Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia

"Garry Rodan is one of the foremost international scholars on Singapore and Malaysia [...] Rodan has written an enlightening, challenging and provocative book in which he questions the assertion that greater financial and economic transparency leads to a more open society."

Salil Tripathi - Far Eastern Economic Review

"This important book [...] shows, using a formidable array of empirical detail, how the ruling elites [...] have been extremely resourceful in separating pressures for economic and political change, and have also been adept at using new and allegedly globalizing information technologies actually to enhance their social control."

James Cotton - Australian Journal of International Affairs

"An international authority on Southeast Asian political economy [...] Rodan's analysis is rich with examples of how the international media was 'tamed' in Singapore and, slightly less so, in Malaysia."

Mustafa K Anuar - Aliran Monthly

The 1997-98 Asian economic crisis raised serious questions for the remaining authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia, not least the - hitherto outstanding - economic success stories of Singapore and Malaysia. Could leaders, presiding over economies so heavily dependent on international capital investment, ignore the new mantra among multilateral financial organisations about the virtues of 'transparency'? Was it really a universal functional requirement for economic recovery and advancement? Wasn't the free flow of ideas and information an anathema to authoritarian rule?

In Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia, Garry Rodan argues that in Singapore and Malaysia, external pressures for transparency reform were, and are being met without serious compromise to authoritarian rule or the sanctioning of media freedom. This book analyses the different content, sources and significance of varying pressures for transparency reform. It will be of equal interest to media analysts and readers keen to understand the implications of good governance debates and reforms for democratisation. For Asianists this book offers sharp insights into the process of change - political, social and economic - since the Asian crisis.