Political Legitimacy in Asia: New Leadership Challenges

289 Pages·2011·2.027 MB·English

by  John Kane, Hui-Chieh Loy, Haig Patapan (eds.)

Political Legitimacy in Asia
Palgrave Series on Asian Governance
Series editors:
Michael Wesley, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australia
Patrick Weller, Griffith University, Australia
Published by Palgrave Macmillan:
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Political Legitimacy in Asia: New Leadership Challenges
Edited by John Kane, Hui- Chieh Loy, and Haig Patapan
Political Legitimacy in Asia
New Leadership Challenges
Edited by
John Kane , Hui- Chieh Loy , and
Haig Patapan
POLITICAL LEGITIMACY IN ASIA
Copyright © John Kane, Hui- Chieh Loy, and Haig Patapan, 2011.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011978-0-230-33753-4
All rights reserved.
First published in 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-34102-3 ISBN 978-1-137-00147-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137001474
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Political legitimacy in Asia : new leadership challenges / edited by
John Kane, Hui-Chieh Loy, and Haig Patapan.
p. cm.— (Palgrave series on Asian governance)
Includes index.
1. Legitimacy of governments— Asia. 2. Asia—Politics and
government—1945– I. Kane, John, 1945 Apr. 18– II. Loy, Hui-Chieh,
III. Patapan, Haig, 1959–
JQ24.P66 2011
320.95—dc23 2011019054
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: November 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction 1
John Kane, Hui- Chieh Loy, and Haig Patapan
2 Reclaiming Legitimacy in Postrevolutionary China:
Bringing Ideology and Governance Back In 17
Heike Holbig
3 Political Legitimacy in Vietnam under Challenge 39
Carlyle A. Thayer
4 The Struggle for Political Legitimacy in Thailand 61
Björn Dressel
5 Political Legitimacy in Indonesia: Islam, Democracy,
and Good Governance 85
G reg Barton
6 Legitimacy in Malaysia: Dilemmas and Deficits 1 05
W illiam Case
7 The Political Legitimacy of the PAP Government
in Singapore 127
Benjamin Wong and Xunming Huang
8 From Coup d’état to “Disciplined Democracy” in
Burma: The Tatmadaw’s Claims to Legitimacy 149
Stephen McCarthy
9 Legitimacy Deficit in Japan: The Road to
True Popular Sovereignty 173
Haruko Satoh
vi Contents
10 Political Legitimacy in an Unconsolidated Democratic
Order: The Philippines 195
Noel M. Morada
11 Political Legitimacy in South Korea 217
Hun Joon Kim
12 Democratization as a Legitimacy Formula:
The KMT and Political Change in Taiwan 239
Naiteh Wu and Tun- jen Cheng
13 Justice and the Problem of International
Legitimacy 261
John Kane and Haig Patapan
Contributors 279
Index 281
Acknowledgments
This book has its origins in the international workshop T he Search
for Legitimacy in Asia , held at the National University of Singapore
on 27–28 July 2009. We thank all those who took part in the
workshop, especially the discussants for their thoughtful comments and
helpful suggestions. Papers from the workshop were subsequently pub-
lished in a special issue of the journal P olitics and Policy (38 [3] [June
2010]).
We gratefully acknowledge the editors of Politics and Policy , Emma
R. Norman and David Mena Alemán, as well as Associate Editor
Riccardo Pelizzo, for their warm generosity, encouragement, and sup-
port. We also thank John Wiley & Sons, Inc., for permission to repro-
duce material from the special issue of the journal.
After this publication we came to the conclusion that recent changes
warranted a reconsideration of the evolving nature of legitimacy in the
countries examined in the special issue. In addition, to provide a more
comprehensive picture of the dynamics of legitimacy in Asia we thought
it necessary to examine other countries in the region. Accordingly, we
invited new contributions on Taiwan, the Philippines, and Korea. As a
result we believe this book provides an extensive, rich, and contempo-
rary account of the evolving foundations of legitimacy in Asia.
Finally, we are pleased to acknowledge the research assistance of Lee
Morgenbesser and Jonathan Sim, and more generally, the Department
of Philosophy, National University of Singapore, the Griffith Asia
Institute and the Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith
University, and the Australian Research Council Discovery Funding
Scheme for their support on this project.
Chapter 
Introduction
John Kane, Hui- Chieh Loy, and Haig Patapan
In this book we explore the theory and practice of political legit-
imacy through a detailed examination of 11 countries in East
Asia: China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand,
Singapore, Burma, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan. Sixteen
years ago, Muthiah Alagappa (1995, 4) noted that “[d]espite its central-
ity, political legitimacy in developing countries has seldom been studied
explicitly.” Alagappa’s (1995) edited book, P olitical Legitimacy in Southeast
Asia: The Quest for Moral Authority , richly addressed this deficit with
studies of seven countries in South East Asia— Malaysia, Singapore, the
Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Reflecting on
that work, we cannot help but be struck by the changes that have taken
place in the decade- and-a - half since its publication. It is not simply the
subsequent economic boom and crisis or the inevitable transformations
in each country that draws our attention. It is the increasing importance
of Asia in an international context and, by implication, the challenges
and opportunities such internationalization presents to each country in
the region. How the balance of threats and opportunities inherent in
such changing circumstances will work out depends in no small part
upon the capacity of nations to manage both their internal politics and
their relations with one another, factors that are highly interdependent
in a globalized environment.
As the chapters in this book reveal, among the principal challenges
facing political leaders in East Asia are challenges to their own gov-
ernmental legitimacy. These chapters also disclose great complexity in
the way legitimacy issues play out in particular contexts and circum-
stances. As is seen from the cases examined, the grounds of domestic
legitimacy are often shifting and are deeply contested by various soci-
etal actors and sectors, creating highly intricate and sometimes volatile
2 John Kane, Hui- Chieh Loy, Haig Patapan
political dynamics. This domestic complexity is exacerbated by the
subtle or direct influences of external forces originating in the inter-
national community, many members of which are far from indiffer-
ent to the internal political arrangements of their fellows. In fact, the
increasing economic integration fostered by a globalizing age has not
made the issue of political legitimacy any less salient; if anything, eco-
nomic integration has made the issue more pressing and more difficult
to manage diplomatically. The concluding chapter of this book argues,
indeed, that the overly simplistic (and contradictory) views regarding
legitimacy that the Western international order fostered over several
centuries have provided inadequate conceptual formulations for dealing
with the on-t he-g round complexities of less- than-d emocratic develop-
ing nations. As developing nations become increasingly entangled in
the international economic order, this lack becomes an issue in a way
that it was not when the world was sharply ideologically divided, as a
glance at history reveals.
The immediate post–World War II world order was character-
ized by two parallel lines of development: the entrenchment of liberal
democratic politics and capitalistic economic development within the
countries that formed what we know as “the West,” and patterns of
increasingly open reciprocal trade between Western nations. This order,
endorsed by the hegemonic authority and backed by the economic power
of the United States, was originally intended to be universally inclusive
but soon confronted the realities of the Cold War. Instead of a truly
global order, there was established instead a clearly delimited liberal,
democratic, and capitalistic bloc opposed by a communistic one, each
with its own ideas about political and economic development. These
blocs formed two “worlds,” each competing for influence and natural
resources among the developing nations of the so- called Third World.
The last, whether they leaned toward one of the two blocs or tried des-
perately to maintain a policy of nonalignment, remained for the most
part as severely dependent on external powers as many of them had
formerly been on colonial masters.
The logic of these international arrangements was shattered by the
collapse and breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s,
posing new doubts and questions for all parties. The main issue fac-
ing members of the triumphant First World was whether their unity
had been founded on anything more than the now defunct common
fear of the communist enemy, or whether it was based upon deeper
cultural, economic, and political connections conducing to peaceful
interdependence (Mearsheimer 2001). Contrary to the expectations of