Opposing Power
Building Opposition Alliances in Electoral Autocracies
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3647470 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kikue Hamayotsu (Northern Illinois University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 82 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 783-785 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Asian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-9118 • E-ISSN: 1752-0401 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00219118-10773791 |
| OpenAlex | W4385858281 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
East and Southeast Asia have witnessed historic and at times surprising regime transitions in recent decades. Opposing Power by Elvin Ong offers a timely, well designed, and empirically rich account to explore the various ways in which opposition alliances are forged to bring about such transitions. Under what conditions are opposition leaders able to work together to challenge powerful autocrats at the ballot box? His comparative and historical analysis of four Asian autocracies—the Philippines, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore—make valuable contributions to the scholarship on political regimes, comparative democratization, and party and electoral politics.Opposing Power focuses on the formation of alliances among opposition parties to contest in autocratic elections. Scholars of political regimes have debated and sought to explain the longevity of autocracy. Contemporary autocrats, be they military-dominant, dictatorial, or party-dominant, tend to devise elections primarily to maintain their grip on state power. Opposition parties are permitted to contest but are not expected to win such elections in principle. Under what conditions, Ong asks, do opposition leaders decide to invest their limited resources to build an alliance against powerful rulers? He argues that the two conditions are essential. One is the perception of opposition leaders regarding the incumbent regime vulnerability. Another is their perceptions about their parties’ mutual dependency. His comparative and historical case studies are designed to demonstrate their perceptions differ and change over time and across space, depending on “the particular historical and informational environment that opposition party leaders find themselves in” (44).Ong's case studies of successful (and unsuccessful) opposition coalition building provide theoretically insightful information to understand the process of democratization and the future of emerging democracies. The case of South Korea (chapter 5) shows that the failure of opposition leaders to form an electoral alliance to challenge the military-backed regime resulted in delaying a democratic transition despite other favorable conditions, including massive popular grievances against the regime. The case contrasts starkly with the Philippines, where a similar presidential electoral system was adopted and yet two rival candidates were willing to coordinate together to defeat the powerful incumbent president Marcos, precipitating an earlier transition to democratic rule (chapter 4).The comparative historical case studies of Singapore and Malaysia (chapters 6–8) provide fascinating firsthand accounts demonstrating that not only are opposition coalitions of ideologically polar opposite parties possible, but also these opposition coalitions are crucial for sustaining viable alternatives to one of the most enduring autocracies around the world—a party-dominant regime. In the case of Malaysia, it was a successful opposition coalition that finally terminated the regime in 2018, laying a path toward a relatively peaceful regime transition, albeit temporarily. In contrast to Malaysia, Singapore has not seen a viable opposition, let alone a coalition, to challenge the formidable party regime under the People's Action Party, despite similar historical legacies and electoral conditions.What are the implications of the theoretical and empirical findings Ong presents for our understanding of electoral autocracies and emerging democracies generally? What are the unanswered questions that merit further investigation?In terms of the theoretical argument and conceptual clarity, it is not entirely clear whether the organizational strength and attributes (i.e., institutionalized party organization, coherent ideology) as Ong proposes are the prerequisite for successful coordination, and optimal mobilization of crosscutting opposition votes in practice. For example, there is limited discussion and evidence on the organizational capacity of Malaysia's successful opposition coalition parties, especially the Parti Keadilan Rakyat and Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, led by the legendary Malay leaders Anwar Ibrahim and Mahathir Mohamad. Would it have been possible to build and keep the alliance—Chinese-dominant secular Democratic Action Party and Islamist Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, specifically—together without these two Malay nationalist leaders and the parties they dominated to advance their respective personal ambitions? It may be also helpful to remember that the Philippines, another successful case of opposition coalition building, is not conventionally known for strong party organization or system—in fact, quite the opposite.Another conceptual and theoretical issue has to do with the “ideology” of opposition parties in negotiating electoral deals and coordination. Ong conceptualizes “ideology,” “identity,” and “religion” as almost the same things and treats them interchangeably. Compromising and overcoming ideological positions indeed proves to be a primary challenge for opposition parties, as underscored in the case of Malaysia. We are left to wonder, however, whether “ethnicity” and “religion” should simply be categorized as an equivalent of or subcategory of the “ideology” variable. Ideology may be flexible and negotiable according to the strategic calculation of political elites, but how about ethnicity, let alone fundamentalist religion, or the occasional fusion of the two?The complexities of ethnicity and religion in electoral strategic decisions and cooperation seem relevant to another important theoretical question not fully explored in the book: the stability and endurance of opposition coalitions after winning elections to form a government and consolidate a nascent democracy. Postelection calculations among opposition party leaders regarding the distribution of cabinet positions, government policies, and constitutional and other institutional reforms, seem to matter for building enduring opposition coalitions, as Ong acknowledges in the introduction chapters, but not fully discussed in the empirical observations of perceptions of mutual dependency. Ideologically disparate parties may need one another to contest and win autocratic elections, as argued in the book and conventionally known, but what conditions would be necessary to sustain their mutually dependable relations to consolidate a nascent democracy? It may depend on the institutional and sociocultural conditions—and political competitions—as attested by the tragically unstable opposition alliances, new governments, and regime transition in post-2018 Malaysia and other similar examples elsewhere, such as the post–Arab Spring Middle Eastern nations.Overall, it is the wide array of primary data that Ong marshals and his deep knowledge of local political, historical, and sociocultural conditions that make Opposing Power special. It will prove invaluable for those studying and teaching Asian politics and societies
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| Citations per year | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |