LECTURE 5:
SINGLE-PARTY REGIMES IN
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Edmund Malesky, Ph.D., UCSD
Authoritarian Institutions: An Exciting
New Sub-Field in Comparative Politics

4 intersecting literatures



Typology creation (most famously Geddes in 1999).
Regime durability based on typologies (Geddes, Brownlee, Slater)
Impact of institutions (legislatures/elections) in authoritarian regimes.




Hold executives accountable allowing for longer duration (Ghandi and
Przeworski)
Are less prone to civil conflict (Ghandi and Vreeland)
Grow faster (Wright 2008)
Motivations for elections in authoritarian systems.




Demonstrate regime strength to opposition (Geddes 2006, Magaloni 2008)
Hold venal local leaders accountable (Geddes 2006)
Opportunity for rent-seeking (Blaydes 2006, Lust-Okar (2006).
Power-sharing arrangments with local notables (Boix and Svolik)
Geddes Predictions based on Historical
Data



Military regimes last 8 years
Personalistic regimes last 15 years
Single-Party regimes last 22.7 Years
In Southeast, Asia…
SEA has been a focal point

Single-Party Regimes
Vietnam (1954 (1975)-Present)
 Laos (1975-Present)
 Cambodia (1975-1978; 1978-1991)


Single-Party Dominant Regimes
Singapore People’s Action Party (1954-Present)
 Malaysia’s United Malays National Organization (1957Present)
 Indonesia’s Golkar (1967-Present)
 Cambodian People’s Party (1997-Present)
 Philippines Nacionalista Party (1965-1972)
 Thai Rak Thai (2000-2006)

SEA has been a focal point

Military

Thailand (at least once a decade since 1933 (except the 1980s)







Burma (1962-Present)
Personalist Dictator



1937-1945 (8)
1947-1958 (11)
1959-1973 (14)
1991-1992 (1)
2006-2007 (1)
Philippines’ Marcos (1972-1986)
Suharto? Mahatir? Lee Kwan Yew? Hun Sen?
Sultunate (Monarchy)

Brunei (1963 – Present)
Southeast Asia has also been an enigma

Burma, a military regime, outlasted a large number of
personalist and single-party regimes.


Triple-Hybrids are the most durable


Remember, according to Geddes, personalist regimes are
more resistant to democratization than military regimes.
But SPDC outlasts Golkar.
Some clearly authoritarian regimes (Singapore,
Malaysia, Indonesia (for a time), Vietnam) seem to have
a high degree of legitimacy according to World Values
survey (Philippines and Burma are the exceptions)
Descriptions for the peculiar regime so
common in Southeast Asia

Defective Democracies (Diminished Sub-Types)
 Delegative
Democacy (lacking checks and balances)
 Iliberal Democracy (no rule of law)
 Clientelist (weak on programmatic party competition)
The problem with “democracy with adjectives” is that it
diminishes our understanding of the authoritarian
realities within these countries.
Descriptions for the peculiar regime so
common in Southeast Asia





Hybrid Regimes
Semi-Democracy
Semi-Authoritarian
Semi-Dictatorship
Gray Zone
Genuinely mixed regimes situated in some gray zone
between authoritarianisms and democracy.
Descriptions for the peculiar regime so
common in Southeast Asia






Pseudo-democracy
Disguised dictatorship
Competitive Authoritarianism
“the trappings but not the substance”
“democracy as deceptions”
“representative institutions without representative
government”
Recognizes these as instances of non-democratic
government.
Electoral Authoritarianism






Focuses on a specific institutional aspect of a number of regimes.
Hold regular elections for the chief executive and national assembly.
Broadly inclusive (universal suffrage)
Minimally pluralistic (opposition parties are allowed to run)
Minimally competitive (opposition, while denied victory is allowed to win
and hold seats)
Minimally open (opposition parties are not subject to massive repression)



Yet, they violate the liberal-democratic principles of freedom and fairness so
profoundly and systematically as to render elections instruments of authoritarian
rule rather than instruments of democracy.
Electoral contests are subject to state manipulation so severe, widespread, and
systematic that do not qualify as democratic.
These regimes are neither democratic or democratizing, but plainly
authoritarian, albeit in ways that depart from a traditional understanding of
authoritarianism.
Electoral Authoritarianism



Which regimes in Southeast Asia count? (Why or why not?)
Is electoral authoritarianism synonymous with single-party dominant?
Is Vietnam an electoral authoritarian country??






Regular elections – check
Universal suffrage – check
Competition – check
No overt repression – oops
Pluralistic - oops
But Laos, Burma, and Brunei do not meet any of these criteria, so is
there a spectrum of electoral authoritarianism.



Laos has frequently cancelled elections
Brunei last held universal elections in 1962
Burma last held elections in 1990
Menu of Manipulation

How do electoral authoritarian regimes manipulate
elections? (Case 2006)
 Restricting
Civil Liberties
 Reserved Positions and Domains
 Exclusion and Fragmentation
 Disenfranchisement
 Vote Buying
 Intimidation
 Electoral Fraud
Skilled versus Clumsy Manipulation

Skillful: Softened inverse distributions between
rulers and mass-public; maintain tight limits on civil
liberties; gerrymandering.


Societal grievances remained muted.
Clumsy: Do not do anything to remedy reversing
fortunes caused by economic change. Rashly seizing
Prime Ministership (Thailand); Falsifying electoral
tallies (Philippines); Repudiating elections directly
(Burma).
Limitations of Typologies

The notion of typologies can be limiting for generating
comparative leverage.
Typologies allow us to demonstrate a correlation, but not the
micro-logic to truly understand divergent outcomes.
 Within the class of semi-democracy/electoral
authoritarianism there are qualitative differences that could
brushed away.
 It would be better to have a continuous measure of
institutional quality than ran the spectrum from highly
authoritarian to highly democratic.


But what dimension should the researcher privilege? Democracy is
multi-faceted.
Winning Coalition/Selectorate Theory



BdM, Morrow, Silverson, and Smith 2003 was hailed as
breakthrough, because it apparently solved the
problem of typologies and provided a analytically
useful continuous measure.
Notion of selectorate was first employed by Susan Shirk
(1994) in The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China
BdM et al employed it in their seminal Logic of Political
Survival

Book has been hit with a raft of methodological complaints,
but the logic is compelling.
The Theory of W/S



(S)electorate – the group of people in a society
endowed with the ability to choose the leadership
(W)inning coalition - a sufficiently-sized subset of
the selectorate whose support endows the
leadership with political power over the rest of the
subset and the disenfranchised members of the
population.
“sufficiently-sized” is determined by a country’s
institutional architecture.
The W/S Ratio





When W is small (relative to S), the least costly method of buying
support from a coalition is through private goods (i.e. bribes,
preferential access to land or government contracting).
When W is large (relative to S), the cost of private goods is
prohibitively expensive, and rulers are more likely to use public
goods provision as a means winning acquiescence from other
political actors.
The authors test this theory empirically, finding that the size of W
correlates strongly with a range of public goods provision measures,
including transfers for education, health, and infrastructure.
“Loyalty Norm” they also find that leaders with small W and large S
survive longer, because the cost of buying off members is minimal.
As W increases, buying members becomes more difficult and it is
easy to defect to an alternative coalition.
ACCOUNTABILITY AND INEQUALITY
IN SINGLE-PARTY REGIMES:
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF VIETNAM AND CHINA
Regina Abrami, Edmund Malesky, Yu Zheng
Organization of Today’s Talk






The Puzzle
Comparative Analysis of Inequality
Utility of Alternative Explanations
Transfers and Equalization
Political Explanations
Future Implications
The Puzzle

Over the past two decades, no two economies have
grown faster. But while economic inequality has
been exacerbated in China, it has grown only
moderately in Vietnam. Why?
Estimated and Actual Inequality Growth
40
35
30
4
6
8
10
Gini Coefficient
Gini Coefficient
45
25
Natural Log of GDP Per Capita
Simulated Kuznets Curve
Predicted slope based on Kuznets Curve for Vietnam
Predicted slope based on Kuznets Curve for China
Actual slope 1993 - 2004 for Vietnam
Actual slope 1993 - 2004 for China
Kuznets simulations based on Higgins & Williamson 2 002:284 regression parameters for 1990s
Kuznets
Simulations based on Higgins and Williamson 2002
This is true regardless of the measure
of inequality
Panel 1: Indicators of Inequality
China
Vietnam
Source
Gini Coefficient in 2004
Expenditure Ratio of Top 20%/Bottom 20%
Percentage of Population Living on under $1 per day in 2004
Life Expectancy at Birth
Infant Mortality (per 1,000 Births) in 2004
Adult Illiteracy Rate
People without access to improved water source (%)
Access to Primary School (lowest region) 2004
Access to Health Facilities (lowest region) 2004
47.25
11.37
10.8
72.5
23
90.9
23
57.79
61.1
37.08
6.24
8.4
73.7
16
90.3
15
99.3
96.6
ADB 2007
ADB 2007
ADB 2007
HDR 2007
WDI 2007
HDR 2007
HDR 2007
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
Panel 2: Changes in Inequality
China
Vietnam
Source
Annualized Growth in Gini since 1993
Annualized Growth in Expenditure Ratio since 1993
∆Expenditures of Top 20%/∆Expenditures of Bottom 20%
∆ Percentage of Population Living on under $1 per day since 1990
∆Infant Mortality since 1993
1.35
2.68
7.1/3.4
- 21.7
- 15
0.55
1.31
4.69/3.37
- 42.3
- 22
ADB 2007
ADB 2007
ADB 2007
ADB 2007
WDI 2007
Normal explanations of inequality fail
to explain the differences
Determinants of Inequality
GDP per capita in 2004 (Constant 2000 US$)
Average Growth in GDP (1993-2004)
Exports as a Percentage of GDP in 2004
FDI Inflows as a Percentage of GDP in 2004
Population Density (people per square mile)
Average Population Growth (1993-2004)
Percentage of Population Urban
Percentage of GDP from Agriculture
Ethnic Fractionalization 2003
Percentage of Population from Dominant Ethnicity
Cultural Fractionalization 2003
Dominant Cultural Influence
China Vietnam
1323.14 503.27
9.88
7.53
34
68
3
4
139
264
0.89
1.45
39
26
11.8
20.4
0.154 0.223
92
86
0.154
0.21
Confucist Confucist
Theoretical Predictions
H1: ∆ Gini Vietnam > ∆ Gini China
H2: Gini Vietnam > Gini China
H3: ∆ Gini Vietnam > ∆ Gini China
H4: Gini Vietnam > Gini China
H5: Gini Vietnam > Gini China
H6: Gini Vietnam = Gini China
Source
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
WDI 2007
Fearon 2003
Fearon 2003
Fearon 2003
Kelley 2006
Major Political Explanation is Democracy

Two major strands in the literature.



Institutional checks on political elites (Muller 1988, O’Donnell
1994, Boix 2003, Bollen and Jackman 1985).
Opportunities for participation by constituents who are negatively
affected by economic policies (Muller 1988, Reuveny and Li
2003, Boix 2003, Chan 1997, Hellman 1998).
Basically, institutional arrangements can redistribute political
power to the economically disadvantaged, ultimately leading
to more balanced economic initiatives (Lenski 1966, Lipset
1959).
Can Major Indices of Regime Type
Explain the Differences?
Country
Freedom House Freedom House
- Civil Liberties
- Political
(2006)
Rights (2006)
Combined
Polity IV
Democracy
Score (2006)
Polity IV:
Constraints on
Executive
(2006)
Cheibub and Ghandi
(2002)
China
6
7
-7
3
1
Vietnam
6
7
-7
3
1
Country
China
Vietnam
Bueno de
World Bank:
Henisz Political
Geddes
Mesquito,
Voice and
Constraints on Classification of Brooker Non-Democratic
Smith, Siverson,
Accountability
Decision
Authoritarian
Regimes (2000)
and Morrow
(2006)
Making (2004) Regimes (1999)
(2003)
-1.38
.5
0
Single-Party
Non-Personalist Dictator
-1.36
.5
.13
Single-Party
Non-Personalist Dictator
0
10
20
30
40
The Proximate Explanation –
Vietnam Spends More on Transfers
1990
1995
2000
2005
Year
Chinese GDP Growth in Constant LCU
Vietnamese GDP Growth in Constant LCU
Chinese Total Expenditures over GDP
Chinese Total + Extrabudgetary Expenditures/GDP
Vietnamese Total Expenditures over GDP
Differences in Transfer Regimes
Year
Equalizing Transfers to
Provinces/GDP
Development
Investment/ GDP
China
Vietnam
China
Vietnam
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2.72%
1.37%
1.16%
1.40%
1.40%
2.21%
5.73%
5.00%
7.03%
5.53%
5.84%
5.25%
2.32%
2.63%
1.98%
2.04%
2.26%
2.22%
8.36%
8.44%
9.72%
9.24%
9.44%
8.84%
Average
1.71%
5.73%
2.24%
9.01%
Differences in Equalization
Vietnam
Year
2000
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Pre-Transfer
Revenue Per
Capita
Coefficient of
Variation*
1.69
1.73
1.51
1.29
1.22
1.50
Expenditure Per
Capita
Provincial
Revenue
Provincial
Expenditures
Coefficient of
Variation*
0.44
0.49
0.48
0.51
0.47
0.55
Income Elasticity**
Income Elasticity**
2.23
2.89
2.06
1.77
1.74
2.26
0.82
0.92
0.61
0.73
0.59
0.83
Expenditure Per
Capita
Provincial
Revenue
Provincial
Expenditures
Coefficient of
Variation*
0.70
0.73
0.75
0.77
0.75
0.73
Income Elasticity**
Income Elasticity**
1.21
1.18
1.17
1.17
1.21
1.24
0.68
0.58
0.55
0.61
0.66
0.63
Ratio of
Elasticities
2.73
3.13
3.40
2.42
2.92
2.72
China
Year
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
Pre-Transfer
Revenue Per
Capita
Coefficient of
Variation*
1.02
1.12
1.17
1.17
1.20
1.18
Ratio of
Elasticities
1.77
2.05
2.13
1.91
1.84
1.97
Delving Further



Vietnam has lower inequality than China. This is
primarily due to transfers and the impact of those
transfers on equalization.
But transfers are only the proximate cause. What
factors have led to greater transfers in Vietnam
than in China?
If politics is the science of “who gets what, when,
and why,” then we need to do better than our blunt
indices of regime type.
“The Student is Instructing the Teacher”
While Political Science sees no difference between the two
regimes, Chinese journalists have highlighted many. Including:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Competitive elections in the Central Committee
Increasing power of the Central Committee vis-à-vis the Politburo.
Public commentary on Party Congress Political Report.
Direct popular elections of National Assembly
Televised National Assembly query sessions of government ministers.
Decrees stipulating the public declarations of officials’ assets
The market for Vietnamese land use rights certificates.
On-line chat of Vietnamese officials and constituents
Public participation in the legal drafting process, through an on-line portal.
The Dog that Barked




Hu Jintao issues an internal CCP document criticizing
the Vietnam for moving “too quickly toward inner
party democracy.”
Old CCP idealogues are wheeled out to argue
against the wisdom of pursuing a Vietnam-like path.
Open Magazine declares that discussion of
Vietnamese reforms has been prohibited by Chinese
authorities.
If differences between the two countries are so
minimal as to be undetectable by comparative politics
tool kits, why the hard-line response?
Three Critical Differences between Elite
Institutions in Vietnam and China
1. Central Committee is the primary decision-making body in
Vietnam. In China, it is the smaller Politburo.
• This means that larger coalitions need to be built for
reforms.
• Winning coalition is larger in Vietnam than China (BdM et
al 2003).
2. General Secretary of the Party is far more constrained in
Vietnamese decision-making than in Chinese.
3. Both inner-party and government elections are more
competitive in Vietnam than in China.
Respective Crises in the Late Eighties
Drove Institutions in Opposite Directions


In China, Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 led to a
concentration of decision making among a small coterie
of leaders in the Politburo and to the strengthening of
party control over government institutions.
In Vietnam, deaths of key leaders, economic crisis, and
overstretch in Cambodia led to power vacuum and
competition among several factions for control. These
groups worked out a series of self-serving compromises,
leading to a diffusion of power in key governing
institutions.
Institutional Flow Charts
Chinese Polity
Party
Government
General
Secretary
Standing
Committee
President
Leading Groups
Premier
National People’s
Congress
Politburo
Ministries &
Commissions
Central Committee
Party Congress
Vietnamese Polity
General
Secretary
Politburo
Party
Government
President
Troika
Prime
Minister
National Assembly
Central Committee
Party Congress
Ministries
Evidence for the Importance of the
Central Committee in Vietnam





The demise of the Politburo Standing Committee
Rejection (by vote) of a standing General Secretary
“The plenums of the CCOM are the location where the
democracy and intellectualism of the body are brought forth in
its discussions, decisions, and policies. It should not happen
again that the Central Committee becomes an agency that
grasps in its entirety (quán triệt) a master policy that has
already been decided upon.” (Former Prime Minister, Vo Van
Kiet 2006).
More frequent meetings and importance of the body.
Special sessions of the Central Committee to resolve key
political dilemmas.
China
Year
Party
Congress
Central Committee
Plenums
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
12th
1st
2nd
3rd
4th & 5th
6th
7th & 1st
2nd & 3rd
4th & 5th
6th & 7th
8th
9th & 1st
2nd & 3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th & 1st
2nd & 3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th & 1st
2nd & 3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th & 1st
2nd
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Total Number
Per Congress
13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
6
1
36
6.00
Vietnam
Total Legal
Normative
Percentage Citing
Documents
Central
Promulgated by
Committee
Government
Legislation
Institutions
7.72%
285
9.68%
444
6.42%
483
6.53%
613
7.04%
952
6.62%
1057
3.84%
1093
5.02%
1354
4.55%
1495
5.13%
1677
6.87%
1892
6.46%
1949
5.14%
2586
3.91%
2682
4.85%
3030
5.01%
2817
5.53%
3203
6.94%
3877
7.42%
3330
5.36%
4217
4.49%
4073
3.67%
5116
4.44%
5426
4.37%
5260
3.74%
8341
2.47%
8815
67252
11208.67
5.51%
Party
Congress
Central Committee
Plenums
5th
1st, 2nd, & 3rd
4th
5th, 6th, & 7th
8th & 9th
10th & 1st
2nd, 3rd & 4th
5th
6th, 7th, 8th
9th & 10th
11th & 1st & 2nd
3rd
4th & 5th
6th & 7th
8th & 9th
1st & 2nd
3rd & 4th*
5th & 6th (A&B)
7th & 8th
9th & 10th
11th, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd
4th, 5th, & 6th
7th & 8th
9th & 10th
11th & 12th
1st, 2nd, & 3rd
4th & 5th
6th & 7th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
6
61
10.17
Total Legal
Normative
Percentage Citing
Documents
Central
Promulgated by
Committee
Government
Legislation
Institutions
237
21.52%
165
26.06%
203
25.62%
249
26.91%
247
13.77%
249
20.88%
253
26.88%
261
27.59%
284
26.76%
383
25.33%
440
23.86%
428
27.80%
493
22.31%
633
21.33%
761
26.02%
1017
21.73%
963
1184
1175
1384
1312
1485
1207
1841
1803
951
24.82%
20.35%
19.32%
17.92%
18.06%
22.96%
22.78%
23.57%
22.68%
23.24%
18657
3109.5
23.08%
-.5
0
.5
1
Vietnam’s Political Business Cycle
0
1
2
3
Years Since Last Party Congress
Vietnam ( 1990 - 2006 )
China ( 1990 - 2005 )
4
Checks on Executive Decision-Making
Chinese Polity
Party
Government
General
Secretary
Standing
Committee
President
Leading Groups
Premier
National People’s
Congress
Politburo
Ministries &
Commissions
Central Committee
Party Congress
Vietnamese Polity
General
Secretary
Politburo
Party
Government
President
Troika
Prime
Minister
National Assembly
Central Committee
Party Congress
Ministries
Diffusion of Responsibilities in Vietnam
in 1992 Constitution




Secretary General: Heads Party Apparatus, which sets
general guidelines for the running of the state. Has
appointment powers within the VCP Bureaucracy.
President: Appoints ambassadors, signs international
treaties, can introduce legislation in National Assembly,
and chairs central military commission.
Prime Minister: Executive, legislative, and most
importantly… appointment powers over the ministers
and provincial People’s Committee Chairmen.
Roles are reinforced by leaders party rank and patronage
possibilities.
Competitiveness of Party Institutions
Institution
Nomination Procedures
Outgoing CCOM Nominates
Delegates at Congress Nominate
Self Nomination
Competition
Number of Full Seats
Number of Full Nominees
Rejection Rate (Full)
Number of Alternate Seats
Number of Alternate Nominees
Rejection Rate (Alternate)
Representation of Subnational Officials
Full Time Delegates
Alternate Delegates
China XVII
Vietnam X
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
198
208
4.8%
158
167
5.4%
160
207
22.7%
21
46
54.3%
65 (32.8%)
68 (42.5%)
89 (56.3%)
15 (71.4%)
Conclusions




Vietnam’s institutional architecture is the key factor explaining
differences in inequality in the two regimes.
The finding has important implications for the study of
authoritarian systems. We can do better than simple typologies.
While Vietnam’s institutions have led to lower inequality, they
also are playing a contributing role in Vietnam’s present
difficulties fending off macroeconomic crisis.
Finally, this is not an equilibrium by any means. China is aware
of its deficiencies and has already begun to experiment with
changes in inner-party democracy as a way of addressing
them.

The two most common characters in Hu Jintao’s speech at the most
recent Party Congress were inequality and democracy.
Extra
National Assembly Elections

Type of Election



Nomination


Self-nomination allowed in Vietnam (236 total self-nominees; 101 in
HCMC alone; only 1 was elected).
Candidates per Seat



Direct Elections in Vietnam
Tiered Indirect Elections in China through local Congresses in China
China 1.2 for National People’s Congress Elections
Vietnam ranges from 1.67 to 2 depending on the electoral district.
Rejection
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12 Nominees of Vietnamese Central Authorities were not elected in
the 2007 elections.
All rejections occurred in wealthy provinces