To understand authoritarian governments in South-East Asia, firstly visualise the political regime scale that starts with liberal democracies then shifts across to electoral democracies (Indonesia, Philippines), competitive authoritarian regimes (Malaysia, Singapore), then across to hegemonic authoritarian regimes (Cambodia, Vietnam), and further across to closed authoritarian regimes (Brunei and China).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then within this political scale authoritarian regimes can be segmented further on their level of sophistication, and Dr Morgenbesser has developed a sub-classification system that incorporates different techniques depending on the level of sophistication or preference for traditional practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey (the five countries in the project) were basically selected for two reasons \u2013 one is they are the longest-lasting authoritarian regimes in the region, with the exception of Brunei keeping in mind this is up to 2015 \u2013 and Malaysia has now changed leadership as the ruling party lost power last year,\u201d said Dr Morgenbesser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo they are the longest lasting but there is also variation in terms of the types of the authoritarian regimes that they are. Cambodia and Vietnam are hegemonic, Brunei is closed which means they don\u2019t hold national elections, like China, which makes the political system closed to participation and contestation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd this group of countries has challenges, I mean the difficulty is that Brunei is very controlled and lacks basic political rights and civil liberties. While some people will answer questions you get tailed by State security forces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo Brunei is a problem and then with Cambodia I am banned from going there due to my previous research on the regime, so that only leaves three countries I can safely visit for field research.\u201d
\u201cAnd the basic premise of the entire project is \u2013 I think there has been a subtle change in the nature of authoritarianism, and I am trying to investigate that in South-East Asia.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Brunei\u2019s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Image Aljazeera EPA <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe decision on whether to remain competitive authoritarian or to strive to become hegemonic authoritarian is one that presents different challenges for regime leaders and Dr Morgenbesser explains it\u2019s very difficult to make this transition using sophisticated techniques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI talk about competitive authoritarianism that\u2019s the modal type around the world. I mean that\u2019s between the extreme of liberal democracy and closed authoritarian regimes like North Korea,\u201d said Dr Morgenbesser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA whole bunch of authoritarian regimes after the cold war settled on this competitive model where you have competitive elections, but you skew the playing field in favour of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd when it comes to using sophisticated techniques \u2013 it\u2019s actually very difficult to move from competitive to hegemonic and do it in a sophisticated way because you are going to have to crack down, so you are going to have to jail opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, Image AP <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe research centred around a theoretical framework and dataset that has autocratic techniques tabulated across seven South-East Asian Countries over forty years (1975-2015). With the addition of Myanmar and Laos that were added after the DECRA project began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe framework involves seventy-three indicators in two categories from retrograde to sophisticated, and when you plug those seven countries in from 1975 to 2015 and all the indicators \u2013 as a region it has been more sophisticated since 2012,\u201d said Dr Morgenbesser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo the question I have in the conclusion is if you don\u2019t move towards sophistication do you lose power? And the data indicates that this could really happen.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cSo as a region it has gone from retrograde which is a standard scale and it finally tips over at that level in 2012 towards sophisticated. So the trend is good for autocracy and bad for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd if you examined by who\u2019s the most sophisticated as of 2015 it would be Vietnam. If you looked at who has changed the most over time \u2013 it would be Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut then Myanmar has a substantial increase when they decided to release Aung San Suu Kyi, and undertake liberalization, which included holding competitive elections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCambodia is moving upwards and then it flatlines in 2005. So it\u2019s not inevitable that they become more sophisticated, there\u2019s a lot of variation over an extended period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMyanmar is a wave up and down on line chart and Brunei never goes anywhere (maintains a flatline).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMalaysia is one of the more fascinating things that I found \u2013 So Malaysia has one of the sharpest decreases seen in all of the data (towards retrograde) \u2013 once Najib Razak gets in power in 2009, he starts to do certain things that are retrograde and the score plummets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI compared that to Indonesia and the Philippines \u2013 so these are the only two cases of democratisation \u2013 whereby they have switched from autocratic to democratic governance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhereas in Indonesia Suharto ruled for 31 years he never made a shift towards sophisticated authoritarianism, it begins here in 1967 and ends there in 1998.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the Philippines here you have a case where Marcos engineering a move towards sophisticated authoritarianism, but it ends in 1981 and it starts to go down and then he loses power in 1986.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s what I saw in Malaysia and this is what we are starting to see in Cambodia \u2013 so if I was going to make any future predictions \u2013 the data suggests a trend that regimes are at risk of losing power if they don\u2019t become more sophisticated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Please click here to read the full “The rise of sophisticated authoritarianism in South East Asia<\/a>” article written by Troy Miller, Marketing and Communications Manager, Office of the Dean (Research), Griffith University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a majority of countries in South East Asia currently under autocratic leadership and little history of liberal democracy in the region, Dr Lee Morgenbesser has found that the region\u2019s penchant for authoritarianism is stable and the level of sophistication is increasing \u2013 which is a concern for champions of democracy. Dr Lee Morgenbesser from the School […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":6431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[247,1056],"tags":[1002,1065,280,314,518,417,1003,554,444],"class_list":["post-6425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indonesia-and-southeast-asia","category-politics","tag-authoritarianism","tag-brunei","tag-cambodia","tag-dr-lee-morgenbesser","tag-malaysia","tag-singapore","tag-sophistication","tag-southeast-asia","tag-vietnam"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"Kahlia Bartley","yoast_head":"\n
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