’s regime, even if one with a reputation as a reformer. The cabinets of these presidents were coalitions in which all the major parties in the national legislature were represented and also included former military officers and civilian bureaucrats --the principal pillars of the Suharto regime. As a result, national and local legislatures became the political space where to collude and share the spoils (from the state budget and business lobbyists). The achievements and the costs of how Indonesia dealt with the legacies of Suharto’s authoritarianism are especially evident in the way that two of the most relevant potential spoilers: the military and the ethno-regional elites were neutralized.

The armed forces had been central to President Suharto’s New Order, with serving military officers occupying key posts in the cabinet, the bureaucracy, and the legislature. President Suharto’s‘dual function’ reserved a socio-political role for the military in addition to its role of providing national defense. Its command structure distributed troops throughout the country as part of a hierarchical structure that shadowed civilian government at every level, allowing the military to intervene in routine affairs of government from top to bottom on a daily basis. Finally, the military provided the coercive power that Suharto needed to repress its critics.

After the fall of Suharto in 1998, the senior officer corps suffered a crisis of political confidence. Many of the street protests that accompanied the regime change took a strongly


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anti-military tone, which made officers realize that the military's reputation as an institution had been damaged by political engagement. In response, they declared a ‘new paradigm’3 according to which the police forces were separated from the armed forces and given primary responsibility for maintaining domestic security; also, the practice of allowing serving officers to occupy posts in the civilian bureaucracy as well as the military direct involvement in political affairs was halted. While the military devised its ‘new paradigm’, between 1998 and 2004, the civilian government showed significant reluctance to intrude on certain core military prerogatives for fear of antagonizing them. As a result, only limited progress could be achieved in two key areas of military reform, which significantly impacted the quality and future of Indonesia's democracy, specifically: the impunity of the military, and the elimination of reserve domains of military power in the country politics through the pursuit of comprehensive institutional reforms. Till this day, Indonesia has failed to either seriously examine or punish perpetrators of gross human-rights violations that occurred during the Suhart’so years. At the height of the post-Suharto reforms, Indonesia's legislature passed new laws that allowed the establishment of special ad-hoc human-rights courts to try old cases, and to set up new human rights courts to try future ones. Several ad-hoc courts were established, and trials were held for officers implicated in past abuses such as the violence that preceded and accompanied the 1999 referendum for East Timor independence.4 There were some initial convictions, but all were eventually overturned on appeal. To date, the military's role in handling civilian dissent has been reduced significantly but soldiers still tend to behave brutally, and run little risk of punishment as in the case of the abuses of military emergency powers to eliminate separatist insurgents in Aceh in 2003 and 2004.5

As for the institutional reforms to eliminate remaining reserve domains of military power, various Executives failed to civilianize the defense bureaucracy, reduce the military's involvement in business, especially at the local level, even if the military budget has nearly tripled between 2003 and 2009 and, especially, dismantle the military's territorial system. According to the military, this system maintains an essential early-warning system against internal security threats; however, it also provides an infrastructure for the military to monitor and, should it someday so choose, intervene in civilian politics. Efforts to gradually dismantle the territorial structure reached their high point early in the rule of President Wahid. President Wahid's chaotic approach to governance, however, alienated most parties in the national legislature, and triggered a political crisis in response to which President Wahid tried to enlist the military to back him against parliament, and as a payoff shelved his plans for major military reform. President Wahid was removed from office in 2001, yet, plans were never revived as neither the major parties in the legislature nor successor governments ever reopened the issue of abolishing the territorial structure. In the end, the military is no longer a direct player in daily, high politics, but it still retains the institutional capacity and the mindset that could allow it to intervene in the future.

One of the most concerning features of Indonesia’s democratic transition was the local conflicts that accompanied the fall of President Suharto and provoked grave fears that Indonesia was on the verge of a process of national disintegration. In Kalimantan, locals

3 Edward Aspinall. ‘Indonesia: The Irony of Success’. The Journal of Democracy. 21:2 (2010): 20-34. 4 An independence referendum was held in East Timor on 30 August 1999. President Habibie originally requested the referendum to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in January 1999, so that the Indonesian province of East Timor was going to be given a choice of greater autonomy within Indonesia or independence. 5 The Free Aceh Movement (GAM) waged a conflict between 1976 and 2005, with the goal of making the province of Aceh independent from Indonesia. A strong military offensive in 2003 and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake brought a peace deal and an end to the insurgency.


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launched pogroms against migrants from other parts of Indonesia; in Central Sulawesi, there were clashes between rival religious and ethnic communities. In East Timor, Papua, and Aceh long-suppressed separatist sentiments emerged abruptly, leading to a UN supervised independence referendum in East Timor, and a powerful insurgency in Aceh. There also were signs of separatist sentiment in provinces where it had never been present historically, such as the oil rich province of Riau in Sumatra. In each of these conflicts, local people vented suppressed grievances about excessive central government control, neglect of local interests, and involved competition among local elites for control of local government and access to patronage resources. Almost two decades on, most of the violent conflicts of the early post-Suharto years have been extinguished by peace deals, interregional conflict such as the tension between Java and the Outer Islands has hardly featured as an element in national politics and, in general, secessionist movements have been defused.

Indonesia’s post Suharto’s electoral system, far reaching decentralization program, and a series of patrimonial peace deals deserve credit for this outcome.

Since 1999, Indonesia has used variants of proportional representation in which members of parliament are elected from multimember districts. Proposals by some reformers who wanted to improve accountability of elected representatives to voters by introducing single member districts have always been rejected, generally on the grounds that such an approach would introduce a winner take all attitude that could endanger Indonesia's ethnic and religious pluralism. One important safeguard was, however, built into this system. In order to register for and run in elections, parties had to show that they had a broad national presence with functioning branches in a large proportion of the country's provinces and districts; this effectively excluded local political parties from electoral competition. The exclusion of local parties has prevented Indonesia's national institutions from becoming a battleground for organized regional and ethnic interests; proportional representation, however, produced a highly fragmented party system in which no single party is able to dominate. In 1999, the largest five parties won a combined total of 87 percent of the vote; in 2004, the biggest seven won about 80 percent; and in 2009, the top nine together won a little over 80 percent.6 Together with the patrimonial style of politics inherited from Suharto’s New Order, this fragmentation has created a system of cross-party alliance-building and deal-making that, while not conducive to effective governance, preserved pluralism and prevented the escalation of communal tensions.

The political and fiscal decentralization policies that President Habibie launched in 1999 are often described as some of the most dramatic the world has seen, with considerable political and fiscal powers devolved to the country's districts. Devolution had the effect of blunting regional-center tensions as local political elites and activists shifted from protesting about the depredations of the central government to organizing to capture political power at the local level. Across Indonesia, local political office was vigorously contested in open elections, and local governments begun making many of the key decisions about how best to use their resources. Decentralization, however, has not been without tension, especially early on in the transition. Some local contests for political power triggered violence, with local elites mobilizing followers along ethnic lines to help them gain power. Yet, by displacing political and resource competition to the regions, decentralization also fragmented it, thus reducing its impact as a threat to the survival of the unity of Indonesia. Moreover, decentralization fostered predatory behaviors at the local level as the same dynamics that governed national politics came to determine local political too. Local parliaments became

6 http://www.idea.int


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sites of corrupt deal-making in which legislators colluded with officials and businesspeople to siphon off money from the state budget and to direct contracts and licenses to business allies. These processes have been exemplified in the proliferation of new districts. When Indonesia democratized, it had 341 districts. By late 2012, the figure stood at about 529. Often the publicly stated rationale for creating a new district out of an old one was to provide an administrative home for a local ethnic or sub-ethnic group who live in a concentrated area, and to ameliorate tension with other groups. The underlying motive, however, was often to provide a slice of patronage resources for the bureaucrats, political bosses, or networks that dominate these areas. A new district provides new seats in a new legislature, a new district budget, new opportunities to appoint family or friends to civil-service positions, and profitable construction contracts to build new government buildings.

All in all, decentralization expanded significantly the capacity of the political structure to absorb and buy off potential democratic spoilers.

However, at the tail end of President SBY’s presidency direct local elections, the major feature of the original decentralization policies, came dangerously close to being abolished. In the aftermath of the loss of his presidential bid to the former Governor Joko Widodo (Jokowi if not otherwise specified), General Prabowo, whose anti democratic sentiments had preoccupied the international community during the 2014 presidential campaign, pushed for the abolition of the direct election of governors, mayors, and district heads, with the support of his Red-and-White Coalition. Back in 2012, a new law on the rules of local elections had been deliberated by parliament. In late 2013, however, the government and most political parties, had agreed to leave the existing regime of direct elections in place. After General Prabowo’s failed presidential bid, the parties associated with his coalition changed their stance and proposed that local government heads be elected by their legislatures, as had been the case under President Suharto’s New Order and immediately following his fall, between 1998 and 2004. Through this change, General Prabowo’s allies hoped to win most of the top executive posts in the regions which would have allowed them to rule Indonesia at the grassroots level. Many local government heads protested against this move: returning local elections to their pre-democratic framework was equivalent to a substantive regression of Indonesian democracy itself. Moreover, though President SBY had earlier stated his support to keep local direct elections in place, he failed to direct his and other political parties to resist the change. The legislature passed the new local election law, which stipulated the return of indirect elections for governors, mayors, and district heads. Four months later, however, following a massive domestic and international public outcry, President SBY reinstated direct local elections by decree and subsequent Parliament approval.

As for the peace deals in areas that experienced high levels of violent conflict following the end of the Suharto regime were been made more palatable by the distribution of patronage; the most dramatic example has been the peace deal which settled the Aceh insurgency in 2005, when the guerrillas of the Free Aceh Movement signed a peace agreement in Helsinki to bring the separatist war to an end. Crucial to closing the peace deal was the granting of concessions by the Indonesian government that allowed members of the Free Aceh Movement to compete for power at the local level -- which makes Aceh the only place in Indonesia where this exception to the national legal framework applies. Former guerrilla leaders or their close allies have been elected as the governor and as heads of 10 of the province's 23 districts; they have also achieved a near-majority in the provincial parliament and are the largest party in 16 of 23 district parliaments. Finally, a special autonomy law and direct elections in Papua, while being far less successful at ameliorating separatist sentiment, have to a large degree succeeded in diverting the local indigenous elite


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of bureaucrats and aspiring politicians away from supporting independence and toward competition for patronage through elections.

The SAIS 2011 Survey also point to another indicator of the relevance of Indonesia’s authoritarian past, specifically the fact that citizens seem to be favorably disposed toward democracy, but not necessarily committed to it. Data show that democracy is understood and well valued as an idea or a set of values. However, as a regime to be chosen as the preferred way to govern Indonesia, democracy does not seem to be as popular, and seems to still have to prove itself through successful and consistent performance. Existing assessments on the levels of support for democracy have been severely criticized in recent years, as for democracy to take firm roots, it requires that large majorities of citizens consider democracy their preferred political regime, while rejecting any non-democratic alternatives. Citizens with little experience of and limited sophistication concerning democratic politics may be uncertain whether democracy or authoritarianism offers the best solution to the problems facing their countries and often end up embracing both democracy and authoritarianism at the same time. The data show that in Indonesia, the consistency and depth of support for democracy as “the only game in town” is shallow at best. At one level, democracy represents a clear set of political values to which citizens aspire. At another level, however, democracy refers to a political regime-in-practice that citizens might or might not want as the system by which their countries are governed, thus revealing a significant gulf between these two levels of democratic support at the mass level. Moreover, authoritarian affective support emerges as appealing as, and at times stronger than, democratic affective support in spite of their citizens’ positive views of democracy.

Findings from the SAIS Survey suggest that Indonesian answer without doubt that having a democratic political system is “good” when asked directly or without the provision of other choices in the same question. In fact, 79 percent of Indonesians do. Yet, an in-depth look at the data shows that, on average, 49 percent of Indonesians have a preference for non-democratic regimes. They see “having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections” and “having experts making all the decisions for the country” as equally “good” options for governing their countries. Moreover, 52 percent of Indonesians see the option of having the army rule their country as a “good” for governing their countries. These results point to the lack of a strong, marked preference for a democratic political system like the one that emerges from the answers to the direct question regarding people’s preference for a democratic political system and suggest that citizens might harbor concurrent appreciations for authoritarian and democratic political systems. Indonesians are familiar with what having the army rule and with the concept of experts making all the decisions about the country so it could be speculated that, in the eyes of the respondents, military rule and technocratic government embody features such as political and economic decisiveness, or technocratic competence in political and economic affairs that citizens believe their presidents or prime ministers should have to effectively govern their countries.

Reorganizing the data to capture as much variation as possible in respondents’ authoritarian and democratic attitudes, and to measure it along a virtual continuum it is possible to see that 32 percent of Indonesians have strong authoritarian attitudes, 18 percent have borderline authoritarian attitudes, 30 percent have borderline democratic attitudes, whereas 17 percent have strong democratic attitudes. In addition, in Indonesia over 45 percent of all citizens appear to harbor concurrent appreciations of authoritarian and democratic political systems. These are likely to be citizens whose attitudes toward any particular type of political system remain undefined enough that could be strengthened in either direction of the spectrum of the political system. The relatively large share of concurrently appreciative citizens coupled with another third of respondents who have strong


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authoritarian attitudes could potentially become an obstacle to democratic consolidation either in Indonesia, if the strong authoritarians gain enough momentum to leverage the authoritarian inclination of those citizens who could be swung in either direction of the political spectrum.

Overall, with a ratio of 2:1 in favor of authoritarianism the data show that in Indonesia authoritarianism has yet to lose its appeal, while democracy seems not to have yet lived up to citizens’ expectations. At the regime level, it remains unclear whether citizens prefer democracy to non-democratic forms of government. These findings tell that citizens’ support for democracy at the concept level and support for non-democratic political systems at the regime level easily coexist at the mass level in Indonesia.

Because of these realities, assessments of Indonesian democracy are often contrasting. On the one hand a democratic success story that has institutionalized democratic freedoms and rolled back the military. On the other, a story of low democratic quality, corruption, and of capture of democratic institutions by authoritarian elites. Both accounts are correct as the success of Indonesia's democracy and its poor quality are two sides of the same coin. It was precisely by achieving a low-quality outcome that Indonesian democratization succeeded. Elites and potentially disruptive political forces such as the military were not excluded from Indonesia's new democracy. The price of this approach was that the potential spoilers were empowered to undermine the quality of Indonesian democracy from within and, more important, that patronage and corruption became means by which they were brought into the system. But in a democratic system where ‘everyone’ still has a stake, the dangers of erosion from within are real. Despite the reformist rhetoric of President SBY, his first term (2004–2009) saw few achievements in deepening democratic reform. Much of the important progress was instead made by institutions established as part of earlier reforms, notably the KPK and the Constitutional Court. Furthermore, for every success, there has been a sign of backlash which sparked fears among reformers of a backward slide toward the habits of the authoritarian past.

This is why, Indonesia’s 2014 elections were the most important in the history of post Suharto Indonesia. Neither the 1999 contest between Presidents Megawati and Wahid nor the 2004 and 2009 races between Presidents Megawati and SBY were about the fundamental direction of the country. In contrast, the choice between President Jokowi and General Prabowo presented Indonesian voters with the option of maintaining the existing democratic polity or sending it on a path of populist experimentation and neo-authoritarian regression. This is despite the fact that General Prabowo tried to blur this picture by ambiguously portraying himself both as an autocratic populist intent on challenging the status quo and as a democrat committed to the rules of the game. Many of his voters thought he was the latter, but, as the post-election period eloquently demonstrated, his true identity was much closer to the former as shown by his maneuvering to revert the direct elections of local government heads. President Jokowi’s victory protects Indonesia from the possibility of a clear authoritarian reversal that a General Prabowo’s presidency most likely would have produced. Presidents Jokowi’s victory also challenged deeply entrenched preconceptions about Indonesian politics and society. First, the rise of a small town carpenter to the presidency questions the widespread notion that only members of the country’s bureaucratic, military, and business elite groomed under President Suharto’s rule could obtain top political positions. Second, President Jokowi’s victory over a well oiled oligarchic machine indicates that the power of oligarchs is ample but not limitless in Indonesia. To be sure, President Jokowi had the support of some oligarchs (such as his Vice president Jusuf Kalla). Third, the polarized nature of the 2014 ballot demonstrates that portrayals of Indonesian elections as


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inconsequential contests between ideologically indistinguishable members of a huge political cartel are perhaps overdrawn.

The 2014 elections also exposed Indonesian democracy’s continued vulnerability. The parliamentary polls saw the highest level of vote buying since democratic elections began in 1955, suggesting that Indonesian democracy is still in its infancy. And while vote buying was much less prevalent in the presidential election, other forms of money politics, such as the distribution of cash to local bureaucrats who were expected to mobilize voters, were still present. More significantly, the ability of a New Order icon such as General Prabowo to gather almost 47% of the votes in a presidential election represents a source of concern for supporters of democracy in Indonesia. That many of Prabowo’s voters did not believe they were opting out of democracy does not mitigate this concern. In fact, it emphasizes the effectiveness of General Prabowo’s oligarchic machine politics. Constant pro-Prabowo television coverage, around the clock social media campaigns, and generous spreading of money and other favors made a candidate with a difficult past so competitive that he came extraordinarily close to becoming president. Post-election events have demonstrated that while General Prabowo may have lost the 2014 elections, he is determined to roll back post-1998 reforms and continue his pursuit of the presidency. Members of General Prabowo’s coalition suggested that they intend to eliminate more laws and regulations passed under democratic rule, including the regime of direct presidential elections. Given President Jokowi’s vulnerability in Parliament, announcements of this kind carry significant weight. If General Prabowo’s strength was not enough of a threat, President Jokowi also faced powerful conservative forces in his own party and coalition; these forces may not want to abolish democracy, but they demand that their interests and constituencies be protected and favored under the existing democratic system.

Over the last two decades the legacies of a political transition that kept the old Suharto regime's ruling elite and patrimonial governing style largely intact continue to bedevil democratic governance. The signature theme of the protests that overthrew Suharto in 1998 was ‘corruption, collusion and nepotism’; these patterns of behavior still infuse political life, with serious consequences for how Indonesia's democracy delivers for ordinary people, and for how it is perceived by them.

Burma Over the past few years, Burma has transitioned from military dictatorship to pseudo-civilian rule in 2012, and then to a civilian elected government in 2016. The highlights of these transitions include the new constitution that the military junta drafted in 2008, the November 2015 general elections, in which the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory over the ruling military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), and the USDP government power hand over to the NLD in March 2016. Yet, in spite of the progress made so far, it remains unclear what the prospects for a democratic Myanmar are going to be.

Recently collected data from an original set of public opinion data known as ‘Myanmar 2014: Civic Knowledge and Values in a Changing Society’7 (Civic Survey if not 7 Myanmar Survey 2014.pdf. For a detailed explanation of the survey methodology, in the report cited above refer to: Appendix 1: Survey Methodology (pages 112-122), in the Asia Foundation. 2014. Myanmar 2014: Civic Knowledge and Values in a Changing Society. San Francisco: CA


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otherwise specified) offer some insights into what could be some of the obstacles ahead, the role of the country’s elites, and the possible impacts of Myanmar authoritarian past. The survey found that democracy is a popular concept in Myanmar, that citizens are able to define democracy in their own words, and understand democracy in different ways, with 65% of respondents offering between one and three definitions of democracy in their answers. The ability of Burmese citizens to define democracy is consistent with that of citizens in other countries around the world. Burmese most commonly associate democracy with ‘freedom’ (39%), and to a lesser extent with ‘rights and the law’ (6%), ‘peace’ (4%), ‘equal rights for groups’ (between 2 and 3%). These findings suggest an emphasis on qualities perceived essential to both their country and their individual lives. Freedom emerges as the quality chosen to define democracy more often than any other. The fact that both individual and political freedoms have been and continue to be severely restricted could be one of the reasons why 39% of respondents equate it with democracy. Definitions of democracy referring to elections, government of the people, and participation in decision-making are negligible compared to those citing ‘freedom’, or ‘peace’, or ‘equal rights for groups’. This is probably reflective of the irrelevance of democratic procedures to the people of Myanmar, following General Ne Win’s 1962 coup against the civilian government of Prime Minister U Nu. Since then, Myanmar has oscillated between direct and indirect forms of military rule, which restricted people’s participation in politics and government, refused to acknowledge elections results that would have ousted them from power, and systematically went back on their public promises to hand over power to a legitimate elected government. Also, absent from definitions of democracy are references to economic benefits. This could point to the fact that citizens’ understanding of democracy is not contingent to access to, or achievement of higher economic standards. The way in which Burmese define democracy is consistent with Dalton, Shin and Jou’s, and also Dore et all’s research, which shows that respondents generally identify democracy in terms of freedom and civil liberties, and that definitions emphasizing elections, majority rule and other democratic procedures are less frequent than those citing freedom.

Among Burmese who offered their definition of democracy, 34% named just one property of democracy, 50% named two, and the remaining 16% three properties, thus indicating the higher prevalence of a multi-dimensional view of democracy, which contradicts scholarly views arguing that uni-dimensional conceptions of democracy tend to be more prevalent than multi-dimensional ones among the citizens of nascent democracies, due to their limited political sophistication. Furthermore, the way in which Burmese define democracy indicate that they understand it for its intended outcomes rather than its processes, thus implying that people’s attitude toward a particular political system is influenced by what it can deliver to their citizens, and that democracy is believed to be effective in channeling political power toward the interest of the public.

The single most important determinant of whether Burmese define democracy is the degree of importance that respondents attribute to participation as a means to improve society and the government, followed by membership in community-based organization or NGO, and respondents’ participation in any activity/ies that helps improving society or the government. These findings are consistent with literature’s arguments on the relevance of civil society for the growth of more representative political organizations, in making governments more accountable to their citizens, and strengthening democratic consolidation. With only 18% of respondents having ever participated in civil society, and 22% being members of CBOs/CSOs or NGOs, civil society participation remain low, especially when compared to those of other countries in Southeast Asia, and that with 80% of respondents agreeing that civil society participation in important to improve society and the government, a robust


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dichotomy exists between citizens’ willingness to participate in theory and in practice. This is hardly an unexpected finding for a country where civil and political liberties have been missing since 1962, and where civil society emerged in areas where political space was permitted under authoritarian rule. Burmese mostly joined/join religious (especially Buddhist) organizations, community and charitable organizations, which were permitted under military rule. The military, in fact, encouraged the formation of community organizations to help deliver services that it might have failed to provide itself, and it allowed the expansion of religious and charitable organizations to strengthen its legitimacy.

There is also a positive, significant relationship between the qualities that citizens see as the most important in a leader and their ability to define democracy. Thirty percent of respondents ranked decisiveness as the first, most important quality in a leader, followed by generosity (20%), honesty (17%), and fairness (16%). In spite of ranking 4th among respondents’ first choice of the most important quality in a leader, fairness emerges as the most relevant quality across citizens’ second (22%) and third (17%) choices of key qualities for a leader to have. These results suggest that what citizens want to see in a leader is a combination of traits that pertain to to the moral sphere of how people relate to each other, or expect to be treated by others (i.e. fairness, generosity, honesty), and the practice of governing/ lead a country (i.e. decisiveness). The latter is, possibly, to be expected as throughout the 50 years of military rule, decisiveness has characterized any move military and civilian-military governments have made regarding the economic, political, and social affairs in Myanmar. Citizens who think ‘honesty’ is the most important quality in a leader are 1.8 times more likely to offer a definition of democracy (regardless of whether they define democracy in terms of freedom, or rights and the rule of law, or government of the people), whereas those who see ‘decisiveness’ or ‘generosity’ as the most important quality in a leader are 1.2 times more likely to offer a definition of democracy, thus suggesting that moral traits might play a stronger role than practical one in shaping citizens’ democratic cognitive skills.

These findings tell that democracy as an idea is meaningful to the Burmese in spite of the fact that they might not have experienced the kind of democracy that is described in their definitions of democracy.

Data also show that 81% of citizens in Myanmar answered that having a democratic political system is ‘good’ for their country, when asked directly and without the provision of other choices of regimes in the same question. These responses could be telling that citizens see democratic political systems as the embodiment of those qualities by which they understand and define democracy – e.g. ‘freedom’, ‘rights and the rule of law’. However, respondents’ answers also indicate that people in Myanmar see non-democratic political system as equally good options to govern the country. Sixty-three percent of all respondents answered that ‘having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament and elections’ is ‘good’, 77% that ‘having experts, not the government, make decisions according to what they think is best for the country’ is ‘good’, and 57% that ‘having the army rule’ is ‘good’. Limited political sophistication or experience, and/or opportunities to participate in the politics of Myanmar could be reasons behind citizens’ concurrent affective attitudes for democratic and non-democratic political systems as they may be uncertain whether democracy or authoritarianism offers the best solution to the problems facing their country. However, citizens’ positive view of ‘having the military rule’, and of ‘having a strong man who does not have to bother with parliament and elections’ has inevitably been influenced by more than half a century of military and civilian-military leadership ‘whose ever-growing expansion has resulted in the military becoming one with the state, and in the almost complete atrophy of any civilian institutions.’ Moreover, it could also be the manifestation of the tension between citizens’ understanding democracy as ‘freedom’, and/or ‘rights’, and/or


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‘rule of law’ and their limited or no exposure to democracy in practice. Burmese do not know how a democratic political system in practice is going to be, or how different a democratic political system is going to be from an authoritarian one. Simply put, people in Myanmar do not have tangible terms of reference for what it means to live in a democracy and be governed by a democratic political system, and their ambivalence represents a potential road block to both democratic transition and consolidation. Without widespread support, democracy’s appeal may fade quickly in favour of more or less authoritarian alternatives, thus leaving Myanmar democratic transition vulnerable to breakdown.

Determinants of strong support for democracy and strong rejection of authoritarianism include lack of trust for fellow citizens, and belief that the November 2015 elections were going to be free and fair, even though the impact of those elections on the political life of Myanmar is likely to be negative or, at best, limited. This, in turn, suggests pessimism regarding the actual possibility of the 2015 elections to be the catalyst for the political change Myanmar needs. In addition, non-electoral participation is not seen as being relevant, or able to make any difference for the political life of Myanmar. This is not necessarily good news given the importance of civil society in democratic transitions and, possibly, it has its roots in General Ne Win’s 1962 decision to gradually eliminate or co-opt organizations that encouraged non-electoral participation and public political debate such as the historic Rangoon University Students Union, and in the limited opportunities to participate in politics that Burmese have enjoyed since then.

The Civic Survey also included questions investigating whether citizens support a particular regime type as an end in itself or because it delivers certain desirable goods. These two dimensions of support are equally relevant, often in tension, and reflect a longstanding debate in the literature about political legitimacy and trust. Data from the Civic Survey show that citizens’ trust in institutions varies depending on what institution is discussed. Overall, trust seems to be stronger for national and local level institutions (i.e. President, village tract administrator/ward administrator, township administrator, and the State/region Hluttaw), CBOs/CSOs, and international financial institutions. Proximity and tangible results are likely to be the reasons why Burmese trust local level institutions, whereas in the case of the President, citizens’ views might have been influenced by the fact that President Thein Sein has brought about some of the long overdue changes in the political and economic life of Myanmar. Trust in international organizations can be explained by the fact that the interactions Burmese have had with these organizations have been limited to humanitarian interventions, as in the case of cyclone Nargis in 2008, with tangible, positive results. The army, the media, the Union Election Commission (UEC), the courts, and the police are the institutions that Burmese trust the least, which, given the political history of Myanmar, is almost inevitable. Moreover, Burmese show surprisingly low levels of social trust, with only 19 percent agreeing that most people can be trusted. The lack of social trust may be a legacy of authoritarian rule, which relied on informers and often pitted neighbor against neighbor and family against family. Democracies with low levels of social trust are prone to conflict, and have difficulty in getting citizens to participate in politics and to forge relationship across different groups.

Burmese seem to be generally satisfied with ‘the jobs that the various levels of government are doing’ as their satisfaction ranges from a low 55% for the state/region government to 84% for the village tract administrator/ward administrator. Also, the majority of people in Myanmar seem to think that the national government is doing a ‘good job’ in: ‘education’ (82%), ‘health’ (77%), ‘creating job opportunities’ (60%), and “reviving/developing the economy” (67%). Issues related to the economy overshadowed all others. In the 1990s, Myanmar’s government began to implement a series of economic


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reforms. In 2011, the USDP government launched an ambitious liberalization program. Growth rates have risen, as have some incomes. Most ordinary citizens, however, have yet to see the benefits. Close 46% say that they have experienced no change in economic conditions, while 22% say economic conditions have worsened. In fact, 53% of respondents in Burma perceive current economic conditions as being worse than in the past, with just 32% seeing current conditions as better.

Finally, 69% of respondents ‘think that, generally speaking, things in Myanmar today are going in the right direction’, particularly in terms of economic growth and development, political liberalization, and improving the country’s infrastructure. However, citizens with strong support for democracy and strong rejection of authoritarianism are less likely ‘to think that things in Myanmar today are going in the right direction, generally speaking’, and less likely to be satisfied with the national government’s performance on job creation. They are also more likely to be satisfied with local level governments, and ‘with what the national government is doing to revive/develop the economy’, thus suggesting that, in general, Burmese might have yet to see tangible benefits coming from the economic and political reforms that the Government has been implementing since 2008. The trends showing positive views for what the Government in office is doing should not be seen as citizens being oblivious of the shortcomings of their civilian-military government. Many people in Myanmar do not have tangible reference for what an effective government could be doing for its citizens. These responses tell us that Burmese seem satisfied with what the country’s authoritarian government has been delivering to them both for political and economic goods, which happens to be the main reference for government’s performance that they have.

There is a positive, statistically significant correlation between how citizens understand democracy and their support for democracy or rejection for authoritarianism. The way Burmese understand democracy influences whether, in the long run, they would reject authoritarianism and embrace democracy as the preferred way to govern Myanmar, and that concurrent appreciation for democratic and authoritarian political systems might be happening because the majority of Burmese have never lived under a political system that reflects their definitions of democracy. The findings in Burma indicate that citizens still subscribe to authoritarian values and beliefs, and that the legacy of authoritarianism remains deeply embedded in Burma’s political culture. This problem is compounded by a lack of understanding of how democracy should function as 72 percent of respondents do not support the principle of horizontal accountability.

In Myanmar citizens the majority of citizens (65%) are capable of defining democracy, understand it for its outcomes, with ‘freedom’ and ‘rights’ emerging as the most recurrent definitions. These findings should not be dismissed as nothing more than ‘aspirational’i because of their limited political sophistication. And yet, while caution should be exercised, it is important not to downplay these findings as they are not very different from the responses citizens in more established democracies offer, thus suggesting that some of democracy’s core values are recognizable by any citizens who value such principles, even if they do not necessarily experience them in their country. The popularity of democracy (as an idea) at the mass level is important because it is a needed first step toward building a democratic political culture. Only if democracy as an idea is meaningful to citizens, they can eventually develop support for it as a political system to govern their country. In Myanmar, however, support for democracy does not yet translate into ‘for better or for worse’ commitment to democracy and rejection of non-democratic alternatives. Citizens’ reticence about applying democracy in Myanmar is not a surprise after 60 years of military and civilian-military rule. The majority of Burmese, in fact, have never experienced a democratic


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political system, and do not know how it would play out, and whether it could offer the best solution to the problems facing their country.

Myanmar democratic transition is bound to remain fragile for sometime, with most of the ‘democratic lifting’ being left to the country’s old and new political elites that competed in the 2015 national elections. This new political reality could be seen as a limited, though encouraging, improvement over the military and civilian-military authoritarian governments that have ruled Myanmar since the early 1960s without citizens’ support or participation.

Thailand In 1932, a bloodless coup by a small group of elite military officials and civilians

against an absolute monarch introduced a Western-style constitutional monarchy to Thailand. Since then Thailand has established democratic institutions such as an elected parliament, a judiciary, political parties, and competitive elections. Governments, however, were placed in power by a faction of the military usually through a bloodless military coup or, more recently, through votes of no confidence in Parliament; essentially, it was an exchange of power among competing entourages of the Thai elites sanctioned by the military and the King.

From 1932 to 1988, the normal method of changing governments in Thailand was by military coups rather than general elections. After a coup had settled the distribution of power within the military elite, His Majesty King Bhumiphol Adulyadej would accept the new ruling group and constitution, and elections would be held to legitimize the new arrangements, domestically and internationally. The Thai electorate, through a combination of financial inducements and military organization, always voted appropriately and showed up at the polls in very high numbers as shown by consistently increasing voting turnout rates (i.e. 41 percent in 1933 to 73 percent in 2011).8 General Prem Tinsulanonda served as prime minister from 1980 to 1988 and initiated the new democratic period by working with the political parties in parliament. In several ways Prime Minister Prem was the father of modern Thai democracy because he handed over power to democratically elected Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan in 1988. The Chatichai government was ousted by a military coup in 1991, but after a period of instability and violence democratically elected governments ruled from 1992 to 2006. In the 1990s, Thai governments consisted weak multiparty governments dominated by up-country, corrupt politicians who were held in disrepute by the Bangkok elite.

1997 brought a new constitution designed to cure the ills of party-switching and corruption in government. Although it was called the democratic constitution, it excluded from parliament anyone without a university degree. With the support of the royal family, Chuan Leekpai served as prime minister twice, from 1992 to 1995 and from 1997 to 2001, before being decisively defeated by a populist tycoon turned political leader, Thaksin Shinawatra. By utilizing his personal fortune and delivering on populist policies that shifted benefits to his constituents in the North and Northeast, he built the first enduring political party in the history of Thailand. His charismatic hold on up-country voters was such that even after he was deposed by a military coup in 2006 and shorn of much of his fortune in 2007 and 2010, a succession of political parties identified with Thaksin outpaced all others, winning elections, sometimes by wide margins (in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2014) even after being disbanded by judicial decisions. Citizens’ active political participation, beyond

8 http://www.idea.int


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voting to legitimize an already chosen government and prime minister, remains elusive and democratic consolidation remains a distant goal, particularly when the country’s overall democratic institutional framework appears to be consistently challenged by an anti-democratic elite that has been willing to sacrifice democracy in order to maintain control of the government. As aptly put in chapter six of Dore et all, “since 1932, Thais have only had a ‘rote democracy’ at best”.9

As a term, ‘rote democracy’ derives from the concept ‘rote learning’ often used to describe the repetitive way some students acquire knowledge. Here it refers to the mechanical manner in which Thai citizens have come to learn about democracy through routine participation in voting. The state has equated democracy with voting and citizens have dutifully carried out instructions to vote in elections. Thailand is a rote democracy characterized by high voter turnout rates but political participation in the political process for most voters does not extend beyond the ballot box. Rote democracy is based on three interrelated characteristics that differentiate it from conceptions of Western liberal democracy and other democracies in Asia.

First, rote democracy illustrates the disconnect between the electorate and the elected officials they chose to represent them. Second, rote democracy reflects the dominance of vertical social relations over horizontal relations. Finally, rote democracy highlights the social inequality among citizens. Thai society is marked by a high degree of deference for elders and people in positions of higher authority, which places them in a position of higher social status. These social rankings constrain a person from the lower end of the social hierarchy from acting in a way that can cause his/her superior to lose face, which perpetuates the belief that elders know what is best and will look out for their subordinates. Some politicians have abused this implicit trust relationship for their own benefit. The combined effects of these social norms and a long tradition of discourage Thais from acting independently to address their problems. Consequently, these feelings of helplessness discourage people from taking action to influence or constrain government’s action since it is deemed futile. Thus, unequal social relations, the dominance of vertical relationships, and the disconnect between the rulers and the ruled dampen the participatory spirit among the Thai electorate beyond the ballot box and make it difficult for Thais to reconcile democratic ideals with the unwritten social norms that actually govern their society.

A stable and healthy democracy requires a citizenry that will turn out to vote when elections are called and participate moderately between elections in order to support the government on some issues and constrain it on others. Data from the the 2011 SAIS Survey show that political participation in Thailand takes place along two separate dimensions: voting and non-electoral participation; the interplay of these two dimensions results in four types of participatory citizens.

9 Apirat, Prinat. 2014. “From Subjects to Citizens: Democratic Consolidation in Thailand between 2000 and 2011”. In Dore Giovanna Maria Dora, Jae H. Ku and Karl D. Jackson (Eds.) Incomplete Democracies in the Asia-pacific. Evidence from Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.


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Democratic citizens’ vote in every election and engage in at least some non-electoral political participation. They constitute the core group of citizens with the most potential to maintain or constrain government behavior, depending on the situation and counter the effects of the authoritarian legacies. To the extent that a political system has a plurality of citizens who consistently vote in regularly scheduled elections and also remain actively involved between elections, a stable, moderate, and legitimate government is a more likely result. Those who vote less frequently but do participate in-between elections are ‘disconnected democrats’. They may make demands in newspaper columns or on the streets, often for things they personally hold very dear, but they are not as staunch in supporting the process by which representative governments are selected. ‘Rote democrats’ are those who vote whenever there is an election but otherwise remain politically passive. They acknowledge government authority by voting when they are told to do so but remain passive in activities that require citizen initiative to support or constrain the government between elections. ‘Rote democrats’ do not take everyday matters into their own hands by becoming involved in the daily push and pull of representative government. These are people with low levels of political awareness who take part mechanically in the political process. Finally, ‘subjects’ acknowledge the central government’s authority but choose to remain passive in both dimensions of political participation. They vote less frequently, if at all, and remain non-participant between elections. Of the four types of citizens, ‘subjects’ have the lowest levels of cognitive, affective, and evaluative orientations toward the political system. They can be peaceful apathetic citizens who realize they have no impact whatsoever in the decision-making process and therefore leave the role of governance to those in positions of power. For all intents and purposes, ‘subjects’ live outside of the political process and are the least involved in the political life of the country.

Democracy is not a steady state. For example, election campaigns mobilize citizens to vote. The more exciting the issues and candidates, the higher the turnout should be. Similarly, more important issues should raise the tendency of citizens to write, rally, participate in political party activities, and even demonstrate. The historical context can change the mix of citizen types involved in politics and the resulting mix of types involved should have a direct impact on the health and legitimacy of government and the political system at a given point in time. In Bangkok, reflecting the general population’s decreased inclination to participate in political life, the share of ‘democratic citizens’ has fallen from 42 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2011. ‘Disconnected democrats’, who do not vote as regularly but do engage in forms of participation between elections, declined by from 24 percent to 9 percent; ‘rote democrats’, who participate only when summoned to vote, rose by 25 percent, and ‘subjects’ doubled to 22 percent over the same period of time. Overall, the size of the democratic citizenry (i.e. ‘democratic citizen’ plus ‘disconnected democrats’) diminished by 32 percent. None of this should not be a surprise because in Thailand, power has been gradually

Table 1. Typology of citizens in Thailand


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transferred from the monarchy to the military; however, it has yet to completely reach the middle and lower classes. The upper echelon of society still determines the political agenda and leads democracy in Thailand. From the end of absolute monarchy and the introduction of democracy in 1932, legal institutions have provided for the decentralization of power from the all-powerful monarchy to the military and finally to the masses.

Political development has been affected by the relationship between social groups created by economic development within the context of traditional cultural norms. Prior to 1932, the monarch was the paternal and benevolent ruler who had absolute control over the lives of his subjects. Society was polarized with the monarch on one end and his subjects on the other. The 1932 coup ended absolutist rule; however, it was not a revolution demanded by the masses. It was a bloodless coup led by a core of elite group of military officers and civilians educated in France who actually presumed that Thai citizens were illiterate and incapable of governing themselves. In fact, in 1932, the country only learned in the morning that they had gained democratic rights overnight. Power was simply transferred from one elite to another. As economic development created additional social groups, the ruling elite recognized their own vulnerability. Subsequently, they formed strategic alliances between one another. For instance, the bureaucratic nobility first aligned with the military. As the military entrenched their power and realized that they needed additional funds to finance their political ambitions, they turned to the business groups. Thus, a suitable alliance was formed between the military and businessmen that fulfilled each party’s needs. The shift from national security to an economic priority reduced the importance generally placed on military affairs and weakened the military basis of power. Then, as the businessmen-turned- politicians themselves established their own political base, they too looked for new partners.

The structure of Thai politics changed from a system of absolute monarchy to that of a constitutional monarchy in 1932, when the power of the people in the form of an elected representative parliament was supposed to replace the centralized political rule of the king. This constitutional development was to take place in three stages. The first stage was the period of military conquest, followed by a stage of political tutelage before reaching the final stage of a full constitutional government. Although the monarchy remained intact, the leaders of the 1932 coup introduced Western-style institutions to the Thai political system. These institutions included the establishment of political parties, a parliament, a cabinet headed by a prime minister, and a free press. From an institutional point of view, it appeared that power had indeed been transferred from the centralized monarchy to include a larger percentage of the population. However, nothing had really changed. The name of the political structure may have changed but political power continued to remain in the hands of the select few and the masses remained in the periphery. The names of the power holders simply changed from the king and several noble families to the military and the bureaucratic nobility. Although the system constitutional monarchy did introduce new players to the political arena, they were drawn from the same pool of urban-based elites.

In addition to its political significance, the 1932 revolution also marked the official debut of a new governing alliance between the military and the bureaucracy. Their role in the revolution under the guise of promoting democracy effectively expanded their function as protector of the nation’s territory into the political realm as well. While the military’s claim to support democracy is not entirely convincing, this event has inextricably associated them with this ideal. People perceived the military as a defender of democracy, and the military willingly took on this new role. While it is easy to criticize the role of the military, it is interesting to note that the military itself was reflective of the socio-political linkage that was taking place in Thailand.


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The Thai military received Western training and adopted Western standards but it still retained several traditional aspects. For instance, promotions or admission to the military academy still depended on social status. The eventual conflict between the system of meritocracy and the value placed on social standing undoubtedly played a pivotal role in the 1932 coup. Furthermore, the origins of the military also included a political component. King Chulalongkorn strengthened the military and allowed them to establish garrisons in outlying provinces only after he had satisfactorily consolidated his power. Thus, the military itself embodies this part professional, part aristocratic, and part authoritarian political legacy.

Moreover, the military and the bureaucratic nobility weakened new democratic institutions by using them as a means to further their non-democratic objectives. One of the most revealing examples of this are Thailand’s many constitutions. Rather than permanently codifying the rule of law successive constitutions embodied only the ruler’s law. These document were created to legitimize the power of the group that had taken power. Early constitutions in Thai political history between 1932 and 1959 had an average shelf life of three years. Similarly, Parliament merely approved actions already taken by the bureaucracy, and political parties catered to individual interests.

Political parties remain, on the whole, personal parliamentary groups with more or less elaborate ad hoc electoral machinery. Leadership is the binding element of a political party or parliamentary group. Its representative function at its broadest does not extend beyond a clique or group of cliques. Thus the posture of the party or group depends largely on the temperament of its leader, and its continuity and vitality rest upon his political fortune. The Thai state expressed its mistrust of and unwillingness to support political parties through actions such as banning them from 1933 to 1945 and from 1958 to 1968. These actions further hampered the development of political parties and contributed to the distorted view people have of them.

The 1932 coup may have replaced an absolutist monarch with a constitutional monarch and a parliament, but the necessary parallel evolution from subject to citizen did not take place. The mentality of the people has yet to catch up with the changes that have already taken place in the governing structure and the monarchy. The majority of respondents are involved in traditional clientage relations. Underlying the practice of patronage is the idea that each individual is situated, however temporarily, in a particular position in a hierarchy of relative power. Those higher up in the hierarchy seek validation of their power from among those below them, and in return those lower down expect tangible benefits from their superiors. Even though patron–client relations also revolve around a sense of obligation, these feelings differ from the social trust that can be generated from people who hardly know one another. This latter kind of social trust among equals is what results in social capital and binds together a civic community. More importantly, it can lead to higher levels of political participation. In the political realm, the particular reality of traditional clientage relations translates into voters who do not perceive themselves as citizens who have the right to make demands on their elected representatives and actively hold them accountable for their actions. Instead, after election day most voters revert to their role as obedient subservient subjects with low efficacy. The SAIS Survey shows that less than a third of all respondents interviewed are democratic citizens who vote as well as engage in even minimal activities in-between elections. The majority of respondents think that they are not important enough to deserve any attention from the politicians, and their actions will not have any impact.

The rise of Thaksin and his subsequent political reincarnation through his relatives and political allies is important because it was fueled by a populist agenda centered on income redistribution, government activism, and policy innovation aimed at uplifting the


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middle and lower classes in the democratization of Thailand. This agenda captured the hearts and minds of Thailand’s rural majority and built the Thai Rak Thai Party into an unstoppable political machine. In February 2005, when his incumbent government was returned to office with almost 61 percent of the vote and more than 75 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives, Thaksin had reached the pinnacle of his political career. He had put Thailand on the world’s emerging-markets map with impressive rates of economic growth, bold leadership, and apparent democratic consolidation that seemed to promise a future in which Thailand would be politically stable and more effectively governed. The dark side to all this was the lengthening trail of corruption accusations and alleged abuses of power of Thaksin’s government.

Critics charged the premier and his party with instituting authoritarian rule behind the cloak of democratic legitimacy that resulted from winning elections. The Bangkok-based urban elites, the intelligentsia and civil society groups, the old nobility, sections of the private sector, the bureaucracy, the military, and, implicitly, the Monarchy soon took Thaksin to task for what they saw as misrule for the purpose of graft and aggrandizement. This resulted in several years of political instability with the consequent frequent changes in government, including twice changing the entire regime, approving a new, more conservative constitution, and increased reliance on nationalist fervor.

Thailand’s path to democracy remains erratic and does not point to greater political stability that would help strengthen democratic norms. Political transformations continue to take place, but the impetus for change seems to be mostly through undemocratic rather than democratic means. In 2011, the number of coups in modern Thai history remains only slightly lower than the number of general elections. Although elections have become more regular, coups remain a favored means for changing governments, and that purely formalistic institutions and the absence of political participation beyond voting might allowed elite political leaders to centralize power and lead a more authoritarian form of government under the guise of democracy.

Democracy, in fact, appears to trickle down from the top rather than rising up from the grassroots or the middle class whose influence is neither unified nor consistent. It is the upper class that is most likely to engage in forms of political activity that go beyond just voting in national elections. Political commentators and the mass media have often singled out the middle class as the primary social force championing democratic ideals. Invariably, the term ‘middle class’ conjures up images of the political role that the bourgeoisie played in spearheading revolutions during the 17th and 18th centuries in England and France. Thus, when applied to Asia, this term raises a preconceived notion of what to expect from the Asian middle class. Political events in the past 15 years, in different countries throughout the region ranging from China to the Philippines to Indonesia, have shown that the middle class has in fact adopted some of these democratic ideals. The Thai urban middle class undoubtedly has the potential to be a political force, but its political identity remains stunted. More Thai middle class in Bangkok are ‘rote democrats’ (i.e. 37 percent) than ‘democratic citizens’ (i.e. 25 percent). In contrast, 36 percent of the much smaller group of upper class Thais are ‘democratic citizens’. Consequently, the educated upper-income earners who comprise the top strata of Thai society continue to play a disproportionate role in Thai politics.

Rote democracy embodies the legacy of authoritarian leadership and reflects the practical perception in Bangkok of democracy as the most effective political system available. That is, the result- oriented electorate does not really believe in or practice democratic ideals such as equality, but they support democracy because they know that it is


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good for business and the country’s economy. Thus, the electorate plays along and votes when they are told to do so. However, they do not participate in other activities beyond election day since they have yet to accept their responsibilities as citizens in a democracy to constrain and check the government’s power. It is clear that Thailand cannot simply copy the Western model, but rather democracy must be adapted to suit the country’s culture. Over the last decade or so, Thailand has witnessed a dramatic turn from electoral authoritarianism under deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001–2006 to a military government under General Prayuth Chan-ocha. Interestingly enough, these two sides of the authoritarian coin, electoral and military, represent both Thailand’s democratic reality and the lasting legacy of the country’s authoritarian past. Thailand daunting challenge is not to choose one or the other but to create a hybrid that combines electoral sources of legitimacy for democratic rule and moral authority and integrity which is often lacked by democratically elected officials. Democratic institutions are useless without responsible politicians and citizens to bring them to life. The military-backed government faces a tall order dealing with the grievances and expectations of a neglected electorate. Those who spoke out against the political monster that the Thaksin regime eventually became must now be wary of the potential for the military-backed government setting on a similar path. Unaccountable power with absolute authority and direct rule is inadvisable in Thailand. Past experiences in the 1960s, early 1970s and 1991–1992 have shown that such governments do not necessarily lead to a happy democratic ending.

Conclusion

The end of authoritarianism in some countries in Asia opened the door to democracy and yet offered no guaranteed for democracy flourish and counter the legacies of authoritarianism in the region. The examples of Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand show that there is no blue print for how the transition from an authoritarian political system to a democratic one takes place in Asia. The political and institutional trajectory that follows the end of an openly authoritarian system depends on, and it is contingent upon the interplay of the domestic characteristics of a particular country.

Yet, relatively little is known about why citizens of nascent and consolidating democracies remain attached to authoritarian rule after its demise, and of the different ways citizens orient themselves toward democracy and authoritarianism. Socialization and the performance theories help understand affective support for democracy. The socialization theory points to the importance of context in shaping democratic attitudes. Montero, Gunther and Torcal argued that the more a person experiences democracy, the greater the probability that he/she will affectively support democracy as a political system. Rose, Mishler and Haerpfer offer a more nuanced analysis of those views by introducing an evaluative dimension. They state that:

“support for the regime is initially shaped by early socialization and then evolves continuously throughout adult life as initial beliefs are reinforced or challenged by later experiences. In so far as recent results reinforce early socialization, political values will be relatively stable,


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but in so far as there are major changes or shocks in the performance of government, attitudes will change considerably”.10

At the aggregate level, these factors all refer to characteristics of the context: the

number of years a country has been a democracy; the predominant values in a country; and the quality of the democratic system. This is the context in which citizens develop their orientations to democracy in general, and to their countries’ democratic system in particular. Socialization and cultural values may play a role in explaining why citizens of third wave democracies remain attached to the political values and practices of authoritarianism even after some years of democratic rule. The cumulative effect of socialization of non-democratic values might make it difficult for citizens to re-orient themselves toward democratic values, especially toward the values of liberalism and pluralism that generally figure prominently in democratic regimes. The more strongly people adhere to values typical of the pre-democratic period, the more cautious they are likely to be about embracing democracy as the preferred form of government for their countries. Repeated, long-term involvement in the political process might help strengthen people affective support for, and integrate changes in, the political system in which they live. Moreover, familiarity with democratic processes might breed satisfaction with it. Positive experiences with the functioning of democratic institutions might also encourage citizens to endorse the view that democracy is better than its alternatives.

When it comes to mass sentiments, the overall findings of the 2011 SAIS Survey and the Civic Survey are that the attitudes expressed by representative samples from Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand are inchoate and do not, in and of themselves, provide support sufficient to guarantee the survival of a democratic political system. The support of citizens for authoritarian or democratic forms of government shows that for every Indonesian, favoring a democratic system, there are two who prefer an authoritarian one. In Myanmar and Thailand, the same ratios are 1.7:1 and 1:3 respectively. In all three countries, 45–55 percent of all respondents favorably evaluate authoritarian and democratic political systems simultaneously. The legacy of authoritarianism is such that citizens in new democracies often embrace both democracy and authoritarianism simultaneously (as they might be unsure of what political system could be more suited to address their needs) making support for democracy ‘a mile wide and an inch deep’. Shallow support from public opinion increases the vulnerability of a new democracy to diverse strains such as the breakdown of law and order, the mobilization onto the streets of vigilante groups, or the advent of a charismatic figure bent upon exploiting the impacts of the country’s authoritarian legacy.

The findings from this paper are neither good nor bad news for democracy and how it can offset the impacts of authoritarian legacy. Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand might not be consolidated democracies, but this is a great improvement over the authoritarian governments that they were in the past. As new democracies, they display few of the institutional strengths and underlying habits of participation for which scholars and policy makers had hoped. Permanent democratic consolidation may always have been an impossible dream. Much of the public opinion software of democracy remains a work in progress. This places an especially heavy burden on national leaders and the educated urban elites to foster trust among themselves and a consensus on democratic practice across their societies. Neither strong institutions nor a responsible division of power is yet permanent. The military will

10 Richard Rose, William Mishler and Christian Haerpfer. 1998. Democracy and Its Alternatives. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.


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remain a potential political problem, especially in times of chaos. Judicial bias and corruption have thus far been immune to domestic and international reform projects designed to reform them. Legislatures at times seem to act like counting houses for the dispensation of personal favors rather than chambers dedicated to the passage of society-wide legislation.

Democracies are not easily sustained as any and all democratic arrangements are fragile by their own nature. Maintaining a democracy requires an appropriate mix of public sentiments and mass processes like elections, non- electoral participation, civil society, responsible elite behaviors and capable and genuinely pro-democratic leaders; finally, institutions (executive, legislative, judicial, and the military) must become (at least) minimally effective and publicly accountable. Because democracy requires positive and simultaneous achievements on each of these dimensions, it is, and probably always will be, a work in progress. The difficulty involved in approaching all of these goals simultaneously is one reason why it has made limited progress in Asia.

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