Elections, repression and authoritarian survival in post-transition Indonesia and the Philippines

Author: Boudreau, Vince

Source: The Pacific Review, Volume 22, Number 2, May 2009 , pp. 233-253(21)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $50.43 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

This paper compares post-transition Philippines and Indonesia, examining the ways in which authoritarian practices survive and are shaped by regime transition. It examines the transition process in each case, to identify the problems of management and control that regime elites set for themselves in the post-dictatorship period. It is argued that Philippine elites set out to disaggregate and domesticate an already mobilized opposition movement, while the Indonesian authorities strove to keep similar popular politics from mobilizing. The paper then considers how these political objectives find expression in the structuring of two important institutional fields - the electoral and policy making processes - concluding with an examination of how these considerations influence patterns of repression. In particular, the paper also investigates whether repression targets primarily proscribed modes of activity, or sets out to threaten and intimidate proscribed organizations and people. Differences in electoral and policy processes, as well as in patterns of repression, demonstrate the ways in which authoritarianism can survive regime transitions and can undermine the promise of democracy in the post-dictatorship period.

Keywords: Repression; authoritarianism; democratic consolidation; social movements; civil society; Southeast Asia

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09512740902815359

Affiliations: 1: Department of Political Science, City College of New York,

Publication date: 2009-05-01

More about this publication?