Abstract
Southeast Asia as a region varies widely in its cultures, history, and political institutions. Due to this variety of regime types and the large variance of theoretically relevant explanatory factors, Southeast Asia presents political scientists with a “natural laboratory.” Levels of socioeconomic modernization, paths to state and nation-building, ethnic heterogeneity, colonial heritage, the structure of governing coalitions and elite formations, the shape and extent of interest and civil society organizations, as well as institutional factors like type of government or electoral system all differ widely. This chapter provides an overview of Southeast Asia’s demographic, cultural, and religious characteristics; outlines its precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial political development; and argues that the region’s eleven countries fall into three broad regime categories: Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and—most recently—Myanmar are examples of “electoral authoritarianism.” Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand after 2014 are closed autocracies that lack multiparty elections. Finally, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste make up the region’s defective democracies, all stable but suffering from different constellations of problems, including intermittent mass mobilization, corruption, and incomplete stateness.
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Notes
- 1.
There is no generally accepted convention on spelling the term. In the United Kingdom, the term “South East Asia” or “south east Asia” are generally preferred, while in the United States, Southeast Asia is more commonly used. This textbook employs the spelling “Southeast Asia,” as it is the spelling countries in the region have adopted through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
- 2.
The Federation of Malaya was renamed Malaysia after Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah (British Northern Borneo) joined the Federation in 1963.
- 3.
The name East Timor is still commonly used and was employed by Indonesia during its occupation. Since independence in 2002, Timor-Leste is the country’s adopted and internationally recognized name.
- 4.
The country was known as Burma from 1948 until 1989, when the ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar. Myanmar is the transliteration of the official state name from the original Birman. This book employs both names interchangeably.
- 5.
The concept of the political regime denotes that part of the political system that determines who is granted access to political power, under which conditions and within which limits this power is exercised (Lawson 1993, p. 187). Comparative politics most commonly distinguishes authoritarian and democratic regimes. Liberal democratic regimes provide open, pluralistic access to political power, rule within constitutional limits, and respect for the rule of law and political authority is based on popular sovereignty (Merkel 2004).
- 6.
The others are China, North Korea, and Cuba (Dimitrov 2013).
- 7.
The others are China, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar (Groemping 2015).
- 8.
Defective democracies are “diminished subtypes” of democracy. While elections in defective democracies are sufficiently free and fair, other institutional prerequisites of liberal democracy are constrained. Constitutional limits and checks on the democratically legitimized leadership can be missing—namely civil rights, the rule of law, and horizontal accountability—or the effective power of democratically elected authorities to govern is limited (Merkel 2004).
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Croissant, A., Lorenz, P. (2018). Government and Political Regimes in Southeast Asia: An Introduction. In: Comparative Politics of Southeast Asia. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68182-5_1
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