Regime Security and Human Rights in Southeast Asia
| Published date | 01 March 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1995.tb01744.x |
| Author | Kenneth Christie |
| Date | 01 March 1995 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Studies
(1
999,
XLIII.
204-2
18
Regime Security and Human Rights in
Southeast Asia
KENNETH CHRISTIE”
This article will examine the Southeast Asian discourse on human rights that
has emerged in the 1990s. This discourse is premised on the claims that there
exists a ’unique’ set of Asian values; and that these justify claims to be ‘special’
and ‘different’.
I
will make the case that these claims serve as a device for
authoritarian regimes in the region to enhance their own, often declining,
legitimacy. and protect the security of their particular regime, in a context in
which the excuse authoritarian governments employed in the past to justify
repression
~
the need to prevent the spread of communism- has been rendered
irrelevant by the end of the
Cold
War. Despite attempts by many of these
regimes to silence and intimidate dissidents and opposition politicians,
alternative voices are making democratic inroads as witnessed by declining
shares of the popular vote for ruling one-party systems. Democratization in
other words is not something simply confined to the former states of the Soviet
bloc;
it
appears to be a global phenomenon and in Southeast Asia many
governments are on the defensive. An examination
of
the claims of these
regimes and their defenders to be protecting a distinctive set of Asian values
will
suggest that, behind the principled assertion
of
difference, lies a more
fundamental concern for their own regime security.’
‘Western’
Versus
‘Asian’
Discourses
In Southeast Asia calls for the development of a system of human rights based
on what are presumed to be uniform ’Asian’ values and norms have become
fairly frequent. Within the specific regional context, a vigorous debate has
developed over the right of Western societies to impose their human rights
standards on non-Western nations.‘
*
1
am grateful
to
Dr Denny
Koy
of
the Political Science Department at the National Univcrsity
of
Singapore and Dr Stephen Wrage, Visiting Fellow at the National University of Singapore, for
their comments
on
an earlier draft
of
this paper.
‘
Sometimes the distinction between scholars and regime officials is difficult
to
tell in Southeast
Asia.
I
use a combination
of
leaders, officials and academics
to
make their case. Other scholars not
from the region have perhaps made the Third World case much
more
forcefully. See
F.
Ajami,
Human Rights arid
World
Order Policies,
World Orders Model Project Working Paper,
no.
4
(New
York, 1978), cited in
S.
Hoffmann.
Duries
Beynd
Borders
(Syracuse, Syracuse University Press,
1981),
pp.
172
and
242.
See
J.
Wanandi, ‘Human rights and democracy in the ASEAN nations: the next
25
years’,
The
Indonesian Quarierly,
XXI
(1993), 14-37;
B.
Kausikan. ‘Asia’s different standard’,
Foreign
Policy,
92
(1993),
24-11;
and
R.
Isberto,
‘ASEAN adopts pragmatic view of human
rights’,
The Jakarta
Post,
(28/2/94),
p.
4,
for
claims
of
‘difference’.
r:
Politicill
Studies
Asswation
1995.
Puhlishrd
hy
Blackwell
Pubhshers.
108
Coule)
Road.
Oxford
OX4
IJF,
UK
and
238
Man
Strcct.
Carnhridge. MA
02142.
USA
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