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Can Southeast Asia become a Shangri-La for deliberative democracy?
It is essential that deliberative practices can be nourished and strengthened without borrowing from the West.
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Protesters belonging to the Society Concerned About Women's Representation carry a banner calling for greater representation of women in the legislature during a rally in front of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) in Jakarta on April 8, 2023. ( Antara/Reno Esnir)
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et me start with an ambitious, perhaps idealistic, proposition: Southeast Asia could aspire to become a different type of Shangri-La, not only a fulcrum for geopolitics and strategic defense discussions but also the epicenter for a renewal of democracy.
The odds, at least apparently, are high against my bet and my hopes and the enthusiasm stemming from them should not be unmitigated. After all, the ongoing shenanigans in Thailand prove how complicated (and messy) a political transition to a better democratic framework can turn out to be.
Yet if existing shortcomings in the region’s political systems are undeniable amid an overall democratic backsliding worldwide, Southeast Asia could become a trailblazer in rethinking how democracy can work.
Yet deliberative democracy as both theory and practice that in short wants to enable people to take decisions through rational discussions and debate, can be really promising for the region.
deliberative practices can truly be a useful tool to strengthen democratic practices where liberal democracies are already established. They can also act as a double-edged sword in the sense that they can be useful tool of policy-making in less liberal contexts like China and Singapore.
And here we have a real conundrum: On the one hand, deliberation could be either a tool to democratize a political system or a strategy to co-opt and control dissent. In short, while both China and Singapore are at the vanguard of localized deliberations, they can also frame deliberative democracy to advance their illiberal or semi-liberal (in the case of Singapore) blueprint of governance.
Amid such complexities and in order to further understand the chances in favor of a genuine process of democracy enhancement through deliberation, I have asked for some clarity from John S. Dryzek, a centenary professor in the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra.
