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| Book review Authoritarian governments and opaque democracy
by Mustafa K Anuar
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The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank insisted that transparency and governance reforms were required to ensure ‘more robust market systems’ in Asian economies, their further liberalisation and fuller integration into the global capitalist system. For Indonesia and Malaysia, there was an additional dimension to transparency and good governance. These issues became the rallying cry of their respective Reformasi movements. Many Reformasi activists were optimistic that pressures from global capital and international financial institutions would push Southeast Asian regimes towards conform greater transparency and somehow to democracy. Transparently different meanings
An international authority on Southeast Asian political economy, and Director of the influential Asia Research Centre of Murdoch University, Rodan argues that ‘transparency’ had different meanings for different social groups and institutions. Authoritarian regimes in Singapore and Malaysia selectively pushed ‘transparency’ and confined ‘good governance’ to providing sufficient and vital information. Their objective was to be accountable to international capital, not necessarily their citizens. However, civil society groups Malaysia who fervently advocated democracy and press freedom maintained that transparency via institutional and media reforms would make the governments more politically accountable. In Rodan’s view, the free flow of ideas and information is anathema to authoritarian rule that is ‘characterised by a concentration of power and the obstruction of serious political competition with, or scrutiny of, that power’. Complicity and capitulation By various means, including institutional arrangements, instruments of state, restrictive laws and controlled national media, Southeast Asian regimes, especially in Singapore and Malaysia promoted their own brand of ‘transparency’. This strategy worked because of the complicity of the middle classes and international capital, and the vulnerability of the international media to the regimes’ commercial pressures. International capital, Rodan contends, was content with selective ‘transparency’ reforms that accelerated economic liberalisation. The international media, self-proclaimed champions of press freedom and regime accountability, yielded to economic self-interest. Rodan’s analysis is rich with examples of how the international media was ‘tamed’ in Singapore and, slightly less so, in Malaysia. Faced with periodic bans, censorship, mega legal suits, and cuts on advertising and circulation, the media chose caution over severely reduced revenues. Yet there were contrasts between the Singaporean and Malaysian cases. The Singapore regime controlled the national and international media more effectively than its Malaysian counterpart. Rodan suggests Malaysia’s larger size and thriving civil society made control and monitoring harder than in the island state known for its more efficient modes of social and political control. Cintai ICT? Those who are partial to hype about the potential of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) will not find comfort in Rodan’s analysis. Rodan rejects ‘modernization theory’ that ICT must bring positive changes to society. Instead he cautions that ICT can go ‘either way’ – towards democratisation or authoritarianism. In Singapore, already legal mechanisms control Internet use by tiny civil society groups inclined to experiment with democracy. But in Malaysia, during Reformasi, dissident websites emerged that fed a soaring popularity of alternative publications, thus damaging the credibility of the mainstream media. Predictably, the BN government has been exploring ways to dampen the Internet’s liberating impact. Readers committed to press freedom, justice and democracy, will find Rodan’s analysis compelling and his conclusion worrying. Rodan shows that the Singapore regime has become a ‘role model’ for other regimes. Indeed, regimes in Malaysia, Thailand and China may be eagerly learning from Singapore more effective controls over press freedom and transparency. Hence, economic liberalisation in Asia need not lead to freer political mobilisation and pluralism. Now e-mail us and tell us what you think. Your comments might be published in the Letters section of our print magazine, Aliran Monthly. Alternatively, post your comments to the message board. | |||||||||||||||
In Rodan’s view, the free flow of ideas and information is anathema to authoritarian rule that is "characterised by a concentration of power and the obstruction of serious political competition with, or scrutiny of, that power."
