WEEK 9

Jones, David Democratization, Civil Society, and Illiberal Middle Class Culture in
Pacific Asia

Economic modernization creates an irresistible pressure for liberal democratic political

change.

Although authoritarian rule may offer the initial stability necessary for economic growth,
as soon as fully developed modernity approaches, it becomes increasingly redundant
and reluctantly withers away.

The articulate, urban, and self-confident middle class is the overt or covert hand
promoting this change.
- The middle class transforms society through demanding things which are associated
with Western lifestyle and philosophies such as political participation, multi-party
politics, end to corruption, freer press, environmental clean up, etc.
1. South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan: polyarchic democracies
with Asian characteristics.
- South Korea: 1987, the middle class terminated the authoritarian rule
- Observation: Dong Won Mo found the middle class as highly sensitive to a stable
social order
- Taiwan: the middle class became powerful that it forged the first Chinese
democracy
- Observation: The middle class between 1960 and 1990 was either intolerant or
apolitical
- Malaysia: middle class politics paved the way for a democratic revolt
- Singapore: the educated middle class constituted an important precondition in
political liberalization
- Indonesia: the middle class which has grown larger demanded for more public
information
- Observation: the emerging middle class contradictorily both threatens the pact of
domination that maintained the Suharto regime and supports the
Indonesian equivalent of a Bonapartist state

Two incompatible schools of thought to determine the role of middle class vis--vis
democratization:
- Precondition: Seymour Martin Lipsets work in political sociology, which presents the
emergence of an educated and self-assured middle class as an important
precondition of the transition to democracy
- Process model: The middle class viewed as playing a progressive role after an
authoritarian regime initiates the democratization process
- Assumes that a ruling elite liberalizes in order to decompress social tension,
thereby opening civil society to autonomous organization
- As an infant civil society strengthens, the associative life of the middle class
facilitates the transition to democracy
Main questions:
- What is the actual character of the new middle class and how does it affect its political
role?
- How do the incumbent ruling arrangements in newly industrialized Pacific Asia
respond to or manage this emerging social phenomenon?
- What light, if any, does the political pattern of political change in Pacific Asia shed
upon the process of democratization?

The Dependency Culture in Contemporary Pacific Asia

1. The most significant social phenomenon produced by the sustained growth in high
performing Asian economies is a materialistic, urbanized middle class.
a. Kuznets: even with economic growth, the economies of Pacific Asia has the ability to
distribute increasing wealth equitably and to telescope the historical time taken to
modernize.
a. The Gini coefficient from 1965-1990 showed rapid growth and declining inequality
have been shared virtues among high performing Asian economies hence, South
Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and to a lesser extent, Indonesia have become
middle class polities.
a. Between 1960 and 1995 these economies achieved growth rates in excess of 7
percent per annum. Reasons:
- The technocratic elites secured the political stability integral to planned
development by increasingly entrusted with industrial policy selectively reinvented
Asian traditions of deference, bureaucracy, and consensus
- Asian values of legalistic bureaucracy and Confucian deference in emerging South
Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore and traditional practices of cooperation and
consensus building in Indonesia and Malaysia explain both Pacific Asian economic
dynamism and the capacity to industrialize without incurring undue social
dislocation

Tradition vis-a-vis modernization and development

a. Planned development informed by traditional values shaped the modernization
process in Pacific Asia
- However, the customary values that modified development in Pacific Asia have
been largely reinvented for the ideological purpose of channeling popular energy to
collectively achievable economic targets
- The first generation leaders who assumed power in the unstable world of
postcolonial Pacific Asia viewed the recovery of lost tradition (Confucian, Buddhist,
Hindic, or Islamic provenance or in a variety of syncretic amalgamations)

- The activist character of postcolonial self-determination in Pacific Asia initially

deterred the revival of traditional practice
a. The emerging postcolonial identity, while nominally democratic and populist,
remained suspicious of liberalism, a doctrine associated both with deracinating
individualism and European colonial exploitation.
b. Malaysia: the emerging postcolonial identity necessitated a new political
vocabulary to cover concepts like state, nation, and politics
 c. Indonesia: liberation and the creation of Indonesia Raya required an imaginative
leap as well as a new language
d. Singapore: as they are expelled from the Malaysian federation and surrounded
by a sea of Malay peoples, the ruling Peoples Action Party (PAP) sought
pragmatically to forge a multi-cultural amalgam of East and West.
e. Northeast Asia: the Koumintangs blend of Sun Yan-sens scientific
reinterpretation of Confucianism and ideas derived from Chiang Kai-sheks
German Nationalist Socialist advisers in the 1930s demanded the suppression of
indigenous Taiwanese culture; constituting communism as an external other
offered the matrix for a new identity and unity.

Tradition vis-a-vis nation-building

a. The period of sustained growth and rapid urbanization after 1960s paved the way for
traditional understandings to play an integral role in the nation-building process.
a. Soedjatmoko, 1965: the dynamics of developmental values only come to life in a
wider structure of meaning; the progressive breakdown of traditional social
structures with their established customs and the difficulty of relating to new ones
created growing uncertainty and anxiety leading in some case to a genuine crisis of
identity.
- In the aims of resolving the unpatterned desperation generated by the shock of the
transition from an agrarian to urban order, governments had to turn to traditional
understandings of relationship and order, now centrally disseminated through the
media, school, and press to reconstitute in the burgeoning modern Asia city the
values fast disappearing from the rural hinterland.
- The World Bank maintains that the efficient provision of primary and secondary
education was a crucial factor in creating the disciplined workforce necessary to
sustain economic growth in the high performing Asian economic.
- Patterns reflected in countries:
- Indonesia: after 1965, renewed emphasis upon paternalistic guidance and
musyawarah (deliberation) leading to mufakat (consensus) in a spirit of non-
conflictual cooperation was observed
- An awareness of Pancasila ideology is present in primary and secondary
schooling
- Singapore: the transmission of shared Asian values became a matter of educational
and political urgency in the 1980s
1. Being a confucianized polity, the schools are required to inculcate nation-
building values like filial piety, and conformity
- Malaysia: the United Malay Organization (UMNO) sought to revitalize and purify
traditions drawn from the golden era of the Malacca sultanate, but amended to
support an untraditionalistic leader devoted to building Malaysia Incorporated
a. The Rukun Negara became significant features of the school curriculum
- South Korea: establishment of a rule not by laws but by of men during General Park
Chung Hees era of a state-managed industrialization; the Samil Dongnip Undong
movement inculcated a national spirit, more fundamental than the national spirit of
modern nationalism
a. Being a confucianized polity, the schools are required to inculcate nation-
building values like filial piety, and conformity
 - Taiwan: scientific Confucian education after 1988 had to pay the increasing
attention to indigenous cultural practice; through the exclusive control of the
government to KMT over the socialization agents, the schools, and the mass
media, an ideologically underestimated popular coalition where all members of
society believe the KMT embodies the interest of all classes was constructed
a. Being a confucianized polity, the schools are required to inculcate nation-
building values like filial piety, and conformity

The Middle Class and their Intolerance, Apathy

- The middle classes are both the material beneficiaries of the East Asian miracle and
the class most exposed to national values.
- In Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, the middle class consists mainly of
professionals, civil servants, and businessmen bureaucratic connections.
- Singapore: the factors of specialization, defense, and professional code of status
group among graduates favored a middle class identity founded on political
indifference with high anxiety.
b. Kiasuism: behavior that is premised on the belief that if you are not one up you
are one down and condones otherwise anti-social activity provided the
progenitor succeeds in achieving collectively desired but scarce social goods
while maintaining conformist anonymity
c. The lack of confidence of Singaporean middle class welcomed the activist and
interventionist PAP style of rule
- Taiwan: the ruling KMT in its various guises as government employed, political
machine, and the entrepreneur remains the major source of middle class employment.
- Tutelary rule encouraged the guanxi (connections) through which the middle
classes attained the socioeconomic security that their Confucian education in moral
certitude required.
- Political culture of intolerance among the middle class is abundant, thus they are
yet to find a single political voice
- South Korea: The middle class finds solace in an intolerant social conformity
- The regimes of Generals Park, Chun, and Roh promoted the virtue of conformity
through the Confucian allegiance to moral rule: it has endanger the Korean middle
class a respect for chijo, an inflexible stand on matters of principle.
- Malaysia: the bumiputera, or the indigenous Malay, middle class, is the creation of the
Malay government. It has either actively supported Mahathir Mohamads attempt to
create a centralized one party state or remained politically apathetic
- The nouveaux riches do not have the same reasons for contributing to politics or
speaking out because they would rather not change the system as long as they are
the beneficiaries

- Indonesia: the government provides the middle class employees with benefits such as
food, housing, transport to and from work, and comprehensive medical care; because
of this, the government expects loyal conformity

State Strategy and the Middle Class

- The ruling elite is often economically, ideologically and ethnically homogenous with
the middle class.
 Political change represents a technocratic strategy to manage proactively either
the anticipated aspirations of the middle class or the anticipated problem of
political succession.
1. Malaysia and Indonesia:
- The middle class is state-dependent and quiescent.
- Political debate reflects oligarchic concern with pursuing the most effective strategy
to maintain the stability that attracts economic investment
- The rise of factionalism within UMNO in Malaysia
- Burgeoning uncertainty of the middle class with the New Order in Indonesia
Some constitutional democratic change has occurred in the more Confucian and
economically developed polities
South Korea: the middle class became a vehicle into pressuring the government
to promote constitutional democracy
o The 1987 bourgeois resistance began a new historical cycle of
constitutional democracy
o But the view of SK as a liberal democracy with a vibrant and autonomous
civil society is misleading: freedoms of the press and political organization
remain curtailed; periodicals must register with the government and
specify their editorial objectives; penalties are imposed on those who
commit an ideological crime.
o The constituting feature of the SK middle class is its search for order,
certainty, and security, and this disposition is reflected in the continuing
fragility of SK politics.
o While the military elite and its technocratic advisers premised
constitutional reform upon the presumption of a middle class demand for
autonomy, middle class values remain conformist.
Taiwan: the lifting of martial law in 1987 and the subsequent erosion of KMT
autocracy facilitated more open political debate, the emergence of political
opposition, and reform of both the national legislature and the local government.
o The inchoate nature of opposition politics and the evident uncertainty of
middle class voters diminish the potential for an electoral challenge to
KMT dominance
o Alienation from proper democratic norms has led more conservative
Taiwanese to compare their existence of liberalization unfavorably with
the apolitical, one party rule of Singapore.
Singapore: in the view of prevailing democratization orthodoxy it would seem that
the continuing ability of the PAP to dominate both Singaporean politics and
socioeconomic development is suited to the anxiously apolitical new middle
class.
a. The city-state is managed like a multinational corporation: there are board
of directors, and the citizenship represents a form of share ownership with
attached voting rights
b. The party-states relatively uncorrupt but absolute power to direct
environmental, economic, and social policy offers a model and practice of
apolitical development and public administration for developing Asia and
Africa.
 Political reform and constitutional innovation in contemporary Pacific Asia,
then, neither constitute an inevitable authoritarian response to middle
class pressure nor reflect wider social demand for a modular civil society
and a communicatory democracy.
1. Political development is the sometimes contradictory but always proactive
attempt by a technocratic elite to maintain harmony, order, and economic
growth in an uncertain world.

Conclusion:
Democratization connotes the states recognition of the premonitory
snuffling of the civil society, the devolution of power from a group of
people to a set of rules, and the appearance of uncertainty; but the
evolving political practices of East and Southeast Asia confound this
understanding.
1. The selective cultivation of traditional high cultural values of passivity
and group conformity and their subsequent promulgation through
universal education programs militate against individualism, the rule of
law, and critical public debate.
The term democratization is used, combines, and confuses as a type of
rule with an ethical value.
1. Modern civil society (a separated polity from economic and social life) is
not emerging in Pacific Asia; instead, political change reflects a
conservative, managerial strategy to amplify political control by forging a
new relationship with an arriviste middle class.

WEEK 10
Rose & Shin Democratization Backwards
- The introduction of free competitive elections is a necessary establishment of
democracy.
- Initially, studies of third-wave democratization treated the institutionalization of
electoral competition as sufficient to consolidate democracy.
- While free elections are necessary, they are not sufficient for democratization. In
many third-wave democracies something is missing: basic institutions for the
modern state.
- Typical Start of Democratization: Countries in the first wave, initially became
modern states, establishing the rule of law, institutions of civil society and horizontal
accountability to aristocratic parliaments. Democratization followed in Britain as the
government became accountable to MPs elected by a franchise that gradually
broadened until universal suffrage was achieved.
- Democratization of the Third World: Third-wave democracies have started
democratization backwards, introducing free elections before establishing such basic
institutions as the rule of law and civil society.
- A democracy is a compound of institutions of a modern state and institutions of mass
participation and representation.
- Schumpeter minimalist definition of Democracy: Democracy is a political system in
which free elections with universal suffrage create vertical accountability.
Critique: Took for granted the existence of modern state, by making free
elections the essence of democracy, Schumpeter ignored the widespread
existence of unfree and unfair elections, and such ambiguous categories
are muddle/managed elections.
- Karl minimalist definition of Democracy: Democracy is a political system in which
free elections with universal suffrage create vertical accountability.
Critique: Took for granted the existence of modern state, by making free
elections the essence of democracy, Schumpeter ignored the widespread
existence of unfree and unfair elections, and such ambiguous categories
are muddle/managed elections.

Bertrand, Jacques Growth and Democracy in SEA p.355-375

- The study of the relationship between regime type and economic
growth.
1. Does the regime type influence economic growth and, if it does, how?
2. Does sustained economic growth produce democracy?
3. How can Southeast Asian inform these analytical problems?
- Findings about SEA are compatible with both authoritarianism and
democracy.
- The creation of conditions for high growth depends largely on the
states control over entrepreneurial class, provided that the political
leadership is committed to using its power to implement growth-
producing policies.
- Visits the conditions of a successful economic growth, through
analyzing the different regime types of Southeast Asian countries (e.g.
Authoritarian, Democratic Regimes)
- By disaggregating the elements of regime types, one can understand
better how they affect growth and how growth contributes to regime
change.
- The impact of socioeconomic change on the countries with the highest
growth rates remains inconclusive. In Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Thailand democratic forces have been fairly weak despite rapid
economic changes. The role of the middle class has been ambiguous,
and the authoritarian state has proven to be quite adaptable to
economic changes.
o Economic Growth and Democracy
1. Despite decades of research, political scientists and policymakers have
failed to develop conclusive propositions that democracy is positively
or negatively related to growth or that high economic growth produces
democracy.
2. Democracy has many forms and comprises many institutions and
practices that can enhance or hinder growth, while growth creates
 pressures on existing social and political institutions without
necessarily leading to democracy.
3. Although it does not explicitly address the issue of regime type, it
prescribes a set of conditions for growth that are usually associated
with political democracies, such as participation, transparency,
accountability, due process, and the effective voice of local people.
4. good governance are linked with democracy and development
(OECDs Development Assistance Committee)
5. Different types of democracies vary in their growth.
6. New democracies may implement vast reforms that are conducive to
growth while they enjoy large support from the population.
7. Under unstable conditions, authoritarian rule may be tempting.
8. While the political institutions that have produced high growth are
often associated with authoritarian regimes, there is no a priori
theoretical reason why they cannot also be built within a democratic
framework.
9. It is not economic development or growth per se that produces
democracy, but rather clusters of social changes, including higher
literacy, reduced class tensions, and skills for autonomous
participation

10. Economic development facilitates democracy only if it leads to

changes in state-society relations, class structure, and political culture.
11. Huntington argues that economic growth and the middle classes have
played a significant role in the latest wave of democratization

o Regime Type and the Creation of High Growth in Indonesia,

Malaysia, and Thailand
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have different regime types, yet they have all
produced high economic growth
Indonesia is authoritarian, Malaysia is semidemocratic, and Thailand
is both authoritarian and democratic.
Indonesia
Since 1965 has been ruled by Suhartos New Order, which placed
economic development at the top of its priorities, which has strong
commitment to development.
The countries success in economic development arises partly from
political and economic conditions that have motivated political
leadership to create high levels of economic growth. (The threat of
Communism and the violence with which the regime came to power
were powerful political motivations to produce growth)
Suharto was also concerned about satisfying domestic and foreign
investors that ultimately could shape growth.
Political Stability is needed (and is prime motivation in crafting
economic policies and maintenance of Political Stability) to lure
these investors, which they tend to shy away from countries dealing
 with pressures.
These conditions shaped the Economic Policies of Indonesia.
Authoritarianism allowed Suhartos regime to maintain continuity and
coherence in its policies.
With authoritarian control came patronage and corruption, but Suharto
always ensured that they would not compromise the economy's growth
As a result, economic management has taken the form of a
balancing act between creating the conditions for growth and
providing patronage to the clients of the regime

Malaysia
a. On a spectrum between authoritarianism and democracy, Malaysia falls somewhere
closer to the authoritarian side. Its brand of authoritarianism, however, is much
softer.
b. State intervention was used to enhance the role of state agencies and enterprises in
capital and technology-intensive industries, thereby propping up the economic
position of the Malays relative to the Chinese
c. The regime's motivations in creating growth may well be consistent with its
objectives of maintaining ethnic stability. (In Malaysia, it could be argued, the threat of
renewed ethnic violence may also have sustained the government's commitment to growth.)
d. State autonomy from groups that control the economy, in this case the Chinese, is
necessary to implement changes in policies.

Thailand
a. The key to Thailand's success lies in its ability to avoid or to correct bad policies.
The state's role was more reactive to the logic and pressures of economic
conditions, adjusting its policies to changes in the economy, rather than
assuming a strong interventionist role.
b. While they vied for personal enrichment, eco- nomic policymaking was relegated to a group
of technocrats, many of whom were trained abroad and brought back new economic ideas.
c. Technocrats mainly wrote Thailands Economic Policies.
d. These technocrats enjoyed a fair degree of autonomy in policymaking but had little
power to implement these policies
e. The maintenance of democracy throughout the mid 1990s did not lead to a decline in
economic growth. If Muscat is right, this success depends on the technocratic
management of the economy
f. The relations between Chinese business and Thai political and military elites were a central
aspect of the success of growth in Thailand.

Comparisons between these 3 countries

a. The state has had a strong commitment to development in part because of some perception of
potential social unrest
b. This strong commitment has been translated into specific policies by relying on small groups
of technocrats, who were given autonomy over economic policy.
c. Policies were implemented with the assistance of the political leadership, provided that the
latter had control over the business sector.
d. In Southeast Asia, it appears that corruption has not hampered the state's capacity to
implement significant changes, possibly because of many businesses' dependence on the
political leadership through patron-client relations

WEEK 11

Calimbahin, Cleo (2011) Exceeding (Low) Expectations

Building quality democracy takes time. It requires a constant review of the
performance of institutions that are tasked to deliver in concrete ways the
democratic ideal.
This study offers insights into a deeper understanding of autonomy,
bureaucratic integrity and capacity.
Elections promise continuity and stability. But if election administration is
done poorly due to the lack of autonomy, integrity, and capacity then it
becomes an unsettling and destabilizing exercise.
PROBLEM: With democratic structures in place for years, the Philippines
continues to have problems with the most basic elements of election
administration: accuracy in maintaining voter lists, counting votes and
adjudicating disputes.
2. These problems are largely due to lack of resources, last-minute
preparations, and lack of proper training for the 400,000 deputized
public school teachers as members of the BEI (Esplanada 2009).
3. Philippines continues to have problems with the most basic elements
of election administration: accuracy in maintaining voter lists,
counting votes and adjudicating disputes.
4.
Questions:
Given to low expectation in their democratic institutions?
Are voters aware that they can demand for better election administration
and voting conditions?
What does it mean to win an election in the Philippines? What is to be
gained?
Democracy, Institutions & Elections:
In the field of political science, election administration remains separated
from the study of political institutions, state capacity, and democratization or
patronage politics.
The focus of this study, the COMELEC, provides a prime example of an
imperfect democratic institution. Using election administrators to rig post-
election day results in favor of the administration was rampant during the
long reigns of these dictators. retail fraud (bribery and intimidation) and
post-election wholesale fraud (manipulating the vote tallies)
A meaningful democracy needs a coherent body that administers free and
fair elections. Given the importance of election administration in the study of
democratic processes, it is surprising that very few studies focus on the topic.
 Building quality democracy takes time. It requires a constant review of the
performance of institutions that are tasked to deliver in concrete ways the
democratic ideal.
Improving democratic institutions requires continuous and sustained reform
efforts. Election administrators and election commissions must realize that
public perception of election matters. In states with weak institutions,
citizens can find few legal and swift avenues to resolve economic, political or
social issues.
Elections are one of the few, direct means of participating in political life

Scope and Framework:

Most studies on the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) focus on its origin,
its structure, the electoral rules it is expected to enforce, and the laws that
dictate its mandate(Espinoza-Abadingo 1990).
They provide an exhaustive historical listing of legal frameworks but do not
examine political dynamics. First, this article will establish the importance of
looking at election administration as an independent variable. I would like to
show election administration as symptomatic of state capacity and a gauge of
democratic quality.
Second, this article will demonstrate that the COMELEC suffers from a three-
pronged pathology composed of two types of clientelism and organizational
inefficiency.
Lastly, this paper concludes that COMELEC must address credibility issues
by engaging in capacity-building and ridding itself of clientelistic tendencies. ,
COMELECs institutional reform must start with accuracy and transparency
rather than sp

COMELEC as an institution

Despite the Philippines long electoral history, the COMELEC does not exhibit
strong procedural norms.
The low expectation attached to elections and to the COMELEC stems from
the persistence of election-related violence, election fraud, vote buying, and
allegations of vote-manipulation with COMELEC complicity.

Election to public office comes with the promise of a privileged

position that can yield a high return.

Election Matter
 Elections matter. It remains an important arena that, when conducted fairly
and credibly, can provide peaceful political change and stable governance
(Bjornlund and Timberman 1996).
Yet, most democratization literature often assume that election
administration runs smoothly and effectively. This assumption contributes to
the fallacy of electoralism,
Retail fraud occurs at the local level. Local politicians engage in vote-buying,
stuffing of ballot boxes with fake ballots, misreading of ballots by election
inspectors, and tampering of election returns at the precinct level.
Wholesale fraud is more damaging because it is carried out by a machine at
the provincial and/or national level.

COMELEC 3 Pronged Pathology

2. The first is an externally-motivated clientelistic relationship:

Where the patron is a member of the political-economic elite seeking
assistance from clients within COMELEC in promoting advantageous
electoral outcomes.
COMELECs first pathology is its vulnerability to external clientelism.
The patron, a candidate who is likewise a member of the political
economic elite, gains privileged access to COMELEC in order to
acquire favorable election outcomes. The shift in power becomes
evident once the counting of votes begins.
3. The second is an internal type of clientelistic relationship
Where the patron is inside the bureaucracy and his or her clientele
consists of subordinate members of the same organization. The goal is
commonly personal and for career enrichment using bureaucratic
network and expertise.
4. The third pathology is organizational inefficiency
Due to it COMELECs nature as an organization. In the case of the
COMELEC, it is both a powerful constitutional commission yet
plagued by the same problems as any bureaucracy.

Clientelism
An alliance between two persons of unequal status, power or
resources each of whom finds it useful to have as an ally someone
superior or inferior to himself (Lande 1965 cited in Schmidt 1977:
76).
The reciprocity demanded by the relationship each partner provides a
service that is valued by the other (Scott 1977 cited in Schmidt 1977:
125).
There is no great sense of loyalty, instrumental or affective, that binds
the client to the patron. Instead, the relationship is primarily driven
by a market-type of corruption. The relationship is characterized by
 an impersonal process in which influence is accorded those who can
pay the most (Scott 1972a:93)
Clientelism is sometimes described as a one-way exploitative
relationship, usually with the patron having more resources to exploit
the services of the client. In this study, the source of the exploitation
can shift depending on timing.

CASES OF 3 Pronged:

Externally Motivated
2. The appointment of a COMELEC Commissioner who serves as client to an
incumbent patron happens with the collusion of another political
institution.
3. Apart from the issue of ad interim appointments, the COMELEC had
controversial commissioner appointments over the years.
4. The clientelistic nature of the relationship between Arroyo and Abalos
was best articulated by his LAKAS-NUCD party members, who described
him as someone who delivers the votes and will not betray the party
(Mangahas 2002).

Internally Motivated
The second type of pathology is an internally-motivated
clientelistic relationship.
Entrepreneurial bureaucrats cannot function without having their
own internal clientelistic network. COMELEC can act out of its own
interest.
An entrepreneurial bureaucrat can sell his technical knowledge
and internal network to the highest bidder. Both the first and
second pathologies signal weak autonomy.
2. While Commissioner Garcillano is now out of the COMELEC, his
network in the field offices of the commission has not only stayed
on with their jobs but were even promoted (Tubeza 2010).

Organizational Inefficiency
The third pathology is organizational inefficiency.
The COMELEC not only suffers from elite capture and patrimonialism,
but is also plagued by issues of capacity or incapacity. The states
capacity is based on its ability or abilities to enforce and implement
rules. . Over the years, COMELEC has exhibited more inefficiency than
capacity.
2. A basic example of the third pathology involves massive
inaccuracies in compiling the official voter lists.
The International Election Observation Mission reported on
the COMELECs poor performance in election administration in
some parts of the country.
 Some of the problems evident were the lack of secrecy of the
ballot due to poor training of BEI Inspectors, delays and long
queues that discouraged some voters from voting, late arrival
of PCOS machines, lack of consistency in checking for the
presence of indelible ink and machine glitches including
overheating of PCOS machines (Anfrel 2010).

The problem of COMELEC is the overlapping of its three pathologies:

Elite capture, patrimonial excess and bureaucratic incompetence.
The merging of all three pathologies creates a crescendo that weakens
COMELEC as an institution to the point of losing its credibility.
The impact of the collusion between a presidential appointee expected to
return favors to a patron and an expert, a long-serving bureaucrat who
knows the ins and outs with a network of loyal subordinates willing to
commit electoral fraud is the height of an externally-motivated pathology.
It is commonly said that in the Philippines, no candidate loses in the election,
only cheated.

Part of the damaging effects

is that it encourages subordinates and officials to be corrupt. The creation of
a corrupt environment emboldens others to engage in unethical practices.

CONCLUSION

Despite the highly contested nature of elections in the Philippines, the use of
violence and the weak foundations of political institutions in Philippine state
formation, there exists a high normative expectation for the COMELEC to
exhibit independence, neutrality and credibility. Yet, the reality shows that
two forms of state capture and issues of capacity have crippled this
constitutional commission.

Though mostly overlooked, election administration plays a vital role in the

study of broader democratization questions.
Elections promise continuity and stability. But if election administration is
done poorly due to lack of autonomy, integrity, and capacity, then it becomes
an unsettling and destabilizing exercise that can lead to political compromises
or worse.

Benedict Anderson Elections and Participation in three Southeast Asian countries

p.12-33
o Countries being discussed: Philippines (1907), Indonesia (1918), Thailand
(1933)
o Consider the right of suffrage of Women, and the Political Emancipation
of Catholics in electoral mechanisms
o Thailand:
12. Social basis for serious electoralism did not exist yet, since conditions
such as low literacy rate, monarchic ruling has power, monopolistic
bureaucrats which resulted to the Army being dominant and the rule in
Thai politics up until 1970s was military dictatorship.

1. Philippines:
1. National-level elections were introduced in the Philippines by its
America conquerors in 1907. Which started from Manila then largely
spreading to the Visayas region. With the widespread participation of
the popular classes and by women and adolescents, as well as by adult
males.
2. Electoralism introduced in the Philippines was modeled, even if
parodically, on Americas own.
3. It dispersed power horizontally across the archipelago, while
concentrating it vertically: The provincial caciques were assured of
more or less equal representation in Manila. (Oligarchic &
Monopolistic)
4. Marcos Regime entailed participation of the Military and Insurgent
groups, Catholic Church. (People Power)

o Indonesia:
o The first free elections Indonesia has ever haddid not take place until
1955