Singapore: ISEAS, 2013. xv, 240 pp. (Tables.) US$34.90, paper. ISBN 978-981-4379-94-6.
Historical institutional (HI) analysis has become a prominent methodological tool for estimating the impact of institutional variation on outcomes. Areas of study from finance to business to political science have applied HI to investigations, and Conjunctures and Continuities in Southeast Asian Politics places itself firmly within this literature by providing several strong cases for examining Southeast Asian politics through the HI lens.
The book is divided into two sections which include, first, the establishment of an HI framework and second, its application via seven case studies. Conjunctures and Continuities primarily focuses on identifying conjunctures that have occurred within Southeast Asian state politics. A benefit of using conjunctures, also referred to as “formative episodes” or “historical junctures” (1), according to N. Ganesan, is that they allow engagement with both inputs and outcomes, or lack of outcomes (i.e., continuities) of events as opposed to bookending critical historical turning points. The clear methodological foundation outlined in the introduction is applied throughout the book as each chapter follows a similar template: a case is made for the choice of conjuncture, antecedent conditions and key players are identified, and possibilities of path dependence and implications are assessed. The conjunctures chosen by the authors include periods centred around the following events: 1986 “People Power” movement in the Philippines, the road to doi moi in Vietnam, 1988 Uprising in Myanmar, 1992-1993 UN-sponsored national election in Cambodia, 1998 collapse of Soeharto’s regime in Indonesia, 2006 coup against Thaksin Shinawatra in Thailand, and the 2008 national election in Malaysia.
There are several notable contributions offered by this book. First, while HI analysis is an often divergent field with little methodological consistency, Ganesan’s outstanding explanation of why and how the methodology is being applied puts readers, even those who may be unfamiliar with HI, at ease. Additionally, by firmly establishing a methodology in the beginning, Conjunctures and Continuities avoids the lack of cohesion often present within edited volumes. For the most part, the resulting continuity of structure through the HI framework leads to insights that are easily engaged with from one chapter to the next.
A second strength of the book is that while the cases do not reveal much in the way of new information, they do provide unique analyses. For example, Rommel Curaming and Lisandro Claudio’s chapter on the Philippines convincingly informs readers that the subsequent effects of the “People Power” movement are not limited to structural changes as previous literature has focused on, but are also reflected in “discursive resonances, that de-centre analysis from central state institutions” as well as in “long-term changes in political culture” (42). In another example, Tin Maung Maung Than tests the belief that the events of the 1988 uprising in Myanmar should be seen as historically significant, finding instead that its legacies remain “contested, contentious, and problematic” (90) and it is not yet clear if they will have a lasting impact.
A third strength resides in how the authors challenge existing literatures’ tendency to focus only on change when studying significant historical events. In perhaps one of the most enlightening contributions of the book, Ehito Kimura points out that while most literature focuses on explaining and identifying change, social scientists may have as much to learn from discovering why continuities persist in the face of seemingly transformative periods (143). The book reveals through its numerous case examples that considerable insight can be gained from observing instances of continuity, especially in cases where change is expected.
While Conjunctures and Continuities provides several notable contributions, there are some shortcomings. First, while the accomplished goal of the book is to identify some of the historical junctures present in Southeast Asian politics, the book’s theoretical implications would have been strengthened if the authors had applied additional continuity such as pre-determining the institutions to be examined or specifying a type of conjuncture. As it stands the theoretical implications have a hard time traveling outside of each case and this is evidenced in the brevity of the conclusion, which finds only a few ways to assess the chapters as a whole.
A second shortcoming is that the methodological task of each chapter requires that the authors sacrifice depth over breadth, which limits the extent to which the claims travel and allows significant room for debate on the claims that are made. The use of conjunctures as the point of interest in each chapter requires the authors to not only provide enough evidence to support their choice of event, but to also account for the causal pathways that lead to and away from these events and determine what institutions matter and how. The consequence of juggling so many variables is that the chapters provide only cursory understanding rather than in-depth investigations with substantive supporting evidence. For example, Ramses Amer writes that the “main aim of this chapter is to analy[z]e and assess the impact of historical conjunctures on modern Cambodian society” (103). While Amer’s chapter eloquently presents a case for four conjunctures, starting with the overthrow of Prince Norodom Sihanouk in 1970, the task of assessing causal pathways in over 40 years of history is simply too large to perform in a single chapter with analytical rigour.
Despite these few limitations, however, Conjunctures and Continuities in Southeast Asian Politicsstands as a solid contribution to HI literature and offers informative and original insights to the cases. Moreover, the book represents a thought-provoking investment that encourages discussion and opens a doorway for further work.
Kedra A. Hildebrand
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
pp. 888-890