Garry Rodan

Amidst intensifying great power rivalry between the US and China, the Australian government has looked to greater cooperation with Southeast Asian countries to navigate a peaceful and prosperous course through the rough seas of this second Cold War. This is an understandable but also problematic direction. Economic and security imperatives have long been intertwined. The challenge now, however, is to understand how so in the new political economy of militarised neoliberalism, and the implications for regional engagement. Otherwise, policy plans have shaky foundations. This argument is prosecuted with an illustrative focus on policies of joint Australia and Southeast Asia cooperation in ‘green’ industries, most advanced with Indonesia. Political economy research reveals how policies of cooperation meant to avoid taking sides in superpower contestation can have starkly different outcomes. Identifying and analysing dominant coalitions of economic and socio-political interest, mediating how official policy is implemented or obstructed, is pivotal to understanding the constraints and possibilities of effective cooperation.

Labour control through coercion, violence, and restrictive laws is well analysed for Southeast Asia. Less understood is why, how, and to what effect, political participatory institutions articulate with labour control strategies. Central to such an understanding is analysis of political coalitions shaping these institutions, and the historical and dynamic political economy foundations of these coalitions. In this article it is argued that an ideologically cohesive coalition of technocratic politico-bureaucrats seized power in Singapore during the Cold War, and established state capitalism through which both labour and private capital can be politically disciplined. These power relations are integral to the capacity for state-sponsored participation rationalised through ideologies of consultative authoritarianism. By contrast, in post-Cold War Cambodia, a coalition encompassing private conglomerates, domestic political actors, international investors, and organisations initially supported labour participation but without ideological consensus over why or how. Intra-coalitional tensions emerged when trade unions aligned with political opposition to challenge crony capitalism’s patronage networks and ideologies linking the ruling party and domestic business, leading to greater reliance on state coercion to control labour.

In both the Philippines and Singapore, rapid capitalist development over the last decade combined with intensified inequalities in wealth and income. The conflict this generated resulted in significant – but very different – political responses by elites and popular forces in these countries. In the Philippines, public disenchantment with established elites and institutions fuelled support for populist representation through the authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte. In Singapore, populist sentiments were evident also, but ruling elites were more effective in containing conflict to reinforce prevailing institutions of representation. The explanation for these different outcomes resides not in the intrinsic quality of established institutions, but in the contrasting social foundations on which they rest: technocratic state capitalism in Singapore and private oligarchic capitalism in the Philippines.

Amidst popular concerns about rising inequalities and living costs, reduced social mobility and inadequate public infrastructure, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) suffered significant declines in electoral support in the 2006 and 2011 general elections before regaining support at the 2015 polls. Importantly, these concerns reflect the intensification of contradictions inherent to Singapore’s model of capitalist development. This juncture in the city-state’s political economy has been conducive to greater scrutiny of core PAP ideological notions about the perils of “Western” social welfare and the moral and functional advantages of non-democratic institutions of political accountability and representation. The PAP has responded with creative new defences of its core ideologies in conjunction with social spending boosts, a strategy that will be further tested following the 2015 election.

Despite their importance to democratic consolidation, relationships between civil society activists and political parties have often been problematic following the downfall of authoritarian regimes. In challenging authoritarian rule in Malaysia, though, these forces have increased cooperation and jointly committed at the 2008 elections to local government reform. This was especially important for middle-class non-governmental organization (NGO) activists seeking a transformation in the political culture of parties. Moreover, state government victories by reformist Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalitions included Selangor and Penang where these NGOs are concentrated. Yet while local government reform followed, NGOs and parties placed differing emphases on elections, transcending ethnic-based representation, and checks and balances on local government power. Lacking substantial social and organizational bases, NGOs were outflanked by more powerful interests inside and outside PR parties, including those aligned with ethnic-based ideologies of representation and economic development models opposed by NGOs. NGO activists also advanced various democratic and technocratic rationales for local representation, indicating a complex ideological mix underlying their reform push. The study highlights interrelated structural and ideational factors likely to more generally constrain the capacity of middle-class NGOs to play a vanguard role in democratically transforming Malaysian political culture.