• Title/Summary/Keyword: patrimonial oligarchy

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The Confrontational Co-existence of Development and Human Rights after Democratic Transition in Southeast Asia: A Civil Society Perspective (동남아시아의 민주화 이후 '개발'과 '인권'의 갈등적 공존: 시민사회의 시각)

  • Park, Eunhong
    • The Southeast Asian review
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.173-218
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    • 2009
  • Bring this analysis down to people-centered development perspective and looking through democratization in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, we find similarities and differences among them related with the intensity of conflicts between development and human rights in the process of democratization in line with global transformation. Civil society in the Philippines criticized the developmental path in the Philippines which failed to implement land reform and eradication of poverty under the transition from 'patrimonial oligarchy' to democracy. In Thailand the coalition of military and the royalists had consolidated its power since Sarit military regime, which later paved the way 'hybrid oligarchy' era. Most Thai civil society organizations has regarded their developmental experience rather as 'maldevelopment' which disregarded economic and social rights. It has been especially believed by Thai localists that the stimulation of local markets and the building of autonomic community society will form the alternative economy without going against the conservative banner of nation, religion and king. Thaksin as a populist successfully took advantage of Thai localist ethos in favour of taking the seat of power. He projected himself as a modernizer focused on economic growth and cleaner politics. However Thaksin's procedural legitimacy was overthrown by counterattacking from military-royalist alliance, pretexting that Thaksin caused internal conflicts and lacked morality. Soeharto's New Order regime which can be called 'administrative oligarchy' had an antipathy towards notions of economic and social rights as well as civil and political rights. In spite of the fact that the fall of Soeharto opened the political space for democratic civil society organizations which had long struggled with development aggression and human rights abuses, there have been continuously a strong political and military reaction against human rights activists, NGOs and ethnic minorities such as Aceh and Papua. Nevertheless, Indonesian democracy is more promising than Philippine's and Thai democracy in terms of comparatively less pre-modern legacies.

Frontier Capitalism in the Lao PDR Versus Patrimonial Oligarchy in Cambodia (라오스의 변경 자본주의 대(대) 캄보디아의 세습 과두제)

  • Andriesse, Edo
    • Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.408-422
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    • 2013
  • This paper builds on recent scholarly endeavours to establish a body of knowledge on Varieties of Asian Capitalism/Asian Business Systems. The forthcoming Oxford handbook of Asian business systems systematically compares institutional capitalist arrangements across Asia including Laos, yet there is no chapter on Cambodia. The objective of this paper is to compare the Lao and Cambodian varieties of Asian capitalism, with special reference to the role of the state and the economic geography of both countries. Accordingly, it seeks answers to the questions as to how territory has become a key arena for re-organising economic power and how the Lao and Cambodian state themselves are being transformed through state capitalism and the Beijing-Seoul-Tokyo Consensus. A comparative analysis reveals a difference between state-coordinated frontier capitalism in Laos versus patrimonial oligarchy in Cambodia. Interdependencies between the market and the state in Laos display the state as active and interventionist. In some provinces the central government leaves decision making to provincial elites contributing to the emergence of other distinctive regional varieties of capitalism. The rising spatially less selective oligarchs in Cambodia focus relatively more on markets, but are certainly not seeking free markets with equal entry opportunities. The findings offer interesting possibilities for further research on the spaces of Asian capitalism, both from an empirical and theoretical perspective. More work should be done to accommodate the role of small and medium enterprises and theories need to better integrate oligarchic, personal and familial capitalism. Finally, comparative corridor studies in Laos could lead to better insights into the nature of regional varieties of capitalism.

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