Democracy and Diversity: Political Engineering in the Asia-Pacific .
Democracy and Diversity: Political Engineering in the Asia-Pacific .
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民主与多样性：亚太地区的政治工程。
DOI：
10.1163/156853111x565922
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发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
H. Khondker
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
H. Khondker
20世纪的最后20年在许多方面都是戏剧性的。在社会主义崩溃和冷战结束之前，东亚的崛起和亚洲在不同背景下的民主转型。提交人是这一过程的见证人和参与者（作为国际专家）。这本书是他多年研究这个问题的产物，作者也注入了他的直接经验。赖利并没有像巴林顿摩尔、戈兰·瑟伯恩或其他著名的政治经济理论家那样关注民主的政治经济或社会决定因素。他也没有无休止地争论文化与社会结构在亚太地区提供不同民主成果方面的相对作用。走出这两种标准的解释模式，作者深入研究了促进向“亚太民主模式”过渡的政治创新（他称之为工程学）。“工程学”这个术语的使用并非没有问题，因为它意味着一种严厉的、专制的方法。事实上，这本书的中心主题是“政治工程”，作者的意思是，“有意识地设计政治制度，以实现某些特定的目标”（第21页），特别是政治稳定。这些设计涉及政党、选举、总统、议会等的改革和创新，而很多政治制度的改变，都可以透过选举制度的改变和微调来实现。作者并没有太多地寻求民主的原因，而是试图分析现有制度的制度变迁。根据作者的说法，在亚太地区，只有日本和“更脆弱的”巴布亚新几内亚有民主国家;从那时起，整个亚太地区都迎来了自由化和民主化。1986年后马科斯时代的菲律宾，1987年后的韩国和台湾，1992年的泰国，1993年的柬埔寨，1998年苏哈托政权垮台后的印度尼西亚，以及2001年的东帝汶，标志着该地区的民主化进程。笔者运用熊彼特的选举理论，即通过竞争性选举实现政治权力的更替，并将其与亨廷顿的“两次更替检验”（在连续两次选举中，政治权力应该和平更替）相结合。这一标准使作者能够排除马来西亚和新加坡这两个长期存在于该地区的半民主国家（第9页）。亚太地区民主国家的特点是社会分裂造成的不稳定。在历史上四分五裂的社会，如种族多元的社会中实行民主可能会产生暴力（第45页）。亚太地区的许多国家由于种族和宗教分歧而经历了政治不稳定，但与此同时，宗教同质化，如泰国，90%的人口是佛教徒和说泰语的人，在政治上仍然非常不稳定。因此，处理政治不稳定一直是若干亚太国家的一个关键问题。亚太区域的政治工程往往是为了解决族裔多样性问题。对此的反应从严厉的，如缅甸的彻底政治镇压，到“允许一定程度的政治竞争，但试图通过使社会生活非政治化和弯曲选举规则以有利于多数社区，将种族隔离为政治问题”的模式（第71页）。作者认为，马来西亚、新加坡和斐济（间歇性地）符合这一模式。另一种治理方法是
The last two decades of the 20th century were dramatic in many ways. The collapse of socialism and the end of the Cold War were preceded by the rise of East Asia and democratic transitions in Asia under diverse settings. The author was witness to and a participant (as an international expert) of this process. The book is a product of his years of research on this subject and the author injects his direct experience as well. Reilly does not focus on the politico-economic or social determinants of democracy in the vein of Barrington Moore, Goran Therborn or other celebrated politico-economic theorists. Nor does he engage in endless debates on the relative role of culture versus social structure in providing differential democratic outcomes in the Asia-Pacific region. Stepping out of these two standard modes of explanation in the field, the author takes an in-depth look at the political innovations (which he calls engineering) that facilitated the transition to an ‘Asia-Pacific model of democracy’. The use of the term,‘engineering’is not without its problems since it implies a heavy-handed, authoritarian approach. Indeed, the central theme of the book under review is ‘political engineering’by which the author means,“conscious design of political institutions to achieve certain specified objectives”(p. 21), especially political stability. Such designs involve refashioning and innovation in political parties, elections, presidency, parliaments and so on. Many of the changes in the political systems can be achieved through alterations and fine-tuning in the electoral systems. The author does not so much seek the causes of democracy as he tries to analyse the institutional changes in the existing ones. In the Asia-Pacific, according to the author, only Japan and ‘more tenuously’Papua New Guinea had democracies; since then liberalisation and democratisation have been ushered in across the whole swathe of the Asia-Pacific region. Post-Marcos Philippines in 1986, Korea and Taiwan since 1987, Thailand in 1992, Cambodia in 1993, Indonesia in 1998 following the collapse of Suharto regime, and East Timor in 2001 marked the process of democratisation in the region. The author uses Schumpeter’s theory of election which is change of political power through competitive elections and qualifies that with Huntington’s ‘two-turnover test’(there should be peaceful turnovers of political power in two successive elections). This test enables the author to exclude Malaysia and Singapore, two long-standing semi-democracies in the region (p. 9). The democracies in the Asia-Pacific are marked by diversities which are due to social cleavages. Introduction of democracies in historically fragmented societies, such as ethnically plural societies, can be violent (p. 45). Many of the polities in the Asia-Pacific have experienced political instabilities due to ethnic and religious diversities but, at the same time, religious homogenisation, as in Thailand where 90 percent of the population are Buddhists and Thai-speaking, remains highly unstable politically. Hence, dealing with political instability has been a key issue in several Asia-Pacific countries. Political engineering in the Asia-Pacific region has often been directed at addressing the ethnic diversity. Responses have ranged from the draconian, such as outright political repression as in Burma, to models “which permit a degree of political competition but attempt to quarantine ethnicity as a political issue by depoliticising social life and bending electoral rules in favor of the majority community”(p. 71). Malaysia, Singapore and Fiji (intermittently) fit this model, according to the author. Another approach to governance in