Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia

"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 institutions 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 rejects the notion that the economic crisis was further evidence that ultimately capitalism can only develop within liberal social and political institutions, and that new technology necessarily undermines authoritarian control. Instead, he agues that in Singapore and Malaysia external pressures for transparency reform were, and are, in many respects, 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, ranging from corporate disclosures to media liberalisation. 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."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.