Is Sri Lanka on the East Asian Path?
Many questions with regard to democratic values and system of government in Sri Lanka have surfaced in recent years and it has been argued by some that Sri Lanka is heading at accelerating pace towards an authoritarian regime similar to that can be found in countries like Zimbabwe. An assassination of media persons, curtailment of civic rights, death threats for dissidents, non-implementation of relatively democratic amendments to the constitution are depicted as symptomatic of this trend. In this note, I argue that this analysis lacks theoretical consistency as well as empirical substance and reveals major flaws in Sri Lankan democratic discourse. In a nutshell, my main argument here is that in recent years Sri Lanka has shown a clear tendency of moving towards the East Asian and South Asian variety of democracy. If Sri Lanka can address the issue of internally displaced people reasonably well and in a short span of time, this regressive tendency towards East and South Asian variety of democracy is not something that the so-called international community (=global north) cares that much. Let me also note that while in the case of East Asia and South East Asia, this variety of democracy emerged as a result of long struggle by students and democratic forces and therefore a step forward from prolonged period of authoritarianism, in the case of Sri Lanka, moving towards this variety is a reversal.
No, I am not talking about the East Asian path of economic development; my focus in this note is somewhat different. Many people have suggested that Sri Lanka emulate the growth strategy of the East Asian ‘tigers’ and the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) in South East Asia as these countries were able to overcome economic underdevelopment in a relatively short period of time, say in two to three decades. Although I would like to write on this subject at a future date, my concern here is more about the nature of the political regime in those countries rather than their economic strategy. Suffice is to say here that all these countries adopted a development strategy that in many ways deviated significantly from the neo-liberal version on economic growth and development. The post-development phase in almost all these countries was characterized by a democratic wave led by the students and new middle class that at the end of the day brought in a semblance of democratic regimes elected by a popular vote. However, the democracy evolved in the East and South East Asia including Japan has been significantly different from the democratic traditions of the West. One salient feature has been that although a multi-party system exists and different parties contest in elections, one single party dominates the political landscape in these countries. Political differences are expressed in the form more of inner-party rivalries and competition than of inter-party competition. Moreover, serious restrictions and constraints on freedom of speech and assembly exist even more than a decade after the so-called wave of democratization. Although there is no united position on it among neo-liberals, they tend to believe either that economic prosperity be sooner or later followed by a vibrant system of democracy or democracy and economic advancement reinforce each other.
Then how do we explain this co-presence of economic prosperity and restrictions on democracy? Of course, this complex symbiosis needs multiple explanations. First, although, capitalistic development and democratization were coterminous in the West (not Global North), two were not an outcome of a single and uniform process. In fact, the process of democratization in many instances went against the process of capitalistic development. Secondly, as it was shown in many parts of the world, the freedom and democracy that nascent middle class is interested in is a different kind of democracy. That explains why we see many ‘democratic gaps’ even in developed capitalist democracies. As Ha-Joon Change correctly observed, ‘market and democracy clash at a fundamental level’. ‘Democracy runs on the principle of “one person, one vote”. The market runs of the principle of “one dollar, one vote” (Bad Samaritans. p. 172). So the political stability over democracy is looked upon as the primary goal. Thirdly, because of the role the state led by ‘developmental elites’ had played in the process of economic development, many tend to believe that too much democratization can be achieved only at the cost of political stability that they value more. As Kellee S Tsai in her exciting book, Capitalism without Democracy, has shown, a similar tendency can be depicted in China in recent years. Hence, capitalism especially its neo-liberal variety is more comfortable with restrictive democracy than ‘real’ democracy.
Recent developments in Sri Lanka have led me to speculate if Sri Lanka is regressing towards the East and South Asian model of democracy. Three inter-related tendencies may be identified. First, as a consequence of the military victory over the LTTE, we witness the emergence of new political elite that integrated popularly elected President and his party with elitist section of the bureaucracy, a section of the business class and military leadership. So a new political alliance has been formed. Secondly, the business community and middle class and general public tend to believe that newly established political stability and status quo are conducive to country’s progress so that current state of affairs be maintained notwithstanding their dissatisfaction over some of the events. The election results in all the provinces, except in the North and East have indicated that people do not wish a regime change many economic hardships and restrictions on democratic rights notwithstanding. Thirdly, coterminous with the first, the opposition led by Ranil Wickramasinghe has shown its complete impotency and incapacity in addressing relevant key issues so that it has failed miserably in confronting the emerging new politico-military ‘democratic’ alliance. They attacked on the government not over its weak points but on it strong points. The other oppositional movements, like Platform for Democracy have finally ended up being cats’ paws of the United National Party so that those movements have failed in equal proportion to encounter anti-democratic tendencies prevailing in the country.
The regressive tendency towards East and South Asian democratic model has been facilitated by the structure laid out in the Second Republican Constitution of 1977. Neo-liberal economic policies introduced in 1977 has produced a new middle class and new generation that think and operate in terms of instrumental calculation so that the regressive constitutional structure has received the support of this class. This is even reflected in the democracy discourse in Sri Lanka that in my opinion dominated by if borrow the term used by Amartya Sen in his analysis of justice, transcendental institutionalism. It focuses more on a definition of perfect democracy rather than the comparison of democracy and undemocracy. Secondly, this concept of democracy emphasizes more on institutional set up and pays less attention on human behavior and actions. Such theory invariably fails to propose necessary ameliorative measures that could counter this regressive tendency
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your argument is flawed for one main reason:
you have merged the idea of Democracy ‘people choosing to govern themselves’ with the idea of ‘civil liberties’. Democracy can exist without the absolute and unfettered exercise of civil libertise. This is a view ‘advocated’ by many western states, who themselves did not allow the same extent of civil libertise to their citizens during the development period. “have you heard of slavery in the USA”.
As you said in your article yourself, the people in Sri Lanka freely choose this ‘authoritaria’ government on their own accord. they came to their choice rationaly, choosing to compromise certain liberties on the short term for enhanced liberties, material prospertiy, economic development and long term peace. This is many democratic nations have had to make in times of war and crisis.
Prehaps, your brand of activism will be better served to correct your own kind, and your own mistakes than seeking to correct the political culture of the country. e.g practice balanced and unbiased ethical journalism.
As I was reading this note by Sumanasiri Liyanage the photograph of Mahinda Rajapakse posing for a picture with Burma’s military dictator Snr-Gen Than Shwe came to my mind. So this is the new model of democracy we are following. What wonderful theoretical consistency and what a lot of empirical substance we have here. So the major flaws of Sri Lankan democratic discourse have been debunked by Mr. Liyanage by presenting to the world a wonderful new model of democracy which he calls East and South Asia Democracy. He is as profound in his analysis as Dayan Jayatilleka check when he spoke of the Sri Lankan state as ‘authoritarian but quintessentially democratic’.
According to Mr. Liyanage in this new model freedom of expression is not a significant factor and one political party can dominate. Inner party rivalry is much more important than the existence of several parties.
Yes indeed! People have been waiting for some rivalry in the Burmese military junta to emerge for many decades now and I suppose there are a lot of inner party rivalries in Singapore. In this new East and South Asia Democracy model India and South Korea will have no place. In these countries there is still freedom of expression and multiparty democracy. Naturally, these are just following the western model. China I suppose is the model of the East Asian democracy where inner party rivalry is what the people can hope for.
Indeed, we are walking towards the brave new world of the ‘East and South Asian model’ which we hope, Mr. Liyanage will explain with great theoretical consistency and empirical substance in his future writings.
It appears that this discussion is about the possibility of having the cheapest available labour. Having the cheapest available labour would also imply that there would be many who may be unable to find any kind of work and therefore would have to resort to whatever little services they could offer in order to survive such as becoming domestic workers or even beggars. Since this type of thing cannot be done voluntarily force will need to be used and that may mean extrajudicial killings, torture and the like. Under such circumstances civil liberties can have no place. Therefore, we are then reminded that there was a time when, even in countries that are now developed, there was slavery. The argument thus, is that since we are not ‘developed’ yet we must have a right to our slaves.
A further step in the logic is that these slaves need not have the right to elect their governments. Here we are reminded that even in ‘developed’ countries it was at one time only sections of the society that had the right to elect a government. Thus, is Asian and South Asian democracy one which will have that kind of condition for the majority of the people? Here again we are reminded that ‘the middle class’ likes this style of governance. Therefore the advocacy is to have this kind of democracy for some and virtual misery for others.
Indeed, a brave new world with theoretical consistency and empirical soundness and bye-bye to civil liberties. And these civil liberties we are reminded are good only for activists! So much we have learned from the Burmese Junta.
Burmese Model
Another cats’ paws opinion.
The fourth estate has survied Official Secrets Act, Emergency regulations and PTA. Democracy in Sri Lanka could be on its last legs but the power of independent media is still vibrant even in an authoritarian regime under Mahinda.
Our colleagues have been murdered, abducted, tortured and imprisoned but they are still a force the govt. needs to reckon with.
No politician can stand alone if he/she does not have media on its side.
I am proud to say that while journalists in Sri Lanka are paid a pittance, journalists working for Sinhala, Tamil and English media under extremely trying and dangerous circumstances are still a proud lot unlike the politicians whose only aim in life is to get themselves hoisted on a pedestal so that they could elevate the ranks of their kith and kin.
I am not a political analyst, but as someone from Southeast Asia, I don’t see Sri Lanka being at a stage of emulating the Tiger economies. Singapore developed fast economically because politics was viewed instrumentally as serving the economic function. That’s why the first generation of politicians, who were largely lawyers and cultural pracititioners (journalists, mostly), who emerged during the nationalist independence period to work out the legislation for the new nation, quickly gave way to technocrats in following elections (those with engineering, medical, economics, business and scientific training) who excelled at ‘administration’. In terms of the military too, the first generation of ‘real’ army men gave way to these same technocrats who were placed in leadership positions in the army. For instance, the current PM, is an scholar economist who was a Brigadier General. Scholars are posted to the army, and then sent to head ministries. This is a kind of bureaucratisation of politics, I guess. Their main concerns are not democratisation but running the country ‘efficiently’, and democracy gets in the way of that! Politics is seen as a nuisance, hence the view that only one efficient party is required.
I don’t see this happening in Sri Lanka because it is at a stage now when politics takes precedence over economics. The military too is politicised. Politicians are largely lawyers, journalists or those trained in the humanities/social sciences. It seems to be still at the stage where it is working out its political forms, where the foremost concern among politicians is identity politics, not economics. Sorry to say, I see it as heading more towards Zimbabwe than East Asia and the Tiger economies. An alliance between Wickremasinghe and the left-wing movement, the democratisation of the left-wing movement, is the only way this path can be avoided and some political stability established, long enough for economic progress to get underway. The ethnic issue needs to be sorted out, and ethnic claims never allowed to become an issue again. In Singapore, the Tamil rights issue would never have been allowed to become so big as to lead to the LTTE. There would have been negotiation. Which is why, I suppose, I’m partial to Wickremesinghe.
Liyanage scoffs at the East Asian, South-east Asian path. Granted it meant a compromised form of democracy, but what Liyanage fails to mention is that currently, in these countries, the dynamics of globalizing are forcibly liberalising these countries (and not only in the neo-liberal manner, where the focus is only on financial, business liberalising). If Sri Lanka goes along the East Asian path, that greater democratisation will inevitably happen.
This discourse of East Asian, Southeast Asian authoritarianism is really old and tired.
Freedom or liberty came to the scene before democracy in the sense of universal suffrage. Remember how the struggle was waged against slavery and against the disfranchisement of women. Bot causes succeeded. But the landed proprietors enjoyed freedom all along. Not only they but even the ordinary people enjoyes freedom and due process of law. The barons protested to King John and extracted a promise from him to uphold the Magna Carta of 1215. Subsequently the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the French Revolution of 1789 led to the execution of the kings who acted autocratically. The essential conditions for liberty were laid down in the Ameerican Revoluttion.
We never had such a struggle for freedom. The barons in 1815 handed over power to the British in return for good governance and the upholding of the rights of the nobles- a situation similar to 1215. But we have after 1978 Constitution accepted autocratic rulers. The President didn’t care tuppence for the Cabinet and he won control of Parliament through inducements and gratificqation given to the Opposition MPs. The disgusting Supreme Court never gave a ruling on the illegality of cross-overs of MPs. So the time has come to struggle for freedom for all the citizens. The EU will no doubt remove the GSP Plus if MR wins and the governmentr will have to depend on China to bail out the economy just as it is doing for North Korea. Our village yakkos will soon learn