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Prosperity and Economic Stability First, Then Asean Can Push More Democracy
Yohanes Sulaiman | July 26, 2011
Speaking at Asean’s Regional Security Forum in Bali this past weekend, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Asean, and Indonesia specifically, to help promote democracy in Burma, the Middle East and North Africa.
While the attempt to spread democracy is admirable and will be met with polite approval, it is very unlikely that Indonesia and Asean will assist the United States in promoting democracy, especially in Burma, for several reasons.
First is that the current economic weakness of the United States strongly undermines its position. The tsunami-like spread of democracy in the 1980s and ’90s to some degree was bolstered by the bankruptcy of communist countries. Governments in these nations fell after citizens compared their horrid economic conditions with the prosperity of the United States under Ronald Reagan.
Gorbachev’s decision to launch glasnost (political openness) and perestroika (economic reform) was influenced by what he considered to be a successful Western economic model. It was no wonder that in 1989, Francis Fukuyama published his famous essay, “The End of History,” celebrating the advent of liberal democracy.
In today’s economic climate, however, authoritarian leaders and their populations are appalled by America’s lack of economic discipline and massive debt. Authoritarian leaders and thrifty populations in Southeast Asia are more likely to applaud the responsible semi-authoritarian system of Singapore or the economic-oriented authoritarian system of China than the spendthrift democratic United States.
They see that whereas China and Singapore built themselves up under strong leaders, leading to strong economic growth, the democratic United States is currently in the grips of “the Great Recession.” In addition, current political gridlock in Washington between Republicans and Democrats, combined with Obama’s inability to keep things in order, has damaged America’s prestige — not to mention its economic ratings.
If democracy provides nothing but economic crisis, political squabbling and gridlock, why would anyone want it? Better stick with the authoritarian system of China, the thinking goes, or the semi-authoritarianism of Singapore, both of which seem to know what they are doing and can act decisively in times of need.
Recalling the Great Depression of the 1930s, it was economic crisis that discredited democracies. Popular demand for strong governments launched totalitarian regimes in Germany and Italy. Finally, it was the economic prosperity of the 1980s that signaled the end of communism.
In essence, former President Bill Clinton was right: It’s the economy, stupid. The sooner the United States can get its fiscal house in order, the sooner it will again be the beacon of democracy that many countries want to emulate.
The other reason that Hillary Clinton’s words are likely to have little effect on Asean lies in the simple fact that the grouping does not have much power over its members. Asean’s lack of formal organizational structure and punishment mechanisms means that getting something done depends on both the consensus and the willingness of its members to act. Unlike the European Union, which has a “carrot and stick” ability to punish and reward members through economic policy, Asean has nothing more than social pressure and the threat of expulsion from the group.
The power of social pressure, however, is strongly undermined by the geostrategic concerns of the bloc’s members. While political oppression, human rights violations and electoral manipulations in Burma have embarrassed Asean, member states have little economic leverage with which to force action. It would be far more damaging for Burma to upset its primary patron, China.
At this point, with the conflict in the South China Sea at the forefront of Asean’s attention, there is simply no appetite to engage and to enrage Burma over its human rights records, lest Burma, upset with what would be seen as international meddling, leave Asean and get pulled closer into Beijing’s orbit. This could further threaten the interests and security of Asean itself. Thus, Asean’s options are very limited in this case.
Moreover, the human rights records of many Asean members are not that stellar either. Recent political suppression in Malaysia over the Bersih 2.0 movement undermines the image of the country as a democratic state that guarantees freedom of speech and conducts elections fairly. In Indonesia, violence against religious minorities, some officials’ complete disregard of the rule of law in order to impose discriminatory policies on religious minorities and recent reports of possible human rights violations in Papua raise a lot of eyebrows. The rest of the Asean countries do not get off scot-free either. In short, many Asean countries themselves are not in the position to lecture others on human rights as they have their own human-rights skeletons in their closets.
Adding to all of this is the fact that there is no political will in Indonesia to assist the United States in promoting democracy. Indonesia at this point is completely preoccupied with political scandals involving President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s party. With each installment of Nazaruddin’s allegation drawing the government’s attention, foreign policy and initiatives become the first casualties of a government scrambling to douse public outrage.
In today’s Indonesia, many people are looking at the performance of the government and the legislature and lamenting the dysfunction and inability of both to get things done. They are looking back with nostalgia on the stability and economic growth of Suharto’s New Order, blaming current government paralysis on the excesses of “liberal democracy,” which is seen as not having local roots. While those people are in the minority, this is still a worrying trend, coming so close on the heels of Suharto’s repression.
Thus, Hillary Clinton was right to encourage entrepreneurship. A push for greater democracy is not the only component that is needed, economic fulfillment is also necessary. Prosperity is the best way to spread democracy and the first thing the United States has to do is to get its economy in order by making painful sacrifices.
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ASEAN, the EU and the End of Westphalia
BALI -- Set upon a blue background, the flag of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations depicts 10 yellow rice paddy stalks drawn in the middle of a red circle with a white border. The interesting thing about the banner is not merely that it represents the main colors of all ten ASEAN member state flags: Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines. It is that 44 years to the day after ASEAN was founded, on August 8th -- in a development that received little attention outside Asia -- the flag was hoisted for the first time alongside the banners of all member states at hundreds of embassies and diplomatic missions around the world.
Kicking off a year dedicated to the theme "Unity in Diversity", ASEAN's stirring declaration of interdependence is just the latest example of what ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan describes to me as "our drive to raise our own bargaining power from a larger base." At a time when the European Union's struggle to rescue free-spending members Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Greece threatens to bring the whole continent tumbling down, ASEAN is rushing headlong to create a single economic community by 2015.
But there is more at stake here than simply the joint success or failure of 10 Asian nations, whose 600 million people represent a combined gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion -- making it the sixth-largest economy in the world. ASEAN's move to integration represents a different model of regional cooperation from the EU -- less rooted in democracy, more tolerant of human rights violations, and more committed to sovereignty -- that may go a long way toward defining how other regions evolve in the 21st Century.
In short, ASEAN "is making the case for a new kind of regionalism," writes David Carson, the first resident U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN.
In academic circles, both the EU and ASEAN lend themselves to a discussion of a "post-Westphalian world." Signed in 1648, the Peace of Westphalia not only ended 80 years of war in Europe, it also created the modern state system. Westphalia established fixed territorial boundaries for countries and established the idea that citizens of a respective country were subject primarily to the laws (and actions) of their respective governments. Conversely, it also created the notion that government is sovereign to rule its people as it sees fit. While giving rise to order, Westphalia also enabled three centuries of human rights abuses.
The 20th Century chipped away at the Westphalian idea. The creation of the United Nations and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 represented the first global expression of rights fundamental to all human beings, challenging the Westphalian concept of sovereignty. For half a century, it was applied delicately, often through sanctions, in places like South Africa. It wasn't until the 1990s when the international community intervened directly on behalf of humanitarian principle in Haiti and Kosovo -- a thread that runs through NATO's intervention in Libya today.
Meanwhile, the creation of a unified EU in 1993 was the moment historians began speaking of a post-Westphalian world. ASEAN is putting an Asian spin on the concept of unity. As Surin Pitsuwan tells me, "The European model is our inspiration, not our model."
Unlike the EU, the ASEAN vision doesn't yet include a unified currency, joint visas, or the fully free flow of labor. While ASEAN has reportedly implemented 75 percent of the blueprint it passed in 2008 to create a regional trade bloc, unlike the EU, it also remains committed to a principal of nonintervention in the affairs of members, known as the "ASEAN Way." While the EU pulls out its collective hair trying to restructure an intransigent Greece, ASEAN still takes a hands-off approach to member state Myanmar, whose brutal authoritarianism -- despite recent elections -- remains a drag on ASEAN's global image.
Yet, while Western observers condemn ASEAN over Myanmar and argue that a wobblier version of the EU will never work because it lacks central authority to enforce common rules, ASEAN supporters say sarcastically to me, "the U.S. is one to talk."
"Authoritarian leaders and their populations here are appalled by America's lack of discipline and massive debt," said Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at Indonesia's National Defense University, in a recent essay. "If democracy provides nothing but economic crisis, political squabbling, and gridlock, why would anyone want it? Better to stick with the authoritarian system of China or the semi-authoritarianism of Singapore."
It is no accident that ASEAN members have been focused on increasing trade with one other (up 31 percent in 2010), with neighboring China (up 25 percent in the first half of 2011) and with other Asian countries. As Indonesian Vice President Boediono said at a recent ASEAN meeting, "the U.S. and Europe could no longer be the main engines of growth for the world economy."
The danger is not simply that Western investors fall behind in one of the world's fastest-growing regions. The danger is that as other regions consider similar integration -- imagine a South Asian confederation of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives or a future bloc in the Middle East.
In November, President Barack Obama is scheduled to attend the East Asian Summit in Bali. In his remarks, President Obama should take responsibility for America's debt crisis and promise to be a better partner for Asia, articulate progressive benchmarks ASEAN could help Myanmar achieve by 2015 and link passage of a long-desired U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement to those benchmarks being met.
It may not forestall the end of Westphalia- - but it could help extend Western leadership into the 21st Century.
Stanley A. Weiss is Founding Chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington. The views expressed are his own.
Kicking off a year dedicated to the theme "Unity in Diversity", ASEAN's stirring declaration of interdependence is just the latest example of what ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan describes to me as "our drive to raise our own bargaining power from a larger base." At a time when the European Union's struggle to rescue free-spending members Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Greece threatens to bring the whole continent tumbling down, ASEAN is rushing headlong to create a single economic community by 2015.
But there is more at stake here than simply the joint success or failure of 10 Asian nations, whose 600 million people represent a combined gross domestic product of $1.7 trillion -- making it the sixth-largest economy in the world. ASEAN's move to integration represents a different model of regional cooperation from the EU -- less rooted in democracy, more tolerant of human rights violations, and more committed to sovereignty -- that may go a long way toward defining how other regions evolve in the 21st Century.
In short, ASEAN "is making the case for a new kind of regionalism," writes David Carson, the first resident U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN.
In academic circles, both the EU and ASEAN lend themselves to a discussion of a "post-Westphalian world." Signed in 1648, the Peace of Westphalia not only ended 80 years of war in Europe, it also created the modern state system. Westphalia established fixed territorial boundaries for countries and established the idea that citizens of a respective country were subject primarily to the laws (and actions) of their respective governments. Conversely, it also created the notion that government is sovereign to rule its people as it sees fit. While giving rise to order, Westphalia also enabled three centuries of human rights abuses.
The 20th Century chipped away at the Westphalian idea. The creation of the United Nations and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 represented the first global expression of rights fundamental to all human beings, challenging the Westphalian concept of sovereignty. For half a century, it was applied delicately, often through sanctions, in places like South Africa. It wasn't until the 1990s when the international community intervened directly on behalf of humanitarian principle in Haiti and Kosovo -- a thread that runs through NATO's intervention in Libya today.
Meanwhile, the creation of a unified EU in 1993 was the moment historians began speaking of a post-Westphalian world. ASEAN is putting an Asian spin on the concept of unity. As Surin Pitsuwan tells me, "The European model is our inspiration, not our model."
Unlike the EU, the ASEAN vision doesn't yet include a unified currency, joint visas, or the fully free flow of labor. While ASEAN has reportedly implemented 75 percent of the blueprint it passed in 2008 to create a regional trade bloc, unlike the EU, it also remains committed to a principal of nonintervention in the affairs of members, known as the "ASEAN Way." While the EU pulls out its collective hair trying to restructure an intransigent Greece, ASEAN still takes a hands-off approach to member state Myanmar, whose brutal authoritarianism -- despite recent elections -- remains a drag on ASEAN's global image.
Yet, while Western observers condemn ASEAN over Myanmar and argue that a wobblier version of the EU will never work because it lacks central authority to enforce common rules, ASEAN supporters say sarcastically to me, "the U.S. is one to talk."
"Authoritarian leaders and their populations here are appalled by America's lack of discipline and massive debt," said Yohanes Sulaiman, a lecturer at Indonesia's National Defense University, in a recent essay. "If democracy provides nothing but economic crisis, political squabbling, and gridlock, why would anyone want it? Better to stick with the authoritarian system of China or the semi-authoritarianism of Singapore."
It is no accident that ASEAN members have been focused on increasing trade with one other (up 31 percent in 2010), with neighboring China (up 25 percent in the first half of 2011) and with other Asian countries. As Indonesian Vice President Boediono said at a recent ASEAN meeting, "the U.S. and Europe could no longer be the main engines of growth for the world economy."
The danger is not simply that Western investors fall behind in one of the world's fastest-growing regions. The danger is that as other regions consider similar integration -- imagine a South Asian confederation of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives or a future bloc in the Middle East.
In November, President Barack Obama is scheduled to attend the East Asian Summit in Bali. In his remarks, President Obama should take responsibility for America's debt crisis and promise to be a better partner for Asia, articulate progressive benchmarks ASEAN could help Myanmar achieve by 2015 and link passage of a long-desired U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement to those benchmarks being met.
It may not forestall the end of Westphalia- - but it could help extend Western leadership into the 21st Century.
Stanley A. Weiss is Founding Chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization based in Washington. The views expressed are his own.
Countries in Asia have their own economic status. ASEAN had been a great tool to make these countries help each other and promote democracy.
ReplyDeleteastana kazakhstan
Yes on economic assistance, questionable on the "democratic promotion" part, as ASEAN adheres to the principle of non-interference and most of its members are still led by authoritarian governments or with partially-free elections.
ReplyDelete