A common narrative of globalization, conceived as a multi-layered offensive by the forces of neo-liberal capitalism, is that it is unravelling the familiar political form of the post-war nation state, identified broadly as ‘embedded liberalism’ in the West and the ‘developmental state’ in the East. This occurrence is marked by bringing into being new disciplinary regimes of governance articulated around market rules. Further, some would codify this as instituting new modes of constitutionalism whereby authorities that transcend the nation state now compel extant states to adopt codes of conduct in conformity with the transcendent needs of the capital form (Gill 1998). Thus, although the last 20 years have seen dramatic shifts in state forms towards procedural democracy, these developments need to be framed in cognisance of the global structures that limit the sovereignty of the new democracies such that alternative national agendas are left begging (Gills et al. 1993). Democratization, then, to the extent that it has been elite-led, might best be seen as bringing into being new conditions of disempowerment, as William Robinson (1996) and Rita Abrahamsen (2000), separately, show.

Bringing this analysis down to a sub-regional perspective and looking at democratization in the Philippines, Thailand or Indonesia, we see a confluence of national crises, the advance of capitalism and domestic movements for political reform. Each of these countries has been subject to international democracy promotion projects and governance reform aimed at developing a liberal state, in line with the ‘globalization project’ pursued by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, as well as transnational corporations and the US Wall Street-Treasury complex. This project entails market liberalization and deregulation, pursuit of comparative advantage, restructuring of the state (downsizing, decentralization, democratization) and the emergence of institutions of global governance (McMichael 1996: 148–175).

While a broad brush account of neo-liberal globalization serves as a useful template upon which to map national responses, it tells us little about the kind of discursive struggles that are happening on the ground in each of the countries involved.

Whether a major power or a developing nation, states have had to face up to the shifting role of government in response to the changes brought about by globalization. One of these changes involves the increase in non-formal politics, which takes the form of activism in domestic civil society. Nation states, in general, are currently in the process of (re)defining their roles in the contemporary global milieu as the locus of control over decisions affecting national destinies shifts increasingly away from the state and its institutions. An important part of these changes in traditional power configurations can be seen in the growth and revitalization of independent organs of civil society, as people throughout the world attempt to grapple with the impacts of globalization on their lives (Mittelman 1997). Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), both national and international, are major activists in this context. The present chapter focuses on the Malaysian state's human rights policies and practices in response to increased civil society participation in governance through the venue of non-electoral politics. A central question to be addressed in assessing the Malaysian human rights movement concerns whether, and to what degree, a political culture of participatory democracy may be evolving in the country.

THREE DEBATES ON HUMAN RIGHTS: GLOBAL, NATIONAL AND LOCAL INTERSECTIONS

The presence of the global human rights narratives expressed in the United Nations' (UN) 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in developing nations around the globe, has generated a series of responses from nation-states, as well as from grassroots organizations. Given power relations and the diversity of belief systems and interests within Malaysia, it is no surprise that there is a wide variety of views concerning the applicability of the global human rights discourse to Malaysia.

The literature indicates three major areas of debate in response to the human rights discourse expressed in the UDHR (Bauer and Bell 1999). One of the debates concerns the UN's formulation of the indivisibility of human rights. The basic tenet of the indivisibility argument – held by all the Western nations – is that it is necessary to observe all rights at all times.

The collapse of the New Order government of President Suharto in 1998 marked Indonesia's transition from authoritarian rule into a more democratic system of government. As will be seen below, both the rise and the fall of the New Order regime can be attributed to the complex interplay between domestic forces and international dynamics. The New Order regime emerged at the height of the Cold War period, when Western countries, led by the United States, pursued a policy of containing communism. To that end, the Western bloc gave support to developing countries that demonstrated an equally anti-communist stance, in the form of economic aid, military package and even overt political support. Although the West regarded itself as the champion of democracy, Western policy in fact helped to prop up authoritarian regimes in different parts of the world, including in Indonesia, as long as these regimes were anti-communist. The military-dominated New Order government, which restricted civil and political liberties and promoted crony capitalism, was generally applauded by the major Western countries for bringing political stability and economic development to Indonesia, thereby saving Indonesia from the communist virus.

The demise of the New Order political structure can also be attributed to a considerable degree to the fundamental changes taking place in the international political and economic systems. With the ending of the Cold War in the late 1980s, international relations agenda as promoted by the West shifted away from bipolar ideological conflict to such issues as the promotion of democracy, human rights, environmental protection and market liberalization. Combined with the forces of globalization, in particular the revolution in information and communication technology, these changes in the international environment helped to strengthen and embolden pro-democracy forces in Indonesia, which in an earlier era could easily be silenced by the government. As the New Order government faced both international and domestic pressures to reform, it was ill prepared to face the onslaught of the financial crisis that swept through Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia in mid-1997.

A cursory survey of the literature available suggests that the globalization theme had not yet become the focus of attention among most researchers of Southeast Asia until very recently. However, this does not mean that Southeast Asianists had not been researching and writing about particular aspects of globalization, as outlined by Loh and Öjendal in the Introduction.

For instance, in the 1980s, especially after the Plaza Accords of 1985 and the realignment of currencies, economists had already noted the unprecedented inflow of FDIs and subsequently portfolio capital into certain Southeast Asian countries (see articles in Soon 1990). Other economists like Yoshihara (1988), even earlier, had traced the role of foreign capital in the rise of what he termed ‘ersatz capitalism’ in Southeast Asia. The collection of essays in Robison, Hewison and Higgott (1987), on the other hand, discussed the fiscal crisis and foreign debt problems in Southeast Asia in the early 1980s, which resulted in a swing in the balance of power away from the domestic states and capital to international financial institutions, and a similar change in the balance of influence over policy from protectionists to proponents of neoliberalism. Related studies traced how economic liberalization policies often enhanced cronyism (Gomez and Jomo 1997). There have also been studies of cultural developments in the Southeast Asian countries, highlighting how the new information and communication technology had contributed towards cultural homogenization and hybridity, as well as local responses to these cultural developments. Studies of Southeast Asia's ‘new politics’ – the human rights and feminist movement, the consumer and environmental movements, religious revivalism, ethnoregional movements, NGOs and their cultural politics – and democratization more generally had also been conducted (ICJ and CAP 1982; ACHRO 1984; Kahn and Loh 1992; Saravanamuttu 1992; Maznah and Wong 1994; Loh 1996; Robinson 1996; Jaturong and Gawin 1995; Eldridge 1995; Rodan 1993 and 1996; Uhlin 1996; and Heryanto 1997).

This is a volume on changes in governance systems and practices pertaining to the idea of ‘democratization’ in Southeast Asia, intentionally positioned in a ‘thick’ historical context of globalization. The assumption is twofold: firstly, ‘globalization’ – in all its varieties – affects societies, triggers responses and causes alterations in established national governance systems and practices. Secondly, ‘change’ invariably occurs, but we do not know the direction of change globalization causes in particular Southeast Asian settings, and the possible ramifications of this process.

Also, we do not have a ready-made theory to outline the direction of change. Typically, the changes we observe are not in line with the suggestions contained in the dominant strands of the ‘globalization literature’ (such as Beck 2000; Ohmae 1995), nor those contained in the democratic ‘transition literature’ (such as Diamond 1999; Diamond and Plattner 1998; cf. Lipset 1959). Although of uncontested merit in their own right, we have sought to move beyond, or perhaps beneath these broad suggestions of increasing liberalization on the one hand, democratization at the national level on the other. We are thus not particularly interested in discussing whether the Southeast Asian countries are becoming ‘more’ or ‘less’ democratic. Rather, we wish to discuss the specific changes in governance practices, and only then how these changes might or might not contribute towards a process of ‘democratization’. In consequence we have sought as vividly as possible to reflect the diverse, innovative, reactionary, but also progressive responses to various forms of globalization pressure. Diversity, para-doxes and culturally flavoured processes have marked these changes, posing a real challenge to any uniform analysis. Rather than corroborate existing theories, we shall attempt to theorize our findings. Rather than to apply deductive logic, our task here is to historicize the links between globalization, cultural themes and political development (cf. Alagappa 1995: 45).

This volume began with a historical narrative by Loh, wherein changes and continuities in Southeast Asia were described in their own terms, and only then put into the context of ‘globalization’.

INTRODUCTION

‘What's clear is that Hanoi can no longer rule by remote control.’ (Far Eastern Economic Review, 7 December 2000)

After one and a half decades of economic reform, the Vietnamese government has recently paved the way for political experiments with decentralization and local democracy. Such reforms are found worldwide and they are generally spurred by worldwide trends of globalization, which can be seen as open-ended renegotiations of power between the state, the market and the civil society. Connectivity has increased together with the flow of resources, information and people (Tomlinson 1999: 2). These flows and the networks sustaining them, or controlling them, are challenging the ‘old’ nation states to an extent where they are forced to find new ways and means to stay in control of at least key aspects of the national political arenas. Vietnam, as a one-party state and a planned economy, has had relatively high control of these flows, but due to the economic crises after the American war (ending 1975), Vietnam was forced to loosen its grip on these flows. From the mid-1980s, the government introduced liberalization and market economy, not least in the rural areas, and Vietnam managed to increase production considerably. As in many other parts of the world, a negative side effect was a widening social gap between the rich and the poor. Other phenomena flourished too in the wake of transformation, like red tape and corruption, which both undermined the legitimacy of the regime and posed problems for the new market sector.

Frequent social unrest at the grassroots level since the mid-1980s and pressure from major donors towards the end of the 1990s forced Vietnam to also consider political reforms. Although it has been an intermittent process with cautious steps on behalf of the leadership in Hanoi, there is now little doubt about the direction towards inclusion of local communities into the political process.

On 1 September 1998, the Malaysian government, acting through its central bank, Bank Negara, pegged the Malaysian ringgit at the rate of US$1 to RM3.80, and instituted a set of ‘exchange control mechanisms’. Bank Negara's imposition of a fixed exchange rate for the ringgit (vis-à-vis the US dollar), and of the capital controls, represented the Malaysian state's concerted, not to say desperate, response to the worsening effects of the ‘East Asian financial crisis’ of July 1997. These financial measures sealed a strategy of crisis management that had been haphazardly formulated since late 1997, to use publicly financed rescue plans and packages to prevent the sudden collapse of key sectors, strategic industries and powerful conglomerates.

On 2 September 1998, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad sacked his deputy (and, concurrently Minister of Finance), Anwar Ibrahim, from all government posts. The official announcement of the dismissal gave no reasons for this first ever sacking of a deputy prime minister in Malaysia. But the event appeared to be the culmination of a series of uneasy policy differences, even skirmishes, between Mahathir and Anwar over the management of a looming economic crisis. The dismissal of Anwar, who had been widely touted to be Mahathir's ‘anointed successor’, was immediately followed by Anwar's expulsion from his party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the dominant party of the ruling coalition (Barisan Nasional, BN, or National Front). The moves against Anwar constituted a pre-emptive strike to deny Anwar any chance of challenging Mahathir, let alone succeeding him as the prime minister or UMNO president.

That an economic crisis, and one with international origins, should have joined, indeed provoked, a political crisis that threatened the survival of the incumbent leadership was not, in and of itself, without precedent in Malaysia. During the late 1980s, Mahathir's leadership was openly challenged and very narrowly avoided defeat in UMNO's party election of 1987.

INTRODUCTION

Located on the north-western coast of the island of Borneo, Sarawak is Malaysia's largest province, covering a total of 124,449 sq km or approximately 37.5 per cent of the total land area of the country. It holds rich resource deposits of petroleum, natural gas and, until recently, timber. The 2000 National Census put its population at 2.07 million, consisting of numerous diverse ethnic communities, the six largest being Iban (28.6 per cent), Malays (21.4 per cent), Chinese (27 per cent), Bidayuh (8 per cent), Melanau (5.6 per cent) and Orang Ulu (6 per cent). Of these, approximately 0.997 million were urban residents with the remaining 1.074 million being rural dwellers (Malaysia 2000).

Sarawak's tryst with globalization began with its formal in- corporation into a global capitalist economy in 1841, with the arrival of the Victorian buccaneer, James Brooke, who established himself in the territory as a self-styled autocratic White Rajah. The Brooke Raj lasted 100 years, until 1941 when the Third Rajah, Charles Vyner Brooke, in a secret agreement with his own Committee of Administration, sold his rights as Rajah and granted a Constitution to Sarawak in exchange for substantial financial payments. Subsequently, in 1946, after the end of Imperial Japanese rule, the territory was ceded by Charles Vyner Brooke to the British government for a further financial settlement. British Colonial rule lasted for 17 years, after which, under the pretext of independence, Sarawak was forced into a merger in 1963 with the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, and Sabah to form the Federation of Malaysia.

Since its formal incorporation into a global capitalist economy, Sarawak has seen a remarkable amount of social and economic transformation, the most significant phase occurring from 1970 onwards. High economic growth with dramatic physical and social changes wrought by globalization, as mediated through national policies like the New Economic Policy (1970–90) and the National Development Policy (1990–2000), have brought about an admirable surge of development achievements.

INTRODUCTION

If ‘development’ and ‘democracy’ were watchwords for generations of political analysts and policy makers during much of the Cold War era, contemporary debates have focused attention on a new would-be ‘elective affinity’ – that of ‘globalization’ and ‘global civil society’. In terms of actual existing instances of a ‘global civil society’, organizations such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International and Transparency International, and their respective local affiliates, have become cause célèbres in their own right. In this vein, such transnational ‘secondary’ associations have also become inextricably associated with certain hopes and claims, whether focused on the promotion of a ‘green’ environment, human rights or good governance.

Beyond celebrating or even evaluating the significance of such phenomena on their own terms, as political discourse and strategy, it remains important to probe the notion of ‘global civil society’ itself. To that end, the analytical-philosophical question, rather than the political-activist one, must focus on unpacking the mobilization of hopes and claims in the name of civil society: Who can successfully do so? When? Where? And how? Locating ‘global/civil society’ in a wider social context, with particular attention to class formation, suggests a critical point of departure for such an investigation. In the case of Southeast Asia, for example, it is possible to identify important cross- national synchronic variations in the region between, on the one hand, the Philippines and Thailand, and, on the other, Indonesia and Malaysia (Hedman 2001: 921–952). That is, the early assimilation of local Chinese populations in the Philippines and Thailand, compared to Indonesia and Malaysia, has allowed for the relative prominence of an emerging national capitalist class in the mobilization of ‘People Power’ protests against the regimes in Manila (1986, 2001) and Bangkok (1992), while their counterparts in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur have remained conspicuously absent in the analogous Reformasi movements of 1998.

While similarly concerned to anchor what is typically viewed as a strangely apolitical and horizontal sphere of voluntarism and spontaneity – ‘civil society’ – within a wider social context, this paper pursues a diachronic analysis of class formation and its implications for collective mobilization in the name of civil society.

The last decade in Cambodia has been marked by continuous political change and dramatic economic liberalization, resulting in, inter alia, an accelerating degree of dependence on external economic and political dynamics. Although Cambodia is now into a decade of ‘democratization’, changes in the domestic political institutions have remained superficial, particularly at the local level in the rural areas where the majority of the population lives. However, a decentralization reform that targets the interface of ‘democratization’ and ‘development’ at the local level is now being implemented. In theory this reform cuts deep into the everyday life of most Cambodians and may possibly bring about the political and social change that was generally anticipated when national elections were first conducted in 1993. The focus of this chapter is to assess the prospect for this reform and the consequences it may carry for the furthering of democratic change.

CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND

Comprehensive democratic decentralization reform was formally launched in Cambodia in 2001. This reform was somewhat of a surprise to many observers; some questioned the genuineness with which the central state was driving this process (Meixner and Sovirak 1999), while others categorically rejected the possibility that bottomup processes and democratic representation in Cambodia might work (Ledgerwood 1998; cf. Thion 1993). Historians, on their part, have stressed the conservative nature of Khmer culture (Martin 1994; cf. Mabbet and Chandler 1995), while the NGO-community is worried that the process does not take into account the perspectives of all stakeholders adequately (e.g. NGO Statement 2000). In the popular debate, the reform is typically viewed as part of a greater power play involving players who are intrinsically uninterested in local-level development and democracy.

There is some justification for all these critical and cynical views. The rift between the far-reaching ambition of the administrative reform, and the high expectations of the outcome, on the one hand, and the difficult circumstances under which the reform is being carried out on the other, is wide, and calls for critical analysis. Historically, power has neither been decentralized in any meaningful way, nor has it been democratically distributed.

For analysts of political development, Singapore is an extremely frustrating case. The economy is opened to global flows, thus highly influenced by external forces, in spite of the government's heavy presence in the domestic economy through state-capitalist enterprises. The economy had been inevitably affected by the 1997 Asian regional financial crisis and the global recession during the early years of this century; nevertheless, it has had four decades of expansion with very few disruptions. These four decades of sustained economic development have changed the society in very significant ways. Educational attainment of the population has expanded, so too has economic confidence and consumption power. The population is better informed, and through education, global travel and access to information, more cosmopolitan in outlook.

The cultural sphere, too, is open to global flows, from pop culture to weighty intellectual trends; expansion includes relatively highbrow cultural practices, such as theatre and visual arts, and more prosaic desires of different lifestyles. Talks of civil society and desires for reforms have multiplied. The willingness of activists to work behind the scene in ‘closed door’ meetings with relevant government agencies, while remaining taciturn publicly, has worn thin. Many groups now make public issues out of their successes or failures in negotiations with government agencies. The newspapers, although still unerringly pro-government, have provided more space for debate in their forum pages and coverage of civil society activities. An image of greater freedoms is the perception of locals and foreigners alike. Emblematic of this perception is Time magazine's declaration of Singapore as a ‘funky’ place in one of its cover stories in 1998.

The expansion and liberalization of the cultural sphere suggests that the PAP government's ability to hold on to political power comes not from a stubborn, authoritarian and repressive exercise of power. It issues from an ability to open up areas of social and cultural practices to greater degrees of flexibility, to allow segments of the population to realize their desires, at least partially, rather than letting the desires fester and be transformed into political demands.

During 2004, Southeast Asia's political and security scene featured significant domestic developments in several of its states (notably Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Singapore), the continued salience of internal security challenges including a new outbreak of separatist-inspired violence in Thailand's Muslim south as well as the threat from the pan-regional Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, the growing interest of extra-regional powers in the sub-region's security, and continuing efforts to make ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) a more useful vehicle for security cooperation. At the year's end, the massive impact of the tsunami generated by the earthquake off Sumatra created humanitarian crises for Indonesia and Thailand, raising the question of whether governments in the region had paid sufficient practical attention to “human security” issues.

Domestic Political Developments

In the three Southeast Asian states where there were national elections during 2004, the popular vote favoured strong leadership and programmatic agendas over charisma, as well as secularism where there was a choice of an Islamist alternative. In Malaysia, the March 2004 general election saw the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, dominated by the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), reelected in a landslide victory bringing it 198 out of 219 parliamentary seats, its greatest ever majority. Crucially, the number of parliamentary seats held by PAS (Parti Islam Se Malaysia, the Malaysian Islamic Party), which had become the largest opposition force in parliament following the previous general election in 1999, fell from 27 to 7. In simultaneous state-level elections, the BN regained control of Terengganu from PAS. The election result resoundingly affirmed the popularity of new Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who had succeeded Dr Mahathir Mohamad in November 2003. However, the redrawing of electoral boundaries, the use of the Internal Security Act against opposition politicians, the government's highlighting of apparent links between PAS and terrorist suspects, and the intolerant image projected by PAS all contributed to the BN's massive win.

Introduction

Vigilance has been the hallmark of the pragmatic, realist-oriented Singapore government since an unanticipated independence 40 years ago. It is likely to remain so. Singapore simply has no other option. Although Singapore has prospered to become one of the richest states in the world, and its defence capability has improved considerably, the basic mindset of Singapore's leaders has not changed. International politics is seen as being dictated by the law of the jungle. As a small state, Singapore is faced with unique constraints. Singapore has to be able to signal potential aggressors that it has the capability and the will to deter them and defend itself. The first generation of Singapore leaders, led by its first Prime Minister (PM) Lee Kuan Yew, fought to get the island's “internal house” in order to ensure national survival. The opposition was crushed, and the nation set out to carve for itself its place in the world. Forced out of Malaysia in 1965, Singapore decided that it had to become a “Global City”, by making the world its hinterland. Its ambition is to become a global hub for international trade, investment, transportation, medical services, and tourism. The result of that sense of vigilance, against great odds, has been an exceptional and unique governmental performance which transformed Singapore's economy from Third World to First World status within a generation.

Singapore had a good 2004. The economy grew by an impressive 8.4 per cent on the back of a strong global economic revival, compared with 1.4 per cent in 2003. The official forecast is for a growth rate of 3–5 per cent in 2005.