Gangsters, Democracy, and the State in Southeast Asia: 17 (Southeast Asia Program Publications) PDF
Preview Gangsters, Democracy, and the State in Southeast Asia: 17 (Southeast Asia Program Publications)
Gangsters, and Democracy, the State in Southeast Asia CORNELL i„, UNIVERSITY .G36 1998 SEAP *o ouy i>7. nn Gangsters, Democracy, and the State in Southeast Asia s 6» ^ SAN FRASfOSCO OA #4t08 Gangsters, and Democracy, the State in Southeast Asia mkmmMRmm 1AWFRANCISCO. OA §4108 Southeast Asia Program Publications Southeast Asia Program Cornell University New Ithaca, York 1998 SEAP Editorial Board Benedict Anderson George Kahin Stanley O'Connor Keith Taylor Oliver Wolters Southeast Asia Program Series Number 17 Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications NY 640 Stewart Avenue, Ithaca, 14850-3857 © 1998 Cornell Southeast Asia Program All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Cornell Southeast Asia Program. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 0-87727-134-8 Contents Democracy and the State in Southeast Asia 7 Carl A. Trocki The Sinking Schooner: Murder and the State in Independent Burma, 1948-1958 17 Mary P. Callahan Crime, Society, and Politics in Thailand 39 fames Ockey Murder, Inc., Cavite: Capitalist Development and Political Gangsterism in a Phillipine Province 55 John T. Sidel "Muslim" Political Brokers and the Phillipines Nation-State 81 Patricio N. Abinales Democracy and the State in Southeast Asia Carl A. Trocki One of the most enduring aspects of Southeast Asian political history seems to be the shifting dynamics of centrifugal and centripetal tendencies. The past fifteen or more centuries have seen a succession of Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic monarchies, and colonial administrations, all seeking to assert the primacy of central state structures. Scholars such as Oliver W. Wolters and Stanley J. Tambiah have called attention to the resilience of local identities and to the fragile nature of "imperial" state structures. Tambiah's depiction of traditional Siam as a "galactic polity" shows a state system which seems an apt model for many other pre-modern Southeast Asian polities.2 A familiar figure in these landscapes is the type of political entrepreneur which Wolters has styled a "man of prowess."3 Together these elements, the segmented, mandalic polity and the charismatic, opportunistic strongman, have acted both as the stimulus for change in Southeast Asian politics as well as a chronic source of instability. More recently, military and civilian governments have faced similarly fissiparous tendencies as they sought to centralize new nation-states, often within the framework of earlier colonial administrations or other pre-modern polities. In collaboration with, or in opposition to these agencies, regional power holders have tried to maintain their control over local manpower and other resources. These leaders have sought to mediate, to their own profit, new instruments of power emanating from the center or deriving from global economic changes. Both the agents of the central state and the local men of power have employed stratagems of cooperation, subterfuge, or coercion in the ever-shifting balance of power between centers and peripheries, or perhaps more appropriately, between major and minor centers. 1 The studies here grew outofa panel at the AAS Annual meeting in 1992, in Washington, DC, on "National Authority and Local Power." I would like to thank Patricio Abinales, Mary Callahan,JamesOckey, andJohnSidel whocommented onearlierversionsofthis essay. 2 Stanley J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renounces A Study ofBuddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 3 O. W. Wolters, History, Culture and Region in Southeast Asian Perspectives (Singapore: Institute ofSoutheast Asian Studies, 1982). Carl A. Trocki Against the backdrop of this fundamental tension, recent decades have seen the emergence of "democracy" movements among the peoples of a number of emerging Southeast Asian polities. These movements have been supported, at least formally, by the Western democracies as well as other members of the world community. As a result, democratic forms, including elected legislative bodies and executives, regular elections, political parties, written constitutions, and formal guarantees of political and individual human liberties have become part of the legitimizing apparatus of most Southeast Asian nations. These movements and the practice of electoral and democratic politics have given a new twist to relations between central and local, or regional power structures in Southeast Asia. The maxim that all politics is local, long a cliche in American political life, has now gained a new importance in Asian politics. For some reason, however, students of most Southeast Asian governments have neglected the significance of this approach to the study of politics in the region. Most have focused on the level of national politics, or even international politics, and have presented the view from the capital city. This includes the work of Silverstein, Trager, and Taylor on Burma and Wilson and Girling on Thailand.4 Wurfel and others have done similar work on the Philippines, but in contrast to studies of other parts of the region, Philippine studies has a precedent for local history and interest in local everyday politics.5 Works by McCoy and Larkin are key examples of studies that focus on local issues.6 Likewise, economic anthropology and sociology have contributed to an important paradigm in Philippine political studies that builds "upwards" from the local studies of sociologists like Hollnsteiner and Lynch, to the provincial studies of Agpalo and Machado, to the holistic models of scholars such as Lande.7 There is nothing comparable elsewhere in Southeast Asia. 4 Josef Silverstein, Burma: Military Rule and the Politics of Stagnation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977); Robert H. Taylor, The—State in Burma (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1987); Frank N. Trager, Burma From Kingdom to Republic: A Historical and Political Analysis (New York: Fredrick A. Praeger Publisher, 1966); David A. Wilson, Politics in Thailand (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962); John L. S. Girling, Thailand: Society and Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981). 5 David Wurfel, Filipino Politics: Development and Decay (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). 6 Alfred W. McCoy, and Ed. C de Jesus, eds., Philippine Social History: Global Trade and Local Transformations (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1982); Alfred W. McCoy, ed., An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines (Madison, WI: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, 1993); John A. Larkin, The Pampangans: Colonial Society in a Philippine Province (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1972). 7 Brian Fegan, "Folk-Capitalism: Economic Strategies of Peasants in a Philippine Wet-Rice Village." (PhD Dissertation, Yale University, 1979); Girling, Thailand: Society and Politics; Mary R. Hollnsteiner, The Dynamics of Power in a Philippine Municipality (Quezon City: Community Development Research Council, Universityofthe Philippines, 1963);Carl H. Lande, Leaders, Factions, and Parties: The Structure of Philippine Politics (New Haven, CT: Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, 1964); Frank Lynch and Alfonso de Guzman II, eds., Four Readings on Filipino Values (Quezon City: Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University, 1973); Kit G. Machado, "Leadership and Organization in Philippine Local Politics," (PhD Dissertation, University of Washington, 1972); Kit G. Machado, "From Traditional Faction to Machine: Changing Patterns of Political Leadership in the Rural Philippines," Journal ofAsian Studies 33,4 (August 1974): 523-547; Remigio Agpalo, Pandanggo sa Haw: The Politics ofOccidental Mindoro (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1965).
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