The Political Logics of Anticorruption Efforts in Asia

Description

Focusing on Northeast and Southeast Asia—regions notable for political diversity, difficult environments for fighting corruption, and multifarious anticorruption outcomes—this book examines the political dynamics behind anticorruption efforts there. The contributors present case studies of the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, and China that explore the varying roles anticorruption efforts play in solidifying or disputing democratic and nondemocratic institutions and legitimacy, as well as the broader political and economic contexts that gave rise to these efforts. Whether motivated by private interests, party loyalty, or political institutionalization, political actors shape the trajectories of anticorruption efforts by challenging their opponents over what constitutes corruption, what enables corruption, and how to combat corruption. Arguing that anticorruption strategy may be associated more closely with shifting bases of regime legitimacy than with regime type, the book sheds light on the divergent ways in which states control and respond to political elites and society at large, and on how citizens from across strata understand and engage with their states.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Theorizing Anticorruption as a Political Project
Cheng Chen and Meredith L. Weiss

Part I. Anticorruption Driven by Private Interests

1. Anticorruption Campaigns, Regime Change, and the Proprietary Polity: The Philippine Case 23
Antoinette R. Raquiza

2. Fighting Corruption When Corruption Is Pervasive: The Case of Indonesia 49
Edward Aspinall

Part II. Anticorruption Driven by Party Loyalty

3. (Anti-)Corruption and Partisan Bias in Taiwan’s Newspapers
Christian Goebel

4. Rust Removal: Why Vietnam’s Historical Anticorruption Efforts Failed to Deliver Results, and What That Implies for the Current Campaign
Edmund Malesky and Ngoc Phan

Part III. Anticorruption Driven by Political Institutionalization

5. Anticorruption Politics in Thailand: From Regime Institutionalization to Sovereignty Wars
Michael K. Connors

6. Korea’s Anticorruption Struggles: Fighting against Networks
Ray Dongryul Kim

7. The Evolution of China’s Anticorruption Strategy
Andrew Wedeman

Conclusion: The Comparative Study of Anticorruption Campaigns: Where Do We Go from Here?
Rudra Sil

Contributors
Index

Sujets

• Asia
• History of Asia
• Comparative politics

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438477169
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 34 Mo

Extrait

The Political Logics of Anticorruption Efforts in Asia
SUNY series in Comparative Politics

Gregory S. Mahler, editor
The Political Logics of
Anticorruption Efforts in Asia
Edited by
Cheng Chen and Meredith L. Weiss
Cover art: Asian money in handcuffs from iStockphoto.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Chen, Cheng, 1976– editor. | Weiss, Meredith L. (Meredith Leigh), 1972– editor.
Title: The political logics of anticorruption efforts in Asia / Cheng Chen and Meredith L. Weiss.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Series: SUNY series in comparative politics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019000540 | ISBN 9781438477152 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438477169 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Political corruption—Asia—Prevention. | Asia—Politics and government—1945–
Classification: LCC JQ29.5 .P65 2019 | DDC 364.1/323095—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000540
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Contents
L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I NTRODUCTION Theorizing Anticorruption as a Political Project
Cheng Chen and Meredith L. Weiss
Part I Anticorruption Driven by Private Interests
C HAPTER 1 Anticorruption Campaigns, Regime Change, and the Proprietary Polity: The Philippine Case
Antoinette R. Raquiza
C HAPTER 2 Fighting Corruption When Corruption Is Pervasive: The Case of Indonesia
Edward Aspinall
Part II Anticorruption Driven by Party Loyalty
C HAPTER 3 (Anti-)Corruption and Partisan Bias in Taiwan’s Newspapers
Christian Goebel
C HAPTER 4 Rust Removal: Why Vietnam’s Historical Anticorruption Efforts Failed to Deliver Results, and What That Implies for the Current Campaign
Edmund Malesky and Ngoc Phan
Part III Anticorruption Driven by Political Institutionalization
C HAPTER 5 Anticorruption Politics in Thailand: From Regime Institutionalization to Sovereignty Wars
Michael K. Connors
C HAPTER 6 Korea’s Anticorruption Struggles: Fighting against Networks
Ray Dongryul Kim
C HAPTER 7 The Evolution of China’s Anticorruption Strategy
Andrew Wedeman
C ONCLUSION The Comparative Study of Anticorruption Campaigns: Where Do We Go from Here?
Rudra Sil
C ONTRIBUTORS
I NDEX
Illustrations
Figures
3.1 Topics in the corpus
3.2 Correlation matrix of topics in the corpus
3.3 Cosine similarity between “corrupt” and selected terms, 2000–2008
3.4 Cosine similarity between “corrupt” and selected terms, 2008–2016
3.5 Cosine similarity between “incompetent” and selected terms, 2008–2016
4.1 Business perceptions of corruption over time
4.2 Citizen perceptions of corruption over time
4.3 Relationship between anticorruption cases and elite politics
6.1 Public–private sector salary gap
6.2 Increasing corruption-related crimes by high-ranking officials
7.1 Impact of the 1982, 1986, and 1989 crackdowns
7.2 Impact of the 1993 crackdown
7.3 Impact of Xi Jinping crackdown
Tables
5.1 Corruption perceptions of Thai institutions
5.2 Authoritarian features of Thai state institutions, 1980s–2016
5.3 Regime configurations
6.1 Rank distribution of corruption-related crimes (1981)
Acknowledgments
T he publication of this book benefited from the contributions and efforts of many people. This book started as an organized panel on anticorruption efforts in Asia at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in Philadelphia. After the conference, our panelists and discussants committed to extending the project to develop this book, building upon the theoretical framework that we later put forth in the introduction. In 2017, we organized a one-day book workshop in conjunction with the APSA meeting in San Francisco. We are grateful to Lily Ann Villaraza and James Martel for helping us secure a workshop venue; to Barbara Mathews and Joan Nellhaus for their invaluable administrative support; and to the participants, who extended their conference travel or participated via Skype for an intense, productive day. Having clarified our overall framework and plans for refining individual chapters at that workshop, we then set to work on revisions. Our contributors’ amazing work ethic and conscientious attention to detail were vital in helping us deliver a manuscript that we are all proud of in a timely fashion.
Intellectually, this book is the fruit of the collective labor of its contributors, who commented on each other’s drafts, accepted critical feedback gracefully, and worked assiduously to build solid country cases around a cohesive central theme. We would like to thank Lily Ann Villaraza and Eva Hansson for their participation and helpful comments during our book workshop. SUNY Press’s anonymous reviewers likewise engaged deeply with our manuscript to offer very detailed and constructive comments and suggestions, which greatly helped us in finalizing this collection.
Our department, the Political Science Department at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University at Albany, provided us with a supportive intellectual environment. We greatly appreciate the university’s financial support as well: a subsidy for our book workshop from Rockefeller College’s International Programs small-grants initiative and a Faculty Research Awards Program grant to support final revisions and editing. Two graduate students, Jiacheng Ren and Chelsea Foster, provided research assistance.
Of course, we offer, too, our heartfelt thanks to our wonderful editor at SUNY Press, Michael Rinella, whose enthusiasm for the project and steady guidance were both encouraging and constructive in the final publication of the book. Working with Michael has been a real pleasure. We would also like to express our gratitude to Dana Foote for copyediting and Kendra H. Millis for indexing.
Finally, teaching is an integral and especially rewarding part of our careers. With their enthusiasm for learning and their strong intellectual curiosity, including about the questions we engage in this volume, many of our students have offered ongoing inspiration. They consistently remind us that intellectual pursuit is not, and should never be, a lonely enterprise. We therefore dedicate this collaborative book to them.
Introduction
Theorizing Anticorruption as a Political Project
C HENG C HEN AND M EREDITH L. W EISS
C orruption plagues all countries, democratic or authoritarian. Just as endemic are efforts to eradicate and prosecute corruption. The first several months of 2017 alone witnessed the inauguration of a populist president in the United States whose major campaign slogan was to “drain the swamp”; the impeachment of a South Korean president on corruption charges; massive demonstrations in Romania, leading to a plan for an anticorruption referendum; and the continuation and even intensification of anticorruption politics in all BRICS countries. 1 It seems that anticorruption is now a sort of “cure-all” embraced by regime incumbents, opposition challengers, and the masses alike across a wide range of settings. People of disparate class, ethnic, educational, and even ideological backgrounds agree on the need to stop the “corrupt people in power.” Yet, common outrage and indignation mask profound differences regarding the means by which corruption should be opposed, and the political ends that anticorruption efforts should serve. Instead of uniting different political forces under a common goal, anticorruption efforts have time and again proved especially versatile political weapons, useful for advancing divergent personal, partisan, ideological, or programmatic agendas (Gillespie and Okruhlik 1991). 2 While varieties of corruption and the tools to combat these have long interested political scientists, economists, and policymakers alike (among recent examples, Mungiu-Pippidi 2015; Rose-Ackerman and Palifka 2016; You 2016; Rothstein and Varraich 2017), the distinct political logics undergirding anticorruption efforts—when these campaigns develop, who they target, with what framing or justification, and by what impetus or under whose direction—have attracted less systematic study.
While corruption may be defined broadly as the misuse of public authority for private gain, 3 the phenomenon—conceptualized most clearly via campaigns against it—spans a wide range. One dimension, often the most visible and punishable aspect, is bribery, graft, and other rent-seeking. Another is privilege: the extent to which the rich or well connected achieve preferential treatment, which various reformist political movements contest in the name of combatting political inequality. In addition, anticorruption efforts sometimes extend to wider issues of bad behavior, such as sexual indiscretions. Such offenses may involve abuse of office, but without the same intrinsic public costs.
Within the political science literature, some have argued that, in the context of mo