Lecture 4: Political Institutions

in Southeast Asia

Political Economy of Southeast AsiaEdmund 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.

2

3

4

5

6

7

Pote

ntial fo

r G

ove

rna

nce P

rob

lem

s

1 2 3 4 5 6Dispersion of Decision Making Power

Veto Points in ASEAN 4 (1997)

Indonesia

MalaysiaPhilippines

Thailand

Pote

ntial

for G

over

nanc

e Pr

oble

ms

Dispersion of Decision-Making Power

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)

2

3

4

5

6

7

Pote

ntial fo

r G

ove

rna

nce P

rob

lem

s

1 2 3 4 5 6Dispersion of Decision Making Power

Indonesia

Malaysia

ThailandIndonesia 2001 Thailand 2001

PhilippinesPhilippines 2001Malaysia 2001

Pote

ntial

for G

over

nanc

e Pr

oble

ms

Dispersion of Decision-Making Power

How would you rank the countries today?

2

3

4

5

6

7

Pote

ntia

l fo

r G

ove

rna

nce

Pro

ble

ms

1 2 3 4 5 6Dispersion of Decision Making Power

Indonesia 2001

Thailand 2001Philippines 2001

Malaysia 2001

Veto Points in ASEAN 4 (2008)

Indonesia 2008

Philippines 2008

Malaysia 2008

Thailand 200?

2005: TRT Victory in Snap Election

2006 : Military Coup

2008: Jan. Elections

Pote

ntial

for G

over

nanc

e Pr

oble

ms

Dispersion of Decision-Making Power

Now, let’s add the other SEA regimes

2

3

4

5

6

7

Pote

ntia

l fo

r G

ove

rna

nce

Pro

ble

ms

1 2 3 4 5 6Dispersion of Decision Making Power

Veto Points in Southeast Asia in 2008

Indonesia 2008

Philippines 2008

Malaysia 2008

Thailand 2008

Brunei, Burma,Cambodia, ChinaLaos, Vietnam

East Timor, Singapore

China (Malesky)

Vietnam (Malesky)

Pote

ntial

for G

over

nanc

e Pr

oble

ms

Dispersion of Decision-Making Power

Legislative Rules

1. Electoral Formula (F)2. Assembly Size (S)3. Number of Districts (#)4. District Magnitude (M)5. Entry Threshold (T)6. Term length (Le)7. Term limits (Lm)8. Appointed/Reserved Seats (A/R)

Lower/Single Chamber Elected Using the Plurality Formula

System Time M # S Le Lm A/R

Phil 1 1935-72 1 120 120 4 None None

Phil 2 1977-83 8-21 12 200 6 None 35

Phil 3 1983-87 1 186 220 6 None 34

Phil 4 1987-94 1 250 250 3 3 None

Malaysia 1957- 1 170 170 5 None None

Sing 1 1966-88 1 74 74 4 None None

Sing 2 1988 1,3+ 24 83 5 None 12-

Thailand 1978-97 1-3 155 393 4 None None

Vietnam 1992- 2-3 182 493 5 2 None

Lower/Single Chamber using Proportional Representation

System Time F M # S T Le Lm A/R

Camb 1993 CL 1-8 21 120 None 5 4 None

Indo 1 1950-59 FL 16 16 257 None 4 None 18(-)

Indo 2 1971-99 CL 4-62 27 500 11-13 5 None 75-100

Indo 3 1999 *Modified list PR with flexible list

Mixed-Member or Two-Tiered Systems

System Time F M # S T Le Lm A/R

Phil 1995 P 1 300 300 None

L 52 1 52 2% 3 3 None

Thailand 1997 L 100 1 100 5% 4 None None

P 1 400 400 None

Thailand 2007 L 10 8 80 5% 4 None None

(MNTV) P 2-3 400 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 1991- PL 1-12 160 none 5

Other Important Institutional Actors

• Monarchs• Political Parties• Regions

Logic of Delegation in Indonesia

Supreme Court

oMilitary CourtoReligious CourtoGeneral CourtoConstitutional Court

MPRPeople’s Consultative

Assembly(Plurality)

DPRHouse of People’s

Representatives

(550 Seats)

ExecutiveOffice of the

President(Plurality)

Currently SBY - JK

DPD(128

Provincial Reps)

Cabinet State Audit Board

Constitutional Council

2004 Election Results (Indonesia)

Party Votes %Seat

s

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

Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) 8,324,909 7.3 45

National Mandate Party (PAN) 7,302,787 6.4 52

2004 Presidential Candidates (Indonesia)

Candidates Parties First round Second round

  Votes % Votes %

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Democratic Party (PD) 36,051,236 33.58 67,196,112 60.9

Megawati Sukarnoputri Indonesian Democratic Party-

Struggle (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)

Indonesia (2000-2004, Provinces)

Vietnam (Provinces)

Singapore (?) Cambodia (Commune)

Indonesia (2004-, Districts)

Philippines (District)

Thailand (1997, all sub-provincial 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 city/market• Landlocked (or sealocked)• Topography

Policy• Education• Financial • Land and natural resource

management• Security• Infrastructure• Planning and licensing• Legal system

Elections

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

Fiscal Transfers

Central government’s key mechanism is through fiscal transfers

Trade-off between providing funds based on:

- Need- Fairness (revenue sharing)- Performance- Poverty

Checks and Balances

37

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

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 FieldSignaling 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 (Lust-Okar 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

50

*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.

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 StatisticsMinimum (1) Maximum (11) 54

Was District Competitiveness Manipulated?

55

Central Party

Central Government

Local Party

Local GovernmentCentral SOE

Local SOE

Private Company/Cooperative/Farmer

University/High School

Medicine

Mass Organization

Military

Business Association/VICOOPSME

Journalist

Lawyer

Cultural Institution

Not Working/Student

Religious Organization

Research Institute

Central Nominated

Local Nominated

Self Nominated

050

100

Perc

enta

ge o

f C

andid

ate

s E

lect

ed t

o N

A

3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5Competitiveness of District

Confidence Interval 95 % Fitted Values

Candidate Careers - Actual Values Nomination Level - Actual Values

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

H4-H6: Elections for Rent-Distribution

58

0.2

.4.6

.81

Pre

dic

ted P

rob

ablit

y o

f E

lection

0 200 400 600Transfers as a Percentage of Local Revenue

95% Cl Fitted Central Nominee

95% CI Fitted Other Nominees

Individual Central Nominees

H4-H6: Elections for Rent-Distribution

59

Yes No

No Committee 72.75 75.95 71.4Foreign Affairs Committee 73.29 72.89* 73.99Science, Tech and Environment Comm. 73.79 72.4* 74.39Economic Committee 72.13 75.35 70.17Legislative Committee 72.09 71.83* 72.4Law Committee 72.6 71.42 72.69Defense and Security Committee 77.34*** 74.12* 77.81***Budget and Finance Committee 75.35* 73.21 75.46**Culture, Education and Youth Comm. 72.04 75.31 70.73Social Affairs Committee 74.28 74.13 74.29Ethnic Affairs Committee 74.13 75.87 73.72

By Incumbent

Table 7: Predicted Vote Percentage By Committee Appointment (Percent)

Prospective Committee Assignment in Assembly

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.

All Election Winners Yes No

No Committee 72.75 75.95 71.4Foreign Affairs Committee 73.29 72.89* 73.99Science, Tech and Environment Comm. 73.79 72.4* 74.39Economic Committee 72.13 75.35 70.17Legislative Committee 72.09 71.83* 72.4Law Committee 72.6 71.42 72.69Defense and Security Committee 77.34*** 74.12* 77.81***Budget and Finance Committee 75.35* 73.21 75.46**Culture, Education and Youth Comm. 72.04 75.31 70.73Social Affairs Committee 74.28 74.13 74.29Ethnic Affairs Committee 74.13 75.87 73.72

By Incumbent

Table 7: Predicted Vote Percentage By Committee Appointment (Percent)

Prospective Committee Assignment in Assembly

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.

All Election Winners

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 super-

majorities 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

62

ProvinceNumber of

Losing Candidates

Nominating InstitutionsNational-Level

CityRegion

2006 GDP per capita (VND)

2006 Total Transfers/ Local

Revenue (%)

Percentage of Shared Revenue

Province Can Keep

HCMC 4 National Assembly & Fatherland Front Yes South 16,300,000 1.00 29Long An 2 National Assembly& Fatherland Front No South 5,843,591 31.34 99Binh Duong 1 National Assembly No South 9,607,095 0.91 44An Giang 1 National Assembly No South 5,109,826 31.89 100Can Tho 1 Fatherland Front Yes South 8,663,393 17.22 50Tay Ninh 1 National Assembly No South 7,535,378 28.62 99Ha Noi 1 National Assembly Yes North 11,800,000 1.39 32Hai Phong 1 Fatherland Front Yes North 8,754,038 4.76 95Province w/ central losers 9,201,665 14.64 68.50Province w/o central losers 5,249,892 229.23 100Median province 4,148,835 107.10 100

ProvinceNumber of

Losing Candidates

Nominating InstitutionsNational-Level

CityRegion

2006 GDP per capita (VND)

2006 Total Transfers/ Local

Revenue (%)

Percentage of Shared Revenue

Province Can Keep

HCMC 4 National Assembly & Fatherland Front Yes South 16,300,000 1.00 29Long An 2 National Assembly& Fatherland Front No South 5,843,591 31.34 99Binh Duong 1 National Assembly No South 9,607,095 0.91 44An Giang 1 National Assembly No South 5,109,826 31.89 100Can Tho 1 Fatherland Front Yes South 8,663,393 17.22 50Tay Ninh 1 National Assembly No South 7,535,378 28.62 99Ha Noi 1 National Assembly Yes North 11,800,000 1.39 32Hai Phong 1 Fatherland Front Yes North 8,754,038 4.76 95Province w/ central losers 9,201,665 14.64 68.50Province w/o central losers 5,249,892 229.23 100Median province 4,148,835 107.10 100