Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree (review)

Over the past three decades, Southeast Asia has undergone a remarkable economic transformation. Countries which were once dismally poor now lead the world in economic growth. This economic dynamism has made political change the most relevant issue currently facing the region as it prepares to enter the next century. In his timely book, Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree, Michael Vatikiotis, currently the Bangkok bureau chief for the Far Eastern Economic Review, intelligently examines the relationship between economic and political change by contrasting the western theoretical model of political evolution with Southeast Asian reality. He bases his argument on the conviction that “any study of political culture in Southeast Asia must grasp the importance attached to indigenous tradition in the formulation of contemporary political ideas.” This controversial conclusion challenges the universalism of participatory democracy as a model for political development and, in particular, its suitability for a region where the persistence of traditional forms of leadership, supported by a culture of patronage, favor the survival of strong government. Moreover, the author is critical of the West’s “so-called” moral superiority expressed in the view that assumes that “modernity, like Pepsi-Cola, comes in a single universal form.” According to this perspective, anything western is equated with modernity and anything non-western is by definition backwards.

The book’s analysis of the evolution of political culture in Southeast Asia explains why, contrary to conventional western wisdom which links economic growth with political liberalization, the pace of political change in Southeast Asia has not matched the speed of economic development in the region. In fact, the study reveals that strong governments continue to survive alongside dynamic economies throughout the region. The subtitle, “trimming the banyan tree,” serves as a metaphor for the process of political change in this rapidly growing region of the world. It is commonly believed that nothing can grow underneath wide, leafy branches of the banyan tree, which is sacred in many parts of Southeast Asia. In this context, the pace and direction of political change will be determined by the commitment of local governments to “trimming” state control over society. Vatikiotis contends that “the gradual rather than revolutionary pace of democracy is allowing political elites to adapt to the needs of a more demanding society but not to abdicate power entirely.” He concludes, therefore, that given the relatively high degree of legitimacy currently enjoyed by ruling elites, and their determination to preserve political power, strong governments will persist in Southeast Asia for some years to come, and only token rather than substantive political change will take place.

Prosperity has bred confidence in Southeast Asia and diminished the region’s dependence on the West for economic assistance. As a result, the repeated attempts by the West in the early 1990s to influence the process of political change in Southeast Asia have resulted in some of the region’s more outspoken political elites espousing “Asian” values that place the well-being of society over individual political rights. While acknowledging that cultural differences do exist between Asia and the West, Vatikiotis rejects the view that the two are separated by any fundamental ideological differences. In his opinion, this often exaggerated claim of “Asian values” is, for the most part, simply an attempt by wary regional political elites to preserve power from the external pressures from the West to democratize. Moreover, he warns that while greater regional integration has reinforced prevailing values in order to resist Western influence, China’s commercial and cultural resurgence in the region may result in Southeast Asia trading its historical dependence on the West for a more subtle but equally pervasive form of hegemony.

At first glance, the generalized analysis seems to ignore the diverse nature of the ten countries of Southeast Asia. However, Vatikiotis wisely anticipates this by declaring in the prologue his intention to focus the study in particular, but not exclusively, on the four most economically developed of...