Abstract Anti-corruption efforts are inherently political. Corruption charges can be levied against political opponents as an instrument of repression; they can also be used against troublesome allies in the same party coalition to further consolidate power. In this paper, we focus on Indonesia and ask: Do major corruption charges follow a presidential electoral cycle—and if so, how? We contend charges against prominent members of the government coalition are more likely to happen before an election, allowing the government to replace intra-party rivals with loyal allies. Conversely, charges against prominent opposition members are more likely to happen after an election when fears of retaliation are low, opportunities for credit-claiming are high, and there is an incentive to remove veto players who may inhibit implementing the government's agenda. To test this argument, we use an original, newly assembled dataset of all major corruption charges—i.e., those involving high-profile politicians and garnering international attention—in Indonesia from 1998–2015 as reported in the Associated Press. We find a significant and robust relationship between the electoral calendar and major corruption charges. This relationship is robust across presidential administrations. These results yield insights into how anti-corruption efforts can become a political tool and counsel caution about the effectiveness of “good governance,” especially in new democracies. Finally, we discuss how contextual political factors external to Indonesia's anti-corruption commission, reinforce this empirical pattern.
{"title":"Presidential Electoral Cycles and Corruption Charges","authors":"Joe Amick, Mlada Bukovansky, Amy H. Liu","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.9","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Anti-corruption efforts are inherently political. Corruption charges can be levied against political opponents as an instrument of repression; they can also be used against troublesome allies in the same party coalition to further consolidate power. In this paper, we focus on Indonesia and ask: Do major corruption charges follow a presidential electoral cycle—and if so, how? We contend charges against prominent members of the government coalition are more likely to happen before an election, allowing the government to replace intra-party rivals with loyal allies. Conversely, charges against prominent opposition members are more likely to happen after an election when fears of retaliation are low, opportunities for credit-claiming are high, and there is an incentive to remove veto players who may inhibit implementing the government's agenda. To test this argument, we use an original, newly assembled dataset of all major corruption charges—i.e., those involving high-profile politicians and garnering international attention—in Indonesia from 1998–2015 as reported in the Associated Press. We find a significant and robust relationship between the electoral calendar and major corruption charges. This relationship is robust across presidential administrations. These results yield insights into how anti-corruption efforts can become a political tool and counsel caution about the effectiveness of “good governance,” especially in new democracies. Finally, we discuss how contextual political factors external to Indonesia's anti-corruption commission, reinforce this empirical pattern.","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"281 - 307"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42648736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won another landslide victory in the 2020 general election. Although there was widespread dissatisfaction with the government's poor management of the economy and ethnic conflicts, as well as with the pre-electoral coordination of ethnic parties in several states, opposition and ethnic-based parties had failed to gain more seats. Previous explanations had focused on the economy, electoral system bias, weak party institutionalization, and vote splitting among ethnic parties; however, they underestimated the significance of two contextual factors: military dominance of politics and ethnic conflict. This article argues that military dominance hindered normal political development in Myanmar. The anti-military sentiment favored the NLD, which made most Bamar voters disregard the party's poor economic performance. Despite the electoral system's bias, prolonged ethnic conflicts made ethnic parties that had fought for their community's causes more likely to maintain support. These arguments are verified by survey and electoral data sets. The military nullified the 2020 election claiming that electoral fraud was to blame, but the findings indicate that it was the political environment the military created that led to the victory of the NLD and some ethnic parties in the first place.
{"title":"Myanmar's 2020 Election: Explaining the Strong Performance of the NLD and Some Ethnic Parties","authors":"Kailai Huang","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.10","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won another landslide victory in the 2020 general election. Although there was widespread dissatisfaction with the government's poor management of the economy and ethnic conflicts, as well as with the pre-electoral coordination of ethnic parties in several states, opposition and ethnic-based parties had failed to gain more seats. Previous explanations had focused on the economy, electoral system bias, weak party institutionalization, and vote splitting among ethnic parties; however, they underestimated the significance of two contextual factors: military dominance of politics and ethnic conflict. This article argues that military dominance hindered normal political development in Myanmar. The anti-military sentiment favored the NLD, which made most Bamar voters disregard the party's poor economic performance. Despite the electoral system's bias, prolonged ethnic conflicts made ethnic parties that had fought for their community's causes more likely to maintain support. These arguments are verified by survey and electoral data sets. The military nullified the 2020 election claiming that electoral fraud was to blame, but the findings indicate that it was the political environment the military created that led to the victory of the NLD and some ethnic parties in the first place.","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"309 - 331"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"56719655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract How can authoritarian regimes effectively control information to maintain regime legitimacy in times of crisis? We argue that media framing constitutes a subtle and sophisticated information control strategy in authoritarian regimes and plays a critical role in steering public opinion and cultivating an image of competent government during a tremendous crisis. Using structural topic models (STM), we conduct a textual analysis of more than 4,600 news reports produced by seven Chinese media outlets during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that Chinese media, instructed by the propaganda authorities, used a heroism frame to feature frontline medics’ sacrifices when saving others in need and resorted to a contrast frame to highlight the poor performance of the United States in the fight against COVID-19. We also show that both state and commercial media outlets used these two frames, though the tone of commercial media coverage was generally more moderate than the state media version.
{"title":"Framing as an Information Control Strategy in Times of Crisis","authors":"S. Xia, Huanghua Huang, Dong Zhang","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.5","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract How can authoritarian regimes effectively control information to maintain regime legitimacy in times of crisis? We argue that media framing constitutes a subtle and sophisticated information control strategy in authoritarian regimes and plays a critical role in steering public opinion and cultivating an image of competent government during a tremendous crisis. Using structural topic models (STM), we conduct a textual analysis of more than 4,600 news reports produced by seven Chinese media outlets during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that Chinese media, instructed by the propaganda authorities, used a heroism frame to feature frontline medics’ sacrifices when saving others in need and resorted to a contrast frame to highlight the poor performance of the United States in the fight against COVID-19. We also show that both state and commercial media outlets used these two frames, though the tone of commercial media coverage was generally more moderate than the state media version.","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"255 - 279"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46694084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Land fiscalization in China is a local development strategy intended to tilt the distribution of interests disproportionately toward local officials. We propose that the degree of power concentration among provincial Chinese leaders affects their need for support from lower-level bureaucrats. The more that power is dispersed among provincial leaders, the more they are incentivized to dispense benefits to local officials. To test this hypothesis, we used provincial-year panel data spanning 2003–2012 to examine how power concentration among provincial leaders affected land fiscalization within their jurisdictions. The empirical results robustly supported the hypothesis.
{"title":"Power Distribution and Distributive Politics in Local Developmental States: Evidence from China's Subnational Land Fiscalization","authors":"Qi Zhang, L. Hou","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.4","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Land fiscalization in China is a local development strategy intended to tilt the distribution of interests disproportionately toward local officials. We propose that the degree of power concentration among provincial Chinese leaders affects their need for support from lower-level bureaucrats. The more that power is dispersed among provincial leaders, the more they are incentivized to dispense benefits to local officials. To test this hypothesis, we used provincial-year panel data spanning 2003–2012 to examine how power concentration among provincial leaders affected land fiscalization within their jurisdictions. The empirical results robustly supported the hypothesis.","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"231 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49249806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"JEA volume 22 issue 1 Cover and Back matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":" ","pages":"b1 - b1"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49590583","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"JEA volume 22 issue 1 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"f1 - f3"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43287467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract South Korea's persistent enmity towards its erstwhile colonizer Japan has been a compelling topic of East Asian international relations scholarship for decades. This article argues that the historical evolution of South Korea's democracy offers a vital and overlooked piece of this puzzle. Given that it emerged from one of the most virulently anti-communist dictatorships of the Cold War period, in a society facing an ongoing threat from communist North Korea, any left-of-center opposition movement faced an uphill battle against severe anti-communism. In such circumstances, the only way for a leftist opposition party to survive was by pitting its stronger anti-Japan reputation against conservatives’ anti-communism. After South Korea's democracy stabilized, liberals tried and failed to overturn the anti-leftist institutions left over from the Cold War and then sought equilibrium through parallel rhetoric targeting pro-Japanese elements. Today, neither left nor right can afford to allow a final amicable settlement with its respective target of antagonism. Through analyses of domestic political rhetoric targeting alleged pro-Japanese or pro-communist elements, this paper demonstrates how these competing antagonisms achieved an uneasy equilibrium that undergirds South Korean political dynamics to this day.
{"title":"Godzilla vs Pulgasari: Anti-Japanism and Anti-Communism as Dueling Antagonisms in South Korean Politics","authors":"M. Shaw","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.2","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract South Korea's persistent enmity towards its erstwhile colonizer Japan has been a compelling topic of East Asian international relations scholarship for decades. This article argues that the historical evolution of South Korea's democracy offers a vital and overlooked piece of this puzzle. Given that it emerged from one of the most virulently anti-communist dictatorships of the Cold War period, in a society facing an ongoing threat from communist North Korea, any left-of-center opposition movement faced an uphill battle against severe anti-communism. In such circumstances, the only way for a leftist opposition party to survive was by pitting its stronger anti-Japan reputation against conservatives’ anti-communism. After South Korea's democracy stabilized, liberals tried and failed to overturn the anti-leftist institutions left over from the Cold War and then sought equilibrium through parallel rhetoric targeting pro-Japanese elements. Today, neither left nor right can afford to allow a final amicable settlement with its respective target of antagonism. Through analyses of domestic political rhetoric targeting alleged pro-Japanese or pro-communist elements, this paper demonstrates how these competing antagonisms achieved an uneasy equilibrium that undergirds South Korean political dynamics to this day.","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"201 - 230"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47711718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper examines speechmaking on a contentious policy by arguably one of the most controversial figures to have assumed the Philippine presidency. Drawing on quantitative textual approaches on a corpus of 845 presidential speeches delivered between June 2016 and July 2020, we provide evidence that Rodrigo Duterte's evocative utterances against drug lords and criminals are not just deliberate illocutionary acts intended to court public support, but also priming tactics aimed towards a politically and economically significant audience whose acquiescence gives symbolic legitimacy to a controversial anti-crime policy. Using quantitative textual approaches and econometric analysis, we find that violent-crime rhetoric is more likely to accompany public pronouncements made before a political audience consisting of law enforcement authorities and government officials, as well as an economic audience made up of business chambers, overseas Filipino workers, and labor groups. Overall, the findings nuance an image of Duterte beyond that of a penal populist.
{"title":"Fear and Loathing or Strategic Priming? Unveiling the Audience in Duterte's Crime Rhetoric","authors":"R. A. Panao, Ronald A. Pernia","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.1","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines speechmaking on a contentious policy by arguably one of the most controversial figures to have assumed the Philippine presidency. Drawing on quantitative textual approaches on a corpus of 845 presidential speeches delivered between June 2016 and July 2020, we provide evidence that Rodrigo Duterte's evocative utterances against drug lords and criminals are not just deliberate illocutionary acts intended to court public support, but also priming tactics aimed towards a politically and economically significant audience whose acquiescence gives symbolic legitimacy to a controversial anti-crime policy. Using quantitative textual approaches and econometric analysis, we find that violent-crime rhetoric is more likely to accompany public pronouncements made before a political audience consisting of law enforcement authorities and government officials, as well as an economic audience made up of business chambers, overseas Filipino workers, and labor groups. Overall, the findings nuance an image of Duterte beyond that of a penal populist.","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"77 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44059225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This is an important study of the Chinese ‘ safety net ’ social assistance scheme (known as dibao ). Pan shows how dibao is implemented at local level through a network of local agents. She illustrates how dibao is prioritized for ex-prisoners and how, to a certain extent, this facilitates support (or supervision) of such ex-prisoners and arguably creates a dependent relationship which may discourage them from any “ anti-social ” behavior and, in particular, collective action. It is an important book not only for those interested in Chinese social policy and/or public security but for any-body interested in how the Chinese state works and how policies flow down to the lowest level of governance. However, insofar as the book goes further and suggests that the dibao scheme has been “ reshaped ” to turn “ an effort to alleviate poverty into a tool of surveillance and repression, ” it arguably goes beyond what the evidence shows. The basic argument is that one many tools) to “ repress ” the “ targeted population ” ( ) which includes those of state security, users. Pan argues that dibao has been refocused to provide support to these groups though a process she describes as “ seepage, ”
{"title":"Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers By Jennifer Pan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 288 pp., £64 (cloth) £19.99 (paper).","authors":"M. Cousins","doi":"10.1017/jea.2022.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2022.6","url":null,"abstract":"This is an important study of the Chinese ‘ safety net ’ social assistance scheme (known as dibao ). Pan shows how dibao is implemented at local level through a network of local agents. She illustrates how dibao is prioritized for ex-prisoners and how, to a certain extent, this facilitates support (or supervision) of such ex-prisoners and arguably creates a dependent relationship which may discourage them from any “ anti-social ” behavior and, in particular, collective action. It is an important book not only for those interested in Chinese social policy and/or public security but for any-body interested in how the Chinese state works and how policies flow down to the lowest level of governance. However, insofar as the book goes further and suggests that the dibao scheme has been “ reshaped ” to turn “ an effort to alleviate poverty into a tool of surveillance and repression, ” it arguably goes beyond what the evidence shows. The basic argument is that one many tools) to “ repress ” the “ targeted population ” ( ) which includes those of state security, users. Pan argues that dibao has been refocused to provide support to these groups though a process she describes as “ seepage, ”","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"357 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45553522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Drawing insights from legislative, electoral and welfare studies, the article investigates whether and to what extent electoral competition affects incumbent politicians’ overpromising of social welfare benefits. For this, Taiwan is chosen as the case and the article examines the fate of elite-level social welfare legislative proposals in the period between 1992 and 2016. Findings drawn from quantitative bill sponsorship patterns demonstrate that political elites tend to propose failure-prone social welfare bills during election periods. Moreover, this tendency grew even more clearly in tandem with the rising levels of electoral democracy. The article argues that the overpromising of social welfare benefits is likely due to cognitive biases on the voter side allowing politicians to make promises without necessarily facing the negative consequences of under-delivery. The article contributes to the comparative welfare state literature by adding much-needed nuance to the existing debates on the relationship between democratic deepening, electoral competition, and the development of welfare politics.
{"title":"Overpromising Social Welfare Benefits? Electoral Competition and Welfare Politics in Taiwan","authors":"Jae-ryong Shim","doi":"10.1017/jea.2021.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/jea.2021.29","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Drawing insights from legislative, electoral and welfare studies, the article investigates whether and to what extent electoral competition affects incumbent politicians’ overpromising of social welfare benefits. For this, Taiwan is chosen as the case and the article examines the fate of elite-level social welfare legislative proposals in the period between 1992 and 2016. Findings drawn from quantitative bill sponsorship patterns demonstrate that political elites tend to propose failure-prone social welfare bills during election periods. Moreover, this tendency grew even more clearly in tandem with the rising levels of electoral democracy. The article argues that the overpromising of social welfare benefits is likely due to cognitive biases on the voter side allowing politicians to make promises without necessarily facing the negative consequences of under-delivery. The article contributes to the comparative welfare state literature by adding much-needed nuance to the existing debates on the relationship between democratic deepening, electoral competition, and the development of welfare politics.","PeriodicalId":45829,"journal":{"name":"Journal of East Asian Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"99 - 123"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43586074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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