Weak Party Systems and Idiosyncratic Policies in Southeast Asia

This paper examines the more or less weak institutionalization of parties and party systems in Indonesia, Thailand, and Philippines—countries with a long tradition of electoral politics that were or have been democracies. Weak institutionalization is connected to personalism, clientelism, executive aggrandizement, and idiosyncratic policies by executive heads. “Continuity among party alternatives” or “stability of interparty competition” is characteristic of well-institutionalized party systems. This also involves real competition: a system dominated by one party like in Vietnam, Laos, or Singapore can hardly be seen as well-institutionalized. Continuity is more likely if party identification and party membership are on average high because this usually means that parties survive for a long time and represent social groups on the basis of programmatic incentives.