Populist hangover: Lessons from Southeast Asia
| Author | David Matijasevich |
| DOI | 10.1177/2057891118811953 |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Research articles |
Research article
Populist hangover: Lessons
from Southeast Asia
David Matijasevich
School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences, Singapore University of Social Sciences,
Singapore
Abstract
This article explores the concept of “populist hangover” in the context of Southeast Asia. Its
intention is to provide analysts of populism with a series of lessons derived from the Southeast
Asian experience. “Populist hangover” is the notion that, though democrats bemoan the arrival of
the populist due to the use of popular support to dismantle effective democratic institutions, the
departure of the populist does not return the polity to its previous institutional standard. The
primary reason for this is the fact that populism’s emergence is both a cause and symptom of social/
political exclusion. As a result, the departure of the populist prior to the resolution of this
exclusion creates social/political circumstances not conducive to a “return to normal”, democratic
or otherwise. The article uses two “populist hangover” cases to support its theoretical argument –
the “short hangover” of the Thai military’s political re-emergence and the “long hangover” of the
continued hegemonic authoritarian rule of the People’s Action Party in Singapore.
Keywords
anti-populism, authoritarianism, democ racy, Ernesto Laclau, hegemony, People’s Action Party,
populism, Singapore, Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra
Introduction
For a multitude of reasons, including increased cognizance of growing socio-economic inequality
and perceived cultural insecurities as a result of an evolution towards greater socio-cultural diver-
sity, populism has been on the rise across the globe. While the English-speaking world has been
predominantly focused on the election of Donald Trump as US President and the British public’s
decision to leave the European Union, there have been other significant Western instances of
populist surges. Among these are the election of the Law and Justice Party in Poland, the
Corresponding author:
David Matijasevich, Associate Faculty Social Science Core, Scho ol of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences, Singapore
University of Social Sciences, 463 Clementi Road, 599494, Singapore.
Email: david006@suss.edu.sg
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2020, Vol. 5(3) 193–208
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/2057891118811953
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consolidation of Recep Erdogan’s rule in Turkey, and the populist “scares” of Marine Le Pen in
France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, all which have cast dark shadows on those who
believe that rule-bound liberal democratic regimes and policies are most effective in ensuring
justice and fairness for all membe rs of a given polity. Given that populis t regimes are often
associated with a weakening of impersonal democratic institutions, a disregard for the rule of law,
and a threat to minority rights, it is no surprise that many in the West are deeply apprehensive about
the current populist tide. In Southeast Asia itself, Philippine’s populist president Rodrigo Duterte
has caused grave concern for human rights defenders as a result of the “war on drugs” and, most
particularly, the use of extrajudicial killings.
It should be said, however, that this apprehension and concern ought to be accompanied by a
careful analysis of what the phenomenon of populism truly entails and, if indeed it is an illness of
the body politic, what measures should be taken to cure it. Although members of the academic
community may be less guilty of this, much of the media and popular commentary surrounding the
rise of Trump and other populist instances have presented a highly personalized account (and often
criticism) of both the political developments that have emerged and the voters/supporters that
swept them into being. As part of this narrative, the supporters of populism are deemed mistaken at
best and unethical at worst, in what Mouffe (2006: 5) has described as politics being played out “on
the moral register”. In such a situation, political opponents are viewed “only as an enemy to be
destroyed” rather than political subjects to be engaged with (Mouffe, 2006: 5).
As such, though many popular accounts of recent populist surges have recognized that these
outcomes stemmed from longstanding and poorly addressed socio-economic and political subor-
dination, there has also been much emphasis given to lamentation and moralism. This has revolved
around the notion that various polities have given into an intolerance that can only be righted by
“good people” who are up to the fight. In the case of Trump, this has meant liberal and progressive
political actors encouraging as much protest and resistance possible to block regressive policies
emanating from the White House. The Women’s March on Washington and the various protests at
American airports in opposition to Trump’s travel ban have been some of the clearest manifesta-
tions of this. Likewise, a grand effort by liberal and progressive Americans to dislodge Trump from
the presidency is bound to gather momentum long before campaigning begins for the 2020
election.
Regardless of whether Trump gets re-elected, however, due to the underlying social conditions
that have paved the way for a populist response in the first place, there is every possibility that
someone equally or more divisive could take his place sometime in the next several decades.
Furthermore, though less likely given the strength of America’s independent political institutions
as well as a wide and deep respect for constitutionalism and the rule of law, there remains some
possibility that the pressures that have led to the populist surge in the US could also place strains on
some of the key institutions that buttress the country’s liberal democracy. For other states with less
durable institutions, such a fear could become all the more acute.
The purpose of this article is to make this point in more generalizable terms. Its main argument
is that, despite the ethico-political intentions of those who oppose them, the possibility of populist
government does not abruptly end with the political end of a particular populist. Rather, using the
case studies of contemporary Thailand and Singapore, it shows that populism has the potential to
be maintained if the underlying demands and aspirations of those constituting the populist move-
ment are not sufficiently reincorporated into the dominant or, in other words, hegemonic socio-
political framework. This is the first aspect of what can be called “populist hangover”. The article
utilizes the conceptual toolkit of Ernesto Laclau in his On Populist Reason to make this point in a
194 Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 5(3)
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