Lecture 4:
Political Institutions
in Southeast Asia
Political Economy of Southeast Asia
Edmund J. Malesky, Ph.D., UCSD
Organization of Today’s Lecture
• Constraints on Executive Decision Making
• Electoral Institutions
• Federalism/Decentralization
Veto Points
• It can be very complicated to remember all the
players, institutions, parties, and cultures of so
many diverse countries.
• To deal with this political scientists have devised a
short-cut
• They count up the number of potential veto
players (i.e. political actors who have the ability
to block legislation). This can include chief
executives, legislatures (one or two houses), and
coalition partners in parliamentary systems.
• A great deal of government activity can be
explained through this lens.
MacIntyre Complicates Matters
Two Streams of Institutional Logic
• Credible Commitment – Stable and
dependable policy environment, and the
ability to make binding promises.
• Decisiveness - The importance of efficiency
and flexibility in policy management, and the
extent to which different institutions allow
leaders to respond in a timely fashion.
• MacIntyre attempts to fold these two ideas
into a single theory.
Veto Points in ASEAN 4 (1997)
5
4
Malaysia
1
6
Thailand
Potential for Governance Problems
Indonesia
3
Philippines
2
3
4
Dispersion of Decision Making Power
5
Dispersion of Decision-Making Power
6
2
Potential for Governance Problems
7
How does this explain reactions to
the Financial Crisis?
• How did countries with many veto-points
respond?
• Thailand was mired in gridlock and could not take a strong
position.
• How did countries with few veto-points
respond?
• Indonesia acted immediately and strongly, but soon
reversed course, acting quickly and strongly in another
direction.
Malaysia and the Philiippines
• According to MacIntyre, these countries had
more moderate responses, because there
were not as constrained as Thailand, and not
as centralized as Indonesia.
• Do you agree with that assessment?
What does MacIntyre say
happened to the countries after
the crisis?
Veto Points in ASEAN 4 (2001)
Thailand 2001
Potential for Governance Problems
Indonesia 2001
5
4
Malaysia
Malaysia
2001
1
2
Philippines 2001
3
6
4
Dispersion of Decision Making Power
5
Dispersion of Decision-Making Power
3
6
2
Potential for Governance Problems
7
How would you rank the countries
today?
Veto Points in ASEAN 4 (2008)
6
Potential for Governance Problems
2006 : Military Coup
5
2005: TRT Victory
Indonesia 2008
2001
4
in Snap Election
2008: Jan. Elections
Malaysia 2008
2001
3
Philippines 2008
2001
Thailand 2001
200?
1
2
3
4
Dispersion
MakingPower
Power
Dispersion of
of Decision
Decision-Making
5
6
2
Potential for Governance Problems
7
Now, let’s add the other SEA
regimes
Veto Points in Southeast Asia in 2008
6
Potential for Governance Problems
Brunei, Burma,
Cambodia, China
Laos, Vietnam
5
Indonesia 2008
China (Malesky)
Malaysia 2008
East Timor,
Singapore
1
2
4
Vietnam (Malesky)
Thailand 2008
Philippines 2008
3
4
Dispersion
MakingPower
Power
Dispersion of
of Decision
Decision-Making
5
3
6
2
Potential for Governance Problems
7
Legislative Rules
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Electoral Formula (F)
Assembly Size (S)
Number of Districts (#)
District Magnitude (M)
Entry Threshold (T)
Term length (Le)
Term limits (Lm)
Appointed/Reserved Seats (A/R)
Lower/Single Chamber Elected
Using the Plurality Formula
System
Time
M
#
Phil 1
1935-72 1
Phil 2
1977-83 8-21 12
Phil 3
Phil 4
S
Le
Lm
A/R
4
None
None
200
6
None
35
1983-87 1
186 220
6
None
34
1987-94 1
250 250
3
3
None
120 120
Lower/Single Chamber using
Proportional Representation
System
Time
F
M
Camb
1993
CL 1-8
Indo 1
1950-59 FL 16
Indo 2
1971-99
#
S
T
Le
Lm
A/R
None
21 120
None 5
4
16 257
None 4
None 18(-)
CL 4-62 27 500
11-13 5
None 75-100
Modified
PR with flexible
Indo
3 list
1999
* list
Mixed-Member or Two-Tiered
Systems
System
Time
F
M
#
Phil
1995
P
1
300 300
None
L
52
1
52
L
100 1
100
P
1
Thailand 1997
S
400 400
T
Le
Lm
A/R
2%
3
3
None
5%
4
None None
None
Impact
• Which of these systems is most likely to lead
to personalistic (patronage) based voting?
• Where do we see the highest degree of
malapportionement?
• Which systems will yield high turnover, which
are more stable?
Elected Second Chambers
• Philippines (35-72, 87-Present), Plurality
• Thailand (1997-2006), SNTV
• Malaysia (1957), SNTV
Elected Presidents (Executive
Bodies)
System
Time
F
M
S
a/r
Le
Indo MPR 1 1971-1999
PR
4-62
425
575
5
Indo MPR 2 1999-
4-82
462
103
103
5
VN CCOM
PL
1-12
160
none 5
1991-
Other Important Institutional
Actors
• Monarchs
• Political Parties
• Regions
Logic of Delegation in Indonesia
MPR
People’s Consultative Assembly
(Plurality)
DPR
House of People’s
Representatives
(550 Seats)
Executive
Office of the
President
(Plurality)
Currently
SBY - JK
Supreme Court
oMilitary Court
oReligious Court
oGeneral Court
oConstitutional Court
Constitutional
Council
DPD
(128 Provincial
Reps)
Cabinet
State Audit
Board
2004 Election Results (Indonesia)
Party
Seat
s
Votes
%
Golkar
24,480,757
21.6
128
Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P)
21,025,991
18.5
109
National Awakening Party (PKB)
11,994,877
10.6
52
United Development Party (PPP)
9,248,265
8.1
58
Democratic Party (PD)
8,455,213
7.5
57
2004 Presidential Candidates
(Indonesia)
Candidates
Parties
First round
Votes
%
Second round
Votes
%
Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono
Democratic Party (PD)
36,051,236
33.58
67,196,112
60.9
Megawati Sukarnoputri
Indonesian Democratic PartyStruggle (PDI-P)
28,171,063
26.24
43,198,851
39.1
Wiranto
Golkar
23,811,028
22.18
Amien Rais
National Mandate Party (PAN)
16,035,565
14.94
Hamzah Haz
United Development Party (PPP)
3,275,011
3.06
Development State
• Organizational complexes in which expert and
coherent bureaucratic agencies collaborate
with organized private sectors to spur national
economic transformation.
• Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan
• Why not Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand?
Decentralization
• Deconcentration: Locality is agent of center
• Delegation: Subnational governments are
responsible for service delivery.
• Devolution: Independent/Elected subnational
bodies deliver services and impose fees.
Table 1: Types of Decentralization
Deconcentration
Delegation
Devolution
Cambodia (Provinces)
Singapore (?)
Cambodia (Commune)
Indonesia (2000-2004,
Provinces)
Indonesia (2004-,
Districts)
Vietnam (Provinces)
Philippines (District)
Thailand (1997, all subprovincial units()
Malaysia (??)
What is the motivation for
decentralization?
•
•
•
•
Historical Legacy
Efficiency
Accountability
Less Corruption (?)
BANG: Indonesian Decentralization
What affects investment and
growth at the local level?
Endowments
• Educated labor force
• Better access to
credit
• Natural resources
• Good infrastructure
Location
• Near to a big
Policy
• Education
• Financial
• Land and natural resource
management
• Security
• Infrastructure
• Planning and licensing
• Legal system
Checks and Balances
Elections
Fiscal Transfers
Poor economic performance can be
punished by the people
Political parties respond by putting
forward better candidates
There is a political market for good
candidates
Central government’s key
mechanism is through fiscal
transfers
Trade-off between providing funds
based on:
- Need
- Fairness (revenue sharing)
- Performance
- Poverty
Why Do Single-Party Regimes Hold
Elections?
An Analysis of Candidate-Level Data in Vietnam’s 2007 National
Assembly Contest
Edmund Malesky & Paul Schuler,
University of California – San Diego
37
PUZZLE 1
• Vietnam spent roughly $22 million to administer
the 2007 NA election.
– More than it spent on targeted policies for poverty
alleviation
– The same amount it transferred to Thai Binh province
last year.
• Why spend any money at all?
• What does an election provide that couldn’t be
achieved more cheaply and effectively by other
means?
38
PUZZLE 2
• A number of Vietnamese analysts and scholars have pointed
out the increasing role that the NA has played in recent years.
• What is the source of this underlying power?
– Little effort has yet to understand the reasons for the rise of a
particularly influential president, or did it in fact result from
institutional changes that empowered it relative to actors.
– The most important factor for this empowerment would have to be an
institutional means to hold leaders accountable.
– The election could play some role in delivering this accountability.
39
ORGANIZATION OF TALK
• What does the literature tells us about
elections in authoritarian regimes?
• Specifics of the Vietnamese NA election.
• Tests of the core theories in the literature.
• Concluding remarks about the role of
elections in Vietnam and what it means for
the role the NA plays in policy-making.
40
Emerging literature on Authoritarian
Institutions
• Elections serve no purpose other than window dressing (Friedrich
and Brzezinski 1961).
• Others have found robust correlations betweens having
parliaments and regime stability (Magaloni 2007), longevity
(Ghandi and Przeworski (2006) and economic growth (Wright
2008).
 They argue that this is because NAs either provide accountability or co-opt
opposition into the legislature. But they directly probe where
accountability comes from. A key underlying assumption is elections.
• Third branch of literature that directly explores the role that
elections play in authoritarian institutions.
– These are the hypotheses we look to explore in this paper.
41
Core Hypotheses in The Field
Signaling Regime Strength
•
•
H1: Elections in authoritarian regimes use high turnout to send a costly signal to
potential challengers (Geddes 2006).
H2: Authoritarian regimes use elections to produce supermajorities and ward off
potential challengers (Geddes 2006).
Learning about Opposition
•
H3: Authoritarian regimes use elections to provide information on potential opposition
within the regime and punish venal subordinates (Geddes 2006).
Rent-Seeking
•
•
•
H4: Preferred candidates should win with higher percentages and higher turnouts in
poorer, less educated provinces (Blaydes 2006).
H5: Incumbents should fare worse than new candidates because new candidates can
promise rents above and beyond whatever the incumbent managed to deliver (LustOkar 2006).
H6 : Candidates who are holding or are likely to hold more powerful positions in the
Party-State should have higher vote percentages (Lust-Okar 2004).
42
Core Hypotheses in The Field
Leadership Selection
• H7: Delegates who take high-ranking positions in the NA should have
earned higher vote percentages than other officials (Boix and Svolik 2007).
• H8: Delegates who become government ministers should have earned
higher vote percentages than other officials (Boix and Svolik 2007).
43
Structure of the National Assembly
• 30% percent are permanent, the rest meet twice a year
• Divided into 10 Committees
– Two most powerful: Committee on Financial and Budgetary
Affairs and Legal Committee
• 18-member Standing Committee selects committee
assignments, future Central Election Board and
distributes legislation to committees
– Standing Committee includes NA chairman, four deputy
chairmen, and the chairmen of the committees
• Each committee has chairmen and 2-4 deputy chairmen
– Deputy chairmen are technocrats
– Chairmen typically represent party interests
44
NOMINATION SYSTEM
• 3 Types (Central, Local, Self)
• All delegates must survive a complex vetting process
called the “Five Gates”, which included the “Three
Negotiations.”
–
–
–
–
–
Gate 1: National Assembly sets structure of future NA.
Gate 2: Institutions nominate at all levels, including self nomination.
Gate 3: Fatherland Front organizes preliminary list.
Gate 4: Local meeting with co-workers and neighbors.
Gate 5: Finalization of nomination list.
45
Self-nominees
• All could enter, not all could run.
– The Vietnamese government heavily advertised the fact that there were 236
self-nominees (101 in HCMC alone)
– 30 made final ballot, one elected
• Some self-nominees withdrew nominations
– Party self-nominees explained they did not have agreement from party cell. Võ
Văn Sô in HCMC for example, withdrew because he said he had not cleared it
with the party cell
• Some self-nominees did not have support from their neighbors
– Many candidates had less then 50% support from their neighbors, which
disqualified them
– Trần Anh Tuấn, for example, only had 7 of 34 support. According to the
newspaper account, he was unemployed, had not worked in his field for a
long time, and his nomination bid was embarrassing to his family, so they did
not even go to the meeting. According to the article, those were the reasons
he did not have the voter support.
46
Elections
• Election districts are multi-member with 4-6 candidates
for 2-3 positions. Voter crosses out names of candidates
they don’t want
• 876 candidates (165 centrally nominated) in 182 districts
with 493 elected
• Candidates nominated locally and centrally.
– Central nominees sent by central election board to provinces
– Provincial election board places central nominees in districts
• No central nominee runs against another
• Space also created for self-nominees (30 survived
vetting).
47
Vietnamese Ballot
48
H1: Turnout
49
H2: Generating Super-Majorities
*Some candidates may have had above fifty percent vote shares and still
lost. However their percentages are not published, therefore they are
included here as unelected.
50
H3: Super-Majority for Big 5
51
Two Electoral Mechanisms to Exploit.
• Candidate to Seat Ratio
– 3 types of districts (5/3, 4/2, 6/3)
– Clearly, those in 3/5 districts have a higher probability of
victory.
• Difficulty of the Competition
– Central nominees can be placed in any district in the
country.
– Local and self-nominees can be placed in district within
the province.
– This allows for a lot of opportunity to manipulate the
competition of favored candidates.
52
Was the Candidate-Seat Ratio Manipulated?
53
Measuring Electoral District Competitiveness
• Competitiveness Index for each candidate,
measuring the strength of the district they face.
+1 for every Central Nominee - candidate’s status
+1 for every Politburo member - candidate’s status
+1 for every Central Committee member – candidate’s status
+1 for every NA incumbent – candidate’s status
+1 for every Local Notable (Party Sec, People’s Council, People’s
Committee Member ) – candidate’s status
+1 for every year candidate has been in party longer than the
electoral district average.
District Competitiveness Descriptive Statistics
Minimum (1) Maximum (11)
54
100
Was District Competitiveness Manipulated?
Central Government
Central Nominated
Central Party
Military
Business Association/VICOOPSME
Local Party
Research Institute
Mass Organization
50
Journalist
Central SOE
Local Government
Local Nominated
Local SOE
Lawyer
Religious Organization
University/High School
Not Working/Student
Medicine
Private Company/Cooperative/Farmer
Cultural Institution
0
Self Nomi
3.5
4
4.5
Competitiveness of District
5
Confidence Interval
95 % Fitted Values
Candidate Careers - Actual Values
Nomination Level - Actual Values
5.5
55
Determinants of Electoral Success
• Manipulation mechanisms matter
– Being in a 5/3 district increased the chance of election by 11 % and the
predicted vote percentage by 2.7%.
– Each additional point of district competitiveness ranking reduces a
candidate’s probability of victory by about 6.5% and reduces vote
percentage by 1%
 Even controlling for these factors, just being a central
nominee had a marginal impact of probability of 28% on the
probability of election and increased vote shares by 5%.
 Demographic factors had virtually no independent impact.
Only education was statistically significant.
 Notably businessmen candidates fared poorly. All else equal,
they had 20% lower probability of election.
56
H2: Elections as Learning Mechanism
• Data on Self-Nominees does not seem to bear out this hypothesis. Vetting
opposition candidates limits the ability of the election to provide reliable
information.
57
.2
.4
.6
.8
1
H4-H6: Elections for Rent-Distribution
95% Cl
Fitted Central Nominee
95% CI
Fitted Other Nominees
0
Individual Central Nominees
0
200
400
Transfers as a Percentage of Local Revenue
600
58
H4-H6: Elections for Rent-Distribution
Table 7: Predicted Vote Percentage By Committee Appointment (Percent)
Prospective Committee Assignment in Assembly
No Committee
Foreign Affairs Committee
Science, Tech and Environment Comm.
Economic Committee
Legislative Committee
Law Committee
Defense and Security Committee
Budget and Finance Committee
Culture, Education and Youth Comm.
Social Affairs Committee
Ethnic Affairs Committee
By Incumbent
All Election
Winners
Yes
No
72.75
73.29
73.79
72.13
72.09
72.6
77.34***
75.35*
72.04
74.28
74.13
75.95
72.89*
72.4*
75.35
71.83*
71.42
74.12*
73.21
75.31
74.13
75.87
71.4
73.99
74.39
70.17
72.4
72.69
77.81***
75.46**
70.73
74.29
73.72
Note: Numbers for rows are the predicted values based on regression using Table 5: Model 3, controlling for South and GDP level. These are
predicted values holding all constants to their means. Models for rows 2 and 3 are based on the same regression as row 1, except committee is
interacted with a dichotomous incumbent variable. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 denote the significance levels for regression coefficients.
59
H7&H8: Leadership Selection
• Controlling for other factors, it does not
appear that performance in the election leads
to appointments to National Assembly
Leadership or position in Government
Ministries.
• The only factor is central-nomination, which
increases the probability of NA leadership by
35% and a position in the cabinet by 32%
60
Conclusions
• The strongest hypotheses appear to be the creation of supermajorities and rent-seeking.
• Little evidence of leadership selection or learning.
• Hard to tell how severe this problem is but it appears to indicate
that manipulation of the election may be inhibiting the ability of
the NA to play its role of holding central officials accountable.
Deputies owe their positions to top leaders.
• On the other hand, there does appear to be pocket-book voting in
the election. Local government officials in wealthy provinces
(and incidentally those with good governance) tend to better.
61
Location of Rejected Central Nominees
Province
HCMC
Long An
Binh Duong
An Giang
Can Tho
Tay Ninh
Ha Noi
Hai Phong
Province w/ central losers
Province w/o central losers
Median province
Number of
Losing
Candidates
4
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
Nominating Institutions
National-Level
City
Region
National Assembly & Fatherland Front
National Assembly& Fatherland Front
National Assembly
National Assembly
Fatherland Front
National Assembly
National Assembly
Fatherland Front
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
South
South
South
South
South
South
North
North
2006 Total
Percentage of
2006 GDP per capita
Transfers/ Local Shared Revenue
(VND)
Revenue (%) Province Can Keep
16,300,000
5,843,591
9,607,095
5,109,826
8,663,393
7,535,378
11,800,000
8,754,038
9,201,665
5,249,892
4,148,835
1.00
31.34
0.91
31.89
17.22
28.62
1.39
4.76
14.64
229.23
107.10
29
99
44
100
50
99
32
95
68.50
100
100
62