Governance in Transition: The Political Economy of Subnational Policy Reform in Southeast Asia and China
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
Do decentralization and local democracy improve government performance? What explains that some polities have succeeded in delivering high-quality services and reducing corruption, while others exhibit unresponsive and fraudulent practices? These were the questions that stood at the center of the postdoctoral DFG fellowship at Stanford University. Given that institutional efforts of ‘moving governments closer to people’ have left global governance problems largely unchanged, the central aim of this study was to take a closer look at the political economy of democratic decentralization. A main objective was to gauge agential and structural drivers of change, in particular the salience of different configurations and concentrations of local elite powers. To gain a deeper understanding of how different actors and socio-economic contours co-determine local policy outcomes, this study has taken a closer look at Southeast Asia’s largest and most decentralized democracies: the Republics of Indonesia and the Philippines. The heightened focus on Southeast Asia (and the reduced focus on China) was prompted by a number of unexpected opportunities and limitations. On the upside, the provision of a ‘short-term field grant’ from Stanford’s Center of International Development made it possible to update and expand governance surveys in Indonesia and the Philippines. On the downside, considerable data and language constraints rendered a meaningful analysis of Chinese local governance increasingly unfeasible. Yet, benefiting from the methodological skills and original survey data acquired during the fellowship, the analyses of Southeast Asia’s experience have appeared in a number of well-ranked development and area-studies journals. A central take-away message from Southeast Asia’s local political economies is that the presence of a balanced plurality of economic elite interests bodes well for public reform. A series of multimethod analyses – which triangulated case comparisons, in-depth interviews, and regression analyses – provided evidence for the hypothesis that local governments are more service-oriented and less corrupt in areas with moderate economic concentration. In areas of poor law enforcement and societal accountability, a moderate dispersion of economic power and, with it, a productive balance of cooperating and competing elite action can serve as a surrogate for weak institutional checks and, therefore, as a provisional pathway to good governance . These findings contain several implications for scholarship and policy. They highlight that the presence of elite power (and the absence of well-institutionalized accountability mechanisms) does not necessarily translate into poor public service and probity standards. Rather than neglecting economic elite power, it seems advisable to identify measures that foster a greater ‘pluralization’ of elite interests (for example through economic diversification, small/medium enterprise development, and young-leader exchange programs); and to focus on novel strategies for societal empowerment that explore rising trade, internet, and tourism linkages as a means to interconnect non-government actors and foment collective action around ideas of public probity.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
- 2009, ‘Post-Suharto Indonesia: Democratic Consolidation and Continuing Challenges’, Stanford SPICE Digest, Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education, 3/2009 (Fall)
von Luebke, C.
- 2010, 'Survey of Recent Developments’, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 46 (1): 7-28
von Luebke, C., A. Patunru
- 2010, 'The Politics of Reform: Political Scandals, Elite Resistance, and Presidential Leadership in Indonesia’, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 29 (1): 79-94
von Luebke, C.
- 2010, ‘Controlled Multimethod Policy Analyses (COMPAS): A Comparative Study of Democratic Governance in Contemporary Indonesia’, Occasional Paper Series No. 3, Department of International Politics, University of Freiburg
von Luebke, C.
- 2010, ‘Dynamic Growth and Regional Disparities in Indonesia’, Global Strategic Analyses, Oxford Analytica
von Luebke, C.
- 2011, ‘Democracy in Progress – or Oligarchy in Disguise? The Politics of Decentralized Governance in Post-Suharto Indonesia’, Discussion Paper Series No.15, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg
von Luebke, C.
- 2011, ‘Paradox Refomasi di Indonesia: Kasus Century dan KPK’, (in Indonesian), Solidaritas Masyarakat Indonesia untuk Keadilan, Jakarta
von Luebke, C.
- 2011, ‘The True State of Inequality’, Inside Indonesia, Vol. 97, April 2011
von Luebke, C.
- 2012, ‘A Tale of Two Cities: The Political Economy of Local Investment Climates in Indonesia’, Journal of Development Studies, 18(7):799-816
von Luebke, C., N. McCulloch and A. Patunru
- 2012, ‘Striking the Right Balance: Economic Concentration and Local Government Performance in Indonesia and the Philippines’, European Journal of East Asian Studies, 11(1):17-44
von Luebke, C.
