The Dialectic of “Good Governance” and Democracy in Southeast Asia: Globalized Discourses and Local Responses

When it became clear that Southeast Asian developmentalist dictatorships were no longer developing economically during the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, the global discourse of good governance suddenly threatened their hold on power. Long praised by the doyens of international finance for their developmental successes despite massive human rights violations, the authoritarian regimes of the region found themselves accused of cronyism and corruption by the World Bank-IMF and its close allies who were trying to explain away why former “miracle economies” had so suddenly collapsed.