Asian Democracy Review Vol. 1 (2012) PDF

Asian Democracy Review
VOLUME 1 2012
Editors Note Heeyeon Cho ARTICLES 4 Democratization as De-monopolization and its Different Trajectories: No Democratic Consolidation without De-monopolization Heeyeon Cho The Asian Democracy Index: A Guide The Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index COUNTRY REPORTS 88 Democracy Index in South Korea, 2011 Hyungchul Kim, Junghoon Kim, Heeyeon Cho, Hyunyun Cho, Seoungwon Lee, Yooseok Oh, Dongchoon Kim, Kyungtae Park, Youngpyo Seo, Sangchul Yoon, Kyunghee Choi (De)Monopolization of Democracy in Indonesia? The Indonesian Report on the Asian Democracy Index 2011 Anton Pradjasto, Irwansyah, Dirga Ardiansa, Roichatul Aswidah, Sri Budi Eko Wardani, Wawan Ichwanuddin, Yolanda Panjaitan The CADI Asian Democracy Index: 2011 Country Report The Philippines Miguel Paolo P. Reyes, Clarinda Lusterio Berja, Ma. Celine Anastasia P. Socrates RESEARCH NOTE 182 Rating Philippine Democratization: A Review of Democratization Metrics Miguel Paolo P. Reyes REVIEWS 199 Reviews of the 2011 Country Reports and Preliminary Comments on the Conduct of the 2012 Asian Democracy Index Survey 1

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Felipe B. Miranda Bonojit Hussain Temario C. Rivera Edna Estifania A. Co Malaya C. Ronas

EDITORIAL BOARD Andrew Aeria (Associate Professor, University of Malaysia Sarawak) Maria Ela L. Atienza (Director, University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center) Amrapali Basumatary (Assistant Professor, University of Delhi Kirori Mal College) Clarinda Lusterio Berja (Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines-Manila) Dongchoon Kim (Director, Democracy and Social Movements Institute, Sungkonghoe University) Bonojit Hussain (New Socialist Initiative-Delhi Chapter) Anton Pradjasto (Executive Director, Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies Indonesia) Sri Budi Eko Wardani (Director, University of Indonesia Center for Political Studies) Tan Seng Keat (Research Manager, Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research)
EDITOR Heeyeon Cho
MANAGING EDITORS Seoungwon Lee Miguel Paolo P. Reyes
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Elinor May K. Cruz Emerald O. Flaviano Enrico V. Gloria Ferth Vandensteen L. Manaysay Erika M. Rey-Saturay Zuraida Mae C. Villanueva Patcharapoom Yookasem EDITORIAL CONSULTANT Joel F. Ariate, Jr. Asian Democracy Review (ISSN 2244-5633) is the annual journal of the Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index, a network of research institutes and independent researchers working on the development of the Asian Democracy Index. Apart from the yearly country reports on the conduct of Asian Democracy Index surveys, the journal publishes scholarly papers on democracy and democratization processes in Asia.

VOLUME 1 2012
1 Editors Note Heeyeon Cho ARTICLES 4 Democratization as De-monopolization and its Different Trajectories: No Democratic Consolidation without De-monopolization Heeyeon Cho The Asian Democracy Index: A Guide The Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index COUNTRY REPORTS 88 Democracy Index in South Korea, 2011 Hyungchul Kim, Junghoon Kim, Heeyeon Cho, Hyunyun Cho, Seoungwon Lee, Yooseok Oh, Dongchoon Kim, Kyungtae Park, Youngpyo Seo, Sangchul Yoon, Kyunghee Choi (De)Monopolization of Democracy in Indonesia? The Indonesian Report on the Asian Democracy Index 2011 Anton Pradjasto, Irwansyah, Dirga Ardiansa, Roichatul Aswidah, Sri Budi EkoWardani, Wawan Ichwanuddin, Yolanda Panjaitan The CADI Asian Democracy Index: 2011 Country Report The Philippines Miguel Paolo P. Reyes, Clarinda Lusterio Berja, Ma. Celine Anastasia P. Socrates RESEARCH NOTE 182 Rating Philippine Democratization: A Review of Democratization Metrics Miguel Paolo P. Reyes REVIEWS 199 Reviews of the 2011 Country Reports and Preliminary Comments on the Conduct of the 2012 Asian Democracy Index Survey Felipe B. Miranda Bonojit Hussain Temario C. Rivera Edna Estifania A. Co Malaya C. Ronas
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Toward a New Critical Survey of the Quality of Democracy

HEEYEON CHO Since the 1980s, many Asian countries have gone through a political transition toward democracy. With distorted legacies of colonialism, the Cold War and dictatorship piled up, civil and grassroots movements have focused on overcoming dictatorship and securing and proliferating democracy and human rights. However, democratization and human rights improvement have shown fluctuations in light of new circumstances: the impact of neoliberal globalization, the growth of capital and market in each country, and the negative consequences of the war on terrorism after 9/11, among others. The third wave of democratization has swept countries of the Third World and moved forward and backward alternately since the 1980s, transforming dictatorships into postdictatorial democracies. According to the traditional theories of Transitology (theory of democratic transition) and Consolidology (theory of democratic consolidation), there are several known Valleys of Tears. The first is a restoration of free elections, which feature uncertainty, indeterminacy and contingency. As Juan J. Linz pointed out, the process of democratization has a bottleneck wherein the democratic game becomes the only game in town. The transition of power takes place at the second bottleneck known as elections. When free elections and democratic institutions take root, leading to the transition of power, we can say the society enters the phase of democratic consolidation. A lot of scholars believe that the conduct of free elections a second time can be translated as consolidation of democracy or an election system being settled and stabilized in the form of competition among various sociopolitical groups. For such scholars, the transition of power within the framework of electoral democracy can thus be understood as democratic consolidation. With democratization of many postdictatorships in the Third World on track, the theories of democratic transition and democratic consolidation have become a high-profile research field in the United States. As a result, diverse research achievements have been made and accumulated so far in that
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Heeyeon Cho is director of the Center for Globalization Studies, The Democracy and Social
Movements Institute and dean of the NGO Graduate School, Sungkonghoe University.
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EDITORS NOTE
field. Some scholars are trying to conduct research about countries that are in the process of democratic transition, undergoing the postconsolidation process, or are riding the fourth wave of democratization. However, such research activities have been sluggish since the theory of democratic consolidation. I personally attribute some critical activities to the fact that consolidology looks at the post-transition process from the viewpoint of consolidation. Democratic consolidation discussed in consolidology refers to the settlement and stabilization of democratic institutions that have been introduced through democratic transition. That is, democratic consolidation means stabilization, routinization, institutionalization, and legitimation of politically related activities. This, of course, includes conventional dimensions as well as institutional ones. In reality, however, many forms of democracy after the transition from dictatorship have encountered conflict situations where they cannot be recognized as a stabilized democracy. There should have been research on the post-consolidation process as a follow-up to the study of consolidation. However, such research cannot move forward since the democratization process goes through continuous instability and seems to be stabilized, and then turns around again, sometimes showing a reversion to dictatorship. That is, an unconsolidated reality itself remains a significant challenge to the theory of democratic consolidation, preventing further research. We can say that our study on the quality of democracy should start with a critique of existing studies of democratic transition and consolidation. One of the main goals of democratization is said to be the realization of the fair rule of majority, because a former dictatorship has been regarded as a regime wherein minor authoritarian figures, groups, and forces have ruled the majority against their will. In this sense, democratization meant to the ordinary people the realization of fair majority rule in accordance with their preferences and opinions via a free election However, the kind of democracy realized in this way is not an ideal one. On the contrary, real democracy works in such a way as to exclude the majority in the social and economic sense, while it argues to work in accordance with the majority will. In reality, the former power elites keep their monopolistic position under a so-called democratic regime while the majority and diverse minorities are excluded from the new democratic regime. In a sense, the new democracy becomes a problem, as remnants of the former dictatorship continue to be problems. Having said that, a critical version of a survey of the quality of democracy should try to capture the new problems of a new democracy, including the continuation of the monopoly of the former powers under a formally
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democratic regime and the substantial exclusion of voices and interests of subalterns and diverse minorities. In this regard, our research is aimed at analyzing and describing new problems and limitation of the new democracies in Asia, while accepting it in comparison to the former dictatorships. This volume is the inaugural issue of Asian Democracy Review. We envision that the succeeding issues will include new critical studies trying to go over the horizon of the existing literature. The main content of this volume includes the research output of the members of the research network called the Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index (CADI) that conducted a pilot test of the Asian Democracy Index (ADI) survey in 2011, which includes the Democracy and Social Movements Institute of Sungkonghoe University in South Korea, the Indonesian Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (DEMOS) and the Centre for Political Studies (PUSKAPOL) of the Department of Political Science, Universitas Indonesia, and the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center. We could not compare the national indices fully in this volume. However, the quantitative and qualitative data in this volume is still quite valuable, reflecting the state of the three countries in terms of autonomy and competition as a part of democratic liberalization processes and pluralization and solidarity as a part of democratic equalization. This volume also contains a theoretical paper related to the index framework and an edited version of the ADI Guidebook. Also included are commentaries on the 2011 country reports, the preliminary results of the 2012 survey (the reports of which are still being completed; a team from the University of Malaysia Sarawak also conducted a survey this year along with the aforementioned members of CADI), and the ADI project in general. These commentaries were delivered in the 2012 Asian Democracy Index Conference, which was held on August 30-31. 2012, at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. As mentioned, we plan to include other research outputs done outside of our network in future issues. We hope that critical scholars who have a similar orientation to ours, i.e., scholars who anticipate the progressive development of democracy in Asia for more minorities to enjoy more freedom and socioeconomic equality, will contribute to this journal. Future issues will also include the results of other national surveys and comparisons of national survey outputs. We are very happy to share our research results with many scholars concerned in the progressive development of democracies in Asia and expect comments and attention from them.
Democratization as De-monopolization and Its Different Trajectories: No Democratic Consolidation without De-monopolization
HEEYEON CHO
Introduction
This paper aims to construct an alternative theoretical framework to analyze the complex conflict and crisis in the process of so-called democratic consolidation or postconsolidation. Conflicts and crises are witnessed in most of the success cases of democratic transition such as in Taiwan, South Korea, and Thailand. These countries, regarded as having gone through democratic transition and democratic consolidation, experience diverse kinds of conflicts and crises. Thailand went into a reverse wave of democratization with the military coup detat in September 2006. There was also a breakdown in the Chen Suiben government in Taiwan. The Roh Moo-Hyun government in South Korea enjoyed only ten percent of support from its people in the last stage of its rule. Given that the process of democratic consolidation was hailed as a success in all these three countries, these developments provide a theoretical and empirical challenge to the existing consolidation discourse, which regarded such developments as temporary counterflows to democratization. This also raises another question: Is it possible to go beyond Western theories of democratic transition or consolidation in an alternative theorization using experiences of democratization in many Asian countries? Where can these be found? This paper explains the character of the complex conflict and crisis in the process of transition to democracy, consolidation, and postconsolidation. The cases of South Korea and other Asian countries will be used to propose a new analytical frame. Particularly, this paper seeks to create a new frame to explain the dynamics in the progress of democracy after
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Heeyeon Cho is director of the Center for Globalization Studies, The Democracy and Social
Movements Institute and dean of the NGO Graduate School, Sungkonghoe University.
ISSN 2244-5633
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democratization (Choi 2005) that is easily missed in existing theories on democracy transition and democracy consolidation. ODonnell and Schmitter (1986) divide the process of transition to liberalization, democratization, and socialization in the late 1980s. Most of the succeeding analyses on democratic transition focused on liberalization and democratization, and the diversity of transition experiences. The meaning of socialization has been left ambiguous and overlooked in terms of its relation with transition and consolidation. Adopting a perspective of radical democracy that differs from ODonnell and Schimitters, this paper sheds new light on the concept of socialization/de-monopolization, positing that there is no consolidation without socialization. In this paper, the postcolonialist perspective to the study of democratization of the Third World will be applied, using the experiences of Korea and other Asian countries, rather than existing Western theories of democratic transition and consolidation. A dictatorial regime is defined as a specific combination of political monopoly and economic-social monopoly rather than a system of political oppression. Based on this, the weaknesses of the existing theories of democratic transition and consolidation will be discussed and an alternative theorization of democratic transition will be proposed.
Theoretical Background and Reevaluation of Existing Studies Defining the Period of Postdemocratic Transition
How can the period of democracy after democratization be defined? There can be a gamut of periods such as democratic transition, postdemocratic transition, consolidation, and postconsolidation. The concept of postdemocratic transition will be used in this paper. Existing democratic transition and consolidation theories have usually assumed three phases: liberalization where oppressive authoritarian measures are weakened or abolished, and primary steps for opening up are taken to bring in democracy; democratic transition in its narrow sense where a democratic system, including free elections, is introduced and practiced; and consolidation where free elections and democratic institutions are established. Democratic transition in this context means the period after democratic institutions, including free elections, are effected and through such a process, competition in democratic institutions is accepted as irreversible by all political actors.
DEMOCRATIZATION AND ITS TRAJECTORIES
If we take the Schumpeterian minimalist definition, the process of democratic transition means the in-setting process of electoral democracy with fairness, competitiveness, and regularity guaranteed.1 The problem is how to empirically separate the so-called consolidation from democratic transition. There are a variety of middle zones between the two and there are various means to identify the empirical standards for consolidation. Huntington (1991), for one, emphasizes regularity, which means free elections must take place twice in a row. Based on this definition, consolidation in South Korea took place in 1992. Many Asian countries other than South Korea have witnessed a streak of free elections at least twice. According to Gunther et al. (1995), the period of consolidation is the time when an alternation in power between formal rivals takes place. For South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan, the period of consolidation should fall between 1992 and 1997. The given standards so far tell us that South Korea and Taiwan have gone through a period of consolidation or stabilization. If consolidation means settlement or stabilization of democracy, it also means that these countries are suffering chronic conflict and crisis even after consolidation. In this paper, the period after the introduction of democratic institutions will be considered as postdemocratic transition and be taken to be a reference point for analyzing cases of democratization in Asia including that of South Korea. This postdemocratic transition thus includes the periods of consolidation and postconsolidation.
The Discourse of Democratic Transition, Contemporary Theories of Consolidation and Some New Insights
The discourse of democratic transition and consolidation explains the third wave of democratization in many different ways.2 Analyses have been broadened by Linz and Stepan (1978), and ODonnell, Schmitter, and Whitehead (1986a, 1986b, and 1986c), who expanded analysis on the area of comparative study of democratic transition. Huntington (1991) provides an overall picture of democratic transition while Przeworski (1991) presents the dynamism of democratic transition combining structure and behavior. Studies focusing on rehabilitation and conversion were developed into studies on consolidation, which deal with the complex process after democratic transition. Since Mainwaring, ODonnell, and Valenzuela (1992) who wrote about controversial issues of consolidation, there have been ample studies on consolidation, which include Gunther et al. (1995); and Diamond et al. (1999). Studies on postdemocratic transition or postconsolidation were
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done by Diamond (1999), who discusses the fourth wave of democratization,3 and by Linz and Stepan (1996).4 Most American and Western analyses have contributed to understanding the formal and procedural aspects of the democratic transition process from authoritarianism to democracy. They have also shown the limits and weaknesses in explaining the nature and factors of many yet-to-be consolidated or of non-consolidated cases with recurrent conflicts and crises. If democratic consolidation is verified by the settling down of elections, such that the democratic game has become the only game in town (Linz 1990,156), how can conflicts and crises become recurrent and chronic even after such a period? What are the nature and factors after consolidation and post-consolidation? From this perspective, some views of established studies on the nature of consolidation and on consolidation itself can be categorized as follows. First, there is a view wherein consolidation is limited to institutional consolidation such as elections and not any broad institutionalization. In this sense, Linz and Stepan (1996) think there should be institutional consolidation in civil society, political society, economic society, the rule of law, and the state apparatus. Gunther et al. (1995) count the following as indices of institutionalization: the power alternation among competing groups, broad support and stabilization during severe economic crisis, successful control and punishment for insurgents in a limited area, systemic stabilization during a rapid and radical restructuring of the political party system, and the absence of politically relevant anarchic parties or social movements. Such conceptualization of consolidation is limited to basic institutional consolidation such as elections and does not include the broader institutional sector.5 In this paper, this view is termed as an institutioncentered mindset, which is commonly adopted in related studies. This institution-centered approach falls short of explaining the South Korean experience. South Korean society is facing worse conflicts even after high-level institutionalizationevidenced, for example, by the creation of the National Human Rights Commissionhas been achieved. Thus, it brings to fore the task of finding a new analytical concept for explaining the structure and dynamism of consolidation, or of democracy after democratization, with the South Korean democratic transition as reference. This institution-centered view is based on the premise of Western democracy wherein the range and level of democratic institutionalization have already been broadened. The debates between ODonnell (1996a; 1996b) and Gunther et al. (1996) and between Carothers (2002a; 2002b) and ODonnell (2002) have shown a multi-linear system going only toward
Western democracy, even though they take into account the complicated dynamics of various types of democratic transition. This is why it is necessary to come up with a new frame for analyzing democracy and democratization. Another problem comes up when the question of whether or not the Left regime in Latin America is one of the yet-to-be consolidated phenomena. The dynamics of such democratization is missed out in the existing consolidation literature. Second, some views attribute the delay of consolidation to the persistence of nonconsolidation factors and the increasing gap between the formal and informal dimensions (political culture and favoritism, for example) in various sectors. Gunther et al. (1995) take the matter of consolidation to be institutional expansion, particularly that of formal institutionalization, and tried to introduce an informal dimension or the issue of quality of democracy. For instance, they try to find the factors for the gap between formal rules and actual practice (involvement in corruption, etc.), the lack of horizontal accountability found in state agencies or people in charge, and the delegative trend in politics. Their analysis can be considered as an effort to apply, beyond quantitative and institutional aspects, qualitative aspects of the process of consolidation. It has merit in looking into the gap between democracy in developed countries and in developing countries as a quantitative, not a categorical, difference. Their analysis thus seeks to find the qualitative aspects of democracy that deters consolidation in the dimension of informal culture, which have limits. The particularism discussed by ODonnell (1996a) appears both in old authoritarian regimes and in newborn democracies, which indicates that it is not necessarily a reasonable explanation for nonconsolidation. Third, there is a point of view that sees compromise between moderate groups (extreme groups excluded) as the core aspect of consolidation. This is a pact-centered view, which has also been an issue in the democratic transition discourse. ODonnell and Schmitter (1986) and Przeworski (1991) point out that in a conflict situation surrounding the conversion to democracy, the pact between the ruling elite and the opposition elite is very important, igniting debates. Some have even expressed the opinion that a demobilization of the masses, including the destitute, is needed in a postdemocratic transition where a compromise between the elites are crucial for democratic consolidation, while strategic mobilization of the masses is needed in the early phase of democratic transition (Hipsher 1996). The study by Gunther et al. (1995) also discusses on these kinds of changes in the political situation. In their analysis of five indices of institutionalization (successful control and punishment for insurgents, absence
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of politically relevant anarchic parties or social movement, etc.), they show a similar view that the exclusion of extreme resistance and the compromise among mainstream groups are the basis for consolidation (Gunther et al. 1995). In this context, the resistance of minority groups, such as in the Aceh case in the democratization process of Indonesia or the southern minority ethnic groups of Thailand, is regarded as having to be controlled and managed. Compromise is reached between the old political group and the new one, while other sociopolitical groups, including local resistance groups, are considered as mere guests, not the subject of the consolidation. But it would be very difficult to elicit the complicated process of consolidation if it is simplified as a matter of contending elite groups, although power alternation by diversified and competing political groups and nonconfrontational coexistence are important. This could be seen as an elite-centered viewpoint. In the process of democratic transition, the strategic behavior of political elites, whether from the ruling or opposition side, is the only important thing. Thus, related studies have overwhelmingly focused on the elites actions and roles, and even under some limits, such studies have their merits. But the masses can sometimes set the limits in which the elite can move; mass action or mobilization interacts with those of the elites, and in some full-fledged conjuncture, the demobilization of the masses even changes the extent of compromise between ruling and opposition elites in a democratic space (Gunther et al. 1995). In the processes of consolidation and postconsolidation, the masses (viewed as an organizing actor in the social movement or civil society in a broad sense, and diverse sub-subjects within the movement) are considered an independent variable. Fourth, there is a viewpoint wherein the absence of consolidation is a matter of power of dominant political groups in a dictatorial regime. Carothers (2002a) points to the absence of political pluralism including a continued dominant party system. He says that the existing democratic transition discourse is built upon the following wrong premises: a) all nations, once out of dictatorship, should be considered a nation in democratic transition; b) democratization has a tendency to progress in phases; c) election is the same as democracy; d) the conditions of states under transition (economic level, political history, institutional heritage, sociocultural tradition, and other structural traits) cannot be deciding factors in opening or influencing the outcome of the democratic transition process; and e) the democratic transition is being implemented on the condition of a consistent state (2002a). He points out that most of the countries under democratic transition are in a gray area where they are neither dictatorship nor democracy and they are not headed toward democratic transition in an orderly fashion,
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revealing diverse systems (Carothers 2002a). These states have similar characteristics, such as as feckless pluralism and the continuation of dominantpower politics. In the case of South Korea, the country experienced worsening crisis even ten years after the dominant political party system was dissolved. The democratic governments of Taiwan and Thailand are fraught with the same kinds of problems. In this sense, as pointed out in the compromise-centered viewpoint, politics between institutional and political professional groups, or the power issue between them, cannot fully explain the complicated nature of consolidation and postconsolidation. Power between political groups is not only a purely political phenomenon but is also closely related to socioeconomic power because in the political arena, a specific political group is situated in specific socioeconomic interests. Thus, democratic transition cannot be brought about only in the political dimensionpolitics should be treated as power relations, and power as a matter of society in a broader sense. This paper will try to devise an approach with which democracy is not seen narrowly only as a political matter or a matter of political power but as something with relation to state and society in its broad sense. There is a need for a new viewpoint of democracy, which should be society centered. This paper, to restructure the frame to analyze consolidation and postconsolidation beyond the institution-centered and politics-centered perspectives, will try to structure a society-centered frame that focuses on the social character of power and the historical and structural character of democracy.
Reexamination of Discourses on Democracy: The Relation between Democratic Transition and Democracy Theories
Any analyses on democratic transition or consolidation include specific definitions and regulations of democracy. Any alternative theorization to the dominant theories on democratic transition must thus include an alternative definition and regulation of democracy. This can be done by examining three dimensions of democracy: dispersion of power, democracy as a formation out of various social and class struggles, and democracy as being societycentric.
Dispersion of Power as Core of Democracy

Proposition 1: The rational core of democracy is not just elections, the rule of law, or the guarantee of basic human rights, as assumed by formal theories
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of democracy. But, more importantly, it is power sharing or the dispersion of powers. Currently, the regulation of democracy implicated in democratic transition or consolidation discourse can be categorized as follows. First, the kernel of democracy is the election. A fair and regular election is presumed as the core facet of democracy. The second is the rule of law. This means that laws established in the democratization process are equally and fairly applied to individuals of the democratic community, that inconsistency in law and practice is minimized, and that the democratic rule of law is established (ODonnell 1996a and 2002). The third is human rights. The human rights perspective puts forward the quality of democracy (Vargas et al. [2004] can be a good example). There is another view that puts human rights in the center (UNDP 2004) where Marshalls (1964) concept of expansion of civil rightsfrom civil rights and political rights to social rightsis used, and divides citizens rights into rights of political, civil, and social citizenship. It also empirically observes how much such expansion was implemented during the democratic transition process. This regulation, although it holds the rational kernel of democracy, still ignores another important democratic core to elucidate the complex of postdemocratic transition. With regard to this, this paper will focus on power divergence and dispersion of powers. The dispersion of powers as the core component of democracy was devised by early modern political thinkers. For them, the dispersion of powers guarantees the freedom and rights of the people, the ruling principle that separates state power into legislature, executive, and judiciary branches and puts these three under three separate state institutions, so that no individual or group has more power than is needed for their proper function and so that there is balance among powers. This dispersion of powers has been understood to be an institutional principle of two or three branches of power, or as a passive protection to protect the freedom and rights of individuals from infringement. This dispersion should be given a more positive and active reinterpretation. The dispersion of powers as the core of democracy can be regarded as an active principle to counter power concentration and monopolization, and propose its dispersion and de-monopolization. In this perspective, democratic transition should not only be the establishment of regular elections but the process of a specific power de-monopolization. The process should be the contents of the socialization that ODonnell and Schimitter (1986) said. When discussing the dispersion of powers, power does not only mean political power. It also refers to economic and social powers. In this sense, the target for power divergence should also include the Marxist concept of
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economic power and, beyond that, social power. The power divergence and sharing consistent with Dahls (1989) concept of polyarchy should not be seen only as power sharing among elites, particularly political power sharing. The relations should be discussed in a broader sense with the following matching relations: a) the monopoly of political power (political monopoly) versus sharing and divergence of political power; b) monopoly of economic power (economic monopoly) versus sharing and divergence of economic power (equality); c) monopoly of social power in a broad sense (social monopoly) versus sharing and divergence of social power (pluralism).
Democracy as a Formation out of Various Social and Class Struggles

Proposition 2: Democracy is not a political system but a historical formation that continuously recreates itself out of various social and class struggles. If Proposition 1 discusses the statics of democracy, Proposition 2 deals with its dynamics. In this perspective, democracy is not a political system but a historical formation that continuously recreates itself out of the process of various social and class struggles. Democracy is defined as having free elections, parliamentary democracy, and checks and balances such as three co-equal branches of government as its institutional assets, and its contents and quality are in a relative and changing system ruled by the social- and classstruggle relations of various social groups. The combination of political and socioeconomic monopolies was previously mentioned, and there are multilevel social and class struggles within the combination. Democracy based upon the esprit of the self-rule of people is an institution in which all members of a given polity can equally participate in the process of social and political decision making in the society. If politics is defined as related to how resources and rules are distributed, produced and established, democracy means an institution where people (the subject and object of politics) are directly involved. Democracy constitutes the institutional format of politics since modern times, and modern politics carried out in the institutional format of democracy has various qualities. There is a minimalist perspective of democracy including Shumpeters (1943). There is also another perspective in which democracy should be expanded and maximized. The former definition of democracy is simply the exisence of free elections, free press, and a general vote. In the latter definition of democracy, the procedural ideal of peoples self rule and the peoples social demand are realized. In this sense, democracy
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is the arena in which diverse social forces compete, and a particular quality of democracy at a particular time is decided by the outcome of these struggles. In short, democracy at a particular time exists according to the way it includes a relation of politics and society at a particular level. It is continuously reproduced according to the process of the social and class struggles, and to the level at which civil society and the people become the subject.
Beyond Institutional Politics Centrism toward Society Centrism

Proposition 3: Democracy should not be regarded as a political phenomenon but a relational phenomenon of politics and society. Politics in a democracy should allow formerly excluded diverse political groups in a dictatorial regime to re-emerge Democracy should not be regarded as institution-centric, as the democratic transition and consolidation discourse does, but as a relation between politics and society or (institutional) politics and social (movement). Politics is ignited by social change and represents it, so in conflicts surrounding democratic transition or consolidation, attention should be given to society or the relation of politics and society first, rather than politics itself. Theoretically, in the American tradition of pluralist politics, the masses are identified as consumers of political goods, or the active masses are identified as outside engagers who push their political and economic interests forward via collective pressure. This viewpoint makes the border between politics and society absolute and marginalizes the masses, who are the subject of politics, to become mere consumers of politics. Politics is incessantly redefined in its relation with society, and the territory of politics and non-politics are variable according to social dynamics. Society is not the object that politics must represent, but an independent variable that changes politics. In this sense, after democratic transition, the newly rehabilitated politics is defined by conflict and crisis where particular political groups (anti-dictatorial political groups, for example) seek to change the contents and territory (the borders) of politics and society, not only to restore institutional politics. A particularly structured politics under a dictatorial regime, in which the masses have accustomed themselves to a particular political environment, faces crisis as the oppositional awakening of civil society and the masses as the subjects rises up. When this occurs, there appears to be a widening gap between (existing dictatorial) politics and (oppositionally activated) civil society as civil society gets into a 1process of restructuring the established
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politics. This is the kernel of the democratic transition discourse. In this process, activities defined as non-political in the previous dictatorial regime become internalized and integrated. Through this kind of restructuring of politics, the consent of the masses is becomes based on new democratic politics. This process is not procedure dependent as it does not predetermine the outcome of the change. The dynamic interactions between dominance and resistance, institutional politics and social movements, politics and society, and politics and civil society determines its outcome as it is an open process. The political is not singular but plural and exists in diverse forms, with institutional poli tics as just one of them. The democratic transition process from dictatorship is where the plural political that was oppressed under the dominant political during dictatorship expresses itself. The once monopolized boundaries of the politic are restructured with the outcome of a new social self-organizing. In this process the diverse and repressed sub-subjects return to the political arena and the political they express is represented in institutional politics. The democratic transition or consolidation discourse basically sees institutional politics as fixed while ignoring the change in the formation of the politic and narrowly focusing on the re-emergence and internalization of political groups that were banned during dictatorship. In other words, these discourses only focus on the expansion of institutional politics and not on the reformation of politics. This is why democratic politics should be regarded as a transition toward a plural politics. Under dictatorship, institutional politics is oppressed, and in the arena of institutional politics only a top-down-controlled politics is permitted. This politics is combined with a particular socioeconomic relation. Dictatorship means a particular political monopoly combined with a particular socioeconomic monopoly. This means that dictatorship does not only mean the exclusion of other political forces running a monolithic political system, but also the creation and reproduction of a particular socioeconomic monopoly. This reproduction keeps the demands of the diverse socioeconomic sub-subjects from joining the political arena and becoming representatives as political subjects. In the process of democratic transition as formal democracy is rehabilitated, diverse politics, including one which was in control and under repression, comes back and forms into a struggle. In a democracy there is also a struggle around the contents and boundaries of politics. There will be a surge of diverse social politics beyond the limits of the expanded institutional politics, during which various oppressed social sub-subjects appear, to make
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democracy an arena of struggle for plural politics in the process of democratic transition. The process of rehabilitation and consolidation of democracy does not only mean a process in which the once oppressed and excluded political forces re-emerge in institutional politics and engage in a struggle with past dictatorial political forces. It also means that diverse socioeconomic sub-subjects participate in institutional politics bringing changes to the nature and boundaries of politics, as well as the contents and boundaries of democracy. Unless there is a multi-level restructuring of politics that represents society, there can be no consolidation of democracy. In this process, diverse socioeconomic sub-subjects that were excluded from the political arena and their demands and interests are integrated in the agenda of institutional politics, which we could call advanced socialization. This should be the meaning of socialization of democracy.6
An Alternative Theorization of Post-transition

Let us discuss then, based upon this reformulation of democracy discourse, how the alternative theorization of the discourse on democratic transition and consolidation should be developed.
Formal and Substantial Formation of Democracy

Proposition 4: The transition from dictatorship to democracy can be divided into the formal formation of democracy (introduction of democratic institutions) and the substantial formation of democracy (social formation of democracy). We have seen the problems inherent in unilinear or multi-linear viewpoints. Through the transitional course of uni- and multi-linear transition to democracy, Western society is regarded to be at a high level of democracy and non-Western and newly born democratic societies as at a low level of democracy. This is, as a matter of fact, only a particular viewpoint of political modernization. Democracy can be divided into formal and substantial formations of democracy. The formal formation means a particular fluctuation from democratic transition and consolidation, while the substantial formation is the fluctuation after a period of consolidation. The former is the process in which democratic institutions, including elections, are introduced; the latter is the process in which a formation of the substantial contents of democracy (through class and social struggle) in the frame of the introduced democracy
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is established. It is important to note that there is no difference between western and nonwestern democracies, and between the developed and developing countries under a substantial formation of democracy. All societies are continually struggling around this formation of substantial democracy and struggle. If democratic transition is a struggle for the introduction or initial establishment of democracy, consolidation is not only the establishment of democracy, but also a process of social reformation in the political frame of democracy. This social formation of democracy continues in every society, and there can be no difference of quality between Western and non-Western democracies, and between developed and developing countries. Democracy does not develop from a backward state to an advanced state following a linear path. It is rather a social formation process with its qualitative contents determined by the relationships between dominance and resistance, state and civil society, dominant groups and sub-subjective groups. Historically, the West sees democracy as a structurally moving process determined by the correlation of dominance and resistance, and dominant groups and sub-subjects. It was not, in any sense, realized through the way in which its fixed contents were predetermined and then implemented. The objects and range of suffrage and eligibility for election, for instance, have constantly been changed. The majority of women have not been able to enjoy both even after the 1789 French Revolution, and were only able to take part in both since 1944. The cognitive gap between the model of Western democratic transition, which has been developed for hundreds of years, and non-Western societys democratic transition and consolidation since 1980s should be interrogated. In European democratization, the process in which the late nineteenth centurys mercantilist dictatorship has improved into democracy covers 200 to 300 years. According to Huntington (1991), the first wave began in the 1820s and this, through the experience of fascism, meets with a new wave near the end of the World War II. Western society has not only experienced this big reverse wave but also other small reverse waves till the present democracy was established. In France, it took more than 150 years after the Revolution to establish its present democratic system. They had to go through Republicanism and monarchy alternately until after World War II. This historical background demonstrates that it is not proper to define nonWestern society as undemocratic giving it only a short period of democratization process. In this sense, democratic transition and consolidation is not an introduction of a new fixed institution, but a process of determining
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the constitutive contents of the democratic institution, or of creating democratic social formation.
Substantial Formation of Democracy: Combination and Arrangement of Political Monopoly and Socioeconomic Monopoly7
Proposition 5: The substantial constitution of democracy is determined by how political monopoly and socioeconomic monopoly are combined. Dictatorship is a particular combination of political and socioeconomic monopolyas you see in the figure 1and the conversion to democracy is a process in which a particular political and socioeconomic de-monopolization takes place interactively. In economics, monopoly means a persistent market or industry situation where there is only one provider of a product or service, usually a dominant firm or enterprise without competitors entering its market or industry. This notion of economic monopoly can be expanded to contemplate political or democratic phenomena. In this context, political monopoly means a persistent situation wherein only one individual or political group has command over political resources (particularly state power or political power in general),
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dominating in such a way that there can be no competitors. Other than political monopoly, there can be a social monopoly, which is a persistent situation wherein only one individual or political group has command of social resources and dominates in such a way there can be no competitors. It should be noted that these economic, political, and social monopolies are reproduced in a certain combination. Economic monopoly exists in combination with particular political and social monopolies. Political monopoly does not only mean a particular individual or group monopolizes political resources but also has a monopolistic status over socioeconomic resources. Social monopoly does not only mean a situation in which one individual or group dominantly controls diverse social resources (prestige or respect) but also a situation in which political and economic powers are unequally distributed along the boundaries of societys diverse social demarcation line.8 A particular social group (based ethnicity, sex, religion, locality) that monopolizes (or occupies) a particular social demarcation line controls political and economic powers. For example, a dominant group in an ethnic demarcation line exists as a group with monopolized political or economic power, in which the difference at the social demarcation lines exists as discrimination. Dictatorship usually means political monopoly, which exists in combination with a particular socioeconomic monopoly. In this paper, dictatorship (whether or not in the sense of state corporatism) is a regime combining particular political and socioeconomic monopolies, and democratization is a process of their destruction, rearrangement, and reformation. Democratic transition is the process in which a political form dictatorshipis changed into another formdemocracyand at the same time, a conflictual process focused on the reformation of the political monopoly structure and the reformation and rearrangement of the socioeconomic monopoly that has been fixed under a dictatorship. Everyday crisis ensues from the increasing gap between the entrenched interests and newly-created demands in civil society. Democratic conversion reproduces and strengthens this instability. If multi-level monopolies installed by the old regime are not dismantled, constant crisis and instability after democratic conversion results. This means deep conservatism remains deep seated in the political, economic, and social order of society. This trend of persistence of the old monopoly in a transformed form is strengthened by the international conditions of neoliberal globalization. The problem is in the process of resisting dictatorship because there is no unifying manner of resistance among the diverse sub-subjects since the awakening of civil society as an outcome of democratization. The maximized demand in the name of democracy thrives and this crosses against the minimalist reality, which
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eventually comes out as crisis-ridden and unstable democracy after democratization.
The Activation of Civil Society and Self-empowered Subjectivation of People, the Drivers of Democratic Transition, and Consolidation and Postconsolidation
Proposition 6: An activated civil society and self-empowered subjectivation of the people are the fundamental drivers of democratic transition and democratic consolidation and postconsolidation. If under a dictatorial regime there is oppositional activation of civil society, under the democratic transition process there emerges self-empowered activation of civil society. The success of democratic transition depends on this political and socioeconomic reform of the former establishment, which corresponds with changes in the civil society and the peoplehood. What causes instability in democratic transition and consolidation is the newly activated civil society and the people rising as a subject. Civil society and the social movements that make them cohere is the key to the destruction of the authoritarian regime and ushering democratic transition, consolidation, and postconsolidation. At the individual level, this activation is a process of making the people a subject. As seen in figure 2, the dismantlement of political monopoly that has been particularly structured under the dictatorship is caused by the oppositional activation of civil society. This oppositionally activated civil society can be organizationally expressed through a social movement. The rise of nongovernmental organizations as an influential decision maker in politics in the democratic transition of Korea is a good example of such a development. Dictatorship is a regime in which peoples self-empowered subjectivation in the political, economic, and social arenas is oppressed, and the conflicts and challenges from these dimensions are excluded. Against this oppression, the oppositional activation of civil society is advanced, and as an outcome of this activation (for example, the Peoples Struggle for Democracy on June 10, 1987 in South Korea), democratic transition from dictatorship brings about the rehabilitation of formal democracy. If this process is called democratic transition, then postdemocratic transition is the process in which conflicts in diverse dimensions in the rehabilitated formal democracy emerge. The change of civil society in a formal democracy is a self-empowered activation of civil society, whereby diverse sub-subjects become self-empowered in the formal rehabilitated democracy. And in a given civil and political space, civil society express their demands and interests and organize various kinds of
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collective actions to realize these. Through self-empowered subjectification of the people and activation of the civil societywhere various collective and subjective actions take place with each organized class and group to realize their demands and intereststhe people, a diverse social sub-subject, go through a change where they critically recognize their identity that was given under the dictatorship. This recognition brings them together to resist against monopolies in the political, economic, and social dimensions of democracy, and to eventually remove these from rehabilitated formal democracy. This is how conflicts melt and change monopolies. Under postdemocratic transition, there appears multi-level conflicts around these dimensions, thus, for the social settlement of democracy beyond consolidation to be realized, the gap between the activated civil society and politics and the state, or the subjectivated people (and the social movement as its organized expression) and politics, must be overcome at a certain level, and that level should be conceptualized and developed as an index. Conflicts arise when the first instance of power alternation takes place, and there is a struggle afterward around the established monopolies in the economic and social dimensions in the name of democracy. It is not necessary to suppose that civil society is activated and in the postdemocratic transition
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process subjectivated as if on a fixed timeline. In fact, democratic transition and postdemocratic transition are processes of struggle against hegemony by civil society. If the early stage of democratic transition is the time when the progressive hegemony of civil society works well, postdemocratic transition is the time when new problems rise as the old ones disappear, diverse problems that may be different for each country. It is possible for civil society to turn back to conservatism, or to a variety of vicissitudes. Under postdemocratic transition, the strategic practices of conservative and progressive forces have an nfluence on the direction and continuation of the process. This is the environment where, with the subjectivation of civil society, there appears a multi-level divergence of civil society. As in the cases of South Korea and Taiwan, the once oppositional political force becomes the ruling power, and there are a number of problems with their rule, problems which eventually give rise again to pro-dictatorship or conservative forces. This can be called the activation of the conservative (Cho 2005). Paradoxically, this means civil society is changed into a competing arena for hegemony. Important is the outcome of the struggle for hegemony in civil society; when hegemony goes to the conservative force in multi-pronged civil society, there can be a reversion of the postdemocratic transition.9 It is interesting that the bigger the gap between the state and (civil) society, the more activated civil society becomes against the state. However, the better the democratization of the state proceeds, the less civil society is mobilized toward one single direction, and the more it is diversified in terms of political orientation. Choi (2005) calls this process a change from state versus civil society to civil society versus civil society.
The "Substantial Formation of Democracy" under Postdemocratic Transition is the Conflict around the Political, Economic, and Social "Limits" of Democracy
Proposition 7: The political limit of democracy is the extent to which the political monopoly constituted under a dictatorship is de-monopolized during democratic transition. Likewise, the economic limit of democracy is the extent to which the economic monopolies are de-monopolized, and the social limit of democracy is the extent to which social monopoly is demonopolized. In the democratic transition process from dictatorship, there are multilevel conflicts and struggles. As previously mentioned, under democratic transition, the conflict around the rearrangement of the political, economic, and social monopolies that were established under the dictatorship appears.
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The problem is with the range and nature of the rearrangement. Political monopoly means the political exclusion and oppression of diverse social groups under dictatorship, and political de-monopolization means that diverse social groups are represented and guaranteed participation. Democratization in any form involves de-monopolization. But the level of de-monopolization varies depending on the dynamics of each country. This level of de-monopolization constitutes the political limit of democracy, which again determines the substantiveness of democracy being instituted during a democratic transition. Diverse forces in civil society have conflicts around the set limit. The struggle of the progressives is an important factor that decides the conservative limit of democracy, or the progressive limit of democracy for the progressives. For example, in 2004 in South Korea, there was a struggle of the conservatives under the Roh Moo-Hyun administration in the form of a campaign for the preservation of the National Security Law, which was against the expansion of the political limit, and the progressive struggle in the form of the anti-impeachment movement, which was against the retrenchment of the political limit. The form of such limits depends on the level of the development of democracy in each society.
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Trajectories of De-monopolization
As mentioned earlier, democratization is a multilayered de-monopolization process. This paper argues that how de-monopolization proceeds explains the reason for political instability and crisis under postdemocratization. For convenience, political monopoly and economic and social monopoly will be tackled separately to explain democratic instability and the crisis under postdemocratization. Figure 3 shows that the democratic consolidation process involves a complex interaction of various factors: types of political de-monopolization, the constraining effects of neoliberal globalization and the mode of its internalization, a conflict between former monopolistic forces and subalterns, and the consequences of economic and social de-monopolization as a result of multilayered competition.
Characteristics of Political De-monopolization: Neo-oligarchy and Post-oligarchy10

One factor with various consequences in the overall democratization porcess is how political de-monopolization is achieved, that is to say, how extensive vested rights of former monopolistic forces break up and change. Basically, democratization is the restoration of democratic politics. Dictatorship has undermined the space for democratic politics where various social demands and interests can be represented and expressed. Once a dictatorship collapses and democratization begins, the mechanism of electoral politics works and party politics recovers. Therefore, democratic politics itself becomes a space for competition among various forces. The characteristics of political demonopolization define the qualitative characteristics of this democratic space. To demonstrate the characteristics and progress of political demonopolization, it may be divided into two categories: neo-oligarchy and post-oligarchy. Neo-oligarchic democracy refers to the situation where former ruling forces maintain their monopolistic status even after democratization. Post-oligarchic democracy refers to the situation where the monopolistic status of previous ruling forces constantly weakens, and a relatively pluralistic competition between monopolistic conservatives and anti-monopolistic liberals takes place. Of course, this is just an ideal-type classification and is not necessarily realistic. In a neo-oligarchy category, political monopoly or vested rights structure does not break up widely and former monopolists institutional or noninstitutional force never weakens. In post-oligarchy, however, the existing
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political monopoly breaks up constantly and pluralistic competition takes root politically on a national scale. In the former case, the suppressive state apparatus such as the military, controlled by former monopolistic forces, would frequently face violent responses from resisters. It is exemplified in the persistence of politically motivated massacres in the Philippines and the violent crackdown on ethnic minorities in Indonesia and Thailand. In response, the general public naturally tries to resist such suppression violently, sometimes successfully. However, the resistance seldom leads to organized social movements. In the Philippines, leftists exerted significant influence in the antidictatorship movement. In the democratic transition process, however, the split between those involved in democratization and leftist outsiders prevented postdemocracy socioeconomic reform from taking effect. The same goes for other Southeast Asian countries including Thailand and Indonesia. As Encarnacion Tadem (2008) points out, democracy in the Philippines remains an elite democracy even after democratization. Hadiz (2008) believes that Indonesias decentralization, which is relatively stronger than its other Asian counterparts, has actually strengthened monopolization of power at the regional level. According to the human rights group Karapatan, (Tupas et al. 2007, 17, in Encarnacion Tadem 2008, 148), by March 15 2007, over 800 leftist activists were killed by the military under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. In 2004, Munir Said Thalib a leading Indonesian human rights lawyer of the civil organization, Komisi Untuk Orang Hilang dan Korban Tindak Kekerasan (the Commission for "the Disappeared" and Victims of Violence, or KontraS), was murdered by a former pilot on board a plane (Wikipedia contributors n.d.). These killings show that the suppression by former state apparatuses of social activists still persists. On the other hand, in the post-oligarchy category, the former suppressive state apparatus and political monopoly go through relatively extensive dissolution and weakening. In addition, former monopolistic forces in the state apparatus and antidictatorship activists coexist, resulting in diversified groups within state institutions. South Korea and Taiwan may be classified under this category.
Economic and Social De-monopolization

Under such distinctive conditions of political de-monopolization, economic and social de-monopolization proceeds. Democratic instability and crisis during postdemocratization depend on how economic and social demonopolization proceeds. This involves various interacting factors, among
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which competition between former monopolistic forces and subalterns is the most important. On one hand, former monopolistic forces try to support and safeguard their vested rights within the democratic space derived from political de-monopolization. On the other hand, subalterns strive to achieve their demands and interests through a more open struggle. Conflict during democratic transition should not be regarded as being just that among political elites. Rather, it is a process involving complex social conflict. Once democratization begins, existing oppression weakens, prompting various political and social forces to appear in the democratic space and defy change. Under political de-monopolization, fierce conflict over economic and social de-monopolization unfolds in the form of crisisnot the stabilization thought to occur during democratic consolidationwhich is due to fierce competition between monopolistic forces and subalterns. Other factors affecting democratization are the effects of neoliberal globalization and the mode of its internalization. First of all, neoliberal globalization marginalizes the demands and interests of subalterns in their competition with former monopolistic forces. How a similar condition of neoliberal globalization is interpreted varies depending on the historical and cultural conditions of each society. For example, South Korea is a very proAmerican country and has accepted a Western-style of modernization since the industrialization era of development dictatorship. In this regard, the country has shown a striking tendency to actively imitate and embrace Western-centric neoliberal model. As a result, with the effects of neoliberal globalization, Washington Consensus policies including trade liberalization, deregulation, commercialization and privatization are predominant and accepted. This has something to do with the fact that South Korea is categorized as a post-oligarchy and is located in Northeast Asia, a region characterized by conflicts during the Cold War. South Korea completely internalizes neoliberal policies which prioritize trade liberalization and restructuring for market autonomy since dominant capital groups seeking global capital accumulation enjoy hegemony in the capital market. On the other hand, other Asian nations such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand see strong conflicts between anti- and pro-American sentiments in each country. For Southeast Asia, which is relatively less pro-American than East Asia, American neoliberalism supremacy is relatively weak, except in the case of the Philippines whose economic policies clearly demonstrate a tendency to lean toward the USs neoliberal policies. Therefore, tensions result from the internal acceptance of the neoliberal globalization model. Several governments in the democratic transition process, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand, embrace and
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implement a wide range of neoliberal policies only to bring about destructive consequences. As a result, the anti-neoliberal sentiment of the public in these countries has proliferated. However, such public discontent does not turn into more ideologically based anti-neoliberalism or socioeconomic liberalism. In such cases, an organized social movement fails to develop such sentiment into a hegemonic struggle and fails to become decentralized. With such factors interacting among each other, a practical result of economic and social de-monopolization is the determination of political uncertainty and crisis in the democratic consolidation process. This is because democratization brings about class conflict issues that have been suppressed under the dictatorship, an example of economic demonopolization, and racial conflict issues, an example of social demonopolization. This is also because instability and crisis during postdemocratization are dependent on whether newly democratized political groups embrace such tension and conflict into its democratic institutions, meeting demands of subalterns and resolving their discontent. When it comes to economic de-monopolization, which is the extent to which economic monopolization established under the dictatorship goes through disintegration, the extent of economic liberalization is important. And the degree to which economic and social de-monopolization progresses during democratizationthe extent of equalizationis important as well. The practical aspects of economic and social de-monopolization can be divided into two categories: pluralistic and monopolistic. Specifically, economic demonopolization can be divided into an economically plural category and an economically monopolistic one. Likewise, social de-monopolization can be categorized as socially pluralistic and socially monopolistic. First of all, the economically monopolistic category does not see much change in the status of former economically monopolistic forces, many of whom are related to dictators, thus enjoyed economic privilege under a dictatorship. Those forces bolster their monopolistic status and even strengthen their financial footing into a new level after democratization. Currently, the top fifteen families in the Philippines own about fifty percent of its national wealth. In some cases, monopolistic entities change hands. In general, however, former monopolistic forces remain intact, which naturally undermines the improvement in economic conditions of the public. There have been certain achievements such as a decline in the number of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day. However, there is little improvement in terms of relative poverty or economic polarization. Next is the economically plural category. In terms of politics, economic pluralism is more likely to exist in post-oligarchic society rather than in a neo-
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oligarchic one. After democratization, a partial relaxation of former economic monopoly might bring about a change in corporate rankings or the emergence of new capitalists in new industrial fields. The prime example is the promotion of venture industry led by the South Korean government. But economically monopolistic conditions remain intact even in South Korea, which we have said to be in the course of political post-oligarchy. Also, an anti-dictatorial government with reform liberalism faces the new trend toward economic inequality while wholly accepting neoliberal policies. However, Taiwan has a lower level of economic concentration than South Korea because its development dictatorship brought about relatively higher percentage of small and medium enterprises and lower domination of monopolistic bodies. Taiwan also has recently seen its state-owned enterprises being privatized and taken over by business groups to become conglomerates. Also, the emergence of new monopolistic bodies in the fledgling information technology industry caused stronger economic concentration in Taiwan compared to its development dictatorship period. While economic inequality in the nation intensifies, political democracy-related issues such as the Presidents involvement in a corruption scandal attracted national attention, which effectively marginalizes the issue of economic inequality. Now, let us discuss social de-monopolization. This can be divided into socially plural and socially monopolistic categories. In the former case, the constant progress of de-monopolization eased existing social monopoly, leading to a pluralistic situation. In the latter case, the hegemony of dominating social forces persists. In the aftermath of democratization, demands and resistance of subalterns erupt against social monopoly which has been specifically established under development dictatorship. For instance, Thailand and the Philippines saw ethnic minority conflicts regarding racial and religious issues. Other examples include regional tensions in South Korea and racial conflicts in Taiwan as well. When the exclusion of ethnic minorities persists in a democratic space, cracks of social division may manifest in the form of a separatist movement. What is crucial is whether or not democratization embraces demands and interests from such separatist movements into the democratic space, resolving them without violence. In that respect, Indonesias Aceh province is a typical success story, in that the Helsinki Agreement helped legitimize Acehs separatist rebels, prompting them to compete within political institutions and paving the way for decentralization. On the other hand, the Special Region of Papua suffered fiercer separatist conflicts over minority resistance. Both of these patterns coexist in Indonesia. In the Philippines, the vicious cycle of violent crackdown and armed resistance continues to be unresolved, and may
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have worsened. Thailand was also struck by religious and racial conflicts in the south, suffering from the vicious cycle of violent suppression and resistance under the Thaksin government. On the other hand, both Taiwan and South Korea experienced the development of major social cleavages, such as racial conflicts and regional conflicts, becoming incorporated into the internal systemic conflicts. That is, political parties representing racial minorities in Taiwan and regional groups in South Korea each came to power. In particular, Taiwans independence issue has taken on a new dimension. Though still conflictual, confrontations between the ruling and opposition parties, and between the Mainlanders and native Taiwanese, as well as issues regarding the Taiwan Strait and independence are no longer considered to be along a single cleavage. In this respect, Taiwan and South Korea may be categorized as socially plural, considering that the dominant social cleavage under a dictatorship successfully developed into internal tensions within their respective systems.
Diverse Routes of Democratization

In sum, the route to democratization differs depending on various factors: characteristics of political de-monopolization under the international impact
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of neoliberal globalization; competition between former monopolistic forces and subalterns under a new democratic space; and economic and social demonopolizationthe extent to which demands and interests of subalterns are acceptedas a consequence of such competition. In classifying the various routes to democratization, figure 4 shows chronic conflict, reverse wave, de-railing and non-hostile coexistence. The most idealistic route might be non-hostile coexistence, where various political forces (e.g., dictatorial monopolistic forces, antidictatorial moderate liberal forces, and radical progressive forces) are engaged in pluralistic competition, and animosities between them are alleviated so that they can coexist to some degree. Yet, stabilized democracy is achievable not by the coexistence of political forces, but by the disintegration of social and economic monopoly, or the achievment of alevel of equalization that is acceptable to subalterns, and by political de-monopolization which facilitates such equalization. In reality, however, most transition routes constitute a chronic conflict. This route operates under a complex, multi-layered interaction of political, economic, and social de-monopolization, and conflicts persist, moving forward and backward alternately without being entrenched. Conflicts between political forces turn hostile and their political competition is propelled toward excluding the demands of socioeconomic subalterns rather than reflecting the transformation of social and economic monopolies. Consequently, the gap between the new democratic politics and society widens, which causes chronic conflicts. That is, the stagnantion of the socialization of democracy prevents socioeconomic causes of conflicts from being removed, thus the democratization process features chronic conflict. From a strategic perspective, with conflicts and crises being inevitable during democratization, whoever monopolizes the demands of the public in an expanded democratic space determines the route. Therefore, diverse political changes are likely. The same goes for chronic conflict. That is, even if a democratic government led by moderate liberal forces takes office, it will end up facing a chronic socioeconomic crisis. Such a government could turn into various forms such as a neo-conservative government which has previously been ruled by dictatorial conservatives, a moderate liberal government which returns to power through innovation, or a radical government comprised of socioeconomic forces (e.g., a leftist government in South America). However, an emergence of a neo-conservative government may lead to more radical neoliberal policies and is more likely to face another chronic conflict. A reverse wave is a radical case of this. An example would be the case of Thailand which suffered a coup detat in September 2006 before its democratization
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got back on track. The coup was a case involving chronic conflict, reverse wave, and de-railing. This process is illustrated by figure 4. Depending on the category, political de-monopolization has an impact. Conflicts between former monopolistic forces and subalterns take shape in both institutional and noninstitutional space. As a result, social and economic monopolies break down extensively and vested rights of former monopolistic forces disintegrate. The extent to which demands of subalterns are met will determine the route to democratization. The democratization process in Asia shows that such route could be divided into non-hostile coexistence, chronic conflict, reverse-wave, and de-railing.
Conclusion: For "Socialization of Democracy"

The consolidation of democracy becomes possible only when the democratization of political and socioeconomic monopoly has occured to such an extent that socioeconomic sub-subjects are accepted in the process of democratization. Through this multilevel de-monopolization the socialization of democracy can be achieved, and diverse forces can coexist in non-confrontation and the social settlement of democracy is possible. Many Asian countries show us a variety of levels of activation of civil society and the peoples sector according to correlations of political, economic, and social de-monopolization. They present cases in which the electoral democracy they achieved through democratic transition as a political struggle does not provide any disorganization or change of economic and social monopolies, and as a result, democracy changes into a new kind of monopoly. Furthermore, there are only rare cases in which diverse sub-subjects enter the political arena, thus the socialization of democracy opens the era of multipolitics. These countries present complicated cases in which there is continuous conflict and crisis, and sometimes reversion to the conservative course even after democratic transition. This complexity is the empirical phenomena that tell us there is no democracy without socialization or that there is no consolidation without socialization, and there is democratic consolidation without de-monopolization of the existing monopolies.11
Notes
1. Schumpeter (1943) said a democratic method is an institutional device with which the individual achieves power to decide through a competitive struggle to get the support of the mass (269).
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Huntington (1991) picked as the first wave of democratization the democratic dynamics being on the rise for a century beginning in 1828, which centered on male suffrage expansion. The second wave is when thirty-five sovereign states were established after World War II with the victory of the Allies. The third one is the wave of democratization in Latin America, Southern Europe, and Asia since the 1970s. These waves each had counterwaves (e.g., fascism in the 1930s, the rise of dictatorships in the 1960s and 1970s), and the new democratizing wave runs back against a counterwave. On consolidation of democracy, Diamond (1999) differentiated rules on one hand and belief and action on the other, as well as the elite and the mass. He also said that for consolidation to occur, there must be democratic deepening, political institutionalization, and regime performance (1999, 74). For regime performance, there are economic and political performances such as continuation of effective government for political institutionalization (1999, 93); and there are strengthening of institutions of governance including the bureaucracy, the legislature, and party and electoral systems. For the deepening of democracy, there is the need for divergence of powers, a weakening of military influences and functions, and re-establishment of the civil-military relation based on democracy (1999, 114). Linz and Stepan (1996) take as the formation of the state and nationhood as independent variables determining consolidation, government before democratization being among the macro variables, and action variables and chance factors being nonmacro variables. In addition, they refer to a dynamic civil society, a relatively autonomous political society, the rule of law, a state which is capable of running an effective bureaucracy, and an institutionalized economic society including a capital market as the variables to confirm consolidation of democracy. Using these variables, they analyzed fourteen countries in Latin America and Southern Europe. Gunther et al. (1995) define consolidation on phenomenal aspects such as marginalization of extreme groups or absence of anti-regime party. Defining consolidation in this paper is based on where the dissolution of the the socioeconomic monopoly on which those extreme and anti-regime groups are based. The conflict and crisis in postdemocratic transition happen because the from-thebottom initiatives from civil society, the peoples sector, and social movements de-monopolize political, economic, social monopolies to socialize democracy. Socialization is a polysemic notion. Skocpol (1979) differentiates social revolution from political revolution. The socialization of the means of production is an old Marxist proposition, which holds that the situation in which material goods and means of production are not monopolized by one group but shared. If we use the term socialization of democracy, it means the process in which democratic politics is not monopolized by particular political groups (usually pluralist political groups in polyarchic system) but shared by diverse social sub-subjects excluded from institutional politics (these are the social political subjects different from pluralist political subject). This basically depends upon whether politics functions in the direction of diverse social sub-subjects and social demand in a broad sense, and not a part of reproduction of dominance. The former is the nationalization of politics, while the latter is socialization of politics. For further clarification, refer to Cho (2006). The notion of de-monopolization and its contents can be diversified to contemplate equality, decentralization, pluralism, market, etc. As previously mentioned, political monopoly is whether a particular individual or group monopolizes political resources;
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economic monopoly exists when a particular individual or group enjoys monopolistic economic resources. Social monopoly includes, in a broad sense, economic monopoly. In a narrow sense, it is a situation in which the access to political and economic resources is blocked along diverse social demarcation lines (ethnicity, religion, etc.), or social discrimination is structured according to particular social demarcation lines. The correspondence of political monopoly is power divergence; of economic monopoly, equality; and social monopoly, pluralism. 8. In a general perspective the division of Korea can be seen as similar to those seen in any society according to particular demarcation lines. Division is a situation in which conflicts in the boundary of social demarcation lines are put under confrontation, thus in such a situation there is a social demarcation line fixated into a confrontational relation. In Korea, this is combined with ideological confrontation and the regional division into South and North Korea. 9. Thailand provides a good example of this case. In the anti-Thaksin struggle, progressive civil society had initiative in the beginning. But with time and with the joining of Thaksin government defectors, including Sonthi, with the royalists, the space for a military coup was created. The anti-Thaksin Peoples Alliance for Democracy (PAD) came to have a strong conservative force in it. In the anti-Thaksin civil society movement, the anti-Thaksin political factors were combined with antiThaksin social factors. The conservative force based largely upon the anti-Thaksin movement called upon the King to solve the crisis of the democratic government, and this provided a good excuse for the coup by the royalist military. This means that the reversion of democracy can either be stopped or not, depending on several factors, among which are the following: level of civil society hegemony, capability of the old social force in engaging with civil society, degree of popular foundation, capability of civil society movement, the mass-mobilizing ability of civil society. In brief, democracy is determined by the formation and configuration of civil society in the process of democratization. 10. For more information, refer to Cho (2008). 11. Text by the author translated from Korean into English by Rebecca Kim.
References
Carothers, Thomas. 2002a. The End of the Transition Paradigm. Journal of Democracy 13 (1): 5-21. . 2002b. A Reply to My Critics. Journal of Democracy 13 (3): 33-8. Cho, Heeyeon. 2008. Democratization in Asia: Oligarchic Democracy and Democratic Oligarchy. In States of Democracy: Oligarchic Democracies and Asian Democratization, edited by Heeyeon Cho, Lawrence Surendra and Eunhong Park. Chinnai: Earthworm Books. . 2006. Universality within us. In Universality Within Us. Seoul: Hanul. . 2005. 1987 Regime and Transitional Crisis of the Democratic Reform Movement in Korea. Citizen and the World No. 8, November. Choi, Jang-Jip. 2005. Democracy after DemocratizationThe Conservative Origin of Korean Democracy and Its Crisis. Seoul: Humanitas. Dahl, Robert. 1989. Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press.
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Diamond, Larry. 1999. Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Diamond, Larry, Jonathan Hartlyn, Juan Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset. 1999. Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Encarnacion Tadem, Teresa S. 2008. The Perennial Drift to the Right: Transitioning to Democracy in the Philippines. In States of Democracy: Oligarchic Democracies and Asian Democratization, edited by Heeyeon Cho, Lawrence Surendra and Eunhong Park. Chennai: Earthworm Books. Gunther, Richard, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, and Hans-Jurgen Puhle, eds. 1995. The Politics of Democratic Consolidation: Southern Europe in Comparative Perspective. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. .1996. ODonnells Illusions: A Rejoinder. Journal of Democracy 7 (4): 1519. Hadiz, Vedi Renandi. 2008. A Political Sociology of Institutional Change: Local Power in Indonesia. In States of Democracy: Oligarchic Democracies and Asian Democratization, edited by Heeyeon Cho, Lawrence Surendra and Eunhong Park. Chennai: Earthworm Books. Hipsher, Patricia. 1996. Democratization and the Decline of Urban Social Movements in Chile and Spain. Comparative Politics 28 (3): 273-297. Hungtington, Samuel. 1991. The Third Wave: Democratization in the Twentieth Century. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Linz, Juan J. 1990. Transitions to Democracy. Washington Quartely No. 13 (3): 143164. Linz, Juan J. and Alfred Stepan, eds. 1978. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. .1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Mainwaring, Scott, Guillermo ODonnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela, eds. 1992. Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective. Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame Press. Marshall , Thomas Humphrey. 1964. Citizenship and Social Class. In Class, Citizenship, and Social Development. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc. ODonnell, Guillermo. 1996a. Illusions about Consolidation. Journal of Democracy 7 (2): 34-51. . 1996b. Illusions and Conceptual Flaws. Journal of Democracy 7 (4): 160-180. . 2002. In Partial Defense of an Evanescent Paradigm. Journal of Democracy 13 (3): 6-12. O'Donnell, Guillermo, Jorge Vargas Cullell, and Osvaldo M. Lazzetta eds. 2004. the Quality of Democracy: Theory and Applications. Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame Press. ODonnell, Guillermo and Philippe C. Schmitter. 1986. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ODonnell, Guillermo, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, eds. .1986a. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, Vol. 1. .1986b. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, Vol. 2.
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.1986c. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives, Vol. 3. Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: The Political and Economical Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Przeworski, A. et al. 1995. Sustainable Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. Schumpeter, Joseph. 1943. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, London: George Allen and Unwin. Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2004. Democracy in Latin America: Towards Citizens Democracy. New York: UNDP. Wikipedia contributors. n.d. "Munir Said Thalib." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munir_Said_Thalib.
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The Asian Democracy Index: A Guide

THE CONSORTIUM FOR THE ASIAN DEMOCRACY INDEX
The following is an edited version of the guidebook utilized by the Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index for the conduct of the 2011 pilot test of the ADI instruments and the 2012 survey cycle. The document was originally drafted by the South Korean country team based largely on texts published by Dr. Heeyeon Cho, with substantial alterations made after workshops conducted in 2010 and 2011 with other country teams. Changes from the postpilot test version of the guidebook were kept to a minimumlargely grammatical and stylistic in natureto make sure that the following text still closely approximates the original guidebook. A revised version of the guidebook will be printed in subsequent issues of this journal each time a fundamental change in the ADI framework or methodology is made prior to an ADI survey cycle.
Overview
This guidebook serves as an introduction to the Asian Democracy Index (ADI). It explains the ADIs theoretical framework, the structure of the index system, its evaluation methods, and its utilizations. In addition, it also attempts to show how the ADI could become a comprehensive approach to democracy assessment through an index, consequently showing how the ADI can become an international benchmark. The ADI was not designed to be used for establishing a solely Asian model of democracy. The index is a framework to compare and discover democratic characteristics of Asian countries. It is designed to understand the quality of Asian democracy today. The ADI is useful in presenting the current status of democratization in Asian countries; it is not a tool for proposing an exemplary democratic model or to rank the different democratic characteristics of the countries studied. This guidebook consists of three parts: theoretical perspective, the ADI structure, and the conduct of the ADI survey and analysis of data.
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The Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index (CADI) is a network of research institutes and independent researchers working on the development of a new Asian Democracy Index. Since its formation in 2011, CADI members have been conducting annual perception surveys of various local experts on politics, economics, and civil society to examine the state of democratization in the said experts' countries. ASIAN DEMOCRACY REVIEW Vol. 1 (2012):36-87 ISSN 2244-5633
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The first part examines the theoretical basis on which the Asian Democracy Index as a comparison and discovery framework was developed. In order to overcome the limitations of existing democracy indices and to objectively evaluate the quality of democracy that each country has implemented, we believe that there is a need to develop a new perspective on democracy. Thus, we defined a perspective that is in consonance with postmonopoly democratic theory, as discussed in Cho (2008). This perspective views democracy as a continuing process of breaking away from power and resource monopolies, and democratization as the dissolution of monopoly complexes. The second part explains the principles and fields that comprise the indices developed based on the above theoretical framework. The two core principles, liberalization and equalization, serve as barometers to evaluate three fields of democratization: politics, economy, and civil society. When the two principles and three fields cross each other, six different units are generatedpolitical liberalization, political equalization, economic liberalization, economic equalization, civil society liberalization, and civil society equalization. Each unit has unique characteristics and shows the limitations and potentials of other units. These units can be further broken down into fifty-seven evaluation indicators. The last section explains the projects methodology. An ADI country team conducts a survey of experts with varying ideological leanings and affiliations in the three fields of democratization. Then, each index was examined for its utilization. This examination is undertaken by CADImember survey managers in each country. To ensure a measure of objectivity in the evaluation of each index, supplementary subjective and objective indices are obtained for purposes of comparison with ADI indices. Each local survey team then drafts a report on the countrys democracy based on the findings of their local ADI survey and other existing index surveys. These evaluation methods allow ADI researchers to focus on the unique characteristics of each country and help overcome the subjective nature of the ADI evaluation index.
Theoretical Perspective Problematization

Since the third wave of democratization, democracy has been accepted as a commonsensical objective of states in most parts of the world. Unfortunately, this commonsensical objective tends not to be realized as an actual social
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norm in many countries. In addition, the gale of neoliberal globalization has prevented democracy from becoming a trustworthy and consolidated institution in countries that have experienced post-authoritarian transition. That the development of democracy became identified with the proliferation of neoliberalism imperiled its status as the great modern aspiration. Transnational capital-led globalization in the name of neoliberalism changed the basic value of democracy from humanity to capital, eroding the peoples trust in democratic institutions. Under the global gale of neoliberalism, processes of democratization could not but abort the improvement of the quality of life in most of the worlds democratic societies. As Guillermo ODonnell points out, while the third wave of democratization showed only transition from authoritarianism, it did not involve transition to democracy, nor consolidation to better democracy. Thus, many scholars had to turn their eyes to various gray zones and had to question what democracy really is. Now, scholars of democracy focus on the quality of democracy, asking, What kind of democracy will guarantee a good quality of life? Asian scholars of democracy have certainly been following that trend. Since the mid-1980s, democratization processes in Asian countries have been characterized by varying trajectories. Some countries like South Korea and Taiwan are evaluated as countries that have achieved the level of procedural democracy and entered the era of democratic consolidation. Some countries in Southeast Asia like Thailand have been said to have experienced a backsliding of democracy. In some Asian countries that have gone beyond the transitory moment between authoritarianism and postauthoritarianism, electoral democracy is still threatened. Some countries practice of electoral democracy clash with some principles of political democracy, i.e., participation, representation, and accountability. In some countries, democratization does not include actual improvement of the peoples quality of life. Our research problem starts from this dynamic gray zone of reality. The reality of democracy in Asia gives us some critical lessons. First, transition from authoritarianism does not guarantee transition to democracy. Second, transition to democracy, i.e., achievement of electoral democracy does not involve realization of representative democracy. Third, transition to substantive democracy, i.e., socialization does not directly follow transition to democracy. These facts lead us to reflect on mainstream democratization theories and the concept of democracy itself. To understand and analyze new phenomena of democratization, we need to start from the re-examination of
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the very concept of democracy. In addition, we are required to produce a new intellectual frame to explain new phenomena and realities of democracy in the contemporary Asian complexity.
Democratization as De-monopolization
We define democracy as a process of de-monopolization. This perspective involves three key conceptions. First, democracy basically means rule by the people. As most liberalists presuppose, it requires the equal and fair distribution of power and resources in a community. In this sense, democracy can be defined as a certain situation in which all power and resources are being distributed to all members of a community. However, it is difficult to realize such an ideal situation. Thus, we try to define democracy as a continuing process toward an idealthat is, a process of de-monopolization that aimed at achieving a condition wherein all power and resources in a particular state are being fairly distributed. Second, we argue that democracy is not simply a political system, but a relational formation. In a country, the quality of democracy is determined not only within a political field, but also through the relations of various forces in the multi-layered fields of politics, economy, and civil society. Thus, democracy should be considered as something more than electoral and procedural democracy. Third, we also understand democracy not as a fixed or unchangeable system, but as a historical formation. As mentioned above, democracy is a continuing process, thus it is a historically produced formation. It has various forms at different times and in different spaces. It means that democracy can be understood as a consequential form of particular political, economic, and social struggles. Therefore, to experience the reality of democracy, we should recognize the particularity of democracy in a particular country or community. In view of democracy as a continuing process of de-monopolization, a demarcating line between dictatorship and democratic leadership is needed to evaluate the democracies we are experiencing today. Thus, while seeing a dictatorship as a monopoly-complex composed of political, economic and social monopoly, in which a specific group monopolizes the political, economic and social power, we understand democratization as the disintegration of the aforesaid monopoly-complex. This understanding of democracy involves two characteristics of democratization. One is the disintegration of a monopoly-complex, which is divided into three self-legislating fields: politics, economy and civil society. The other is the change of the relations of power within each field,
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that is, the disintegration of a monopoly. Traditional theories of democratization generally focus on the former one, which implies two stages of monopoly disintegration: the first one is to disintegrate a political monopoly over fields, and the second one is to disintegrate only the political monopoly itself. The first one can be explained as a process of liberalization, highlighting civil rights (in ODonnells terms) while the second hinges its concept of democratization on the importance of vertical accountability. Our definition of a dictatorship as a monopoly-complex composed of political, economic, and social monopoly gives us a broad perspective to various important things that traditional conceptions of political democracy have not detected. First of all, the concept of a monopoly-complex leads us to recognize something more than electoral and procedural consequences of democracy by questioning the limits of both vertical and horizontal accountability in the political field (e.g., the nature of a junta). Second, it guides us to understand a mechanism of state domination and management over economy and civil society. For example, some problems related to the government-led economy and pro-government organizations, which are under the strong influences of certain traditional cultural values and ideas, cannot be solved by the institution of electoral or procedural democracy. In short, the concept of the monopolycomplex helps us analyze mechanisms of some undemocratic happenings under certain procedural democratic moments. In the Third World, the transition from the dictatorship to democracy can be identified with a particular form of transition from a pre-modernity to modernity. By looking at the transition from pre-modernity to modernity as involving a process of division from a single society to a pluralized society, a dictatorship can be construed as a force preventing a society from the division into the different fields of state, economy, and civil society. In this sense, democratization can be understood as a process of realization of modernization or dissolution of the contemporaneity of the uncontemporary. From this perspective, we believe that the transition to democracy begins with the disintegration of a specific monopoly complex. Of course, we agree that the disintegration of political monopoly and achievement of procedural democracy is a good index to evaluate a certain level of democratization in a country. However, such an index is not enough to evaluate all phenomena and values that the concept of democratization implies and requires. Insofar as monopolies in other fields remain intact, the political monopoly would regain momentum, or oligarchic forces would be strengthened in each field. For example, some Asian countries experienced anti-democratic backsliding,
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including the increasing economic inequality and a return to authoritarianism (political monopoly), even after they have entered the transitory moment to post-authoritarianism. To interpret and analyze these anti-democratic phenomena, we need more robust indices. Therefore, it is important to note two things together. First, democratization is to be understood as a long process of de-monopolization. Second, we have to analyze relational dynamics within and between the multiple fields of politics, economy, and civil society.
Asian Democracy
As discussed above, dictatorship is defined as a monopoly-complex which combined all monopolies in political, economic, and social fields, and democratization is a multi-layered de-monopolization process. Put differently, democratization is not only the disintegration process of the monopolycomplex but also de-monopolization in the aforementioned fields. Each Asian country has followed different paths toward the multi-layered demonopolization of the national monopoly-complex, which is constituted by de-monopolization in each field. The concrete pattern of democratization has been shaped by the power relationship in each country. However, it is also true that neoliberal globalization, which was culminated in the Southeast and East Asian economic crisis of 1997-98, strongly affected the democratization process. Despite cross-national variances, neoliberal globalization, in general, has constrained the multi-layered demonopolization by strengthening the power of socioeconomic oligarchic forces in each country. Although neoliberal globalization constrained the democratization of Asian countries, the mode of its internalization was so specific to each country. The national diversity was a consequence of the interplay of the mode of the internalization of globalization and various internal factors, such as the concrete modality of the disintegration of monopoly-complexes and its subprocesses, the conflicts and differentiation of ruling forces and subalterns, and the relationship between political forces in the newly created contentious sphere of democracy. We identified two types of democracy in Asia by studying the complex interplay of the abovementioned variables in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. In Asia, political de-monopolization can generally be categorized into either neo-oligarchy or post-oligarchy. The terms neo-oligarchy and post-oligarchy demonstrate the characteristics and progress of political de-monopolization. Neo-oligarchic democracy refers to a democratization process where former monopolistic
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forces maintain their monopolistic status even after democratization. Postoligarchic democracy refers to a democratization process where the monopolistic status of oligarchies constantly weaken and relatively pluralistic competition between monopolistic conservatives and antimonopolistic liberals takes place. Of course, this is an ideal-type classification and is not necessarily realistic. In a neo-oligarchy, political monopoly or the vested rights structure does not break up widely and former monopolists institutional or non-institutional force never weakens. In post-oligarchy, however, the existing political monopoly breaks up continuously and pluralistic competition takes root nationally and politically. Thus, they are distinguished mainly by the degree of the disintegration of the monopoly-complex and, especially, of the political monopoly. Whereas neo-oligarchy shows the lower degree of disintegration, post-oligarchy shows an elaborated division of labor not only within the political field but also between oligarchic forces in each field. For example, in South Korea and Taiwan, we saw the differentiation of the state and civil society and the separation of politics from the economy. In these cases, former monopolistic forces in the state apparatus and anti-dictatorship activists coexisted, resulting in diversified groups within state institutions. In summary, the difference between neo-oligarchy and post-oligarchy is the difference between transformative reconfiguration and disintegrative reconfiguration. Nevertheless, they are still oligarchy as the previous monopoly was not completely disintegrated but reconfigured. Not only in Thailand and the Philippines but also in South Korea and Taiwan are the previous monopoly-complexes enjoying the disproportionate sway over the political field and the whole society. Table 1 summarizes the characters of each type.
The Asian Democracy Index The ADI Perspective

Drawing from the theoretical expositions above, our examination of Asian democracy via our Asian Democracy Index is performed following a particular sequence: principles subprinciples attributes indicators. The two principles, liberalization and equalization, imply the perspectives and values that each index signifies. They are both signposts that determine the limits of the signification of each index. As was discussed above, the conceptual starting point of the research on the Asian Democracy Index is democratization as the de-monopolization. It underlines a relational and
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historical approach on the understanding of democracy. In other words, democracy can be practically recognized as a relational formation of complex conflicts of different fields of politics, economy and civil society as well as a historical formation which has a path dependency in a certain society. We try to articulate an idea of civil society in the context of our conception of democracy and democratization for our Asian Democracy Index. With this idea of civil society, we can see some aspects of democratization that other democracy indicators have missed. Firstly, it helps us restore the role of the agent alongside the impact of a system or a structure in a democracy index. Whereas the third wave of democratization resulted in the resurrection of a civil society, most researches on democracy tend to miss the role of the agent. They are generally based on a dichotomy of structure/consciousness, and biased to put importance to the role of consciousness. Here, it is important to remind that ODonnell introduced into the theory of democracy the concept of modern individuals, which originally emerged in the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen and in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. This concept recognizes the modern identity of human beings, as beings that have irrevocable rights and responsibilities. This also a crucial premise that serves as the basis for identifying all humans as democratic agents in theory. To restore the role of the agent signifies the need to evaluate peoples ability to achieve access to necessary resources. This evaluation involves the examination of various aspects of civil society: from the level of basic human development to peoples influence over the state. Secondly, it extends a view on analytical objects so that we can see more clearly the relational characteristics of democracy. Other theories mainly take a political field as their analytical object. Due to this, they have failed to investigate some critical factstheoretically claimed by neo-pluralists and new left groupsthat show how the deepening of inequality in the fields of economy and civil society are threatening democracy. The introduction of the idea of civil society based on democratization as de-monopolization will lead us to understand the abnormal phenomena of the anti-democratic backslidings of democracy in the condition of a fully developed procedural democratic system, and to find solutions to such regressions.
Principles and Intermediating Values

From the perspective above, we suggest that the two ideas of liberalization and equalization be seen as the core principles of democracy. Liberalization is a process to restore the autonomy of each field of a society by de-integrating
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the monopoly-complex, and to realize self-legislation. Thus, liberalization is a principle used to measure the level of liberalization from monopoly and regulation over certain fields. In this sense, it is a principle to measure how monopoly of resources is de-integrated in a procedural level. In the process of democratization, each field can restore its own autonomy from the domination of the monopoly-complex. It is identified with ODonnells notion of liberalization, Freedom Houses idea of the citizen liberty, and the concept of civil rights in the theory of citizenship. The level of liberalization can enhance when each field obtains its own criteria for selfevaluation as well as its autonomy. Thus, liberalization is divided into two subsidiary categories of autonomy and ability of competition/accountability. The process of democratization involves the transformation in the relations of power in each field of politics, economy, and civil society. We call this transformation of relations equalization. The degree of equalization shows how much the quality of democracy has developed. It is a principle used to evaluate how much agents achieve in terms of gaining actual resources within a certain system. That is, it is the actual degree of resource access. Equalization is also divided into two subsidiary categories: pluralization and solidarity/consequential equality. The former shows the actual status of monopoly over resources while the latter pertains to the available means to de-integrate the monopoly of resources. The two core principles of liberalization and equalization reveal the conditions and the consequences of democratization. Both principles are used to recognize causes of anti-democratic backsliding and the necessary conditions for better democratization. Examining specific mechanisms of liberalization and equalization in the three interacting fields of politics, economy, and civil society, our Asian Democracy Index aims to give a relatively clearer and more concrete picture of the complex dynamics of democratization in Asia. However, as mentioned earlier, the ADI is not limited to examining democratization on the basis of two principles. Whereas the core principles are concerned with overall information about each countrys democracy, the subprinciples deal with more specific democracy information per country. Autonomy deals with independence from the government, competition with the state of the selfreference system, equality with the degree of equality in terms of resource allocation, and solidarity with the degree of mitigation of income disparity. The Asian Democracy Index also enables the analysis of each field based on civil society theory so that it can help in understanding the potentials and limitations of each countrys democracy. The indices consisting of combinations of the three fields of politics, economy, and civil society help
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Table 2: Asian Democracy Index Fields, Principles, and Subprinciples Core Principle Liberalization Equalization Subsidiary Subsidiary Field Autonomy Competition Pluralization Solidarity Politics Attributes 4 6 4 4 Indicators 4 6 4 5 Economy Attributes 3 4 5 4 Indicators 4 4 5 7 Civil Society Attributes 4 4 4 3 Indicators 7 4 4 3
in describing how balanced a countrys democracy is and what constrains a countrys democracy from evolving. For example, if a countrys political democracy index is high but its economic democracy index is low, the countrys political democracy is institutionally well-established but likely to face limitations in practice. If a countrys civil society democracy index is high, this country is likely to further develop its democracy even if the political and economic index are currently low. Taking such an approach to analyze democracy may uncover different aspects of democratization that previous studies have failed to address. Thus, it is hoped that the ADI can help explain each countrys democracy more specifically and thereby help a countrys democracy scholars undertake more relational and multilevel analyses. The Asian Democracy Index can be enriched by combining the aforesaid core principle and field analyses. When political, economic, and civil society fields meet the two core principles and their four subprinciples, twelve subunits can be obtained, all of which have the potential to contribute to the analysis of the potentials and limitations of a countrys democracy.
Attributes and Indicators

As stated above, the Asian Democracy Index consists of three fields, two core principles, and four subprinciples. It can thus be divided into six subsections by core principles, or twelve subsections by subprinciples.
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The Asian Democracy Index is comprised of forty nine attributes and fifty seven indicators. To be specific, the political field consists of eighteen attributes and nineteen indicators, the economic field of sixteen attributes and twenty indicators, and the civil society field of fifteen attributes and eighteen indicators. Reclassifying the attributes and indicators into subsections by core principles, political liberalization is measured by ten attributes and ten indicators, while political equalization is made up of eight attributes and nine indicators; economic liberalization is measured by seven attributes and eight indicators, while economic equalization is comprised of nine attributes and twelve indicators; and civil society liberalization is measured by eight attributes and eleven indicators, while civil society equalization is made up of seven attributes and seven indicators. The attributes and indicators can also be divided according to subprinciples, as presented in table 2. What follows is a detailed discussion of the attributes and indicators phrased as the questions that appear in the ADI questionnairesarranged by field subprinciple.
Politics
The political field consists of eighteen attributes and nineteen indicators. Political liberalization is comprised of ten attributes and ten indicators, while political equalization has eight attributes and nine indicators. To be more specific, political autonomy is made up of four attributes and four indicators, competition of six attributes and six indicators, pluralization of four attributes and four indicators, and solidarity of four attributes and five indicators.
Autonomy
The subprinciple of political autonomy is a criterion to measure how independent citizens are from the government or political groups. It is used to evaluate how well citizens rights are protected. This field subprinciple is comprised of four attributes: the degree of state violence, the degree of civil liberties, the degree of freedom to organize political groups and undertake political action, and the degree of freedom for political opposition. The level of the performance of state violence Significance Violence by the state threatens its current and potential citizens. This is a key indicator of democracy. Violence reduces democratic civic action by its
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citizens and suppresses democratic citizen action, leading to dictatorial regression. *Question How well do you think the citizens are protected from the violence wielded by government agencies in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the degree of violence initiated by government agencies. When you answer this question, please consider whether law enforcement agencies (i.e., the police, military, and intelligence agencies) inspect, monitor and control citizens; or illegally detain, imprison and torture citizens. You may as well refer to the number of the prisoners of conscience, the number of people detained due to protests, and the number of political terrorism cases conducted by the governments state apparatuses. Civil rights Significance Protecting civil liberties is a core indicator of modern society and a starting point of democracy. When individuals, groups, and communities alike are allowed to freely think and express and share their ideas with other citizens, it can be said that a true foundation for democracy has been established. *Question How well do you think the citizens freedom is protected in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the status of citizens freedoms and civil rights. When you answer this question, please consider whether freedom of assembly, protest, religion, conscience, travel, housing and job selection, among others, is protected. When such freedoms are institutionally protected and actually guaranteed, that is the ideal condition. Freedom to organize and act in political groups Significance In order for a country to transition from an authoritarian regime to a democracy, rights to political organization and activities must be guaranteed. When diverse political groups present political alternatives and policies in opposition to authoritarianism and monopolistic political power, democracy can replace the authoritarian regime. Furthermore, in order to develop and firmly establish a true democracy, not merely escaping from authoritarianism, freedom for political organization and action must be fully guaranteed.
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*Question How much do you think the freedom of assembly and activities of political groups (parties and quasi-political organizations) are protected in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the status of freedom of assembly, which is a key condition in securing political rights. When you answer this question, please consider whether citizens are free to organize political parties or quasi-political groups and whether such organizations are autonomous and independent enough to participate in the political decisionmaking processes. When such freedom is institutionally protected and actually guaranteed, that may be an ideal condition. Quasi-political groups or organizations in this question refer to political organizations generally acknowledged by the citizens under a democratic society, not defined by a current law. Permission for political opposition Significance Democracy is advanced further by expanding openness and plurality within the regime by permitting political opposition for anti-system/anti-ruling ideologies. In an anti-democratic system, the ruling forces suppress opposition to them and the system wherein they are dominant, thereby maintaining antidemocratic rigidity. Therefore, permitting ideological and political opposition allows democratization or the further development of democratization. *Question How much do you think are government opposition movements or governing groups and the governing ideology are allowed in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure if the existence of political opposition movements is guaranteed in your country. Such political opposition may be antigovernment and/or anti-regime. When you answer this question, please examine whether there is any censorship system or legislation that restricts citizens freedom of ideology. You are also advised to consider not only the existence of a system, but also its implementation. The governing groups or ideology refer to those in the political power, constitutional ideology, and the economic power in your country.
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Competition
The field subprinciple of political competition refers to how well political competition is implemented. In other words, politics should be able to establish a self-reference system. Competition is measured by looking at six attributes: expansion of universal suffrage, state efficiency, existence of nonelected supreme power, the rule of law, fair and competitive elections, and transparency. The expansion of the universal suffrage Significance Suffrage is a basic right of citizens in a democratic society. This is the right to elect political representatives and monitor them. Only when institutions fully guarantee universal suffrage can elections be said to be democratic, thereby allowing citizens to establish a self-reference system. *Question How well do you think suffrage of the citizens is protected in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure whether suffrage or political franchise is actually guaranteed. When you answer this question, please examine whether voters can elect their representatives (heads of state and legislators) based on their free will, and whether there is any formal or actual limitations to the rights. You are advised to consider any limitation to suffrage based on the voters age, religion, gender, ideology, race, and/or class, as well as any virtual restrictions that go against the law in your country. Efficiency of the state Significance In order to firmly establish democracy, the government should not only be legitimate but also efficient. If a government overly relies on force or is too inefficient, citizens cannot trust the government, leading to distrust in democracy itself. *Question How well do you think all government agencies implement government policies in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the degree of government efficiency; that is, its ability for political implementation and policy execution. When you answer this question, please examine whether government agencies are
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running efficiently and consistently, and government policies are effectively operated. You are also advised to consider how much the public trust government agencies and policies. The presence of the non-elected hereditary power Significance The existence of a realistic, systemic non-electoral supreme power distorts rights to sovereignty and political representation and shakes democracy to its roots. It also allows the continuation of existing authoritarian systems, which deals a severe blow to the development of democracy. *Question How much do you think non-elected groups account for the political power in your country? *Description This question is designed to examine whether there are non-elected power groups in your country, such as politically powerful and/or wealthy families, influential religious or military groups, and other powerful social classes, and how much control they exercise over the government. When you answer this question, please examine whether your government system and the parliament/legislature are subject to a monarchy, hereditary system and/ or junta. Even if non-elected political groups are not institutionally recognized, you are advised to carefully examine whether there is any supreme political body based on family heritage or military power. The rule of law Significance Realization of rule of law and state-level righting of historical distortion control the denial of the state itself or use of the state for personal purposes. In the absence of regulations against denying rule of lawmaking democracy a systemstabilizing and strengthening democracy will be difficult. *Question How well do you think the rule of law is established in your country? *Description This question is designed to examine whether your government rules by law and if the law is fairly executed. When you answer this question, please examine whether the country is governed by law, and whether all citizens are equal before the law. In addition, you are also advised to consider whether the judicial branch is independent, and whether there is any independent evaluating body that examines the constitutionality of juridical judgment.
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Electoral fairness Significance Fair elections are the most rational method of confirming the political will of the people. However, realistic competition might not exist as fair elections are always threatened by the ruling powers. In spite of their formal fairness, the political party system itself may not reflect the political representation of the citizens. *Question How fairly do you think elections are conducted in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the fairness of elections. When you answer this question, please examine whether there is a fair law governing elections; whether citizens are equally granted voting opportunities; whether election and ballot count procedures are fairly performed; whether there is an independent body governing elections (e.g., The National Election Commission of Korea); and whether a fair election system exists and supports fair elections. In addition, you are also advised to consider whether or not fair competition between political parties is actually guaranteed, not only stated by law. Transparency Significance Transparency in the use of state power limits the intervention of private interests. It is therefore an indicator that enables the fair execution of democratic institutions including elections. *Question How transparent do you think the operations of government agencies are in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure whether operations of government agencies are transparent without corruption. When you answer this question, please examine whether government bodies operate open and transparent hiring processes; whether there is any hiring practice based on beneficiarysponsor relationship; and whether their budget execution is transparent. In addition, you are also advised to examine whether sufficient information on legislative, administrative, and judicial bodies are disclosed; whether there are laws and regulations that dictate reasonable and transparent administrative procedures; and whether there are systems like an anti-corruption commission.
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Pluralization
Political pluralization shows how evenly political power is distributed. Even if democratic institutions and procedures are well established, democracy cannot operate as designed if political power is dominated by one individual or certain groups. Equal distribution of political power is measured by four attributes: independence, check and balance between state power apparatuses, power distribution in the parliament, political representation, and democratization of government bodies. Independence and checks and balances among state power apparatuses Significance This index shows how checks and balances between power apparatuses are maintained. Checks and balances means horizontal responsibilities, one of the core features of democracy. In a democratic country, state power is checked not only vertically (from the bottom) but also horizontally, so that the government can prevent certain power groups from dominating political power or reigning over it, ultimately to protect its citizens rights. *Question How well do you think government agencies maintain checks and balances? *Description This question is designed to measure horizontal responsibilities and/or checks and balances among government agencies. When you answer this question, please examine whether the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government are independent from each other and maintain check and balance; whether local governments are autonomous and independent from the central government, and vice versa; whether there are supervisory bodies that monitor major government agencies and their activities and their independence is well secured; and whether citizens activities are monitored and controlled by any government bodies. Dispersion of political power in the parliament Significance Dispersion of political power and democratic operation within the parliament prevents a democratic government from becoming a puppet organization. If in the parliament the majority bloc makes decisions in total disregard of the minority parties, representativeness in parliament will be in name only. If that majority sides also with the wielder of executive power, then parliament will have failed to check the executive. Therefore, dispersion of
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Table 3: ADI Political Field Components Politics (Liberalization) Attribute Autonomy The level of the performance of state violence Civil rights 1. How well do you think the citizens are protected from the violence wielded by government agencies in your country? 2. How well do you think the citizens freedom is protected in your country? Question
Freedom to 3. How much do you think the freedom of organize and act in assembly and activities of political groups (parties political groups and quasi-political organizations) are protected in your country? Permission for 4. How much do you think are government political opposition opposition movements or governing groups and the governing ideology are allowed in your country? Competition The expansion of 5. How well do you think suffrage of the citizens is the universal protected in your country? suffrage Efficiency of the state The presence of the non-elected hereditary power The rule of law 6. How well do you think all government agencies implement government policies in your country? 7. How much do you think non-elected groups account for the political power in your country? 8. How well do you think the rule of law is established in your country?
Electoral fairness 9. How fairly do you think elections are conducted in your country? Transparency 10. How transparent do you think the operations of government agencies are in your country? . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Table 3 (continued) Politics (Equalization) Pluralization Independence and 1. How well do you think government agencies checks and maintain checks and balances? balances among state power apparatuses Dispersion of 2. How well do you think power within the political power in legislature is distributed in your country? the parliament Political representation 3. How well do you think the parliament or the legislature represents various social groups in your country?
Democratization 4. How fairly and rationally do you think the of state institutions programs and policies government agencies are being implemented in your country? Solidarity Participation 5. How actively do you think citizens are system and degree participating in elections and other political of participation decision-making processes in your country? Affirmative action 6. How well do you think affirmative actions are established and implemented in your country? The public 7. credibility of the current democratic 8. institution How much do you think the public trusts the government? How much do you think the public trusts the parliament/legislature?
The public 9. How much do you think the public trusts credibility of a democracy? democratic institution and the public attitude to democratic participation
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power in the parliament is necessary to make possible checks and balances among state power apparatuses. *Question How well do you think the power within the legislature is distributed in your country? *Description This question is designed to examine whether the parliament or the legislature is democratically operating. When you answer this question, please consider whether parliamentary schedules and other operations are carried out based on the consensus of all parties, and whether minority parties opinions are well embraced in the course of parliamentary operation (assembly schedule, legislation voting, and filibuster system). You may also consider whether minority parties are supported by the government, such as in the form of subsidies. Political representation Significance Political representation is regarded as one of the most important principles of democracy. All social powers are given the opportunity to gain power through fair elections. Thus, this index focuses on whether or not the political representation of minority groups are sufficiently realized. Such representation opens the likelihood of democratically reflecting social changes in the political system. *Question How well do you think the parliament or the legislature represents various social groups in your country? *Description This question is designed to examine if various social groups are wellrepresented in the legislature. When you answer this question, please examine if certain political groups are overrepresented in the legislature despite fair and free elections; afterwards, you may examine if political, cultural, class, and racial minorities, including women, are fully guaranteed participation in politics. You may also refer to the ratio of parliamentary seats for each political party. If political parties are not solid bases of identity in your country, then please describe your particular representative relations in the comments section.
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Democratization of state institutions Significance The state institutions must not only be democratic in their operation, but also open to public monitoring and criticism. If government bodies do not democratically operate in terms of decision making processes or human rights policies, or if they are not properly monitored, citizens bear the consequences. In addition, if the priorities of state bodies are based on their convenience or vested interests, this can produce enormous administrative losses, undermine public interest, and even cause social conflict. *Question How fairly and rationally do you think the programs and policies of government agencies are being implemented in your country? *Description This question is designed to examine how democratically government agencies implement their policies. When you evaluate the degree of democratization, please consider two different aspects simultaneously. First, please examine if the decision making processes of these agencies are fair and rational. Then, please examine if they practice good governance, such as listening to public opinion through committee and public hearings, and sharing information and power in the course of the process.
Solidarity
Assessment of solidarity in the political field involves looking into whether or not citizens are willing to challenge power disparity and whether or not any institutional measures are implemented to address political power distribution. There must be institutional systems that allow citizens to voice their opinions, and citizens themselves must have awareness of such systems. This field subprinciple is measured by looking at four attributes: institutional measures for and the degree of citizens participation, affirmative actions, public confidence in the existing democracy, and public confidence in democracy and democratic values. Participation system and degree of participation Significance Participation is citizens fundamental right to deliver their opinions, and thereby one of the core principles of democracy. Unlimited participation and public awareness of active participation are the most powerful weapons of democracy to control unequal distribution of political power. The existence of institutions and apparatuses where the citizens can directly participate in
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major decision-making in state affairs and realistic participation, and the ensuring of democratic participation by the citizens even during non-election periods will prevent democracy from degrading into elite democracy. *Question How actively do you think citizens are participating in elections and other political decision making processes in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure public awareness of political participation. When you answer this question, you may first examine various indices that involve election turnouts. You may consider supplementary systems to help the citizens political participation in the decisionmaking processes, such as public hearings and petitions; and other democratic systems like recall and initiative by the public and the referendum. Affirmative action Significance The existence of 1) institutional supplement to providing opportunity and achievements to make up for lack of power of the socially marginalized and 2) social minorities political rights as equity in political institutions and fair competition are insufficient to ensure political rights and representation. Affirmative actions refer not only to quota systems, but also to practical support through which citizens, particularly socially disadvantaged people, can continuously participate in political activities. For example, if women or disabled people are not provided with adequate support such as child care and access to physical mobility and other forms of medical support, the quota system becomes useless. Such practical aspects should be considered by a civil society. *Question How well do you think affirmative actions are established and implemented in your country? *Description This question is designed to examine if there are systems that represent the political rights of minorities, and, if there is any, how well these systems operate. When you answer this question, please examine if reserved seats for women and people with disabilities in the political system are available; and if any, how well such quotas are observed. The public credibility of the current democratic institution Significance Democracy develops on the credibility of democratic values among a wide variety of political participants. Furthermore, democracy develops
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when each citizen is highly committed to participating in the democratic processes based on the political effectiveness of the democratic system itself. Therefore, evaluation of the peoples trust in a countrys democracy shows how strong and how promising its democracy is. Thus, what is measured by this index is public trust in the government and the parliament. *Question How much do you think the public trusts the government? *Description This question is designed to measure public confidence or trust towards the government. When you assess the confidence level, please examine how much citizens trust the incumbent (both local and national) government pronouncements or policies. In authoritarian countries, distrust in the government may be regarded as a potential for democratization, while in democratic countries, such distrust may result in political apathy and skepticism about the notion of democracy itself. *Question How much do you think does the public trust the parliament/legislature? *Description This question is designed to measure public confidence or trust in the parliament/legislature. When you answer this question, please consider how the citizens view the political circle in the parliament and politicians; to be specific, whether citizens regard the politics as efficient and fair and if citizens see politicians as public servants or as persons belonging to a privileged group. You may also examine whether citizens think the parliament/legislature is an efficient organization or a privileged body. The public credibility of a democratic institution and the public attitude to democratic participation Significance Confidence in democracy is affected by both the current democratic situation of a country and the nations mindset as a democracy as it is established by the countrys history. If a nation is historically well aware of democracy, the countrys democratic future can be said to be promising even if the nation is currently dissatisfied with its democratic situation. Inversely, if democracy has not been at the center of public discussion in a countrys history, that countrys democracy may fall into a crisis even if the current situation is satisfactory. Therefore, public confidence in democratic institutions and values is critical to predict the future of democracy in a country. *Question How much do you think the public trusts democracy?
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*Description This question is designed to examine public trust in democracy. In other words, this question asks about public awareness of democracy, not of the democratic status of the country. You are advised to consider whether citizens regard democracy as the most desirable and efficient political value and decision making system, and whether they trust the democratic value and system.
Economy
The economic field consists of sixteen attributes and twenty indicators. Economic liberalization is comprised of seven attributes and eight indicators while equalization has nine attributes and twelve indicators. Further dividing the principles into field subprinciples, autonomy is made up of three attributes and four indicators, competition of four attributes and four indicators, pluralization of five attributes and five indicators, and equality of four attributes and seven indicators.
Autonomy
Economic autonomy refers to the existence of institutions that guarantee free economic activities of economic entities, i.e., free from undue interference. Economic autonomy is measured by three attributes: freedom from political power, protection of labor rights, and external autonomy for policy-making. Freedom/autonomy of economic activities without political intervention Significance Economic freedom from political power means social differentiation, which is a starting point of modern democracy. When state power directly intervenes to create a monopoly through state-owned companies, it limits fair competition among companies, exacerbating unfair economic structures. These undesirable economic interventions by the government, known as governmentled economy and the cozy relationship between politics and business, cause political and economic corruption. It becomes an obstacle to democratization of society that is based on autonomous and fair competition. *Question How much influence do you think the political power/elite have on the operation of private companies in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how independent economic activities are from the politically powerful. When you answer this question,
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please consider how much the government influences, directly or indirectly, the operations of private companies (i.e., a condition of state-controlled economy), and how close the ties are between politicians and/or bureaucrats and members of private companies (consider if there exists a cozy/united/sole relations between politics and business). Protection of basic labor rights Significance Protection of labor rights means laborers, the weak in a capitalist society, are guaranteed the basic conditions where they can act as free economic entities. When basic labor rights are not institutionalized, the state neglects to correct companies exploitation of workers and infringes on their human rights. It also makes difficult the transparent and democratic management of companies. Even when basic labor rights are institutionalized, governmentled economies and the cozy relationship between politics and business use outside political ideologies to limit basic labor rights in order to protect companies interests. With respect to the protection of labor rights, it should be noted that forced labor and/or child labor problems still exist in many countries. These are forms of labor that are anti-humanitarian and anti-democratic, destroying human dignity and oppressing the will and happiness of the individual. Institutionalized bans and social agreements on forced labor and child labor are necessary elements for the democratization of society. *Question How well do you think are labor rights established in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how well labor rights are institutionalized and protected by law and are actually guaranteed in your country. When you answer this question, please consider if the three primary labor rights (freedoms of union organizing, collective bargaining, and collective action) are legally protected, and if the labor rights of certain groups (public officials, teachers, soldiers, etc.) are limited or restricted by law. *Question How well do you think is the prohibition of forced labor and child labor observed in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how well forced labor and child labor are legally prohibited and whether or not the prohibitions are actually guaranteed. When you answer this question, please consider if there is any law
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that prohibits forced labor and child labor; if the government signed any international convention/treaty of the International Labor Organization, the United Nations, and other significant organizations; and if, despite legal prohibitions, there are any recent cases in your country of forced labor and child labor. Autonomy of the decision making process for the formation of international political economy policy Significance A nations autonomy is partly based on the autonomy of economic policies. High rates of sovereign debt and subordination to the order of international division of labor, and poor ability to use technology and capital bring about not only external subordination of the economy, but they also weaken the political autonomy in terms of deciding national policies and budgeting. This means a weakening of a nations own democratic justification ability due to limits posed by external forces on its authority, even if its authority has been democratically approved. Therefore, for the government to protect political autonomy, and thus democratic decision-making and execution, from external forces, it is highly important to weaken the level of economic subordination. *Question How independent do you think decision-making processes of the central government is from foreign countries and/or foreign capital in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how independent the governments policymaking processes are from foreign capital and states. When you answer this question, please consider if the governments policymaking processes are independent, and if key industries, including backbone industries, are mainly dominated by domestic capital. You must consider the ratio of foreign aid and debts to the government budget, and the ratio of foreign capital to the total capital of key industries/cultural industries. You may also examine if important government economic decisions have ever been altered or discouraged by foreign capital.
Competition
In order for an economy to be democratized, the economic sector must be independent from the government or the governing power, while the sector itself establishes transparent and fair principles. Competition is a criteria that shows the economy is truly independent from the government and has its own rules. Competition is measured by four attributes: economic transparency,
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fairness of the economy, government responsibilities, and corporate responsibilities. Economic transparency Significance Economic transparency concerns the institutional prevention of corruption, tax evasion, and other unfair transactions, and is thereby concerned with the promotion of economic predictability, which guarantees stable reproduction and fairness of the economy, and ultimately to national development. If corporate governance and financial structures are not transparent, it becomes difficult to predict corporate stability and growth, thus increasing economic risks and undermining the interest of minority shareholders. In addition, opaque management may be associated with tax evasion, slash funds, and the cozy relationship between politics and business, facilitated by illegal political funds. These can create political and economic instability. To improve economic transparency beyond corporate transparency, financial transparency of society overallinvolving, say, a real-name system in the financial and real estate market, and protection systems for minority shareholdersmust be improved. *Question How transparent do you think corporate operations are in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure transparency of the economic system. When you answer this question, please consider if the corporate management and financial information of the private sector is transparently disclosed. In addition, you must consider if there are securities exchange markets, a real-name financial and real-estate transaction system, and a minority shareholder protection system. Economic fairness Significance Economic fairness is an index to assess whether or not there are wellestablished institutions that guarantee fair competition. As market economy evolves, it is likely to create monopolies or oligopolies, rather than perfect competition. If a monopoly or oligopoly does appear in the market, it gives rise to economic polarization and undermines market efficiency, and concurrently invites social polarization and undermines public wealth as well, all of which leads to public distrust in democracy. *Question How fair do you think the competition among companies is in your country?
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*Description This question is designed to measure fairness of economic activities. When you answer this question, please consider if there are laws and regulations that prevent monopoly and oligopoly, and encourage fair competition between companies; and whether such laws and regulations are actually effective. For example, you must consider if there are monitoring and supervisory bodies, such as the Fair Trade Commission of Korea; and if so, whether such bodies are operating effectively; and whether the relations between large companies and SMEs are not lopsided. Governments accountability Significance Government responsibilities to laborers mean establishing and maintaining affirmative actions to protect labor rights. This means not only establishing institutions, but also maintaining a fair attitude and policies toward both corporations and laborers. In addition, governments should implement and operate responsible policies so that laborersthe economically disadvantaged in societycan carry out their economic activities in a stable environment. To this end, governments must implement institutions for neutral and fair arbitration in case of management-labor disputes. Furthermore, governments must try to minimize, or remove if possible, discrimination against part-time workers, and to protect rights of part-time workers and the unemployed. *Question How much effort do you think the government is exerting to protect and guarantee labor rights in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure if the government is doing its best to protect relatively vulnerable parties, i.e., laborers. When you answer this question, please consider if government agencies that represent labor rights and mediating bodies, systems, and procedures are present. You must also assess how effectively such bodies, systems, and procedures protect labor rights. Corporate accountability Significance This index is used to assess whether or not corporations protect labor rights in fact. Even if labor rights are institutionally protected, many workers rights are actually violated in the work field. In particular, in the globalized world where neoliberalism is the dominant ideology, corporations tend to violate
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labor rights in the name of corporate competitiveness. Not only internal corporate affairs such as surveillance on workers and sweatshop working conditions, but also social issues like the growing number of part-time workers and lay-offs signify deteriorating labor conditions. *Question How well do you think private companies protect / guarantee labor rights in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how well private companies protect labor rights. When you answer this question, please consider if private companies are doing their best to abide by relevant laws and regulations. In addition, you must consider if they try to protect workers health and rights. To this end, you may also examine the rate of industrial accidents/disasters and the number of labor disputes.
Pluralization
Economic pluralization means fair distribution of economic resources leading to both economic and socio-political democratization. Therefore, severe economic inequality aggravates political inequality, which may demolish the foundation for democracy. Economic equalization is measured by five attributes: economic monopoly, regional disparity, income inequality, asset disparity, and employment inequality. Economic monopoly Significance Economic monopoly is an index to measure the degree of fair distribution of economic resources among different groups. Market economy is premised on fair competition in theory, but is actually vulnerable to distortion due to state intervention or dominant economic powers. If certain groups dominate the market, fair competition is impossible; unfair competition only makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. *Question How much do you think the economy is dominated by certain groups in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure monopoly of the economy by certain groups. When you answer this question, please consider if certain families, races, or groups monopolize the economic wealth of the country or dominate economic activities. For example, under a dictatorship, powerful
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Table 4: ADI Economic Field Components Economy (Liberalization) Attribute Autonomy Freedom/autonomy 1. How much influence do you think the political of economic power/elite have on the operation of private activities without companies in your country? political intervention Protection of basic 2. How well do you think labor rights are labor rights established in your country? 3. How well do you think the prohibition of forced labor and child labor is observed in your country? Autonomy of the decision making process for the formation of international political economy policy Economic transparency 4. How independent do you think the decisionmaking processes of the central government is from foreign countries and/or foreign capital in your country? Question
Competition 5. How transparent do you think corporate operations are in your country?
Economic fairness 6. How fair do you think the competition among companies is in your country? Governments accountability Corporate accountability 7. How much effort do you think the government is exerting to protect and guarantee labor rights in your country? 8. How well do you think private companies protect/guarantee labor rights in your country? . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Table 4 (continued) Economy (Equalization) Pluralization Economic monopoly 1. How much do you think the economy is dominated by certain groups in your country?
Regional inequality 2. How serious do you think the economic disparities/inequalities are between regions in your country? Inequality of income 3. How serious do you think the income disparity is in your country?
Inequality of asset 4. How serious do you think the asset disparity is in your country? Inequality of employment 5. How serious do you think discrimination is in the labor market in your country? Solidarity The social security 6. How well do you think support systems for the system poor are working in your country? 7. How well do you think the social insurance programs are operated in your country? The activity of trade unions 8. How well organized do you think labor unions are in your country? 9. How much influence do you think labor unions have on the policies of the central government in your country? 10. How much do you think labor unions participate in the management process in your country? 11. How well do you think public monitoring is carried out on the corporate activities in your country?
Corporate watch
Awareness of 12. How enthusiastic do you think is the general reducing inequality public in reducing the economic inequality in your country?
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politicians and their families occupy key economic interests. Even in democratic societies, economic wealth and activities may be largely influenced by a few conglomerates. Regional inequality Significance Economic inequality is herein presented as a form of regional disparity, particularly in countries where many different ethnic groups live together or uneven development strategies have been implemented. In particular, many Asian nations have not secured national unity as they are still weighed down by a wide variety of regional disputes. In addition, low development and unequal development in such nations manifest in a severe gap in income between urban and rural residents. This results in regional disputes, e.g., via the exacerbation of regional sentiment, creating social friction. This results in massive costs from social conflict, which have serious negative effects on the development of democracy. *Question How serious do you think the economic disparities/inequality are between regions in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure regional disparities in the economy, i.e., disparities in the economic development between regions. When you answer this question, please consider the gross regional domestic product (GRDP), population concentration, Gini coefficient of each region, average incomes, and employment rates. Inequality of income Significance This index looks into the gap between the haves and have-nots. Income inequality in Asia is not merely caused by inequality of assets or income. This index contemplates a wide variety of factors affecting inequality, including income groups, ethnic groups, education, religions, regions, and gender. *Question How serious do you think the income disparity is in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure income disparities. When you answer this question, please consider Gini coefficient, income quintiles, poverty rates, income gaps according to education levels, and gender income gap.
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Inequality of assets Significance Asset disparity is one of the greatest risk factors in modern society as it reinforces wealth inheritance, and not wealth creation according ones ability. In Western countries, financial assets are the source of asset disparity, while in Asian countries, it is mostly land and real estate. Severe poverty and urbanization have caused inequality in housing, which also causes enormous social disputes. Thus, this index focuses on inequality in land and housing. *Question How serious do you think the asset disparity is in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure asset disparities. Asset disparities include disparities in both financial and non-financial assets. In Asia, asset disparities appear as disparities in real estate, housing, and land ownership. When you answer this question, please consider home ownership rates, land ownership concentration, and real-estate price disparities by region. Inequality of employment Significance The right to work is one of the most basic rights in a democratic society. Despite systematic ensuring of this right, the reality is that often many people do not have this right even in so-called democracies. The right to work is thus an important indicator in evaluating the stability of democracy. In Asia, cronyism, nepotism, and patriarchal practices still persist. Such practices have given rise to widespread inequality in employment in Asian countries. Thus, the question below must be answered by taking into account inequality among classes, ethnic groups, education level, religions, regions, and genders. *Question How serious do you think discrimination is in the labor market in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure inequality and/or discrimination in the labor market. In Asia, there are still regional ties, and sponsorship and patriarchal practices, which lead to various forms of employment discrimination. When you answer this question, please consider inequality between or discrimination based on social classes, educational backgrounds, religions, regions, and genders. You must examine unemployment rates, youth unemployment rates, unemployment rates by gender/educational background, and the ratio of regular to irregular workers.
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Solidarity
In order to realize the premise of democratic tradition that political power is distributed fairly among members of society, equal economic power, or economic democracy is necessary, as Robert A. Dahl insisted. However, as substantial inequality appears in reality, equal economic opportunities cannot be guaranteed. Thus, the economic solidarity subprinciple measures how the aforedescribed inequality is institutionally addressed, and how aware a society is of inequality issues. To this end, economic solidarity has four attributes: social security systems, labor union activities, corporate surveillance, and awareness of inequality alleviation. The social security system Significance A social security system is a fundamental feature of a democratic society. Social security systems can alleviate overly unequal incomes and protect the social rights of citizens, thus strengthening democracy. Social security systems are classified into public aid and social insurance. Social insurance is for those who work, while public aid is a social security system for all citizens to ensure minimum cost of living. Public assistance and social insurance systems differ from country to country. Thus, they must be evaluated according to different situations of each country. *Question How well do you think support systems for the poor work in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure if public assistance programs within the social welfare system are well established and operating in your country. When you answer this question, please consider the existence and operation of the minimum wage and basic life support laws, and government support out of social insurance programs for low-income families. Public assistance programs largely differ from country to country. Some countries have dedicated laws and regulations that define basic life support and assistance, while others include such support in social insurance programs. *Question How well do you think the social insurance programs are operated in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how well social insurance programs within the social welfare system are operated in your country. Although social
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insurance programs may differ from country to country, they refer to unemployment benefits, national pension programs, national health insurance, and unemployment insurance in this question. This question asks whether such insurance programs are well established and operated. When you answer this question, please consider the ratio of social welfare expenditure to gross domestic product (GDP) (or the government budget), income redistribution rates, and the operation of national pension system/national health insurance/ unemployment insurance. The activity of trade unions Significance The right to organize labor unions is a basic right for the economically vulnerable. However, even if such rights are ensured, the effectiveness of labor unions may differ for each nation. There may be differences in the extent of organization in each nation; some unions may be state-run and not speak for the benefit of the union members. The political influence and power dynamics in corporations of labor unions thus differ country by country. In order to measure labor union activities in a particular country, their organization level, political influence, and in-corporate influence must be examined together. *Question How well organized do you think labor unions are in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure if labor unions are commonly organized, and if such unions are respected and trusted by their members. When you answer this question, please consider the rate of labor union organization, the type of labor unions (by industry or company), the implementation of collective agreements, and members confidence in the unions. *Question How much influence do you think labor unions have on the policies of the central government in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure political influence of labor unions. When you answer this question, please consider whether labor unions are respected and trusted by the public; if there is a political party that represents the interests of labor unions; if there is an organization that coordinates interests of labor-management-government; if there is an umbrella organization that supports labor unions; and whether such umbrella organization has influence on central government policies.
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*Question How much do you think labor unions participate in the management process in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the degree of labor unions participation in the corporate management. When you answer this question, please examine labor unions monitoring of and participation in corporate management. In order words, you may as well consider if there are labormanagement co-decision making systems; and if labor unions participate in the board of directors meeting. Corporate watch Significance Emphasis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a global trend. CSR is ideally implemented by companies in cooperation with suitable corporate watchdogs headed by consumers. Corporate accountability will be higher when consumers participate in diverse corporate watch activities. *Question How well do you think public monitoring is carried out on the corporate activities in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how much the general public is involved in monitoring corporate activities and its consequences, including consumer rights violation and environmental problems. When you answer this question, please examine if there are consumer and environment groups. Assess how effective their activities are, how well consumer protection laws are operating, and how proactively the general public are involved in the monitoring process. Awareness of reducing inequality Significance More important than social systems designed to alleviate inequality is public solidarity against inequality. Such solidarity is a core factor that drives the institutionalization or legalization of measures to reinforce equality through overcoming social conflict. The more proactive citizens are in easing inequality, the higher will be the acceptance of systems to alleviate inequality. *Question How enthusiastic do you think the general public is about improving the economic inequality in your country?
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*Description This question is designed to measure public awareness of addressing economic disparities. In some cases, such awareness can be represented by active efforts, such as trying to change social systems, and by individual efforts, such as donations or voluntary activities. This question asks about public opinion and actions meant to address economic inequality.
Civil Society
The civil society field consists of fifteen attributes and eighteen indicators. Civil society liberalization is comprised of eight attributes and eleven indicators, while civil society equalization is made up of seven attributes and eight indicators. In the subprinciple level, civil society autonomy is made up of four attributes and seven indicators, civil society competition of four attributes and four indicators, civil society pluralization of four attributes and four indicators, and civil society solidarity of three attributes and three indicators.
Autonomy
According to the civil society approach, forming an independent civil society from the government and economy is a starting point of forming a modern society, and concurrently a starting point of modern liberal democracy. An autonomous civil society is free from both the government and economic forces, and its citizens have the ability to execute such autonomy. Considering the stipulations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, democracy is not possible without the ability to choose. Accordingly, autonomy is measured by looking at four attributes: autonomy from the government, autonomy from the market, autonomy of the member of the society, and tolerance. Autonomy of society from state intervention Significance If civil society is autonomous from the government, then citizens privacy is protected from state intervention. Autonomy from state intervention can thus be viewed from two different perspectives: 1) individual privacy protection including freedom of expression and freedom of cultural activities, and 2) protection of autonomous citizen bodies from state intervention or control.
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*Question How free do you think citizens social activities are from government interference in your country? *Description When you answer this question, please consider media freedom (e.g., the existence of regulation bodies, direct/indirect pressures on the media, etc.), cultural freedom (e.g., the degree of censorship on art and creative works, etc.), and similar factors. *Question How much influence do you think government organizations have on society in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the degree of government control on society. The government organizations in this question refer to progovernment organizations that are supported by the government. When you answer this question, please consider the number of government-supported nongovernmental organizations, their influence, their privileges (financial support by the government and nature of ties with government/government agencies), and similar factors. Autonomy of society from the market Significance Civil societys autonomy is continuously violated by the government and economic forces. This is well presented by Jrgen Habermass notion of the colonization of the lifeworld.However, with the trend of neoliberal globalization, the market has become more powerful and more influential than governments. Neoliberalism expanded the entire market economy. Services that had been in the public sector (education, electricity, transportation, etc.) and practices (funerals, marriages etc.) that had belonged to the communities (regional or family) are witnessing rapid commercialization. These social conditions are making companies or commodities out of civic groups. Raising funds from private companies rather than from civil organizations has become some civic groups most important activity. Thus, the question below is about the influence of the market on civil society. *Question How much influence do you think private companies have on society in your country?
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*Description When you answer this question, please consider how free the media is from private companies. In addition, you must consider if NGOs independence from private companies are socially and institutionally guaranteed. Autonomy of social member Significance As stated before, in order for civil society to be independent, its citizens must be independent. In order to become independent citizens, their basic needs (e.g., food, clothing, housing, health care) must be met. They must be guaranteed sufficient education opportunities. The international community agrees that such basic necessities must be universally satisfied regardless of income and asset level as stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Yet democratization at times fails to ensure that citizens will have these basic necessities by exacerbating rather than healing social bipolarization. In order for citizens to have autonomy, they must be equipped with capabilities to meet their basic needs. To have these capabilities, they must be educated; education is an institution needed to guarantee equal opportunities, a fundamental principle of democracy. *Question How much do you think citizens basic needs are met in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how well citizens basic needs (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, hygiene, and sanitation) are satisfied. When you answer this question, please consider poverty rates, death rates (infant mortality rates and life expectancy), housing ownership rates, homelessness rates, disease rates, water treatment and supply facilities (for clean water and sanitation), malnutrition/undernourishment indexes, and other factors. *Question Aside from the basic needs stated in a prior question, how much do you think special care is provided for vulnerable people or minorities, such as children, women, people with disabilities, and immigrants in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the quality of care provided to vulnerable people and/or social minorities in your country. When you answer this question, please consider the conditions stipulated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the International Plan of
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Action on Ageing, and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. *Question How much do you think citizens are provided with education opportunities in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the degree of human development in your country. When you answer this question, please consider the Human Development Index released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Tolerance Significance Even after formal democratization, certain ideologies, religious principles, cultures, ethnic groups, races, etc. may not be tolerated by society. There are even occasions when such groups are politically oppressed. Thus, the question below is concerned with mutual prejudice and tolerance. *Question How much do you think citizens respect different cultures, religions, languages, races, nations, and ideas in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure social tolerance in your country. When you answer this question, please consider the degree of societal tolerance toward different values, citizens awareness of human rights, the nature of competition (violent vs. tolerant) between different groups, and the political activities of interest groups.
Competition
Competition in civil society means a self-reference system of the society. As is well known, the core value of civil society is voluntary association. Civil society organizations influence the formation of citizens identity, consequently moulding their opinions and mindsets. Social movements bring social issues to the center of public discussion, and thereby contribute to democratization of the state, the economy, and civil society. Civil society competition is evaluated using four attributes: the capabilities, publicness, transparency, and diversity of voluntary associations.
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Capability of voluntary associations Significance This index is concerned with how well-organized voluntary organizations are, as the capability of civil society and NGOs for associatiom can be measured by their capability to reproduce, their ability to stay organized, their available resources, and their influence and credibility among the public. *Question How much influence do you think NGOs have on society in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the functionality of NGOs. When you answer this question, please consider the number of NGOs and their members, human resources, public support and trust, financial self-sufficiency, existence of laws that support NGOs, existence of umbrella organizations and, if applicable, their effectiveness in achieving their aims. Public good of voluntary associations Significance Autonomous organizations have both positive and negative impacts on democracy. Such organizations may create negative social identities, such as regionalism or paternalism, or may represent certain interest groups. Therefore, as much as the number of such organizations is important, their quality has even more value. In order for such organizations to have positive influences on democracy, they must internally form a democratic identity, and externally represent public interest. The internal characteristics can be interpreted as transparency, and the external one as publicness. Publicness can only be realized when those organizations pursue public interest, refusing to represent only regional interests or their own interests. *Question How well do you think NGOs represent public interest in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the public nature of NGOs. Although NGOs pursue the public interest, they may also have the nature of interest groups. In Asia, some NGOs are virtually serving as a sponsor for a certain interest group or privileged organization, due largely to oldfashioned relationship and archaic practices. When you answer this question, please consider the ratio of public interest groups to narrow/specific interest groups.
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Transparency of voluntary associations Significance In order for voluntary association to secure publicness, they must be transparent. As stated before, only when such organizations are free from negative identities arising from regionalism, authoritarianism, or paternalism can they create positive internal effects that can help in the formation of a democratic identity. The transparency considered by this index thus means civil society organizational democracy. *Question Do you think NGOs are democratically operating in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the degree of democratic operation and transparency of NGOs. When you answer this question, please consider NGOs transparency of organizational operation, their internal adherence to the principles of gender equality, and mutual respect among NGOs. In addition, you are advised to consider if practices associated with traditional political groups persist within NGOs, such as having an organizational hierarchy or having a highly regionalist orientation. Diversity of voluntary associations Significance Civil society is a venue where different values and interests meet each other. However, according to the situations that each country faces, voluntary associations may be tendentiously developed. In other words, NGOs representing certain values or certain regions may overly prosper, inevitably resulting in the exclusion of other values or opinions. For example, in some Asian countries, foreign support from the West is oftentimes driven by onesided development agendas, which have led to skewed civil society development. Thus, this index looks into how different values of civil society are expressed through voluntary association. *Question Do you think NGOs adequately represent different values and demands of society in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the diversity of NGOs. When you answer this question, please consider the following factors: whether or not NGOs are concentrated in only a handful of fields (e.g., human rights and environmental issues) and only within a handful of regions (e.g., large cities, or the capital cities and its vicinity). You must consider the diversity of NGO values, representativeness of NGO leaders and members, and the countrywide distribution of NGOs.
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Pluralization
Civil society pluralization has four attributes: inequality of public spheres, inequality of information, inequality of culture, and inequality of power. Inequality of public spheres Significance The media should be a mechanism for forming an equal consensus to ensure diversity in public discourse and the public good. This is because the media is the venue for free debate, an instrument of opinion formation. *Question Do you think the media is fair and just in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the level of inequality in the public discourse. When you answer this question, please consider the ownership and governance of media companies and the degree of monopoly they have in the public discourse. You must consider if the media is controlled by or dependent on certain groups (religious, interest, or ideological). Inequality of information Significance This index focuses on information gaps. In any country, an active civil societys effetiveness can be determined by the degree of information access of the citizens. The information technology (IT) revolution had enormous potential to assist in democratic development. However, it also generated information gaps, further excluding those without access to IT. Information gaps not only limit the possibilities of citizens to develop their capabilities, but also create social conflicts. *Question How wide do you think the information gap among citizens is in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how equal the opportunities to access information are in your country. When you answer this question, please consider the degree of access citizens in general have to conventional media, such as newspapers and television. More importantly, you must consider the degree of personal computer and information technology device ownership and internet penetration rates.
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Table 5: ADI Civil Society Field Components Civil Society (Liberalization) Attribute Autonomy Autonomy of society from state intervention Autonomy of society from the market 1. How free do you think citizens social activities are from government interference in your country? 2. How much influence do you think government organizations have on society in your country? 3. How much influence do you think private companies have on society in your country? Question
Autonomy of social 4. How much do you think citizens basic needs are members (basic met in your country? needs and basic 5. Aside from the basic needs stated in question no. human 4, how much do you think special care is provided development level) for vulnerable people or minorities, such as children, women, people with disabilities, and immigrants in your country? 6. How much do you think citizens are provided with education opportunities in your country? Tolerance 7. How much do you think citizens respect different cultures, religions, languages, races, nations, and ideas in your country? Competition Capability of voluntary association Public good of voluntary association Transparency of voluntary associations Diversity of voluntary associations 8. How much influence do you think NGOs have on society in your country? 9. How well do you think NGOs represent public interest in your country? 10. Do you think NGOs are democratically operating in your country? 11. Do you think NGOs adequately represent different values and demands of society in your country? . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Table 5 (continued) Civil Society (Equalization) Pluralization Inequality of public 1. Do you think the media is fair and just in your spheres country? Inequality of culture and information Inequality of culture 2. How wide do you think the information gap among citizens is in your country? 3. Do you think citizens have equal access to cultural facilities and activities in your country?
Inequality of power 4. How equally do you think power is distributed among people in your country? Solidarity Institutional 5. Do you think affirmative actions are well guarantee of established and operated in your country? diversity and affirmative actions Participation and support of social groups 6. How actively do you think citizens are participating in NGO activities in your country?
Governance of the 7. How much influence do you think NGOs have on state and civil governments policymaking processes in your society country?
Inequality of culture Significance Cultural inequality means cultural gaps. At the individual level, such inequality limits citizens cultural potentials and rights to enjoy culture. At the social level, as cultural inequality gets more serious, it may produce a cultural hierarchy, a form of symbolic violence that limits communication among citizens. This not only triggers social conflicts, but also undermines national unification and democratic development.
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*Question Do you think citizens have equal access to cultural facilities and activities in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how equal the opportunities to access cultural facilities and activities are. When you answer this question, please consider the opportunities given to citizens to access theaters, sporting events, and other cultural facilities and activities. You are also advised to consider if there is a cultural education system for the general public. Inequality of power Significance Civil society is not comprised of homogeneous individuals with the same degree of social power and awareness. It is a venue where people or groups with different values collide. Therefore, civil society itself and public opinion can be controlled by certain groups or dominated by certain values. Chances of such domination occuring are higher if elite groups like the media, academia, and cultural circles are too closely associated with each other. If civil society is monopolized by a certain powerful group, communication among citizens will be distorted and democracy will regress. *Question How equally do you think power is distributed among people in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure the degree of inequality among groups in your countrys society. This question asks whether different circles, such as media, academe, and cultural and religious societies are influenced to a great extent by certain groups. When you answer this question, please consider if a small number of elites monopolize a wide range of fields in society.
Solidarity
The solidarity of civil society can be used to predict the future of the country's democratization. As seen in every countrys democratic development experience, when civil society is activated, democratization moves forward. Thus, civil society solidarity is a subprinciple that considers how well civil society is activated. This subprinciple is comprised of three attributes: institutions and affirmative actions to protect diversity, awareness and activities of social participation, and governance of the state and of civil society.
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Institutional guarantee of diversity and affirmative actions Significance The citizens comprising civil society are diverse. Therefore, the existence of institutions that protect diversity and social minorities help in the characterization of society as democratic. Even if equality is ideologically supported and laws ensure equal opportunities, there are times when discrimination persists due to structural barriers. This imbalance in available opportunities is sometimes corrected by the introduction of affirmative actions. *Question Do you think affirmative actions are well established and operated in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure how well affirmative actions are implemented and operated. When you answer this question, please consider human rights protection conditions for women, people with disabilities, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, immigrants, and conscientious objectors to military service. Participation and support of social groups Significance To energize civil society, the participation and support of individual citizens are necessary. They may participate as activists or as supporters in particular campaigns. Generally, they provide financial support by paying dues as members of NGOs/voluntary associations. The question below thus focuses on the above aspects of citizens participation. *Question How actively do you think citizens are participating in NGO activities in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure citizens awareness of and participation in NGO activities. When you answer this question, please consider citizens membership rates in NGOs, participation in volunteer activities organized by NGOs, and donations to NGOs. Governance of the state and of civil society Significance When the opinions of civil society are embraced by the government and realized in the form of laws or policies, democracy can create a virtuous circle.
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In the past, elections and political parties played important roles in this circle. However, political governance has become more important as it enables citizens to continuously and actively participate in political activities. Such governance has drawn much scholarly and civil society attention as it activates citizens participation, helps overcome bureaucracy and elitism, and prevents social conflicts. *Question How much influence do you think NGOs have on governments policymaking processes in your country? *Description This question is designed to measure civil societys influence in governance in your country. When you answer this question, please consider if good governance systems, such as commissions and public hearing sessions, are present and, if present, how effective are these systems operating.
Conduct of the Survey and Analysis The Object of the Survey

The Asian Democracy Index was developed based on the survey of expert groups of each country. The best way to evaluate democracy of a country may be conducting surveys of citizens and experts grouped together, although it may vary according to the characteristics of different indicators. Through this method, the Latin America Democracy Survey conducted by the UNDP delivered remarkable outcomes. However, such parallel surveys require enormous amounts of time and large budgets. Due to such constraints, many studies opt for only one of the two, i.e. either the citizens or the experts. The World Values Survey and East Asia Barometer studies are representative of most citizen surveys, while the Freedom House and Economist Intelligence Unit studies are representative of most expert surveys. The Asian Democracy Index was based on expert group surveys mainly for the following reasons. First, as the composition of the indicators demonstrates, this index includes a technical content with which ordinary citizens may not be familiar. If respondents are not well aware of the content, the result can be distorted. Therefore, this study chose to undertake expert surveys. The second reason is time and budget constraints. Conducting surveys in all Asian countries is inevitably subject to substantial constraints. Therefore, the expert survey was a reasonable choice for this study.
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When limiting the subject to expert groups, securing objectivity is the most important issue. In the course of sampling, systematic errors are likely included. In addition, if experts are not specialized in the survey topic, they can be unfamiliar with the questions, either. In this case, expert surveys may deliver not much different outcomes from those of ordinary citizens. Therefore, in order to secure objectivity and specialty, this study chose two methods. First, in deciding the sample group, ideological criteria were applied. In other words, according to each countrys situation, expert groups were given choices of conservative, central, and progressive groups, or progovernment, neutral, and anti-government groups, and then let them evaluate their tendency by themselves. This strategy is to secure objectivity by letting them express their political color. Then, different evaluation groups were adopted for different analyses. In other words, each of political, economic, and civil society fields was evaluated by different expert groups. Based on this strategy, nine expert groups are needed. Each group make independent evaluations on different topics, and finally representatives in charge of each countrys survey collect the survey results. Such composition of evaluation groups is an effort to secure objectivity and specialty, as well as to enable diverse analyses on each countrys report.
Survey Methodology
The expert survey utilizes a two-part questionnaire. First, the questionnaires were developed based on the 11-point scale to quantify the result. Considering that the respondents are experts, the 11-point scale was utilized as they are expected to provide more precise answers. Another section is composed of questions that ask respondents opinions. This qualitative part was designed to complement the quantified answers by adding the rationales of the answers. This survey is expected to gather sufficient information about each country's democracy. Survey representatives of each country will collect subjective and objective index that can be analyzed along with the surveys so that the limitations of the survey method can be complemented. This is an attempt to more objectively present the potentials and limitations of each countrys democracy. Individual surveys were conducted. According to the situations that each country faces, e-mail surveys or individual interviews may be utilized. In addition, for more objective and in-depth analyses, FGIs or other supplementary methods can also be adopted.
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Survey Analysis
In conformity with the composition of the survey questionnaires, analyses were conducted in two different ways. First, each question was evaluated. Scores of each question were determined by the average that respondents provided. Therefore, survey representatives in each country must establish a database of the scores for each questionnaire. Problems can arise when the experts of three different groups give extremely different scores. In such cases, each survey organization was allowed to select a score according to their criteria. However, when the difference is too great to reconcile, reevaluation of the question may be asked of the experts. The next stage is to analyze respondents comments. As mentioned before, the comments help to overcome limitations of quantitative evaluation as these rationales help the ADI analysts to better understand the specific meanings of each rating. In this stage of analysis, the survey representatives of each country adopt other objective and subjective index that they have gathered in order to enrich their analysis. As previously mentioned, when the analysis of the individual questions are completed, the individual indicators are combined into more comprehensive indices. As seen in the composition of the indices, the Asian Democracy Index allows for the consideration of different indices according to different fields, and those indices can more specifically express the conditions of democratization of each country. By dividing the indices by principle, the liberalization and equalization indices can be obtained. The liberalization index evaluates whether each field is independent, and if they have established their own self-reference system. A high liberalization index represents that the country has established institutional and procedural democracy to some extent. The equalization index shows whether power is evenly distributed in each field. A high equalization index means that the country has established a strong democratic foundation and has great potential to democritize further. By comparing the liberalization index and the equalization index, or by obtaining index of subprinciples, such as autonomy, competition, pluralization, and solidarity, it is possible to understand limitations and potentials of a countrys democracy. As mentioned, the ADI contemplates three different fields: politics, economy, and civil society. Accordingly, political democracy index, economic democracy index, and civil society democracy index can be created. Comparing these indices may provide insight into the strengths and weaknesses of each countrys democracy. For example, if a country has a high political democracy index but low economic democracy index, the country has a weak democratic
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foundation. If a country has a low political democracy index but a high civil society democracy index, the country has a great potential to further develop its democracy. The Asian Democracy Index can create a wide range of indicators beyond principles or fields. For example, by combining the minority protection index of the political field and the minority protection index of the civil society field, a minority protection index of a country can be formed. Similarly, combining the participation indices of each field can establish a countrys overall participation index. Such computations can help fully express a countrys democracy. In summary, the Asian Democracy Index enables wide-ranging analyses. By adding qualitative information obtained from comments, and utilizing other subjective and objective index, it will be possible to conduct more objective and in-depth analyses on each countrys democratic condition.
Reference
Cho, Heeyeon. 2008. Democratization in Asia: Oligarchic Democracy and Democratic Oligarchy. In States of Democracy: Oligarchic Democracies and Asian Democratization, edited by Heeyeon Cho, Lawrence Surendra and Eun-hong Park. Chinnai: Earthworm Books.
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SOUTH KOREA COUNTRY REPORT 2011
Democracy Index in South Korea, 2011

HYUNGCHUL KIM, JUNGHOON KIM, HEEYEON CHO, HYUNYUN CHO, SEOUNGWON LEE, YOOSEOK OH, DONGCHOON KIM, KYUNGTAE PARK, YOUNGPYO SEO, SANGCHUL YOON, KYUNGHEE CHOI
Objectives of the Research

This study aims to assess the quality of democracy in South Korea through the Asian Democracy Index (ADI). The ADI is a framework for comparing different democratic qualities in Asia in line with the view that earlier indices by Western societies, along with their respective frameworks, hardly reflect the reality in Asia. This survey forms part of the ADI pilot test. While as a pilot survey, it is expected to be largely exploratory in natureinvestigating the various characteristics of democracy in South Koreait can also be a means by which to identify problems in the parameters, the methods of the research, and the analysis of the ADI. Thus, the pilot survey conducted contributes to furthering the methodological refinement of the ADI.
Previous Evaluations of Democracy in Korea in 2011

The democratic movement in South Korea in June 1987 brought about a transition from an authoritarian to a democratic system of government. Afterwards, South Korean democracy has been evaluated by both international and domestic experts as having successfully established democratic processes (Diamond and Kim 2000; Park 1998). Since the first presidential elections held in December 1987 under the amended constitution of the Sixth Republic of South Korea, there have been five presidential elections and seven National
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Hyungchul Kim, Junghoon Kim, Heeyeon Cho, Hyunyun Cho, Yooseok Oh, Dongchoon Kim, and Kyungtae Park are all from the Democracy and Social Movements Institute of Sungkonghoe University, South Korea. Seoungwon Lee is Research Professor at Sogang Global Korean Study Initiative in Sogang University. Youngpyo Seo is Assistant Professor of the Department of Sociology in Jeju National University. Kyunghee Choi is a research associate of the Korean Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Sangchul Yoon is Professor of the Department of Sociology in Hanshin University. ASIAN DEMOCRACY REVIEW Vol. 1 (2012): 88-107 ISSN 2244-5633
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Table 1: Evaluation of South Koreas Democracy by Freedom House (2001-2011) Year Political Right Civil Liberty Category 2002 2 2 F 2003 2 2 F 2004 1 2 F 2005 1 2 F 2006 1 2 F 2007 1 2 F 2008 1 2 F 2009 1 2 F 2010 1 2 F 2011 1 2 F Sources: Freedom House 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011a.
Assembly elections, all of which were conducted fairly and freely. Peaceful regime change has been witnessed twice in the country. Further, the persistence of South Koreas democracy in the face of the unprecedented economic crisis in late 1997 is a manifestation of its level of institutionalization. Assessments of world-renowned institutions measuring the level of democracy in various countries support the view that South Korean democracy is indeed institutionalized. Freedom House 1, a U.S.-based private organization, has classified South Korea as Free2 from 1988 to 2011 (Shin and Chu, 2004; Gunaratne 1999). UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), in its investigation of the level of democracy of 167 nations worldwide, classified South Korean democracy as one of the full democracies for having earned more than eight points on average from 2010 to 2011.3 However, the South Korean democracy score went down from 8.11 in 2010 (20th out of 167 nations) to 8.06 (22nd out of 167 nations). A closer examination of the score in each category surveyed in 2011 indicates that the electoral procedure and plurality measure scored the highest point (9.17), followed by the degree of civil liberties (8.82), the function of government (7.86), and the political culture (7.5). The degree of political participation item scored the lowest at 7.22. In spite of the abovementioned positive ratings, several anti-democratic actions by the South Korean government have been reflected in several country surveys and rankings. In particular, South Korean democracy since the Lee Myung-bak presidency in 2007 has been evaluated as having set back
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Figure 1: A compilation of evaluations of the Press Freedom Index in South Korea from 2002 to 2011. The diamond series represents the changes in South Koreas ranking of democracies by Freedom House, while the square series represents the changes in the actual score in the Index.
Sources: Freedom House 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011a; Reporters Without Borders 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b, 2011a, 2011b, 2012.
democratization in the country by ten years (Scholars-Academia Consortium 2009; Scholars-Academia Consortium 2010). This low evaluation is due to the Lee governments curtailment of various democratic rights and unpopular policy leanings, including the lifting of the ban on US beef imports, the anomalous 4 Major Rivers Project, and the ratification of the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement. The regimes attempt to curtail freedom of expression and assembly by suppressing demonstrations and implementing enforced imprisonment was met with strong resistance from the people. The Lee administration is also said to have utilized government organizations such as the South Korea Communications Standards Commission to (SKCSC) increase censorship and infringe on the South Korean populations freedom of expression in the internet and via short message service.
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The abovementioned acts of infringement of freedom of expression have been reported and commented on by international organizations. Reporters Without Borders, an organization established in 1985 to enhance freedom of the press worldwide has been releasing annually a Worldwide Press Freedom Index4 since 2002. It is found that the Press Freedom Index in South Korea has been on the rise since the inauguration of the Lee government. This means that under the Lee administration, freedom of the press is not secured but infringed. The Internet Enemies Report 2012 classified South Korea as a country under internet surveillance, which means that the government censors online content with explicit political overtones (Reporters Without Borders 2012). South Korea has been dishonorably stigmatized by Reporters Without Borders as one of the countries which censor the internet for four years in succession since 2009. The reports have noted an upsurge in online content deleted by the SKCSC. Such cases rose from 1,500 in 2009 to 80,499 cases in 2010 (Reporters Without Borders 2011). The number of investigations conducted by the government on internet content rapidly increased from 58 before 2009 to 91 in 2010 and 150 in August 2011. Such phenomena of limiting the freedom of the press and expression in South Korea implies that even such basic civil rights are not secured in the country, as said in the press of the US with regard to the imprisonment of Chung Bong-ju, who co-hosted the podcast Im a Petty-Minded Creep.5 Moreover, South Korea ranked 39th among 180 nations in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of Transparency International (TI), with its CPI score decreasing (reflecting an increase in corruption based on data from various surveys), earning 5.5 points in 2009 and 5.4 points in 2010 (Transparency International 2009a; Transparency International 2010). It further slid down in ranking in 2011, when it ranked 43rd among 182 nations with 5.4 points (Transparency International 2011a). TIs Global Corruption Barometer 2010/2011 shows that 32 percent of the public perceived an increase in the degree of corruption over the last three years while 42 percent did not (Transparency International 2011b). These findings show that the people feel corruption has been rising since the inauguration of Lee Myungbak as South Korean president. A survey question on public perception of the governments effectiveness in battling corruption showed a slight increase in those who think that government measures against corruption were effective in 2010-2011 (Transparency International 2011b). But the values are still similar with those in the 2007 survey (Transparency International 2007). In addition, the 2009 survey results showed the highest number of people who think that the governments anti-corruption measures are ineffective
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Figure 2: Freedom Index and Equality Index by Area
(Transparency International 2009b). These patterns of responses suggest that the efforts of the Lee Myung-bak government to address corruption are less effective than those of the Roh Mu-hyun government. What has been examined so far is relevant to the procedural definition of democracy in South Korea, so these indices may not reflect the ideal of demonopolization of power and resources, which would define a substantive South Korean democracy. Recently, researchers on democracy have had much interest in inequality6. As neoliberal globalization consolidated and most of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member nations show the widening gap in income between the upper class and the lower class. Since the late 1980s, the global Gini coefficient, the index for income inequality, has been on the rise and this difference in income has economic, social, and political consequences (Jung 2011, 106) Issues that have been found to be the cause of the worsening social and economic polarization in the country. in South Korea since 1997 include deepening poverty, a shrinking middle class, and the ever-increasing income share and influence of the upper class. However, these democracy indices have failed to measure democracy as it is characterized by social and economic equality. Therefore, this study intends to assess South Koreas democracy by measuring expert evaluation about socioeconomic and political equality.
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Table 2: The Mean Values of Subprinciples by Area Liberalization Equalization Autonomy Competition Plurality Solidarity Politics 6.86 6.53 4.89 5.36 Economy 5.19 3.72 3.76 3.71 Civil Society 5.30 5.78 4.69 3.59
Survey Method The System and Organization of the Asian Democracy Index
The survey was implemented in accordance with the framework explained in the Asian Democracy Index Guidebook.
The Method and the Target of Survey The Selection of the Survey Target
One of the challenges an expert survey presents is how to ensure objectivity. In the process of sampling a group of experts as respondents, systematic distortions are very likely. Given the fact that experts do have gaps in their specialist knowledge, it is highly probable that their answers may be no different from citizen respondents. To secure objectivity and rigor, the survey first employed an ideological standard in selecting experts. In other words, according to the situation in each country, groups of experts are categorized into pro-government/ conservative, moderate, and anti-government/progressive groups. Each group is mutually exclusive to allow for their autonomous evaluations. This is a strategy for securing the objectivity of the study as it reveals the biases in advance. Experts from the different groups are further divided to assess three different areas where they have specialist knowledge, namely: politics, economy, and civil society. A total of twenty-seven experts, composed of scholars and activists, were surveyed. Nine experts are assigned to each area. Each of these groups of nine are comprised of three conservatives, three moderates, and three progressives. Most of the experts assigned to tackle politics and economy are researchers and professors while most of those assigned to answer questions regarding civil society were activists.
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Table 3: The Level of South Koreas Democracy Categorized by Political Tendency Aspect/Area Politics Economy Civil society Right 6.49 5.64 5.65 5.90 Moderate 5.93 3.58 4.7 4.69 Left 5.21 2.83 4.59 4.13 Right-Left 1.42 2.82 1.06 1.76 Deviation
Survey Duration and Method

The survey was conducted from early June to late July of 2012. The survey method was mostly via e-mail with only one case being a face-to-face survey. The responses were then coded. In case of unanswered items or exceptional responses, a follow-up survey was carried out.
The Results of the Survey

Survey data reveals a Democracy Index score of 4.93 for South Korea, lower than the median score of five on a 10-point scale. Although this score can hardly affirm the scores in international democracy indices, it still shows that South Korea still has a long way to go before it achieves the ideal of a demonopolized democracy, disproving the observation that South Koreas democracy has advanced substantially in a relatively short period of time. With the further itemized comparison of democracy indices via an examination of the liberalization indices and the equalization indices by area, it can be said that political democracy in South Korea is relatively well developed with 5.85 points while economic and civil society democracy were relatively underdeveloped, having been evaluated with 4.10 and 4.84 points, respectively. Also, it is found that in all the three areas, the liberalization index (5.53 points average) garnered higher scores than the equalization index (4.33 points average). This means that the realization of socioeconomic and political equalization in South Korea is delayed. Moreover, in the area of politics, the liberalization index earned the highest evaluation with 6.60 points. It can thus be interpreted that autonomy and competition are secured fairly well in South Korean politics. On the other hand, the equalization index in the area of economy earned the lowest evaluation at 3.74 points. This means that the South Korean economy is defined by inequality, monopolization of wealth, and the failure
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Table 4. Comparison of the Constituents in the Area Categorized by the Political Tendencies Autonomy Competition Pluralization Right 8.25 6.93 5.33 Moderate 6.67 6.53 4.78 Left 5.67 6.13 4.56 Right-Left 2.58 0.80 0.78 Deviation
of Politics Solidarity 5.80 5.73 4.53 1.27
of economic redistribution. Lastly, in the civil society area, the civil society index was measured with a score of 5.54 points, above the average 5.0 on the 10-point scale. However, the civil society equalization index was assessed with a low score of 4.14. This means that while civil society in South Korea has well-secured autonomy and competition, unequal power relations in society still persist. Table 2 shows the mean values of the attributes which constitute the principles by area. As shown in the scores of constituents in each area, autonomy, a constituent the principle of liberalization, earned the highest score. Competition earned the highest score in the areas of politics and civil society, but not in the area of economy. This was due to the low evaluation in transparency and fairness of corporate management and liabilities of government and business. That is, even after the democratization, they still engage in the authoritative practices in the past while the democratic rules for management are ignored and unhealthy links between business and politics are maintained. Second, both plurality and solidarity, which constitute equalization, earned lower evaluations than the average, except for solidarity in the area of politics. In particular, plurality and solidarity in the economy recorded 3.76 and 3.71 points, respectively. This may mean that the strengthening of neoliberal policies of the Lee Myung-bak government is causing the worsening economic inequality in South Korea (Scholars-Academia Consortium, 2010). Also, within the economic structure where the association of trade union and the participation in the decision-making process of the government and the management are limited, the decline in economic equality becomes remarkable. One of the more intriguing results for political equalization is that pluralization was given a rating below 5.0 points, unlike other constituents in the area of politics. This is due to the fact that power dispersion in the National Assembly, political representativeness, and democratization of
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national organizations earned low points. Also of note is the fact that solidarity received the lowest point (3.53) in the area of civil society. That is, it is assessed that the institutions and policies for preserving the rights of marginalized sectors of society, the degree of participation of citizens in NGOs, and the influences of NGOs in the decision-making process of the government require much improvement in South Korea. This means that in the democratization process, the monopolization of power into only a handful of members of society still persists. Civil society in South Korea is deficient in tolerance for minorities and is criticized for having a civil rights movement without citizens. As has been earlier indicated, this is due to the lack of participation of citizens.
The Political Tendency and the Evaluation of South Koreas Democracy

The respondents assessments on each area were analyzed depending on their political tendencies. The average score of the conservative respondents was 5.9 points. The average of the progressive respondents was 4.13 points, thus the deviation between both sides being 1.76 points. This shows that the conservative respondents evaluate South Koreas political democracy more highly.
The Area of Politics

A comparison of autonomy, competition, pluralization, and solidarity measures in politics is shown in table 4. Among the four subprinciples, autonomy and competition earned the higher scores, while pluralization and solidarity earned low scores. The fact that the ratings for autonomy and competition are higher than the ratings for the other two subprinciples shows that Dahls (1998 and 1971) concept of democracy (polyarchy) is being established. However, autonomy has a substantial deviation (2.58) between the values of the conservative and the progressive respondents. The reason is that compared with the items constituting autonomy, there is a big discrepancy between the progressives and the conservatives opinions about whether civil liberties are secured (deviation : 3.67 points), whether there is violence in the country (deviation: 3.00 points), and whether political opposition/challenge is allowed (deviation: 2.00 points). Competition and pluralisation have very homogenous evaluations. Among the items, the expansion of suffrage (8.22 points), the fairness of election/competition (7.78 points), and the delegation of power by election
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Figure 3: The distribution map of responses by political tendency in the area of politics. Cross: average; diamond: conservative; circle: moderate; triangle: progressive. (7.0 points) earned high scores. It shows that electoral democracy is well established in South Korea. However the evaluation of the efficiency of the government (4.33 points) was low, which shows that government responsiveness to peoples demands with regard to governmental organizations and policies is poor (supported by Scholars-Academia Consortium 2009 and 2010). Pluralization is a constituent with the least deviation (0.78 points) between political tendencies, which shows the homogeneity of opinions across respondents of differing political ideologies. The fact that pluralization is the weakest means that there are still some politically excluded groups and that the imperatives of checks and balances between power structures are unobserved due to a concentration of power, as this among the indices comprising this subprinciple are political representativeness (4.78 points), democratic accountability (5.11 points), and the power dispersion within the National Assembly (4.78 points). The items which compose solidarity examine the institutionalization of participation, the implementation and efficacy of affirmative action measures for marginalized sectors of society, popular trust in values, and democratic institutions. In this regard, the respondents showed high evaluations on the institutionalization of participation (7.0 points) and popular trust in values and institutions of democracy (7.33 points) while affirmative action measures
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Table 5: Comparison between the Constituents in the Area of Economy Categorized by Political Tendencies Autonomy Competition Pluralization Solidarity Right 6.17 6.08 5.10 5.48 Moderate 5.67 3.00 3.13 3.05 Left 3.75 2.08 3.13 2.50 (4.33 points) for marginalized sectors of society and trust in the present government (4.0 points) and in the National Assembly (4.11 points) earned low evaluations. This indicates that there is severe political distrust and exclusivist politics in South Korea. In sum, South Koreas democracy fulfils the criteria for a political democracy in which political participation and expansion and electoral competition take place on the basis of the definition provided by Dahl (1998 and 1971). However, it shows that South Korean democracy has weak political representation and government accountability. This type of democracy is deficient in responsiveness, which exacerbates political distrust.
The Area of Economy

According to the survey results, the area of economy earned the lowest score. Democracy Index in the area of economy was 4.10 with deviation between democracy indices dependent on differing political tendencies. That is, the average score of the conservative respondents was 5.64 points while the average score of the progressive respondents was 2.83, the lowest. Table 5 summarizes the comparison between autonomy, competition, plurality, and solidarity in the area of economy according to political tendencies. As the characteristic of each constituent is examined, liberalization earned higher evaluations than equalization. The reason behind the high evaluation of the degree of liberalization can be attributed to the autonomy among the elements which constitute liberalization. Only autonomy earned more than 5 points (5.19 points), unlike the other constituents. Such evaluations are due to the perception that business is independent of government (4.78 points), that the prevention of compulsory labor and child labor is well secured (5.78 points), and that there is a high degree of autonomy of the national government from foreign capital (5.89 points). However, there is a substantial deviation (2.42 points) in the responses of the respondents when divided according to their political tendencies. The item with the biggest deviation is related to the assurance of labor rights. The average score for the conservative respondents is 7.33 points while those of
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Figure 4. The distribution map of responses in the area of economy by political tendency. Cross: average; square: moderate; triangle: progressive; diamond: conservative.
the progressive respondents is 2.33 pointsa deviation by 5 points. Also, in the item which examines autonomy from foreign interests, the median score for the conservatives is 7 points while that of the progressives is 3.67 points a deviation of 3.33 points. Political competition earned 3.72 points on average. It has the biggest deviation (4.0 points) according to the political tendencies among the 4 constituents. The conservative respondents evaluate high competition in the area of economy, while the progressives consider it as being the lowest in the same area. The biggest deviation in responses of conservatives and progressives among the items which constitute competition can be found in the item related to the accountability of the government for upholding of labor rights. For that item, conservatives gave 7.0 points on average while the progressives gave 1.67 on averagea deviation of 5.33 points. For the other items, there were deviations which range from 3.33 points to 3.67 points. Next, we examine economic pluralization and solidarity, the constituents of economic equalization. Pluralization earned 3.76 points, with a relatively low deviation between the conservatives and the progressives. The item about economic inequality between regions obtained the highest score (4.67 points) among the items which constitute pluralization. The item with the lowest score (3.0 points) was the item concerned with the inequality of assets. That item earned the lowest evaluation regardless of political tendencies, with a deviation of only 0.67 points. The primary reason behind the low level
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Table 6: The Comparison of Constituents in the Area of Economy Categorized by Political Tendency Autonomy Competition Pluralization Solidarity Right 7.00 4.75 5.17 4.33 Moderate 4.90 6.08 3.92 3.44 Left 4.00 6.50 4.92 3.00 Right-Left 3.00 -1.75 0.25 1.33 Deviation of pluralization of the economy is the monopolization of economic interests by some particular groups or forces, which obtained a rating of3.13 points. As the rapid modernization in South Korea accelerates, chaebols (conglomerates) or large companies are still in existence, perpetuating their long-standing monopoly of economic interests in the country. The evaluation of plurality in the survey shows the excessive dominance of chaebols over the economy, which have recently resurfaced, and the inequality of assets. Such a situation indicates the direction of the solution to economic inequality in South Korea. Lastly, economic solidarity obtained quite a low evaluation (3.71 points). The item with the lowest evaluation in the area of economy is the participation of labor in management. Also, since the organization of labor unions earned a low evaluation, a very low evaluation was given to the item on movements of labor unions (the average of items 16, 17, and 18 under economy). This shows that contrary to public appearance, labor unions in South Korea are not well organized nor do they have a strong influence on government and business. The difference between the ratings of respondents according to political tendencies under economic solidarity was the second biggest, exceeded only by the deviation in economic competition. This is because the conservative respondents evaluated solidarity as being relatively high (5.48 points) but the progressive respondents assessed it as being weak (2.50 points). The item with the biggest deviation among the items in solidarity is related to the influences of labor unions on the decision-making processes of the national government. Regarding this item, the conservatives gave an average 7.33 points while the progressives gave an average 1.5 points. Meanwhile, the item with the least deviation between political tendencies is related to the sentiment of citizens with regards to economic inequalitya deviation by 1.0 point. The item with the second smallest deviation is on the item on the enforcement of the social security system. Although this item shows a higher score (4.89
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points) than other items, the deviation between the conservatives and the progressives is 3.67 points. This may reflect the expectation of each tendency on government welfare spending.
The Area of Civil Society

In the area of civil society, autonomy and competition of citizens earned a relatively high score whereas the evaluation on plurality and solidarity was relatively low. In the subprinciple of civil society solidarity, the items concerned with institutions and affirmative action measures which guarantee plurality earned the lowest evaluation. This seems to reflect the fact that there is still a lack of institutions for protecting the interests of the socially marginalized in South Korea. The element earning the highest evaluation in the area of civil society was competition, one of the items in liberalization. The items under competition were influence, publicness, transparency, and plurality of an association. The evaluations of these items by the moderate respondents (6.08 points) and the progressive respondents (6.50 points) were higher than those by the conservative respondents (4.75 points). This may be the result of the proliferation of voluntary associations as well as the participation of civil society organizations in policy-making processes. Also, it can be said that these associations have made efforts to acquire credibility and the participation of citizens through moral uprightness and transparency. In the evaluation of autonomy in civil society, the deviation between the conservatives and the progressives becomes significant. The items with exceptionally big differences are the ones related to the fulfilment of basic needs and the autonomy of civil society from the state. First, the conservatives gave 8.33 points on average for the fulfillment of basic needs item, while the progressives gave it 3.33 points on average, resulting in a difference of 5.0 points. Also, there was a difference of 4.33 points between the conservatives and the progressives with regard to the autonomy of civil society from the state. It shows that there is a big discrepancy in opinion between the two groups about the autonomy of citizens. Second, the examination of the characteristics of items in equalization indicates that plurality in the area of civil society is 4.69 points, which requires some improvement. The items for measuring plurality are related to the equality in power distribution in the press, information, culture, and civil society. The difference of evaluations under the plurality item according to different political tendencies is typically not substantial, except for the item (3.33 points) related to equality in power distribution in the civil society. The
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Figure 5: South Koreas Press Freedom Index from 1993-2011 by Freedom House.
Source: Freedom House 2012.

equality of information item earned the highest evaluation score at 7.11 points. This can be an indicator that South Korea has progressed rapidly in information technology. On the other hand, equality of the press is the item with the lowest evaluation at 2.44 points. This evaluation is well reflected in Freedom Houses Press Freedom Index (PFI) for South Korea. South Korea had been classified as a free country with secure press freedom from 1988 to 2009 (Freedom House 2012). However, in 2010, it was classified as a partially free country in terms of press freedom (Freedom House 2012).7 South Koreas Press Freedom score was 30 points from 2006 to 2009; the score increased to 32 points in 2010 and remained the same in 2011 (Freedom House 2012). As mentioned earlier in this report, possible reasons behind this increase are the Lee Myung-bak governments influence on the press, the increase of censorship by governmental organs, and the governmental intervention in the management of the major broadcast media stations (Freedom House 2011a, 7). Lastly, the evaluation of solidarity in the area of civil society has the lowest score among the three constituents in the degrees of democracy. This is due to the lack of affirmative action measures for the marginalized sectors in society, the low rate of citizen participation in the NGO movements, and
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Figure 6: The distribution map of responses in political tendency for the area of society and economy. Cross: average; diamond: conservative; square: moderate; triangle: progressive.
the low influence of NGOs in the decision-making process of the government. Apparently, voluntary associations have proliferated in South Korea, but still have considerable limitations in their capacity to have any impact on South Korean society and politics. Civil rights movements have suffered from a lack of citizen participation and the representation of civil society interests have not been institutionalized. The solidarity items that polarized conservatives and progressives are related to civil society influences on the decision-making processes of the government. Conservatives gave 5 points while progressives gave 1.67 points, resulting to a difference by 3.33 points. Evidently, the progressive respondents perceived that civil society articulations are not well delivered and their interests not reflected under the rule of the conservative government.
Discussion/Evaluation
In sum, the characteristics of South Koreas democracy in 2011 are as follows First, the procedural type of democracy is found to be established in South Korea, with the principle of liberalization being highly evaluated but with the principle of equalization being poorly evaluated. South Korea, therefore, has a long way to go yet for its development of a substantive democracy. Second, the large deviation of scores among conservative and progressive respondents implies that South Koreas democracy is experiencing the institutionalization
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of political democracy. On the other hand, democratic procedures and norms have not been internalized nor have been habituated in the civil society and economic spheres. Particularly, the conventional authoritative practices such as rent-seeking, the illegal and arbitrary use of power, and deficiency of responsibilities are still entrenched in South Korean society. Lastly, South Korean democracy appears to exhibit characteristics of restricted democracy in that the idea that democratic procedures and norms as the only game available under the given political, social and economic conditions (Przeworski 1991, 26; Linz and Stepan 1996) is not recognized. Also, in each area, there are still restrictions on the participation in decision-making and democratic control by the citizens.8 This survey enabled us to understand the merits and the weaknesses of an Asian Democracy Index as currently designed. The CADI ADI is commendable in its demand to understand realities in each country by examining the countrys democracy and complex manner. Relevant observations based on democratic realities by areas and by principles can shed light on the strengths and weaknesses, the possibilities and limitations of an Asian democracy. This survey also brought to attention some commonly shared characteristics of democracy in Asia. For example, though the democratic exercise of free and fair elections are carried out regularly, economic inequality is an enduring problem. The Asian Democracy Index thus is significant for a generalization of the characteristics of an Asian democracy by its accumulation of empirical data. Nevertheless, there are many lessons for further study. First, there is the difficulty in comparing democratic realities of countries with one another. Although the respondents are experts, it seems that they would have much difficulty in making an international comparison and assessment while overcoming the regional limitations of their respective countries. There is a need to consider how to use the internationally comparable objective indices which have been previously collected. Second, there is a problem of how to tackle the huge difference between the scores of respondents. Trivial errors such as those incurred in designing the questionnaire or the errors in responses can be resolved by way of supplemental surveys. However, there will be still an issue in significantly big difference in scores between respondents. The score distribution suggests the gap from some ideological differences to some extent, but since expected, this result would not be a significant issue. Nevertheless, for some research subjects, too much difference in the scores are sometimes found especially in some of the questions. Regarding this issue, it seems that new considerations
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should be taken into account in the survey method using the Delphi survey technique, for instance.
Notes
1. Freedom House assesses the two dimensions of political right and civil liberty on a 7point scale (2011b). The average score of these two dimensions can be the standard with which to measure the degree of freedom in each country (Freedom House 2011b). Averaged pairs of political rights and civil liberties scores determine statuses of Not Free, Partly Free, and Free (Freedom House 2011b). EIUs index of democracy is the average of the five category indices on electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture (Economist Intelligence Unit 2010). The value of the PFI ranges from 0 to 100 points. As the Press Freedom Index gets closer to 0, freedom of the press becomes better secured; as the index increases, freedom of the press will be more infringed (Reporters Without Borders 2011a). This can also be translated into Im a Smart-Ass. See, for example, Beramendi and Anderson (2008); Fukuyama, Diamond, and Plattner (2012). Freedom House classifies the degrees of press freedom into three categories. The score of free countries ranges from 0 to 30; the score of partially free countries is from 31 to 60; the score of non-free countries is from 61 to 100 (Karlekar 2011). In other words, a limited democracy in the area of political representation by the exclusion of major groups, the significant decrease in responsiveness of the government, and the restrictions on the freedom of association and expression, even though a fair election of the representatives by universal suffrage is held and the imperatives of government accountability, such as that for the National Assembly, are mostly fulfilled (Rueschmeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992, 92).
2. 3.
4.
5. 6. 7.
8.
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(De)Monopolization of Democracy in Indonesia? The Indonesian Report on the Asian Democracy Index 2011
ANTON PRADJASTO, IRWANSYAH, DIRGA ARDIANSA, ROICHATUL ASWIDAH, SRI BUDI EKO WARDANI, WAWAN ICHWANUDDIN, YOLANDA PANJAITAN
Background
The democratization process has been going on in Indonesia for thirteen years, following the departure of the late President Soeharto in 1998. The dynamics, characteristics, performance, and future of democracy in Indonesia have been a subject of research for many political scientists (Aspinall and Mietzner 2010).1 Indonesia is not only considered the third largest democratic country in the world after the United States and India, but it is also recognized as the largest democratic Muslim country in the world (Bayuni 2011). It is therefore pertinent to pay attention to democratization in Indonesia. Research on Indonesian democracy has led to various assessments. Larry Diamond (2010, 35-46), in his comparison of the democracy movements in Indonesia with those in five other Asian countries,2 concluded that both the quality of, and public support for, Indonesian democracy have progressed more rapidly than in the other countries studied (Diamond 2010, 46). Relatedly, Liddle and Mujani said that Indonesia had essentially been consolidated based on the three dimensions developed by Linz and Stepan, namely: parameters of behavior, attitude and level of constitutional commitment (quoted in Diamond 2010)3. However, Diamond (2010) noted that Indonesian democracy could regress. Various sociopolitical phenomena offer indications that support this possibility. Worth mentioning are the level of political violence and the lack of clarity on the extent to which Islamic
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Anton Pradjasto and Roichatul Aswidah are from the Indonesian Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (DEMOS). Irwansyah, Dirga Ardiansa, Sri Budi Eko Wardani, Wawan Ichwanuddin, and Yolanda Panjaitan are from the Center for Political Studies (PUSKAPOL), Department of Political Science, Universitas Indonesia. ASIAN DEMOCRACY REVIEW Vol. 1 (2012): 108-132 ISSN 2244-5633
PRADJASTO, IRWANSYAH, ARDIANSA, AND OTHERS
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parties and movements that favor a Sharia state will fully accept constitutional commitment. He further explained the critical points of concern, specifically the behavior, attitude, and constitutional commitment of the key elite, who retain the capacity to weaken or reverse Indonesian democracy. Despite these, Diamond (2010) is still one of the political experts who see Indonesian democracy through rose-tinted glasses as there are experts who hold more pessimistic views. According to Aspinall (quoted in Aspinall and Mietzner 2010, 1-2), expert opinion on Indonesian democracy was divided into two opposing camps. On the one hand, some experts see an effectively consolidated Indonesian democracy relative to other countries, while the other camp says that Indonesian democracy is merely artificial, wherein the core power structure has not changed and the oligarchy of the New Order era continues to exploit the country for its own interests.4 Diamond (2010, 1-2) however added another group of experts that believes that Indonesian democracy has progressed but has been marred by the weight of corruption issues and weak law enforcement. Amid these expert opinions, several institutions have published their own assessments of democracy in Indonesia. Freedom House (2011) rated Indonesia as a fully free country (free) with a higher score for political rights than for civil rights.5 The Economist Intelligence Unit (2010) ranked Indonesia sixtieth in the category of flawed democracy states, with a total score of 6.53 on a scale of 1-10. The Indonesian Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (DEMOS) conducted national surveys in 2003/4 and 2007 that produced average indices for Indonesian democracy of 37 and 47, respectively on a scale of 100.6 While the score has somewhat increased, it could be said that with a score of 47 on a scale of 100, Indonesian democracy is still far from what is desired. The DEMOS assessment was based on four important forces in a democracy: 1) legal and rights; 2) political representation; 3) democratic and accountable governance; and 4) citizen participation and involvement. The Indonesian government has also developed its own Indonesian Democracy Index (IDI), which gave a score of 67.30 to Indonesian democracy on a scale of 1-100.7 The IDI was developed as a measuring tool to assess progress in Indonesian democracy based on its own circumstances (UNDP 2011). However, the IDI is based on only three aspectscivil freedom, political rights, and democratic institutionsimplying a thin concept of democracy. It does not include, as noted by Indonesian Survey Institute Director for Public Affairs Burhanuddin Muhtadi (n.d.), important aspects such as political culture. Therefore, it is difficult for the IDI to depict a complete picture of Indonesian democracy. What is needed is a measurement
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INDONESIA COUNTRY REPORT 2011
that conforms to Indonesias circumstances to capture critical issues specific to Indonesian democracy. It is apparent that Indonesia has similar experiences with other democracies in Asia. Some countries, including South Korea and Taiwan, are considered as countries that have achieved procedural democracy and have entered a consolidation era. However, some countries in South Asia, as well as Thailand, have regressed. In addition, several countries in Asia have already passed the point of transition from authoritarianism, yet electoral democracy is still threatened. The said countries already have procedural democracy but lack fundamental democratic principles such as participation, representation and accountability. Furthermore, democratization of several countries in Asia has not led to improvements to the quality of life of the people (DASMI 2010). Asia provides a lesson that transition from authoritarianism does not always lead to a transition to democracy; that the achievement of electoral democracy does not always create representation; and that the transition to substantive democracy does not always occur following a transition to democracy (DASMI 2010). This research begins with the perspective that developing democracy in Asia requires a new framework for assessing democracy to explain the complexities of democratization in Asia. The development of the Asian Democracy Index is based on a redefinition of democracy by making the demonopolization of the process and institutions, occurring in the political, economic, and social arenas, the key to transition to democracy. Democracy here has two principles: liberalization and equalization. Liberalization is used to measure the extent to which different sectors achieve independence and autonomy from the old authoritarian political power and then be able to determine their own priorities. This really depends on the extent of the disintegration of the old forces of monopoly. Meanwhile, equalization is used to measure the extent to which minority and even subaltern groups can substantially acquire access to resources in various sectors and enjoy equal access to resources and power. Equalization is therefore a process of transformation of power in each arena, namely politics, the economy, and civil society (DASMI 2010). The development of Indonesian democracy requires measurements that can capture its complexity. It is hoped that the Asian Democracy Index can become an alternative tool to evaluate and assess Indonesian democracy. In this way, critical issues in Indonesian democracy can be revealed and steps can be taken to continually improve democracy in Indonesia.
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General Method Measurement and Assessment Process

The data for the Asian Democracy Index were derived from face-to-face interviews with individuals considered as experts using survey questionnaires. Each expert was asked for their assessment on a number of questions, specific to their respective expertise. Descriptive statistics through central tendencies (mean, median, and mode) and cross tabulation have been applied to the collated scores. The selection of experts was based on three criteria: 1) the area of expertise: economics, politics, or civil society; 2) view towards the government: pro-government, moderate, and anti-government; 3) role in society: academic, practitioner, or politician. Secondary data, such as internet surveys and the number of human rights covenants ratified by the Indonesian government on the state of human rights protection in terms of civil liberties, labor rights, etc., were also collected, as supporting information on the survey questions.
Experts Profiles
DEMOS and the Center for Political Studies, Department of Political Science Universitas Indonesia (PUSKAPOL UI) gathered the data between 18 July and 25 August 2011. Those considered experts were individuals who possess knowledge and expertise on the subject area, either because they work in that area (e.g., as a member of parliament in the political arena, a nongovernmental organization [NGO] activist in the civil society arena, or a business person in the economics arena) or are academics and researchers who focus on that area. A total of twenty-seven experts were interviewed.
Difficulties during Survey

The first difficulty experienced during the survey was in locating the experts within the stipulated spectrum of political positions, i.e., pro-government, moderate, or anti-government. In truth, this classification had already undergone changes since the initial design, when it was formerly based on an ideological spectrum (liberal, moderate, conservative). It is difficult to identify the political ideology of experts and public figures in Indonesia. This can be seen as a continuation of the socio-political situation, which had undergone de-ideologization and de-politicization during the thirty-twoyear rule of Soeharto. Political ideology is not articulated directly and openly by either political parties or public figures.
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These days, hardline fundamentalist Islamic groups are finding the courage to openly express their political ideologies. It was difficult to locate the position represented by these groups, whether pro- or anti-government, because, on the one hand, they hold a political view that rejects secular politics, including the concept of democracy; while on the other, they are largely left alone by the government. The opposite is true for economists, whose ideology is much easier to determine and consequently their positions toward the market and state intervention in economic affairs. In fact, almost none of the economists in Indonesia openly propagate ideological support for the market economy. As for their position in terms of supporting or opposing the government, their differences are not particularly striking. It is actually easiest to differentiate them based on whether or not they are involved with, or work for, the government. We held in-depth discussions to make qualitative assessments of each expert, which examined the track record of their statements. These assessments were interpretative and could be improved in future studies. So far, the bases for choosing the experts were considered accurate. It also confirmed that in the democracy setting in Indonesia, people rarely refer to ideologies when making political choices. Pro- and anti-government positions are also flexible during the current transition period, as evidenced by the present dispensationa coalition of various groups that do not share the same political ideology. Over the last few years, the government has been unpopular as a consequence of various corruption scandals, thus making it easier to see who among the experts are pro-, anti-government, or in between. This explains our methodological decision to revise the ideological spectrum of expert informants to reflect their degree of support, or lack of it, for the government. The availability of experts for meetings also proved to be a difficulty. Most of them are busy people. This led to difficulties in arranging interview schedules, which was the biggest obstacle we faced in gathering data. It was also difficult for several experts to spare the time to answer the questions on their own and return the questionnaire by email. The interview method was chosen (with three exceptions, who were contacted via internet survey). As a result, it took longer to conduct the interviews than had been planned, i.e., a month instead of two weeks.
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Table 1: Indonesian Index by Area and Categories of Experts Categories of Area Experts Politics Economy Civil Society Pro-government 5.91 4.93 5.2 Moderate 5.04 4.4 5.69 Anti-government 5.56 3.38 4.37 5.50 4.24 5.09 Overall Average
Total 5.35 5.04 4.44 4.9
Experts Comments on the Survey Questions

A number of experts felt that several of the questions were too broad, making it difficult to capture the complex dimensions of democracy in Indonesia and give scores. Two illustrative examples follow: Several civil society experts had difficulty in scoring the influence private companies have on society, since the media is heavily influenced by companies, while NGOs are not. Thus, they differentiated the two prior to giving the score. Several experts found it difficult to answer questions on affirmative action and special care. Affirmative action and special care for women are considered quite good, while affirmative action and special care for other groups are considered very poor.
Research Findings
This research resulted in an index based on expert assessments on the areas of 1.) politics, 2.) the economy, and 3.) civil society. Expert assessments were further broken down into categories of experts, namely pro-government, moderate, and anti-government. Table 1 shows the Indonesian index from the categories of experts in each of the three areas. On the average, the Indonesian index was 4.9, when measured on a scale of 0 to 10. Viewed by area, the Indonesian politics index was highest with 5.5, while the Indonesian economy index was lowest with 4.24. We should add that those in the pro-government and moderate categories did not greatly differ in their assessments, with respective scores of 5.35 and 5.04. A more substantial difference was noted for those in the anti-government category, with a score of 4.44.
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Table 2: Indonesian Politics Index in Terms of Four Democracy Variables Solidarity Categories of Autonomy Competition Pluralization Experts Progovernment 7.33 5.67 5.58 4.93 Moderate 6.00 4.72 5.08 4.60 Antigovernment 7.25 5.11 5.50 4.80 Total 6.86 5.17 5.39 4.78 Table 3: Indonesian Economy Index in Terms of Four Democracy Variables Solidarity Categories of Autonomy Competition Pluralization Experts Progovernment 5.42 6.00 3.93 4.76 Moderate 5.75 5.50 2.53 4.33 Antigovernment 3.83 3.25 2.80 3.62 Total 5.00 4.92 3.09 4.24
Indonesian Index in Terms of Four Democracy Variables

In this research, the concept of democracy was broken down into two core principles: liberalization and equalization. The liberalization principle was further broken down into two variables: autonomy and competition, while the equalization principle was also broken down into two variables: pluralization and solidarity. These principles and their corresponding variables were then analyzed in each of the three areas: politics, the economy, and civil society. The Indonesian index for the political sphere based on the four democracy variables is provided in table 2. Overall, the assessment of autonomy in the political sphere scored the highest, with a score of 6.86. Pro-government, moderate, and anti-government experts all gave autonomy in the Indonesian political sphere the highest score. Pro-government experts gave higher scores than the moderate and antigovernment groups across all four variables. However, the high score for autonomy in the political sphere did not draw a parallel score for competition,
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Table 4: Indonesian Civil Society Index in Terms of Four Democracy Variables Categories of Autonomy Competition Pluralization Solidarity Experts Progovernment 4.44 6.80 4.08 5.56 Moderate 4.78 7.27 5.17 5.56 Antigovernment 4.17 5.27 3.00 5.11 Total 4.46 6.44 4.08 5.41
which was much lower (5.17). Pluralization in the political sphere scored 5.39, while solidarity scored 4.78. The Indonesian index for the economic sphere based on the four democracy variables is provided in table 3. The Indonesian economy index results showed that autonomy and competition are in a better position than solidarity. Pluralization was in the worst position in the economic sphere. Autonomy and competition scores were in the middle range. Pluralization scored very low across all the categories of experts, with an index score of 3.09. Experts in the pro-government category tended to rate pluralization higher compared to those in the moderate and anti-government categories, which both gave lower scores for pluralization in the Indonesian economy. Solidarity scored 4.24, signaling a less than harmonious condition in the economic sphere. The Indonesian index for the civil society sphere based on the four democracy variables is provided in table 4. The Indonesian civil society index presented an interesting situation. Competition scored higher than the other variables. Under the principle of liberalization for civil society, autonomy scored lower than competition (4.46 compared to 6.44). While under the principle of equalization, solidarity scored better than pluralization (5.41 compared to 4.08).
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Table 5: Indonesian Index in Terms of Four Democracy Variables Area Autonomy Competition Pluralization Solidarity Politics 6.86 5.17 5.39 4.78 Economy 5.00 4.92 3.09 4.24 Civil Society 4.46 6.44 4.08 5.41 Total 5.44 5.51 4.19 4.81
Table 6: Indonesian Democracy Index 2011 Area Liberalization Equalization Politics Economy Civil Society Total 6.01 4.96 5.45 5.48 5.08 3.66 4.75 4.50
Index on Indonesian Democracy
4.99
Indonesian Index from the Perspective of the Principles of Liberalization and Equalization
The three Indonesian index areas (politics, the economy, and civil society) and four democracy variables (autonomy, competition, pluralization, and solidarity) have been consolidated in table 5 as shown below. Finally, table 6 shows that the total score for the liberalization principle (5.48) is higher than the equalization principle (4.50). This table also shows that Indonesias overall index score for 2011 is quite modest at 4.99.
Interpretation and Analysis

The research findings illustrate that Indonesia still has a lot of homework to do to advance its democracy. This part contains our interpretation of the research findings. In this way, we can trace what conditions need to be improved so that Indonesian democracy can become better.
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Analysis of Four Democracy Variables Autonomy Variable

Autonomy has the highest index score in the political sphere. The data show that autonomy has a higher index score in the political sphere than in the economic and civil society spheres. The autonomy index scored 6.86 in the political sphere, 5.0 in the economic sphere, and the lowest in civil society with 4.46. Most of the experts stated that the level of state violence has substantially decreased compared to the New Order era. The freedom to establish political organizations and to protest through demonstrations or other means is rated as having improved when compared with the New Order era. In addition, civil rights were said to be better protected. The right to religious freedom is notable because of the Ahmadiyah case. The violence that engulfed Ahmadiyah and the governments poor handling of the case bear significance for the autonomy score. Moreover, data show that autonomy in the economic sphere was lower compared to autonomy in the political sphere. Most of the experts stated that there is a mutually beneficial relationship between political and economic actors. This causes distortion in some government regulations to benefit certain parties. Labor protection remains poor because of frequent outsourcing practices and salaries not in line with needs. There are still plenty of companies, especially in the informal sector, which employ children despite the existence of regulation on the minimum age for workers. In addition, the presence of international financial institutions (International Monetary Fund and World Bank) still has a dominant influence on government policy. Civil society autonomy appears to be the worst, with an index score of 4.46. Although there is now freedom for the public to assemble and establish organizations, the legal infrastructure has not yet incorporated the democracy paradigm. Several policies are considered as limiting freedom of expression, for instance, the Law on Electronic Information and Transactions, the Law on Pornography and Pornographic Acts, and the Bill on State Intelligence and Secrets. In addition, most experts stated that private businesses have a very strong influence on the mass media. While there has been improvement in meeting basic education needs, provisions for other needs like electricity, water, food, health, social security, etc. are still far from what they should be.
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Competition Variable
Competition in the area of civil society (6.44) is higher than in the economic (4.92) and political (5.17) spheres. Competition is part of liberalization, which measures tolerance/inclusivity, capability and visibility, transparency, and diversity of voluntary associations. Experts generally agreed that the presence of civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Indonesia was very good, representing both a range of societal values and the public interest. Compared to political parties and the private sector, NGOs are considered more open and transparent. In terms of tolerance, experts stated that there is a very large number and variety of NGOs and CSOs in Indonesia. Nevertheless, not all CSOs reflect values of tolerance. Some CSOs express the opposite. The variety of NGOs can be seen from the presence of some groups that campaign for human rights, pluralism, and tolerance, and other groups that are anti-pluralism and antitolerance. Yet the number of those organizations is considered small. Thus, experts are of the view that this strand of NGOs still reflects the variety of societal interests. It could be said that NGOs in Indonesia are reasonably representative of all societal groups. The number of CSOs has shot up since Soehartos fall in 1998. In the post-Soeharto era, public freedom has opened up and has provided the opportunity for various groups to establish organizations. Data from Indonesias Ministry of Home Affairs show that the number of CSOs in 2005 was around 3,000. In 2010, that number increased to 9,000. This large number clearly reflects societal values and needs. In terms of transparency, Indonesian NGOs are considered to have progressed far more than political parties. Many NGOs have now begun to operate transparently. They share information with the public, including their financial reports. Political parties have not yet done this. Several NGOs have also begun to manage regeneration and succession in a democratic manner. Moreover, competition in the political sphere has an index score of 5.17, while competition in the economic sphere has an index score of 4.92. One aspect that is still poor in both political and economic practice is that neither is transparent. Experts assessed that these two areas display relations that are mutually beneficial for their respective interests, while shutting out the public. Experts rated transparency as poor in the economic sphere. Although companies have gone public and created financial transparency, many money practices are not revealed. Examples of said practices are corporate taxation and company ownership, which can be entrenched in multiple layers, making it difficult to determine the true owner.
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On the issue of competition among companies in Indonesia, experts stated that many companies still receive special treatment through money games with the government. The bigger the company, the more of the competition is closed, making it unfair. The Indonesian Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) was established during the reform era to oversee business competition. However, the KPPU lacks the necessary resources and capacity to effectively do so.
Pluralization Variable
Pluralization is lowest in the economic sphere but across all spheres, pluralization maintained low index scores. In the economic sphere, the pluralization index score is 3.09, with 5.39 in the political sphere and 4.08 in civil society. In the economic sphere, it is a fact that conglomerates control economic activities. Experts stated that foreign conglomerates are far more dominant than local conglomerates. Sectors controlled by foreign conglomerates include the following: oil and gas, palm oil, coal, and banking, among others (Gie 1990; Winters 2011). Various regulations issued by the government provide broad opportunities for foreign investors to control economic activities. Foreign investors can lease land for ninety years for their businesses. Foreign investors are also permitted to share ownership of up to 99 percent in a bank in Indonesia. Several government regulations also permit foreign investors to invest in the retail business. As a result, foreign investors control many important sectors that prop up the Indonesian economy. Control of assets by conglomerates, especially by foreign investors, has caused extraordinary disparities in revenues. Pluralization in civil society has a low index score, although it is somewhat higher than pluralization in the economic sphere. This is because the mass media is still not free from the business and political interests of its owners. Electronic media do not offer quality programs to the public. Inequality of access to information is still high, where the internet is monopolized by the educated and access to libraries is considered poor. There are limited opportunities for those who wish to engage in cultural activities. Pluralization index score was highest in the political sphere. During the reform era, institutions have been established to improve the quality of horizontal accountability, such as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), Indonesian Broadcast Commission (KPI), and the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM). However, ensuring a better mechanism of checks and balances demands integrity from the people within these institutions. The same applies to parliament. While parliament is seen
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as quite representative, it is noted that not all members of parliament carry out their functions optimally.
Solidarity Variable
Solidarity is lowest in the economic sphere. Solidarity has a lower index score in the economic (4.24) than in the political sphere (4.78) and in the civil society (5.41) spheres. There are various factors contributing to the low solidarity index in the economic sphere, including business activities that do not provide social security and the continued absence of labor union activities. Labor is insufficiently organized and the labor movement fragmented, making it unable to direct its power to enforce compliance of management with the workers right to adequate social security. The ambition of labor groups to be involved in companies decision-making practices is still far from realized. Workers do not have the opportunity to hold shares in the company, so there are no opportunities to attend important company meetings. Furthermore, labor still has minimal power to influence policy-making by the government. In addition, public participation, whether through consumer groups or environmental groups, is still weak. People are basically unenthusiastic about participating in reducing imbalances. Several religious organizations do engage in activities for economic empowerment, but have yet to achieve policy change. The solidarity index score in the political sphere is also low. Experts stated that although people appear to be active in general elections, they do not participate in policymaking. Affirmative action for women in the political sphere is seen as adequate, with 30 percent of parliament dedicated for female candidates, but there are problems in its execution. Public trust in the government is low because of various corruption cases that have yet to be settled. Public trust in parliament is also low. Despite all of these, the public still appears to have faith in democracy. The solidarity index score is the highest in civil society. While there is no affirmative action taken by the government for the disabled, elderly, and other minority groups, affirmative action for womens group and the education sector has already taken place. Public involvement in NGO activities is considered low but is already on the rise. CSOs are considered quite influential in the governments policy-making process, but it depends on which issues they are working on. Anti-corruption NGOs are currently considered to have a very strong influence on policy making, compared to NGOs working on other issues.
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Table 7: Forbes 40 Wealthiest Citizens Country Total wealth Average (USD wealth (USD billions) billions) Indonesia 71.3 1.78 Thailand 36.5 0.91 51.3 1.28 Malaysia Singapore 45.7 1.14 Source: Winters (2011).
Total wealth as % of GDP 10.3 11.7 23.4 21.0
Wealth concentration index 6.22 1.95 1.65 0.25
Analysis of Main Principles of Democracy: Liberalization and Equalization

The equalization index is lowest in the economic sphere while liberalization is highest in the political sphere. The data show that equalization has a lower index score in the economic sphere (3.66) than in the political sphere (5.08) and in civil society (4.75). The low score for equalization in the economic sphere appears to be the result of a very low pluralization score (3.09) as well as a low solidarity score (4.24). Monopoly is still considered to occur in the economic sphere, with certain groups still in control of the economy. Inequality of assets is also more pervasive in this era of democracy than in the previous era. Lower-class control over land has declined over time. Income equality has not been achieved. Twenty percent of the population with the highest income control an increasingly large share of national income from year to year; while forty percent of the population with the lowest income control a decreasing share. Furthermore, economic inequality among regions is still a very serious concern. The economic pie was expected to be (re)distributed once regional autonomy was introduced. However, the lower classes have not been given their share of the economic pie. The welfare of the people has been lost, especially in those regions that remain left behind, e.g. eastern part of Indonesia. Equalization has been used to measure the extent to which minority and subaltern groups have obtained access to resources in various sectors and been able to enjoy equality of access to resources and power. Equalization is therefore a process involving transformation of power in each sector, namely politics, the economy, and civil society. The resulting index shows that equalization has shown no meaningful progress in the economic sphere nor is there equality of access to economic resources.
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The data of the Forbes Magazine (quoted in Winters 2011) show that concentration of wealth in Indonesia has a very high index score compared to other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Winters (2011) stated that the concentration of wealth in Indonesia is three times that in Thailand, almost four times that in Malaysia, and twenty times that in Singapore. Liberalization also has the lowest index score in the economic sphere (4.96), compared with the liberalization scores in civil society (5.45) and in the political sphere (6.01). Liberalization is used to measure the extent to which the different sectors have achieved independence and autonomy from the old authoritarian political forces and have been able to stipulate their own interests. This very much depends on the degree of disintegration of the old monopoly forces. Since the liberalization score is lower for the economic sphere than for the other spheres, this may explain the similarly low equalization score for the economic sphere. Existing democracies are not particularly successful in undertaking economic liberalization when the economy is still not autonomous, especially from politics. There is a mutually beneficial relationship among political and economic elites that is far from transparent. Failure of economic sector liberalization constrains equalization in the economic sector. The low index scores of the economic sphere for both the liberalization and equalization principles show that Indonesian democracy faces big problems in the economy. Moreover, data show that the two main principles of democracy liberalization and equalizationhave low index scores. However, the principle of equalization has a lower index score (4.50) than liberalization (5.48). These index scores for Indonesia for the main principles of democracy are not satisfactory. From these two figures it can be said that Indonesian democracy is positioned in the middle, containing the threat that it could suffer a setback at any time. The data also show that both variables derived from the principle of equalization have low scores. The total pluralization index score is lowest (4.19) across all variables. Meanwhile, the total solidarity score is the next lowest (4.81). In all three areas, the liberalization index score is higher than the equalization index score. Liberalization is ongoing in the political sphere. The same is true in civil society, notwithstanding the powerful influence of private companies on the mass media. This creates an imbalance in public discourse.
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Analysis of the Indonesian Democracy Index

The index is lower in the economics sphere than in the politics and civil society spheres. The economy index has a lower score (4.24) than the politics index (5.5) or the civil society index (5.09). This is chiefly due to the influence of the equalization index for the economy, which scores well below the average (3.66). These data indicate that the democratization process in Indonesia is not yet able to overcome monopolization of political, social, and, especially, economic resources. Concentration of economic resources and access to such resources by the dominant few continues. Several experts stated that a few foreign conglomerates and economic powers dominate economic activities. They particularly control extractive industries that are capital-intensive. This unequal access to economic resources in turn creates income inequality. Meanwhile, decentralizationwhose agenda is not to centralize sources of power at the centerhas not been sufficiently successful in overcoming economic disparities among regions. This inequality is increasing because Indonesia does not have a social security system that can be used for disintegration of this monopoly, i.e., to demonopolize centralized sources of economic power. Although labor union activities and numbers are now thicker, this is not sufficient to build up real strength. There is also an extremely low level of concern for monitoring business performance. This low index score for the economic sphere can also be attributed to weak regulations on de-monopolizing control over economic resources. Experts considered the quality of liberalizationin the sense of being free from monopolyas moderate (4.96). De-monopolization efforts in the democracy process have been insufficient from a political perspective. After more than a decade since the fall of authoritarian governance, it appears that political and social liberalization has not had substantial influence on de-monopolization of the sources of economic power. This research shows that there has been liberalization in the political sphereand this fact is generally accepted by supporters, opponents, and moderates. Perhaps we should not rush to say that the continued strength of monopolistic systems in the economic sphere has caused the quality of liberalization and equalization in the political and social spheres to be less than optimal. In other words, the failure of economic de-monopolization has implications for the quality of de-monopolization achieved in the political
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and social spheres. We find this in several comments from experts, who emphasized the hard power of business to influence politics and civil society. Public spaces, including the media, are heavily controlled by economic power pointing to a serious information gap. Media ownership by certain groups is a reflection of unequal access to and distribution of information. Media owners decide what the public should be informed about. The same applies to the media owners effect on the publics access cultural activities and facilities. There have been many art groups that have been unable to continue cultural expression. Moreover, public space in its physical sense is full of shopping malls and gas stations, which are more representative of business interests. The implication is a loss of citizenry. When the power of the economy is so huge, we no longer have citizens, but consumers. This research shows that while there has been affirmation in the political sphere, particularly for women, this has not been applied to civil society empowerment. And the level of citizen participation, whether in the domains of politics or civil society, is still low.
Why is Indonesias Index Score Still Low?

The Indonesian democracy index is below the average figure (4.99) illustrating that de-monopolization is not even halfway there. There are many items on the agenda that still need to be formulated and implemented for this to occur. But to say halfway there has little meaning unless we go deeper to identify the pertinent parts that are deficient. The poor quality of de-monopolization is primarily influenced by the principle of equalization, or, more specifically, equalization in the economic sector. If we look at it from the perspective of pluralization, we find that poor equalization occurs in the economy (3.09) and in civil society (4.08). Furthermore, if we look at it from the perspective of solidarity, politics (4.78) and the economy (4.24) are the main influences on the poor quality of this index. Meanwhile, we found that the principle of liberalizationthe process of restoring autonomyscored above the average (5.44 for autonomy and 5.51 for competition or 5.48 overall). This especially applies to liberalization in the political sphere (6.86 for autonomy and 5.17 for competition). Freedom from monopoly or liberalization from monopoly in the political sphere is above average, but this does not apply to the economic and civil society spheres. What significance should we place on this? Liberalization weighs heavier (5.48) than equalization (4.50). However, the scope of liberalization is neither broad nor deep. Liberalization is still very limited in the political
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sphere, and even more limited in civil society. This suggests that the formal political instruments and procedures now are potentially available for the majority of the population for de-monopolization of power. The old forces that used to be the backbone of the Suhartos regime no longer easily dominates the scene of Indonesian politics. Socio-political power has begun to be dispersed among various groups. At the community level, inclusivity of culture, religion, language and racial/ethnic groups, and plurality of ideas are all valued. Only a few minority groups reject such inclusivity. But civil society is not necessarily sufficiently autonomous from various other powers, especially economic ones. But this political opportunity is not accompanied by significant transformation in power relationships, especially in the economic sector (3.66) and civil society (4.75). In the political sphere, this transformation has been mediocre (only 0.8 above the average). It is interesting to note that two antagonistic groupspro-government and anti-governmentboth highly rate the success of developing autonomy. On autonomy in the political sphere, both pro- and anti-government experts made similar assessments (7.33 and 7.25, respectively) about the democracy process in Indonesia. Pro-government experts do not always see the democratization process as having succeeded in the de-monopolization of sources of power. We only see de-monopolization achieving a high score (7.33) in the area of group autonomy. This may illustrate a tendency for pro-government experts to give importance to a minimalist state role. The same is true in the realm of civil society, which stresses freedom from state control. Not only have civil society groups mushroomed (density), their activities have also increased (vibrant). Meanwhile, anti-government experts in other sectors gave a score of moderate. Nearly all experts share the view that almost no de-monopolization has occurred in the economic sector. One minor point should be made here. Experts who were pro-government (5.42 for autonomy and 6.0 for competition) and moderate (5.75 for autonomy and 5.50 for competition) gave moderate scores for liberalization in the economic sector. Economic liberalization has yet to occur in the view of anti-government experts. All groups agreed that there has not been significant de-monopolization, which is primarily due to the low level of equalization. Moderate and pro-government groups gave high scores for competition in civil society. Both groups consider the important contribution civil society can make in de-monopolization. However, those in the anti-government
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group have a more negative view of de-monopolization in civil society, particularly in relation to accountability. In the case of pluralization in civil society, the anti-government group found low equality of access to social resources such as information and culture. Anti-government informants still considered knowledge, information, and development of cultural values to be dominated by certain powers.
Conclusions
Indonesias score for the Asian Democracy Index is 4.99, on a scale of 0-10. This score shows that Indonesian democracy is still problematic despite thirteen years of post-authoritarianism transition. This provides a stern warning about the state of democracy in Indonesia, compared with several other democracy indices, which gave Indonesia a score higher than 5. The index score indicates that developments and achievements are out of balance with the concept of propping up democracy on the ongoing process of transition. Indonesian democracy has been propped up by significant liberalization of politics, but this has been accompanied by low equalization in the economic sphere. Economic equalization is the lowest among all components of the index score. Moreover, the role of civil society is classified as mediocre, lacking a significant role in animating democratic change. Liberalization and equalization are categorized as poor in the area of civil society. The index findings from this research appear to confirm various criticisms by experts regarding the oligarchy phenomenona serious issue that Indonesian democracy now faces. Various important resources in social and economic relations are managed in a way that is closely connected to the old power of the elite, who in turn has enjoyed monopoly since the authoritarian era. In the political sphere, there have been many institutional and procedural developments that have opened up new space for autonomy in formal political contests such as national and local elections. While many new faces have arrived at the political scene, this does not mean that these newcomers are completely free from the political power of the oligarchy. To be involved in politics require substantial funds. The alternatives coming from civil society are not numerous enough and do not have a significant influence on the political arena. It appears that the increased de-monopolization occurring in the political arena is not yet able to promote de-monopolization in the economic and civil society spheres. A high degree of liberalization is only possible if there is a substantial change to the prevailing monopoly power of the elite. New forces must be able to engage in change in order for a significant level of democracy
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to emerge. It appears that the transformational capacity to pass through monopoly barriers is significant. Continued weakness in transformational capacity will lead to an inability to maximize opportunities that have arisen in the political and civil society spheres for democratization, tending towards autonomy and the ability to introduce new rules and procedures. We should therefore be strongly critical of the conclusion made by various prior research that Indonesian democracy had been consolidated. Consolidation in the economic and civil society spheres should begin to be seen as closely connected with political democracy, which has experienced a wealth of change over the last thirteen years. The powers that have monopolized the economic sphere are still substantial barriers to improving the quality of democracy in Indonesia. Monopolies are still extremely strong in the economic sector and have been carried into the political and civil society spheres.
Recommendations
The Asia Democracy Index can become a gateway for a more detailed review of the analysis of the transition to democracy, especially in the context of Indonesia. Starting with the methods developed in this research, it is apparent that further research can be developed that emphasizes investigation and mapping of how monopolies over resources and power in the political, economic, and civil society spheres can become substantial obstacles to the quality of democracy. An important note to the democratization agenda in the future is the importance of looking at the relations between these three sectors in influencing the overall democracy index score. The good news is that, based on the portrait of de-monopolization in the political sphere, which has been able to achieve a significant degree of liberalization, we should continue to advocate this as a factor in the transformation that permits liberalization and equalization in the other sectors. A transition to democracy that focuses on liberalization of politics must be advocated further, especially by promoting opportunities in the political sphere and the role of civil society in embarking on demonopolization efforts in the economic sector, which are becoming an increasing challenge for the future of Indonesias transition to democracy.
Notes
1. See Diamond (2010, 25). 2. He compared Indonesia with Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Mongolia. 3. Diamond (2010) and Liddle and Mujani (quoted in Diamond 2010) concluded that Indonesian democracy is essentially consolidated based on the argument that: a) on
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behavior, no political group is currently threatening to remove democracy or leave the state of Indonesia; b) on attitude, there is relatively substantial support for democracy as the best form of government; c) on the level of constitutional commitment, key political and social actors are committed to resolving disputes and pursuing their interests through a constitutional process, i.e., in a non-violent way. 4. Aspinall (quoted in Aspinall and Mietzner 2010) quoted several experts, namely Robinson and Hadiz and Boudreau, who say that Indonesian democracy is only artificial. He also quotes Ramage and MacIntre who say that Indonesian democracy as having been consolidated. Finally, he places Davidson and himself at the middle. 5. In Freedom Houses 2011 assessment of freedom in the world, Indonesia received scores of 2 for political rights and 3 for civil rights on a scale of 1-7, where 1 is the most free and 7 is the least free. 6. See DEMOS (n.d., 19-21). The four key tools of democracy contain thirty-two democracy tools. 7. The Indonesian Democracy Index was developed by Bappenas together with several experts. This index has three variables: Civil Rights, Political Rights and Democracy Institutes. See UNDP (2011).
References
Alisyahbana, Armida S. 2011. Foreword. In Measuring Democracy in Indonesia: Indonesian Democracy Index 2009. Published by UNDP. Indonesia: UNDP. Aspinall, Edward and Marcus Mietzner. 2010. Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia: An Overview. In Edward Aspinall and Marcus Mietzner, eds., Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia; Elections, Institutions and Society, 1-20. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Bayuni, Endy M. 2011. Indonesia Risks Downgrade of its Democratic Rating. The Jakarta Post. Accessed August 22, 2011. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/ 08/20/indonesia-risks-downgrade-its-democratic-rating.html. DASMI (Democracy and Social Movements Institute). 2010. The Asian Democracy Index: A Short Guide. Presentation at the 2010 Seoul Democracy Index Forum and Workshop, Sungkonghoe University, Seoul, Korea, October 14-15. Diamond, Larry. 2010. Indonesias Place in Global Democracy. In Edward Aspinall and Marcus Mietzner, eds., Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia; Elections, Institutions and Society, 53-74. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Economist Intelligence Unit. 2010. Democracy Index 2010: Democracy in Retreat. Accessed August 22, 2011 . http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_ 2010_web.pdf. Freedom House. 2011. Freedom in the World 2011. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2011. Gie, Kwik Kian. 1990. Konglomerat Indonesia: Permasalahan dan Sepak Terjangnya (Indonesian Conglomerates: Problems and Dynamics). Jakarta: Sinar Harapan. DEMOS (Indonesian Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies). n.d. Satu Dekade Reformasi: Maju dan Mundurnya Demokrasi di IndonesiaRingkasan Eksekutif dan Laporan Awal Survei Nasional Kedua: Masalah dan Pilihan Demokrasi di Indonesia (2007-2008) (A Decade of Reform: Advances and Setbacks in Democracy in IndonesiaExecutive Summary and Preliminary Report on Second National Survey on Issues and Choices for Democracy in Indonesia [2007-2008]). Jakarta: DEMOS.
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Muhtadi, Burhanuddin. n.d. Unpublished notes. Presented at Democracy and Its Measurements: A Problem, organized by the Indonesian Community for Democracy (Komunitas Indonesia untuk Demokrasi/KID), Jakarta, Indonesia, August 9, 2011. UNDP (United Nations Development Program). 2011. Measuring Democracy in Indonesia: Indonesian Democracy Index 2009. Indonesia: UNDP. Winters, Jeffrey A. 2011. The Threat of Oligarchy and the Future of Indonesian Politics. Presentation at a discussion organized by the Society for Democracy Education (Perhimpunan Pendidikan Demokrasi), Jakarta, Indonesia, June 1.
The CADI Asian Democracy Index: 2011 Country Report The Philippines
MIGUEL PAOLO P. REYES, CLARINDA LUSTERIO BERJA, MA. CELINE ANASTASIA P. SOCRATES
Introduction
Shortly after it was approached by the Democracy and Social Movements Institute (DaSMI) of Sungkonghoe University in August 2010 to conduct the Asian Democracy Index (ADI) project in the Philippines, the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center (TWSC) found itselfin keeping with its orientation as a critical social science research center questioning the fundamentals of the ADI initiative. What exactly was Asian democracy? With the projects quantitative-qualitative approach to measuring Asian democracy, how would consolidation/aggregation issues cropping up from the diversity of data be addressed? How was this ADI different from similarly named democracy indices?1 These issues were tackled in discussions over the next few months until June 2011, bringing the ADI project closer to what it aims to bea means of comprehending, thereafter prognosticating the state of Asian democratization. The Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index (CADI) defines democratization as a process of politico-socioeconomic demonopolization that unfolded following the collapse of an oligarchic authoritarian regime (CADI 2011, 6-8). The TWSC also saw the ADI project as yet another endeavor consistent with its long engagement in the study of democratic governance. Moreover, the research team for the pilot testing of the ADIalso the authors of this texttook a liking to the thought
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Miguel Paolo P. Reyes is a university research associate at the Third World Studies Center, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines-Diliman. Clarinda Lusterio Berja is an assistant professor at the Political Science Program of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines-Manila. Ma. Celine Anastasia P. Socrates is a teaching associate at the Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines-Diliman. ASIAN DEMOCRACY REVIEW Vol. 1 (2012): 134-180 ISSN 2244-5633
REYES, BERJA, SOCRATES
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of participating in a project that seeks to analyze our progress towards democracy from the perspective of insiderssimilar to one of the aims of other evaluations of democracy in Asia. The ADI, however, adopted a different evaluative system, and does not claim to be a(nother) means of ranking democracies. We believe that the ADI can eventually become a reliable tool for describing how our country is progressing towards democracy.
Democratization in the Philippines in Brief

Before we delve into a discussion of the first ADI survey in TWSCs home country, a brief history lesson is necessary. The Philippines is often touted as the first democracy in Asia, a claim given credence by the fact that it was one of the first Asian nations to have democratically elected government officials. The word democracy has, since those early days of diffusion of political power, been bandied about by Filipinos either as a characterization of the nation or as an ideal yet to be achieved. According to the countrys current (1987) constitution, the Philippines is a democratic and republican state [wherein sovereignty] resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them (Section 1, Article II). The overt affirmation that it is a democratic state, further elaborated by the succeeding statement that the Philippine sovereign is the Philippine citizenry, serves as an expression of a fervent desire to democratize despite the numerous obstacles that have faced Filipino democrats. According to Nolledo, [as] a democratic State, the Government must not be authoritarian, thus manifesting the peoples desire to be freed from dictatorship (1992, 6). That affirmation is the product of a national trauma, as will be explained further. The Philippines was formally declared independent from the United States of America (U.S.) in 1946, ending the nations centuries-long existence under the rule of foreign sovereignsover 300 years under Spain, over forty years under U.S. rule, as well as a little in excess of two years under Japan during the Second World War. The country thereafter followed the U.S. model; popular elections were the means through which the sovereign Philippine citizenry elevated their members to seats in the legislature or to non-appointive executive positions. The countrys 1935 Constitution, which was in force during the first few decades of the countrys existence as a sovereign nation-state, stated that the Philippines is a republican state (Section 1, Article II). Come 1972, as the conclusion of his second elected term in office drew near, the countrys sixth post-liberation chief executive, President Ferdinand Marcos, placed the entire nation under martial law, ostensibly in response to
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[national] decline and demoralization, social and economic deterioration, [and] anarchy and rebellioncatastrophes allegedly brought about by members of the countrys communist party (Marcos 1977, 154). In 1973, a hurriedly (and undemocratically) ratified constitution granting Marcos a legal basis for indefinitely ruling over the country as dictator came into force. Again, Section 1, Article II of this constitution referred to the Philippines as a republican state only. Marcoss authoritarian regime would last for fourteen years, during which he took control of public utilities, the media, and numerous other businesses and industries. Numerous human rights violationstypically against Marcoss opponents, committed by members of the armed forces were committed during the Marcos dictatorship. Corruption was also extensive during the martial law regime, with Marcos uninhibitedly dipping his hands into the government treasury to finance his and his wifes luxurious lifestyle. He was overthrown a few years after the assassination of key opposition figure Senator Benigno Ninoy Aquino, Jr. in 1983; with the February 1986 uprisingknown as the People Power or EDSA2 Revolutionbegan the continuing process of (re)democratization in the country. After the 1986 revolution, Marcos fled the Philippines and became an exile in the nation that once backed him as an enemy of the Third World communist tidethe U.S. Corazon Aquino subsequently took the reins of government. Aquino was Ninoy Aquinos widow, and, according to one election watchdog, the winner of the presidency in the 1986 Snap Election called by Marcos when the legitimacy of his regime began to speedily crumble. Under her administration, the 1973 Constitution was succeeded by the popular referendum-ratified 1987 Peoples Constitution. The latter constitution contains numerous safeguards to ensure that a Marcos-like regime never recurs; it is but natural that such a decidedly anti-authoritarian constitution states that the Philippines is both a republican and democratic state in its declaration of state principles and policies. Aquinos administration was followed by two democratically elected administrations, namely, those of Fidel Ramos (1992-1998) and Joseph Estrada (1998-2001). Ramos was a former military officer and an Aquino ally; the populist Estrada was a former movie actor affiliated with Marcos. Ramos built upon the gains of Aquino; Estrada shared Marcoss fondness for self-enrichment. Due to allegations of massive corruption, Estrada was ousted in an uprising that has been dubbed by mainstream media as EDSA 2. There are still debates among scholars on whether Estradas ouster was indeed the result of a popular uprising, or whether it was primarily a takeover
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a few months after EDSA 2 as a result of Estradas arrest for plundering the nations coffers. That last EDSA revolt, a movement by Estradas supporters, was unsuccessful, in that neither was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos government overthrown nor was Estrada released from detention. After one term as Estradas successor by default, Arroyo was given six more years in the presidency via the 2004 General Elections. Within her more than nine years in office, there were attempts by certain members of the military to oust her, but all were unsuccessful. Allegations of corruption and election fraud were also insufficient to unseat President Arroyo, who was fond of using her police powers to impose states of rebellion/emergency to combat or keep at bay her more vocal detractors. Constitutionally barred from seeking another term, Arroyo stepped down in 2010, giving way to Senator Benigno Aquino III, the son of former President and recently deceased Corazon Aquino and former Sen. Ninoy Aquino. By positioning himself as a leader who will lead his countrymen down the straight path (matuwid na daan) towards democracy, supposedly following in the footsteps of his venerated mother and father, Aquino won a significant majority of votes over his opponents in the 2010 General Elections. The current President Aquino is largely engaging his people in finding ways to clean up the government, as well as in helping him deliver on his campaign promise to jail Arroyo for her alleged wrongdoings. It is in this milieu that in-house and affiliate researchers of TWSC conducted an ADI survey, in accordance with the following methodology.
Data and Methods Sampling of Respondents

The TWSC generated a long list of experts (which serves as the sampling frame of the survey3) in three fields of expertise, namely, politics, economy, and civil society. The list includes experts from the academe; nongovernmental/civil society organizations (NGOs/CSOs); and the private sector, members of which are not affiliated with the government or any academic institution, nor are primarily affiliated with NGOs/CSOs. The experts were categorized according to their ideological leanings. They were designated by members of the research team as either (extreme) left-left leaning (L-LL) or (extreme) right-right leaning (R-RL). The original ideological delineations proposed by the project initiatorsi.e., liberal, moderate, and conservativewere found to be inapplicable to the Philippines, given that primary self-identification using these labels is largely unheard of
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Table 1: Respondent Profile

Field
Politics Economy Civil Society
Affiliation Academe NGO/CSO Private Sector Academe NGO/CSO Private Sector Academe NGO/CSO Private Sector
NO. of L-LL 0 0 3 0 3 0 3 3 2
NO. of R-RL 3 3 0 3 0 3 0 0 1
in the country, while one often hears of the left and the right battling in various arenas of Philippine society. In classifying whether a respondent is L-LL or R-RL, the research team made the following assumptions: 1) those who are known (by their reputations, publications, etc.) to exhibit critical or dissenting opinions against the Philippine government and its policies, and are at the same time avowedly supportive of socialist socioeconomic policies are left-left leaning; 2) those who have worked for the Philippine government, either in the bureaucracy or as consultants, and/or subscribe to the governments neoliberal socioeconomic policies are right-right leaning. We have yet to encounter anyone who can rightly be called an expert informant who is largely critical of the Philippine government (not just a certain administration) yet does not prefer socialist (or socialist, e.g., welfare state-style expenditures) alternatives to neoliberalism; meanwhile, the few experts who can be classified as belonging to the extreme right are more critical of specific administrations than the Philippine government after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship. However, there exists the possibility that there are experts who were not considered by the research team who fail to fall under the categories described. In any case, the categorization primarily serves, as per the ADI guidebook, to secure objectivity (CADI 2011, 36); experts also include people who are former self-designated Marxists, who are now pushing for non-socialist (one can daresay neoliberal) economic reforms, and left-left leaning journalists. A sample of twenty-seven experts was chosen from a long list to answer the survey instrument using stratified multistage purposive sampling. To come up with this sample, the long list of potential respondents was first divided into three groups based on the three institutional affiliation categories. Next, experts were classified according to their field of expertise. Thus, nine
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groups/sectors of experts were formed (e.g., political experts from the academe, economic experts from NGOs/CSOs, and so on). Lastly, the ideological affiliation of the experts was assigned by the research team. The complete respondent profile according to field of expertise, institutional affiliation, and ideological leanings can be found in table 1. While the Philippine researchers wanted each sector to have a 2-1 or 12 mix of L-LL and R-RL respondents, such an ideal mix proved untenable, as 1) some of the field-specific sectors were not found to have any prominent members who belonged to one ideological leaning (the right-right leaning individual primarily identified with NGOs/CSOs is a rare breed; the left-left leaning economist in the academe is equally difficult to find), or 2) individuals who would have made a field-specific sector more diverse refused or constructively declined to participate in the survey.
Geographic Coverage
The survey includes experts nationwide. Specifically, it includes experts from the countrys major island groups: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Manila, the capital of the country and the seat of the national government, is located in Luzon. Taking into consideration the possibility of differences in citizens perception of democratization depending on their distance from the capital, the research team decided to ensure that at least two experts in each of the fields of expertise were rooted in and were strongly identified with localities in Visayas and Mindanao.
Data Collection
Self-administered questionnairesone for each of the fields of expertise developed by DaSMI were the study instruments, as constraints in distance, time, and resources made it difficult for the researchers to conduct face-toface interviews. The phrasing of the questions and explanatory notes in the questionnaire were revised to be more easily appreciated by Filipinos. The questionnaires were either emailed to the target respondents or were handed to them personally. The experts were given a week to inform TWSC of their willingness to participate in the survey. This gave TWSC sufficient time to quickly select other experts from the long list in case some experts in the short list refused to take part in the survey. Those who agreed to participate were given one week to return the accomplished instrument given to them. All experts were asked to indicate their responses to questions in the survey instruments using a scale of 0-10. Their ratings may describe their level of satisfaction/dissatisfaction about a certain situation, or their estimate
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of a level of influence and control, among others. They were also asked to give explanatory comments to their ratings as they saw fit. To ensure a modicum of objectivity among the respondents, in many of the explanatory notes to survey questions, the experts were advised to refer to international development indicators, notably the United Nations Development Programs Human Development Index,4 to assist them in giving their ratings.
Schedule of Data Collection and Analysis

In early June 2011, gathering of resources for the studys review of related literature started, concurrent with the initiation of the finalized survey instruments localization. Both these preparatory activities ended in late July 2011. Members of the project staff agreed on the grouped long list of expert informants in late July 2011. Data collection began in early August 2011 and ended in late September 2011. Processing the data took place from late September 2011 to mid-November 2011.
Difficulties in Data Collection

Over 70 invitations to potential respondents were sent out. The refusal rate was 64 percent. Some invitees either declined to participate in the project or did not reply to our invitations despite constant follow-ups. While most of those who agreed to take part in the project returned their filled out questionnaires immediately, some pushed their deadlines or decided to drop out of the project. The difficulty in gathering responses is largely attributable to the frequent holidays during the data collection period. Some of these holidays were calendared beforehand, while the others were due to successive typhoons. The fact that it was midterm season also made it difficult for some of the members of the academe with teaching duties to comply with the oneweek deadline.
Analytical Method
According to CADI, there are two primary principles of democracy: liberalization, which refers to how a monopoly of resources is de-integrated in the procedural level, or the level of autonomy achieved from the monopoly complex (CADI 2011, 11); and equalization, the principle that concerns the evaluation of how well agents are moving towards achieving socially just resource distribution (CADI 2011, 11). Liberalization is broken down into the subprinciples autonomy and competition, while equalization is broken
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down into the subprinciples pluralization and solidarity. The subprinciples are further explained in the results and analysis sections of this text. In accordance with the theoretical frame stated above, the country ADI will be obtained by determining the mean of the mean scores for the liberalization principle and the equalization principle. The score for the liberalization principle is the mean of the across-the-fields mean scores for the autonomy and competition subprinciples, while the score for the equalization principle is the mean of the across-the-fields mean scores for the pluralization and solidarity subprinciples. The field democracy indices, which are obtained by getting the across-the-subprinciples mean scores under each field, will also be computed. Lastly, the liberalization and equalization scores for each field will be obtained. The latter are calculated by getting the average of (field autonomy + field competition) and (field pluralization + field solidarity) for each field. Further information about the above relationships between the principles, subprinciples, and the fields of expertise and the number of items/indicators and indices/questions per field and per principle can be found in The CADI ADI Guidebook (CADI 2011). The analysis of the numerical ratings is coupled with a thematic analysis of the comments given by the experts. Some of the comments were rating justifications using objective measures. Others were explanatory comments drawn from the experts personal experiences/knowledge. As stated in the guidebook, these comments help to [overcome] the limitations of quantitative [evaluation,] as the [comments as] rationales [will] help [the analysts to] better understand the specific meanings of each answer and conditions of each country (CADI 2011, 37).
Results of the 2011 CADI ADI Survey in the Philippines Indices of Democracy
Table 2 summarizes the estimates derived from the results of the 2011 CADI ADI survey in the Philippines. The succeeding discussion describes in detail the ratings and the explanatory comments of the respondents per item.
Autonomy in Politics
The political autonomy subprinciple measures how independent citizens are from government or political groups. (CADI 2011, 13). It includes the following: degree of state violence [Q1], [civil liberties] [Q2], freedom
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Table 3: Item Scores for Autonomy in Politics Politics Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Autonomy Mean 5.9 7.6 8.0 8.0 7.4 Median 6.0 8.0 8.0 8.0 Minimum 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 Maximum 8.0 9.0 9.0 10.0
to organize political groups and undertake political action [Q3], and the degree of freedom for political opposition [Q4] (CADI 2011, 13). In table 3, Q1 yielded the lowest mean score for autonomy (5.9). Although many experts believe that the incidence of violence is diminishing, there is nevertheless a consensus among respondents that extrajudicial killings still present a significant problem, differing in extent in the various regions of the archipelago. According to two respondents, one specific location where there is a high incidence of extrajudicial killings is Mindanao, wherein, according to the aforementioned experts, there is a laxity in the rule of law. A specific instance that would demonstrate this, as related by one expert, is the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, which involved the killing of journalists and civilians as they accompanied the family of a local politician in filing for a certificate of candidacy in the 2010 elections. The crime is attributed to the Ampatuans, a powerful political family in Maguindanao. The comments given by majority of the respondents in their response to Q2 reflect their perception that there is a considerable degree of civic freedom in the country; indeed, the scores for this item range from 5 to 9, with the mean score at a relatively high 7.6. However, there is also consensus that the grant and protection of civic freedoms can still be improved. One respondent pointed out the absence of an official recognition of the right to shelter. Another respondent highlighted the need for the government to improve its responsiveness to the demands of the citizenry. While one respondent pointed out the possible constraint on freedom of assembly posed by the necessity of acquiring permits from local governments in order to conduct rallies, all the respondents gave high scores for Q3 (range: 6 to 9, mean: 8.0). One respondent even remarked that Filipinos enjoy too much freedom. Much cynicism, however, was expressed by the respondents as regards the quality of political groups formed. This is largely because of the unseemly vested interests of many of those who form or head these groups.
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Q4 likewise received high scores from all respondents. No score lower than 7 were given. One respondent even gave a score of 10, indicating that she believes that the degree of freedom for political opposition in the Philippines is very high. There is a consensus that opposition is generally allowed in law and in fact. However, the existence of militant opposition groups has created occasions for the government to resort to violence in order to regulate these groups. Moreover, one respondent observed that the existence of a radical opposition has had the effect of polarizing sides and reducing the public sphere for debate. One respondent also highlighted the role of money in the lack of party loyalty in congress.
Competition in Politics
Political competition, a measure of the ability of the a countrys political system to establish a self-reference system (CADI 2011, 15), is measured in table 4 in terms of expansion of universal suffrage [Q5], state efficiency [Q6], existence of non-elected supreme power [Q7], the rule of law [Q8], fair and competitive elections [Q9], and transparency [Q10] (CADI 2011, 15). The mean score is highest in Q5. The respondents agree that there are no formal limitations to suffrage. However, there is dissatisfaction among the respondents on the extent of citizen participation, particularly because of issues such as warlordism, an apathetic citizenry, vote-buying, and the inefficiency of the countrys election system. Another indicator of competition is the efficiency in implementing government policies (Q6). This was given a relatively low mean score of 4.7. In the survey, the respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the inefficient bureaucracy and the existence of corruption within government. However, one respondent was optimistic about the possibility of improvements in this area in the future, especially considering the role played by a vigilant and free media and a climate for redressing and reporting wrongs. When asked about the extent of political power of nonelected groups (Q7), the respondents gave an average score of 3.7, representing high influence of nonelected groups on elected officials.5 Although one respondent asserted there is low influence among lobby groups, the rest had a consensus that there are several non-elected actors who are able to permeate government through electoral funding of their candidates. One respondent refers to them as big business, big religion, big media. Religious groups such as the Roman Catholic Church, El Shaddai (a charismatic movement within the Roman Catholic Church), and the Iglesia ni Cristo sect influence government
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Table 4: Item Scores for Political Competition Politics Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 Competition Mean 6.9 4.7 3.7 4.8 5.4 4.2 5.0 Median 7.0 5.0 3.0 5.0 5.0 4.0 Minimum Maximum 4.0 2.0 1.0 3.0 4.0 2.0 9.0 7.0 9.0 9.0 8.0 6.0
to the extent that they are able to influence their constituents electoral choices. When asked whether rule of law is established in the country, the respondents likewise gave a relatively low rating (4.8). Although there is one respondent who gave an unexplained numerical rating of 9, the rest of the respondents agree on the perception that the powerful elite are exempted from the rule of law. This is aggravated by the existence of extensive corruption in the judiciary. In terms of having fair elections in the Philippines, the respondents gave a moderate rating (5.4). Two respondents had positive things to say about Philippine electoral laws, with one characterizing them as excellent and the other as voluminous. All respondents believed that these laws are poorly implemented, decrying the role of powerful elites in influencing the selection of candidates. Other negative aspects of Philippine elections mentioned by the respondents include the weak political party system, electoral fraud, and the lack of transparency in the Commission on Elections. One respondent described a bright spot in all that negativity, highlighting the increase in election efficiency resulting from the use of precinct count optical scan machines in the 2010 General Electionsa first in Philippine election history. Generally, the political experts do not think there is transparency of operations of government agencies. In this aspect, numerical ratings range from 2 to 6, with a mean of 4.2. There is a general dissatisfaction among the respondents with regard to the inefficient bureaucracy, particularly in relation to the lack of transparency due to the absence of a freedom of information law. Government operations were also considered as graft-ridden. The examples given by one respondent are the NBN-ZTE deal (a contract
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Table 5: Item Scores for Political Plurality Politics Mean Median 5.3 5.0 Q11 5.2 4.0 Q12 4.8 5.0 Q13 5.0 5.0 Q14 Pluralization 5.1
Minimum Maximum 4.0 7.0 3.0 10.0 3.0 7.0 3.0 6.0
between the Philippines and a telecommunications company from China), the Fertilizer Scam, and the helicopters bought during the administration of President Arroyo.
Pluralization in Politics
Political pluralization shows how evenly political power is distributed (CADI 2011, 17). In table 5, it is measured by four items: independence and check and balance between state power apparatuses [Q11], power distribution in the parliament [or congress (Q12)], political representation [Q13], and democratization of government bodies [Q14] (CADI 2011, 17). The mean score for Q11which is concerned with the maintenance of checks and balances in governmentis 5.3. Although the respondents agree on the existence of legal checks and balances among the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judiciary), the respondents also agree that checks and balances are ineffective because the executive exercises control/influence over the legislative branch. The judiciary was characterized as subservient and polarized at times. One respondent noted the lack of synergy between the legislature and the judiciary. The same observations were reported in terms of equal distribution of power within the legislature (Q12s concern) where the mean score is 5.2. Although two respondents find no problem with the distribution of power in the legislature, the rest of the experts who gave comments highlighted the absence of party subsidies and the absence of a formal party system, which has resulted in the dependence of members of the House of Representatives on a funding system referred to as pork barrel, which these officials acquire by shifting allegiances to the party in power. The mean score for Q13, which deals with representation of various social groups in the legislature, is only 4.8, with scores ranging from 3 to 7.
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Table 6: Item Scores for Political Solidarity Politics Mean Median Minimum Q15 7.3 7.0 5.0 Q16 5.4 5.0 2.0 Q17 6.4 6.0 4.0 Q18 4.8 5.0 3.0 Q19 8.0 8.0 6.0 Solidarity 6.4
Maximum 9.0 8.0 9.0 7.0 9.0
In the survey, the respondents agree on the lack of representation in the legislature, which is vastly dominated by the political elite from various districts in the country. The party-list system is perceived by the respondents as ineffective in representing various sectors in society because it is dominated by special interest groups. The collective score for the item on fairness and rationality of government agencies in implementing policies (Q14) is also fairly low (5.0). While about 42 percent of the respondents commented positively on this matter, the experts all agree that not all institutions conduct fair implementation of policies. About 14 percent of the respondents observed that policies of national scope are fairly implemented, but much improvement is needed with regard to the implementation of local policies. Another respondent observed, regulatory capture is prevalent. Lastly, about 28 percent of the respondents commented on the inefficiency of public hearings in terms of integrating the input of the citizens into the actual policies.
Solidarity in Politics
Solidarity in the political field refers to the willingness of citizens to challenge power disparity and the implementation of institutional measures that address political power distribution (CADI 2011, 19). In table 6, it is measured using four items: institutional measures for and the degree of [citizens] participation [Q15], affirmative actions [Q16], public confidence in the existing democracy [Q17], and public confidence in democracy and democratic values [Q18] (CADI 2011, 19). The experts gave a collective score of 7.3 for Question 15, which is on citizens participation in political decision-making. There is consensus
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among the respondents that there is a high degree of public awareness and voters turnout during elections. However, public participation in decisionmaking is still limited to elections. When asked how well they think affirmative action programs are established and implemented (Q16), scores given were from 2 to 8, with the average score being 5.4. According to the respondents, there are legal provisions that forward the protection of women, children, and persons with disabilities, though one respondent asserted that no special laws exist for these citizens. In Q17, which concerns public trust in the government (understood to refer either to trust in the executive or the current administration), the mean score is 6.4 (range: 4 to 9). Although one respondent asserted that there is a high degree of cynicism towards government, the rest have observed that public trust towards the present administration is greater relative to public trust towards the previous one. In the item concerning public trust in the legislature (Q18), the scores varied from 3 to 7, yielding an average score of 4.8. As can be gleaned from the data, the perceptions of respondents differ on this matter. One respondent stated that the current congress enjoys a positive trust rating. Another respondent observed that this trust is mixed with reservations. The rest commented that the citizens see Congress as corrupt. Lastly, the data reveals that there is high public trust in democracy. When asked How much do you think the public trusts democracy? (in Q19), the scores range from 6 to 9. The mean score is 8, indicating that the respondents are in agreement that the citizenry at large still prefers democracy over other political systems despite its flaws. Two respondents noted that the trauma brought about by living under a dictatorial regime (under President Marcos) has made democracy the ideal political system for the majority of Filipinos.
Autonomy in Economy
Economic autonomy refers to the existence of institutions that protect economic entities from undue interference (CADI 2011, 21). In table 7, it is measured using three items: freedom for political power [Q1], protection of labor rights [Q2 and Q3], and external autonomy for policy making [Q4] (CADI 2011, 21). When asked how much influence the government or political elites have on the operation of private companies (Q1), the ratings given were low (high influence) to moderate (range: 2 to 5) with an average score of 3.7.6 Survey respondents explained that in the Philippines, politicians/bureaucrats and private companies are closely tied. However, it was pointed out that it is more
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Table 7: Item Scores for Economic Autonomy Economy Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Autonomy Mean 3.7 5.8 5.9 4.9 5.1 Median 3.0 6.0 6.0 4.0 Minimum 2.0 3.0 4.0 2.0 Maximum 5.0 9.0 8.0 8.0
likely that private companies influence government or the political elites, and not the other way around. They added, [political] activities are not completely independent from the economically powerful and big private interests systematically influence policy-making in their interest.It was also mentioned that some of the political elite ascended to their positions because they own and control land holdings/land resources, large-scale business assets, other (valuable) properties, and other (major) financial resources. It was observed that those in the upper economic tier enter politics and eventually influence policies. The respondents were also asked if they think labor rights are guaranteed in the country. The question, Q2, is designed to measure how well labor rights are institutionalized and legally guaranteed. It considers, as stated in the explanatory note in the questionnaire, the protection of three primary labor rightsfreedom of union organizing, collective bargaining, and collective actionand whether law restricts labor rights of public officials, teachers and soldiers. To this question the experts responded by providing ratings that range from 3 to 9.The average rating is 5.8. Only one expert gave a high rating of 9 points in this item, arguing that Philippine laws fully guarantee labor rights, both for workers in the private and public sectors. Other experts explained that while labor laws that protect the workers do exist, there also exist means to circumvent the law. In fact, given the exiting law, it would be difficult for an employer to terminate the services or layoff regular workers. This is the reason there is a proliferation of non-regular workers or contractualization in the Philippines. Further, it was expounded, the rights are very much written-up in [law, but they are] very much subverted in practice with invisible but systematic union-busting and trade union repression. Moreover, a respondent related how national figures indicate low and decreasing levels of union organizing, collective bargaining agreements, and collective action, which correlate with the last decade or so
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Table 8: Item Scores for Economic Competition Economy Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Competition Mean 4.4 4.3 5.2 4.6 4.6 Median 4.0 4.0 5.0 5.0 Minimum 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.0 Maximum 7.0 8.0 8.0 7.0
of systematic state-sponsored human rights violations and political repression. Thus, there is a collective agreement that while the country has good labor laws, implementation is limited, and, according to one expert, has become practically [useless,]especially in the industrial regions and industrialtechnology parks where contractualization, and even outsourcing, have become [the norm]. The succeeding question, Q3, refers to protection of workers against forced labor and child labor. It also considers the governments commitment to international labor conventions. The respondents gave an average rating of 5.9 (range: 4 to 8) to prohibition of forced and child labor in the Philippines, where both forced and child labor are legally prohibited. Unfortunately, as the survey respondents have indicated, implementation is limited to the urban areas; as one respondent stated, in the rural areas, there are documented cases of abuses in the agricultural-business sector where many rural landless workers and children are employed to undertake crop maintenance and heavy harvesting activities (i.e., banana, sugar, pineapples, palm oil/ oil palm, coconut) in plantations. Another respondent added that the guarantee of protection of workers from forced labor and child labor comes less from the government per se and more from the norms of society. The survey also looked into how the government policymaking process is independent from foreign capital and states. Q4 probed into key Philippine industries, surfacing whether or not they are dominated by domestic capital. The range of ratings provided in this item is very wide, with a minimum score of 2 and a maximum score of 8. The mean score is 4.9. Those that gave a low score explained that [government] has never been independent from mainly U.S. capital and business systems. Further, another respondent described the Philippines as being more independent of foreign intervention but less independent of ideologies that adhere to finance [capitalism,] i.e., policy makers and experts independently adhere [to] and boxed into
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neoclassical ideology. It was also pointed out that [in] a country with limited resources, foreign capital as a funding source is part of policy [decisions; government] uses foreign capital to build needed infrastructure and expand social services.
Competition in Economy
Economic competition refers to the condition where the economic sector is independent from government or the governing power, while it establishes transparent and fair principles (CADI 2011, 23). In table 8, it is measured in terms of the following: economic transparency [Q5], fairness of the economy [Q6], government responsibilities [Q7], and corporate responsibilities [Q8] (CADI 2011, 23). The survey respondents provided low to moderate rating to transparency of corporate operations (range is from 3 to 7), the subject of Q5. The mean rating is 4.4. According to one of the respondents, [corporate] transparency is too limited. Another respondent noted that it is difficult to give facts unless it is gathered through research. Another respondent observed: [corporate] governance in terms of protecting insiders [i.e., the main family owners] is almost perfect but it is weak in terms of protecting outsiders [i.e., small investors]. Lastly, a respondent mentioned that there is a strong move of NGOs to improve governance in the private sector. Responses to the question about fair competition between companies (Q6) revealed varied scores that ranged from 3 to 8. One respondent argued that there is no competitive law and that oligarchy characterizes many strategic sectors. To add, another respondent mentioned that only the big four is representing the oil industry namely: Shell, Petron, Caltex, and Mobil.Another respondent also pointed out the lack of detailed information on how the regulatory and supervisory bodies perform their tasks in ensuring free competition among private companies. In terms of government effort to protect and guarantee labor rights, probed by Q7, a wide variation of scores is likewise observed. This is explained by the high rating provided by one respondent who justified his high rating by citing the existence of the National Tripartite Industrial Council for labor protection and welfare in the Philippines. On the other hand, it was pointed out that laws that protect workers exist but there are also loopholes in the law. As mentioned earlier, there is increasing proliferation of nonregular/contractual workers who are not protected by provisions of the law. There is also a perception that the government exerts low effort in making sure that labor rights are protected. There is also an observation that the
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Table 9: Item Scores for Economic Pluralization Economy Mean Median Minimum Maximum Q9 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Pluralization 2.6 1.9 1.6 1.8 5.0 2.6 2.0 2.5 2.0 1.0 6.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 6.0 3.0 3.0 4.0 8.0
government is more interested in the so-called public and private setups, which could only lead to government entities giving up their tasks and roles to private companies that have only a low interest in the labor sectors needs and requirements. In Q8, concerning the compliance of private corporations with labor laws, the divergence of ratings is evident, with scores ranging from 2 to 7. A respondent argued that [private] companies, by [their] very nature and role in the capital-inclined social [systems,] will never work to protect labor rights. Further, it was mentioned, there are some companies [that] out of sheer social responsibility take care of their workers, but there are others that explicitly exploit [their workers] within bounds of the law. Another respondent observed differences in compliance to law by size of the company. He argued that [small] and medium-sized companies are not as strict in abiding by relevant laws and regulations.
Pluralization in Economy
Economic pluralization refers to the fair distribution of economic resources leading to both economic and socio-political democratization (CADI 2011, 25). In table 9, the following items measure it: economic monopoly [Q9], regional disparity [Q10], income inequality [Q11], asset disparity [Q12], and employment inequality [Q13] (CADI 2011, 25)7. The respondents seem to agree that dominant groups monopolize the economy. The mean score for Q9 is 2.6.8 It was argued that [historically, the Philippine economy is] very much monopolized by dominant groups in the Philippines. Another respondent said that in the Philippines, most large industries have concentrated market power. Another respondent added that competition in the economy only exists among the tycoons.
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Table 10: Item Scores on Economic Solidarity Economy Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 Q19 Q20 Solidarity Mean 4.6 4.6 4.8 4.9 3.7 4.9 6.3 4.8 Median 4.0 4.0 4.0 5.0 3.0 6.0 6.0 Minimum 3.0 2.0 2.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 3.0 Maximum 10.0 7.0 8.0 8.0 8.0 10.0 9.0
Economic disparities among the regions of the country undeniably exist. This is evidenced by the ratings for the item on regional inequality (Q10); the range for ratings in this item is 0 to 3. One observation was that economic disparity is reinforced by governments spending on urbanized regions and almost neglect of other regions. Here, the Cotabato provinces in Mindanao were cited as examples. Similarly, ratings given on income disparity (Q11; range: 0 to 3 points) are consistent where it is perceived as a serious concern. As one respondent pointed out, this observation is consistent with official statistics that reveal that the Gini coefficient of the Philippines remains at about 0.44. Like income disparity, asset disparity is also perceived as serious. Data reveals ratings for Q12 ranging from 0 to 4, with 0 indicating that asset disparity is a very serious problem. One respondent mentioned the case of Metro Manila, where there is a large and increasing number of informal settlers (i.e., squatters, illegal occupants). On the other hand, rural areas are also confronted with land problems. It was argued that agrarian reform and land distribution is almost a total failure. According to one respondent, around 70 [percent] of the original leaseholders under the program, starting with Marcoss [Presidential Declaration] 717, has reverted to sharecropping and abandonment of their agricultural lands, which lead to the emergence of a new rural elite sector. When asked about the gravity of discrimination in the labor market (Q13), responses were varied. The ratings given had a wide range, with 0 as the minimum and 8 as the maximum. One respondent mentioned that in the Philippines, there is a great deal of social mobility because of high rates of literacy. Despite this, it was observed by one respondent (an expert from
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Mindanao) that there are still discrimination when it comes to hiring of Muslims, and some other religious [groups,] although this is not comparable to racial discrimination in countries such as Australia, Japan, and even US and Europe.
Solidarity in Economy
Economic solidarity refers to how inequality in economic power is intensified by the lack of political power among members of society and governments inability to guarantee equal opportunities (CADI 2011, 27). In table 10, it is measured by four items: social security [Q14 and Q15], labor union activities [Q16, Q17, and Q18], corporate surveillance [Q19], and awareness of inequality alleviation [Q20] (CADI 2011, 27). Differences in perception on whether support systems for the poor are working in the country (the concern of Q14) were observed. Scores given ranged from 3 to 10. Currently, there is a national conditional cash transfer (CCT) program for the poor, which is part of a more comprehensive social welfare program for those living below the poverty line. Pertaining to this program, there is concern about its coverage and period of implementation. One respondent commented: The [conditional cash transfer program] is large [in scale] but apparently only temporary. Another respondent mentioned, There are stories of success. However, one respondent argued that [social] insurance is still practically non-existent for the poor. Consistently, another one commented, Not much. All are only advertisements of government agencies, but really [unessential, with] lots of flaws. Local politicians controlling [local government units] also control implementation of programs [to the] benefit [of] their supporters. When asked how well social insurance programs operate in the country (Q15), they gave low to high scores, ranging from 2 to 7 points, with a mean score of 4.7. It was pointed out that the most important provider of social insurance in the country is family and that government programs provide minimal relief to households. Moreover, another respondent argued that the health insurance coverage as reported by the national health insurance system is grossly overstated and belied by national household surveys. Another respondent pointed out the lack of data to assess whether the social insurance programs are doing well. Lastly, an expert indicated the need to improve targeting of beneficiaries to improve the social insurance program. The answers to Q16 reveal that there are contending views whether labor unions are well organized. The wide range of ratings, 2 to 8 points, shows this. One respondent mentioned that while they are diminishing in number as a whole, the labor unions that exist are well organized. Another respondent
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stated that labor union membership (likely on the average) is only 30 percent. On the other hand, another respondent perceives labor unions to be disorganized. Q17, which asked about the influence labor unions have on policies of the central government, yielded diverse ratings from the respondents, ranging from 3 to 8 points but overall indicating a low level of influence (the mean score is 4.9). According to one respondent, there is very little influence (of labor unions on government policy). Politically inclined labor leaders tend to gain [in] other directions, and do not serve labor organizations needs. It is also worthwhile to note that the level of influence is perceived by at least one expert as being manifested by the party-list representation in congress through the party-list system. Despite this, labor outcomes remain poor. To add, labor unions are also represented in tripartite. The experts were also asked Q18: How much do labor unions participate in the management process in your country? This question is designed to measure the degree of labor unions participation in [corporate] management (CADI 2011, 28). It incorporates labor unions monitoring of and participation in corporate management, including labor-management codecisionmaking systems [and participation] in the board of directors meeting (CADI 2011, 28).The range of ratings given to this item is 2 to 8, indicating a high variance of perception. It is worthwhile to note one comment that aside from labor unions, there are also labor-management councils in many enterprises to allow participation in corporate management. However, this is only true in the case of some large companies and rarely in medium- and small-scale industries. The next question, Q19, is designed to measure how much the general public is involved in monitoring corporate activities, and its consequences, including consumer rights violation and [environmental] problems (CADI 2011, 28). It deals with consumer and environment groups and [the assessment of] how effective their activities are, how well consumer protection laws are operating, and how proactively the general public are involved in the monitoring process (CADI 2011, 28).The respondents disagree on how well public monitoring on corporate activities is being carried out. They gave low to high scores (range: 1 to 10). Respondents highlighted the active role of media and consumer unions in monitoring corporate activities. Another respondent pointed out that monitoring of activities of corporations seem to be available, particularly through the stock exchanges and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The last question on the Philippine economy probed into the enthusiasm of the general public in improving economic inequality in the country. It aims
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Table 11: Item Scores for Civil Society Autonomy Civil Society Mean Median Minimum Q1 6.4 7.0 3.0 Q2 4.5 4.5 0.0 Q3 1.0 1.0 0.0 Q4 3.8 4.0 1.0 Q5 4.0 4.0 1.0 Q6 4.6 4.0 1.0 Q7 5.8 5.0 3.0 Autonomy 5.6
Maximum 9.0 9.0 2.0 5.0 6.0 9.0 8.0
to capture public awareness in addressing economic disparities (CADI 2011, 29). In some cases, such awareness can be represented by active efforts, such as trying to change social systems, and by individual efforts, such as donations or voluntary activities. It also includes public opinions and actions about economic inequality (CADI 2011, 29).In this item, the respondents gave low to high ratings ranging from 3 to 9 points. While one respondent gave an unexplained 3, the other survey respondents mentioned the abundance of corporate social responsibility programs carried out in communities by large companies and NGO/CSO efforts to lobby for ways to resolve economic inequality in the country.
Autonomy in Civil Society

Civil society autonomy concerns the freedom of civil society from the government and economy, as well as the ability of citizens to execute such autonomy (CADI 2011, 29). In table 11, it is measured by four items: autonomy from [the] government [Q1 and Q2], autonomy from [the] market (Q3), autonomy of the [members] of the society [Q4, Q5, and Q6] and tolerance [Q7] (CADI 2011, 29). Q1 under civil society autonomy sought the experts opinion on the level of government interference in citizens social activities. The experts gave scores ranging from 3 to 9, with 3 being the only low score given. The respondents agreed that the government interferes with citizens social activities through illegal or monopolistic activities, such as media killings and media control, sustaining what one respondent referred to as the culture of impunity. One respondent, a labor leader, bewailed how the current labor
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code, a legacy of the Marcos dictatorship, unduly restricts laborers freedom to organize. Q2 concerns the influence of government-supported NGOs on society. The question was apparently unclear, as some of the experts were unable to determine what was meant by government-supported nongovernmental organizationsthat, or their response was possibly influenced by a strong belief in the supposed state-civil society divide. Many of the comments, however, seemed insistent on showing that this divide is either nonexistent, or has been tainted by government co-optation, particularly during the Arroyo administration. Scores from 0 to 9 were given; 9, representing low influence, came from a left-left leaning academic, while the 0, representing high influence, came from a right-right leaning member of the private sector, the sole R-RL respondent in the civil society field.9 The third question deals with the influence of private companies on society, tying up social activities with the activities of major economic power holders. Low scores were given across the board, ranging from 0 to 2, showing that the respondents believe that private companies have a very high degree of influence on society.10 One respondent believed that corporations, though divided [into] various factions, dominate the agenda setting in the country; another opined that private sector companies have significant political leverage in the country due to their contribution to the national economy. As with the first question, many of the respondents cited the strong influence of power holders (herein large business conglomerates) on the ideally independent media. The experts were then asked, How well do you think citizens basic needs are met in your country? Low to moderate ratings were given, ranging from 1 to 5. Some of the respondents backed up their ratings with statistics, primarily the countrys poverty incidence. Some respondents also noted that the government tries to address problems such as poverty using palliative measures, failing to address the structural deficiencies underlying such problems. Question 5, asking the respondents to rate the governments ability to meet the needs of vulnerable people, elicited responses similar to the above. The ratings given were from 1 to 6. The experts believed that women and children continued to be particularly lacking in the care they require. One expert stated that senior citizen care is improving, while another gave the opinion that economic class stratification within disadvantaged groups determines the level of care received. The existence of legal frameworks for the care of vulnerable people was cited by some experts alongside the poor implementation of such laws.
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Table 12: Item Scores for Civil Society Competition Civil Society Q8 Q9 Q10 Q11 Competition Mean 6.6 6.4 7.0 7.4 6.9 Median 7.0 7.0 7.0 7.0 Minimum 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 Maximum 8.0 8.0 10.0 9.0
Q6 dealt with the sufficiency of educational opportunities given to citizens. The ratings for this item were divergent, ranging from 1 to 9.The highest rating came from an L-LL categorized member of an NGO, who championed the Philippine public education systems unrestrictive entry mechanisms; this expert, though, like many of the respondents, was dissatisfied with the quality of education in the country. One respondent who gave a low rating linked the failure of the government to provide other necessities to citizens to the ineffectiveness of educational opportunities in the country; according to him whats the use of sending children to school if they dont have anything to eat? The last civil society autonomy question was about the level of respect or tolerance among various social/political/cultural groups. Most of the ratings were moderate, ranging from 3 to 8. For the majority of the respondents, the most prominent evidence of prejudice between groups in the Philippines is the ChristianMuslim/indigenous peoples divide. One respondent also cited the lack of tolerance of the military for affiliates of the Communist Party of the Philippines, evoking the commie scare mentality of the Philippine soldiery.
Competition in Civil Society

Competition in civil society refers to the self-reference system [of] society, i.e., voluntary association matters (CADI 2011, 31). Civil society competition is concerned with how [social] movements bring social issues to the center of public discussion, and thereby contributes to democratization of the state, the economy and the civil society (CADI 2011, 31). In table 12, this fieldspecific subprinciple is evaluated through four items: capabilities [of voluntary association (Q8)], publicness [of voluntary association (Q9)], transparency [of voluntary associations (Q10)], and diversity [of voluntary association (Q11)] (CADI 2011, 31).
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Table 13: Item Scores for Civil Society Pluralization Civil Society Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Pluralization Mean 5.8 6.0 4.8 3.4 5.0 Median 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 Minimum 2.0 4.0 1.0 1.0 Maximum 8.0 8.0 7.0 8.0
Q8 was the first of successive questions about NGOs. It asked the experts to rate the level of influence of NGOs in society. Scores given were from 5 to 8, with majority giving a rating of 7. The highest rating came from an individual with knowledge of specific NGO-government engagements; for him, NGO influence on society is largely dependent on NGO-government cooperation. This view is echoed by two other experts, one of whom believed that NGOs have been deliberately maneuvering to become part of the government to push for their advocacies. The rest seem to engage in government-NGO exclusivity, implying that NGOs are providing services independently from the government (thus, as some experts noted, they often face fund insufficiency issues). The ninth question in the civil society survey asked the experts to rate the level of NGOs ability to represent varying public interests in society. The experts gave ratings ranging from 5 to 8 in this item. Some respondents viewed NGOs ability to promote the interests of marginalized groups positively, while one expert saw this as evidence that many NGOs are representing narrow views of public interest invisible to the radar screen of government policymaking; another expert went so far as to say that NGOs largely represent the concerns and anxieties of the middle and educated class. While the others viewed NGO representativeness more positively than the latter two, some noted that a good number of NGOs are ironically in the NGO business solely for profit or to push for the interest of private entities. Q10 asked, Do you think NGOs are democratically operating in your country? Most of the experts answered in the positive, with ratings ranging from 5 to 10, though many expressed misgivings about the way some NGOs form exclusive informal tactical alliances, have a cult-like following centered on their founders, or are answerable only to their benefactors giving an undemocratic quality to such organizations. Interestingly, two respondents noted that while NGOs have a high degree of gender sensitivity, there is a lack of gender equality among many of them.
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Table 14: Item Scores for Civil Society Solidarity Civil Society Mean Median Minimum Q16 Q17 Q18 Solidarity 4.4 5.9 5.9 5.4 4.0 5.0 7.0 0 4.0 4.0
Maximum 8.0 10.0 8.0
The last question in this category sought the experts opinion on the adequacy of NGOs representation of different values and demands of society. Majority of the ratings were in the 7 to 9 range5 was the lowest rating and 9 the highest. The expert who gave the lowest rating noted that NGOs are largely urban-based, largely confined to advocating broad civil and economic rights, lacking commitment in pushing for more specific, third-generation rights. Many of his concerns were reiterated by those who gave higher ratings (one respondent stated that the leadership of NGOs tend to be bourgeois intellectual), but nonetheless gave their higher ratings because of their belief in NGO diversity in the country.
Pluralization in Civil Society

In table 13, civil society pluralization consists of four items: inequality of public spheres [Q12], inequality of information [Q13], inequality of culture [Q14], and inequality of power [Q15] (CADI 2011, 33). The first question in this category was concerned with media-society relations. Q12, which queried the level of media fairness, elicited ratings ranging from 2 to 8, with the lowest rating coming from a member of an NGO based in Mindanao; her reason for giving a low score is the limited understanding of mainstream media of regional (e.g., Mindanaoan) matters. Most of the other respondents gave a higher rating because they believed that the media was generally fair, even if they are influenced by the interests of the oligarchic companies or religious groups that own them. The most optimistic expert stated that the intense competition among media helps ensure that media remains fair in the Philippines. Q13 sought the experts opinions on the wideness of the information gap in the Philippines. Answers ranged from 4 (wide) to 8 (narrow).11 Some of the experts opined that while the infrastructure and technology are available, the quality of the information that usually reaches the masses is suspect. Others note that there is a wide digital divide, with low internet penetration
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in most areas; as some experts noted, information dissemination in the rural areas is still largely done through radio. One expert noted that access to information is not a bread and butter concern for most Filipinos. Question 14 revealed no clear consensus among experts concerning the equality of citizens access to cultural activities; ratings here were from 4 to 7. There is implicitly a consensus that all Filipinos have access to cheap, popular (low) culture, while few can afford to have access to high culture activities. Some experts made note of the lack of cultural education in the Philippines. The last question in this category asked, How equally do you think power is distributed among the people in your country? While most experts gave answers ranging from 1 to 5, one expert was an outlier, giving a rating of 8. This expert (the sole R-RL one) fully trusted NGO/CSOs ability to diffuse power, in contrast to the two experts who gave a rating of 1 and believed that the politico-economic and religious elites still have a firm grip on power in the country. The rest of the experts echoed the claims of the latter two.
Solidarity in Civil Society

Civil society solidarity is a criterion that directly measures how active the civil society is (CADI 2011, 35). In table 14, it includes three items: institutions and affirmative action to protect diversity [Q16], awareness and activities of social participation [Q17], and governance of the government and civil society [Q18] (CADI 2011, 35). The sixteenth question concerned how well affirmative action programs are in the Philippines. One set of respondents gave low-low moderate ratings, while others gave a rating of 8. One respondent gave a rating of 0, stating that he is unaware of any such programs currently being implemented by the government. Others noted that such programs have either only recently begun implementation, or never saw successful implementation. Those who gave high ratings cited improvements in addressing the needs of indigenous groups as evidence of successful affirmative action programs, as well as the diminishing bias against LGBTs (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals). The seventeenth question wanted to get the experts opinions on how actively citizens are participating in NGO activities. Most of the answers were in the low-low moderate range, with 4 being the lowest rating. Two outliers gave high ratings, with one giving a 10 rating without an explanatory comment. The other high-rater, an expert from the private sector, cited the high number of friends he has who are engaging in civil society work as proof
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of high citizen participation in NGO initiatives. Others were less than convinced of broad support from the citizenry of NGO activities, despite some experts claims of high awareness of NGO activities among members of Philippine society. The final question of the survey was about the level of influence that NGOs have on government policymaking in the Philippines. Four experts answered with either a 4 or a 5, while the others answered with a 7 or 8 (the R-RL expert gave the highest rating). The line is drawn largely on the effectiveness of existing NGO consultation processes, as well as restrictions on street parliamentary actions. Those who gave a high rating lauded the track record of NGOs in influencing the government either using formal consultation processes or joining the government (as appointed or elected officials), while those who gave a low rating viewed NGOs as having a weak voice in government, usually being compelled to take to the streets or otherwise show a critical level of unity on very specific issues.
Analysis Interpretation of Principle and Field Democracy Indices

The overall score of 5.2 suggests a moderate level of democratization, suggesting that much needs to be done for further democratization in the country. Analyzing the multilevel breakdown of this overall score will show why this is so, and what can be done about it. With a liberalization democracy index of 5.6 and an equalization democracy index of 4.8, it can be said that in the Philippines, actual demonopolization and improving the means to stymie re-monopolization are advancing at a faster pace, or are making more significant strides, than the elimination of inequality and improving measures to eradicate poverty. The relationship between the two principles in the Philippine contextthe answer to the questions which is holding the other back? or which is pulling the other forward?can only be definitively answered after several survey rounds have been conducted. At present, hypothetical answers to these key questions can be drawn up after going to the level of the subprinciples, thereafter focusing on the field democracy indices. According to the CADI Guidebook, generally speaking, autonomy stands for independence [of sectors of society] from the government, competition for the level of the self-reference [i.e., transparency and accountability] system, equality for the degree of equal resource allocations,
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1 10 9 8 6 4 8 2 0 3 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 7 4 2
6 Figure 1: Political Autonomy
and solidarity for the degree of mitigation of income [and asset] disparity (CADI 2011, 12). These principles are clearly rooted in the realities of most democracies in Asia (or even in the rest of the world). In a democracy, all sectors of society have some degree of freedom from government interference, which necessitates a regulation system involving the entire society. The absence of such a system would result in power being consolidated in the hands of nongovernmental elites. Also, in most democracies in Asia, there exists a wide gap between the wealthy and the poor, a gap that can only be eliminated by coordinated efforts of all the members of a society worthy of the appellation democratic, if one takes into account that equality is one of the democratic ideals dating back to the French Revolution. How then should the sub-principle scores from the subject survey be analyzed? One can surmise, taking the immediately preceding paragraph into account, the following broad conclusions based on the results of the first ADI survey in the country: 1) while measureslegal or otherwiseto assure the continuation of democratization in the political, economic, and civil society fields exist, the implementation of these measures is poor or negligible; 2) government corruption and other abuses of power are checked in principle both by governmental and nongovernmental bodies, but such abuses persist because these monitoring mechanisms are poorly implemented,
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1 10 9 8 6 4 8 2 0 3 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 7 4 Q10 2
6 Figure 2: Political Competition
especially at the local government level;3) there is also a dearth of legislation and other means to ensure transparency and accountability among nongovernmental power holders; 4) coordination among the means and agents to address inequality in power and resource distribution in all the aforementioned areas of society is lacking. Taking all of the above into account, one can validly conclude that there is a lack of significant united opposition to multi-field monopolization in the country, even if monopolies are anathema according to the law and popular belief. The doors to successful sustainable de-monopolization are open widely so right after the Marcos dictatorship was toppledbut the few who struggle to keep them open are barely able, if at all, to combat those who would rather keep the status quo. We can thus assume that the chief obstacles to Philippine democratization can be found by examining the field competition and field solidarity scores, as the former deals with different kinds of checks and balances, and the latter with the coordination of de-monopolization efforts. Judging from the survey results, the betterment of the countrys autonomy democracy index is, presumably, a lesser concern, though only by a small margin. The Philippine pluralization democracy index, meanwhile, will most likely increase when
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1 10 9 8 6 4 8 2 0 3 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 7 4 2
6 Figure 3: Political Pluralization
the scores for all the other subprinciples go up. The remaining paragraphs of this analysis will test the preceding presuppositions. Going back to the countrys overall democracy index, the 5.2 score is somewhat consistent with the adjectival ratings given to the Philippines by Freedom House (partly free) and the Economist Intelligence Unit (flawed democracy). However, recall that economic democratization is hardly a concern of the aforementioned democracy/freedom indices. If the conventional way of measuring democracy is followed, i.e., if the economy indices are taken out, the democracy index of the Philippines would slightly increase. Considering only the scores for the political subprinciples and the scores for the civil society subprinciples, the Philippine overall democracy index becomes 5.6. In contrast, pairing the economic subprinciple scores with the subprinciple scores of either of the two other fields would further lower the countrys current low moderate democracy index. Are the barriers to further democratization in the Philippines thus largely in the economic field? Looking now at the liberalization and equalization scores, the slight difference between political liberalization and political equalization (a mere 0.4), suggests that liberalization and equalization in the political field are
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6 Figure 4: Political Solidarity
proceeding at about the same pace. With a 5.6 civil society liberalization score and a 5.0 civil society equalization score, it can be asserted that in the Philippines, civil society has less politico-socioeconomic influence than it should have, given the conditions of society that make them, on paper, essential to continued democratization. The 3.7 economic equalization score makes economic liberalization, rated at 4.9, appear even more insufficient than it already is. However, is the blame for the low economic equalization score squarely on the inadequacy of economic liberalization efforts? According to the CADI Guidebook, [if] a countrys political democracy index is high but its economic democracy index is low, the countrys political democracy is institutionally well established but likely to face limitations in [practice; if] a countrys civil society democracy index is high, this country is likely to develop its democracy even if the political and economic indices are currently low. (CADI 2011, 12) Extrapolating from these interpretative guidelines, we can surmise that the Philippiness political democracy is procedurally secure (i.e., functional), and its civil society is vibrant (though uncoordinated, among other deficiencies), but both are restricted because of limited (and circumventable)
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Figure 5: Economic Autonomy
means of monitoring the activities of economic elites in the country, a weakness exacerbated by a low level of economic solidarity (rating: 4.8). The latter suggests that pushing for economic equality is relatively unaddressed by civil society in conjunction with the citizenry at large; going over to political solidarity and civil society solidarity, which have ratings of 6.4 and 5.4, respectively, this assertion appears validated. The concern for closing the gap between the wealthy and the poor seems to belong to a vocal few; clamoring for democracy sans economic democratization seems to be a far more popular activity among the populace. In other words, the commitment of Philippine civil society as a whole to third generation civil society advocacies (such as environmental conservation/restoration) cannot be assailed as lacking, but the decline in influence of economic equalization advocates such as labor unions signals the need to reinvigorate classic civil society movements. There is a homologous situation in the political field, where there is also a high degree of autonomy, but a low level of competition and pluralization; again, while diversity is guaranteed, those who benefit from this alleged atmosphere of competition are the established elites (which are apparently numerous enough to allow for a semblance of genuine democratic political
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Figure 6: Economic Competition
competition to exist). A different situation can be found in the civil society field, wherein the highest democracy index is that of competition. The comments show that this relatively high score is attributable to the belief of majority of the experts that NGOs/CSOs are generally influential, democratically operating, and are able to deal with numerous issues concerning various groups in society. However, their ability to exercise whatever influence they have is limited by the exclusive nature of many NGOs/CSOs (a threat to their relevance to society at large, as well as the possibility of meaningful civil society-government collaboration) and their lack of resources to effect major changes to their target areas. The information gap and insufficiency of educational opportunities can be correlated to the low actual influence of NGOs/CSOs; lacking a platform to express their views (as provided by the Internet, which few people outside urban areas have access to) and a sufficiently educated audience, NGOs/CSOs are unlikely to enable more people to become agents of societal progress anytime soon. In summary, based on the above analysis, democratization in the economic field must be prioritized (over, say, ensuring civic freedoms and improving civil society diversity) if any further major advances in wide-scale democratization can be hoped to be achieved. Economic control monopolizers,
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Q9 3 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13
6 Figure 7: Economic Pluralization
both local and foreign, abound in the Philippines, influencing everything from politics to the media. Disentangling these economic elites from the political field would increase genuine political competitiveness, giving greater legitimacy to the electoral system. A more cohesive civil society must remain distant from monopolistic companies (and similar entities), but would benefit from more direct engagements with the government, as well as the citizenry at large; it would be a depressing irony if NGOs/CSOs had a monopoly on socially transformative initiatives. One might think that the above interpretation is undone by the diversity of responses resulting from the ideological diversity of the experts, in accordance with the expectation that the L-LL and R-RL respondents will have diametrically opposing opinions on numerous issues concerning democratization. This disparagement is rooted in the belief that the above interpretation is only valid if there is a consensus among the respondents, which is hypothetically improbable among L-LL and R-RL individuals. As will be shown in the discussion of divergences in expert responses below, in numerous instances, the respondents did seem to let their ideological colors fly, so to speak. The following discussion will also show whether or not ideological leanings appear to be significant factors in determining the opinions of the respondents most of the time.
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Figure 8: Economic Solidarity
Let us first consider figures 1-4, showing the differences in ratings given by the experts in politics. The most frequent outlier is an R-RL NGO/CSO member (giving scores higher or lower than all other respondents in 31.6 percent of all the questions), followed by an R-RL member of the academe (giving scores higher than all other respondents in 26.3 percent of all the questions). The deviant answers of the former expert are dispersed across the four subprinciples, while the latter expert gave no exceptional scores in response to the questions under political autonomy. In only one question did the L-LL respondents appear to rate as a blocQ16, which is concerned with the implementation of affirmative action programs. There appears to be consensus among the respondents in Q3 (existence of freedom of assembly), Q4 (freedom of opposition to the government), and Q19 (citizens preference for democracy as a political system). Figures 5-8 call attention to the differences in the scores of the economic experts. A notable outlier among the economy respondents is R5, an L-LL NGO/CSO member. In 20 percent of the questions, she gave higher or lower ratings than all other economic experts. In two of the questions (Q9 and Q11),
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6 Figure 9: Civil Society Autonomy
the L-LL experts (all NGO/CSO members) seemed to have given very low scores as a bloc apart from the R-RL experts; however, ratings for Q9 to Q12, all under economic pluralization, are generally low. R8 and R9, both R-RL members of the private sector, are also outliers in numerous items. R8 gave scores lower than all other respondents in 10 percent of the questions in the economy survey, while R9 gave lower scores than all the other economic experts 20 percent of the time. It is worth mentioning that both these respondents who presently fit perfectly under the R-RL category, were once strongly identified with socialists/Marxists. Lastly, figures 9-12 show the divergences in the ratings given by the experts in Philippine civil society. As mentioned in the survey results section of this text, one outlier among the civil society experts is the sole respondent labeled R-RL, a member of the private sector, who gave scores higher than all other respondents in 22.2 percent of all the questions. He gave one outlying score for one question under civil society autonomy and civil society competition, and scored higher than all other respondents in two questions under civil society pluralization. Another notable outlier is R1, an L-LL expert from the academe, who gave very low scores in four questions and a very high score in one question (four out of five of which were under civil society autonomy), in stark contrast to
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6 Figure 10: Civil Society Competition
the ratings given by the rest of the respondents. R4, an L-LL-classified civil society expert from an NGO/CSO, is also worth noting for giving higher scores than all the other respondents in four items, two of which (Q6 and Q18) have something to do with the governments ability to address the needs of society. Given her explanatory comments, it is possible that she has been miscategorized as L-LL. Consensus was seemingly reached by the respondents in one item: all respondents gave high scores in Q3, which indicated their collective belief that private companies have a high degree of influence in Philippine society. Thus, ideological leanings appear to significantly influence ratings in only a few instances, notably among experts in the economic field and experts in civil society. It appears to be no more influential than a respondents institutional affiliation or geographic background. R1 in the political field (an R-RL in the academe) is an outlier in a number of questions concerning government effectiveness. R1 was once in the government bureaucracy. Those from election watchdogs and private survey groups (a mix of R-RL and L-LL) seem to equate public trust of the government with public trust of the chief executive, basing their opinion on data obtained from local public opinion surveys, thus resulting in similar scores in response to questions concerning the said topics. Geographic background brought forth regional
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6 Figure 11: Civil Society Pluralization
concerns and perspectives, but by their nature as experts on nationwide issues, the non-Luzon respondents never exclusively dwelled on regional concerns; the Mindanaoans were able to highlight Mindanaoan issues, but in only one instance was a respondents roots in Southern Philippines a major factor in shaping that respondents opinion on a certain matter (R6 on Q12 in civil society). The criticism that the results do not show L-LL and R-RL consensus ideal in a specialist survey such as thisis thus valid, but unless representativeness of respondents according to ideological leanings can be achieved, any validation of the data gathered for this study cannot focus largely on bridging ideological divides. This is supported by the results of tests of significance, which give support to the existence of the left-right divide. Table 15 summarizes the mean scores in the four sub-principles by political leaning. The right leaning experts gave higher scores than the left leaning experts in the subprinciples autonomy, pluralism, and solidarity. It is only in competition that scores were reversed, although difference is small. When t-test of significance was conducted, of the 4 subprinciples of democracy, only autonomy is significant. Table 16 summarizes the mean scores in the four subprinciples by sector. The political sector obtained the highest score in autonomy. Data reveal that
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6 Figure 12: Civil Society Solidarity
political sector gained the highest scores in all subprinciples except in competition. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to test for significance of differences in mean scores by sector. Based on the ANOVA test, only the differences in solidarity scores were not significant. Even if the methodology followed did not provide for a means to arrive at expert consensus, the findings of the pilot test herein discussed cannot be dismissed as worthless. Yes, because of the variances in responses due to the diversity of respondents, most mean scores in all of the survey queries fall near the median of a 0 to 10 scale. However, the qualitative data gathered allows the researchers to identify key areas of contention due to divergent perceptions. In addition, the identification of economic democratization as requiring the most attention is greatly strengthened by the fact that scores for certain indices in this field are notably lower than the median in a 0 to 10 scale. The same can be said about conclusions drawn from items wherein the scores are significantly higher than the median of the 0 to 10 scale (e.g., item Q19 in the politics survey, on public trust of democracy).
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Table 15. Mean Scores in Subprinciples by Political Leaning Political N Mean Std. Std. Sig. leaning Deviation Error (2-tailed) Mean Right 13 6.7885 1.15851 .32131 .041 Autonomy Left 13 5.7198 1.35987 .37716 Right 13 5.2885 1.14191 .31671 .201 Competition Left 14 5.9464 1.43171 .38264 Right 12 4.4917 1.66540 .48076 .214 Pluralism Left 14 3.6964 1.51041 .40367 Right 13 5.7941 1.56761 .43478 .408 Solidarity Left 14 5.3020 1.47024 .39294 Note: T-test was conducted to test the significance of differences in mean scores.
Concluding Thoughts Moving Forward

The authors are eager to continue conducting ADI surveys in the Philippines throughout the ADI projects projected four-year run. In 2012, with the implementation of programs designed to better the lives of those belonging to the lower socioeconomic classes (such as the CCT program), the continuation of the anti-corruption campaigns of the Aquino administration, the growing credibility and readership of online news sources, and the possibility of key pieces of legislation such as the Freedom of Information bill becoming law within the year, it is expected that some facets of national democratization will appear to have become better in the eyes of many experts. However, with the increasing concentration of economic power in fewer large corporations, the unlikelihood of the retirement of certain laws thought of as being restrictive to the exercise of certain civil rights, the onset of political violence as the 2013 Midterm Elections draw near, and the decreasing public trust in the judiciary in light of the impeachment complaints against certain justices of the Supreme Court, it is likely that many experts will consider a number of hindrances to national democratization to have worsened. In any case, comparing the 2011 survey results with the 2012 survey results should better show where the countrys democrats must focus their attention to ensure that the country stays on the path towards democracy.
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To address issues of representativeness noted in the analysis, the TWSC research team plans to double the number of respondents. The ideal mix is 9 L-LL and 9 R-RL respondents per field, with one L-LL and one R-RL respondent per institutional affiliation. The number of non-Luzon respondents per field will also be doubled. To address matters of validation mentioned in the analysis, a Delphi study will be conducted after the survey responses have been collated.12 The approach being considered has a basis in the Hegelian/ Dialectical inquiry system, as, given the diversity of experts, the true nature of Philippine democracy can only be arrived at when opposing views are made to engage each other in an unremitting debate, an argument that will result (ideally) in a synthesis of opposing views (Mitroff and Turoff 2002, 28). The TWSC team also decided to use the Delphi method because of the improbability that most of the experts, due to their busy daily schedules, will be unavailable for focus group discussions or similar means of data validation.13 The design of the Delphi is still being worked out.
Reflections on the ADI

In our unpublished inception report, submitted to our fellow CADI members in August 2011, we stated the following: The survey results [are] expected to show whether or not the known qualities of Asian (typically [permutations] of Western) democracies remain valid. This is due to the fact that some of the survey questions are explained in the instruments as being rooted in certain preconceived notions of what Asian democracy is. Whether the survey results reveal that Asian democracy can be given an operational definition that does not deviate from what is known in [existing] literature, or that there is no such animal synonymous to anything in the existing political lexicon, these results are expected to show whether or not the [advances/regressions in Philippine democratization] are indeed attributable to movements centering on a monopolization/de-monopolization dichotomy. We have since abandoned any desire to contribute to efforts to uncover if there is a distinctly Asian type of democracy; it is an unending debate that we find no value in contributing to. We believe that the survey results have validated that the most useful way to view democracyi.e., the way to consider it if one wishes his or her state or society to actually attain it, not consign it to the realm of unattainable idealsis through the framework of democratization as continuing de-monopolization.
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If the results discussed at length are insufficient to support the above claim, consider this: it is undeniable that across Asia, economic power has for the longest time been concentrated in the hands of a few, even in so-called democracies. Thus, the poverty incidence in most Asian countries is depressingly high. What if, against all the dictates of neoliberal logic, all enormous private corporations begin to primarily function as charitable agencies, thus causing poverty to dramatically decrease in a certain country? What if the national government of the aforedescribed country also channels all its resources to the alleviation of poverty nationwide (leaving, say, the military high and dry, and foreign debt servicing a thing of the past)? One can reasonably expect that in such a scenario, inequality would decrease, thus the pluralization score of our hypothetical country will be high moderate-high. However, the overall democracy index in such a society would remain at the low moderate-moderate level, as the influence of both private corporations and the government on citizens activities would be high (resulting in a lowmoderate score in autonomy) and, presumably, civil society would have a low level of influence on society, as NGOs/CSOs will have been rendered irrelevant by the surge in what can be termed monopolist social responsibility. Such an overall democracy index would still accurately show our hypothetical countrys level of democratization. Monopolies that give more than they take are unsustainable; the degree of taking necessary to keep a welfare machine well-oiled will inevitably leave the majority of citizens with just enough resources to take up their daily burdens for the sustenance of society and get through a day with access to basic necessities. Also, as Bernard Crick observes, one-party states/military regimes have a tendency for economic inefficiency and wasteful corruption (2002, 117). The main obstacle to democratization identified by the ADIs framers is the undue concentration of politico-socioeconomic powers. It presupposes that a type of comprehensive de-monopolization will result in a general internal consensus that a country has achieved sustainable democracy. The ADI also reminds us that democratization is essentially a war against authoritarianism waged in several fronts; as in all wars, strategic alliances, proper resource mobilization, and attack coordination are keys to victory. Discord among combatants supposedly on the same side is detrimental to having a continuous advantage in this continuing struggle.
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Notes
1. Most of these questions emerged from discussions among the following current and former members of the TWSC research staff: Joel F. Ariate, Jr., Rowell G. Casaclang, Elinor May K. Cruz, and the principal/corresponding author of this text. EDSA is an acronym for Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, along which people gathered to clamor for the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos (and later, other national chief executives whose mandates were brought into question in the court of public opinion). CADI agreed that expert refers to a person who possesses knowledge and understanding in one of the fields of expertise either because he/she is a person who is (or was) directly engaged in that area or anacademician/researcher whose expertise is in the area. These are people who are familiar with technical [matters, e.g., statistical data] with which ordinary citizens may not be familiar (CADI 2011, 36). We use these in the absence of local holistic human development studies. A Human Security Index (HSI) for the Philippines, developed by TWSC, with funding from the Government of the Philippines-UNDP Conflict Prevention and Peace Building Programme, is, as of this writing, being pilot tested in numerous municipalities in the Philippines. The published findings of the HSI study may be referred to by the TWSC ADI survey team in future country reports. The scores given by the experts for Q7 under politics were recoded for this report, because in the questionnaire, 0 signified the belief that nonelected groups had no political influence, and 10 signified that nonelected groups were highly influential. A reverse designation of extremes, while eliminating the necessity of recoding for aggregation purposes, would have been counterintuitive, possibly confusing the respondents. The scores given by the experts were recoded for this report, because in the questionnaire, 0 signified the belief that government or political elites had no political influence, and 10 signified that the aforesaid entities were highly influential. Cf. footnote 5. All the scores in economic pluralization were recoded so that they can be consolidated with the scores in political pluralization and civil society pluralization; in the questionnaire, 0 corresponds to highly desirable situations, while 10 corresponds to highly undesirable conditions. Cf. footnote 5. Low score = high degree of monopolization Scores for Q2 in the civil society questionnaire needed to be recoded for aggregation purposes. Cf. footnote 5. Scores for Q3 in the civil society questionnaire had to be recoded for aggregation purposes. Cf. footnote 5. As in the questionnaire, 0 corresponds to very narrow and 10 corresponds to very wide, the scores needed to be recoded for aggregation purposes. Cf. footnote 5. The use of the Delphi method to CADI was suggested by Clarinda Lusterio Berja. There is also the possibility of uncontrollable (and likely unproductive) aggression among ideologically opposed individuals.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
References
CADI (The Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index). 2011. The Guidebook: The Asian Democracy Index. Seoul, South Korea. Unpublished manuscript.
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Crick, Bernard. 2002. Democracy: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marcos, Ferdinand E. 1977. The Democratic Revolution in the Philippines. Manila: The author. Mitroff, Ian I., and Murray Turoff. 2002. Philosophical and Methodological Foundations of Delphi. In The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications, edited by Harold A. Linstone and Murray Turoff. http://is.njit.edu/pubs/delphibook/delphibook.pdf. Nolledo, Jose N. 1992. Students Manual on the New Constitution. Caloocan City: National Bookstore, Inc.
Rating Philippine Democratization: A Review of Democratization Metrics

MIGUEL PAOLO P. REYES To those intimately familiar with better-known democracy/democratization indices, the unique characteristics of the approach of the Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index (CADI) to analyzing democracy should be readily apparent after an examination of the projects methodology. To make those distinctions clearer, the following is a survey of some of the evaluations of democratization in the world, Asia, and the Philippines. The review of studies herein also serves to situate the 2011 CADI democratization assessments (included in this volume) in the current discourse of democratization measurement. The following review is by no means exhaustive; the State Fragility Index and Tatu Vanhanens Polyarchy Index of Democracy are noticeably absent, while the World Values Survey (WVS) is only mentioned in passing. However, the author believes that it shows enough of the current state of the field of democratization measurement to serve its aforesaid purposes.
Global Democracy/Freedom Indices Freedom Houses Freedom in the World Surveys

US-based nongovernmental organization Freedom House seeks to measure freedom, which it defines as the opportunity to act spontaneously in a variety of fields outside the control of the government and other centers of potential domination (Freedom House 2011c). Specifically, it measures two categories of freedomPolitical Rights, or the ability of people
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Miguel Paolo P. Reyes is a university research associate at the Third World Studies Center, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines-Diliman.
ISSN 2244-5633
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Table 1: Freedom House Ratings of Political Rights and Civil Liberties in the Philippines, 2002-2011 Year Political Rights Civil Liberties 2002 2 3 2003 2 3 2004 2 3 2005 2 3 2006 3 3 2007 3 3 2008 4 3 2009 4 3 2010 4 3 2011 3 3 Sources: Freedom House 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011a.
to participate freely in political process, including the right to vote freely for distinct alternatives in legitimate elections, compete for public office, join political parties and organizations, and elect representatives who have a decisive impact on public policies and are accountable to the electorate; (Freedom House 2011b) and Civil Liberties, the exercise of which is ideally without interference from the state (Freedom House 2011c). Apart from crafting descriptive narratives of their subject countries state of freedom, Freedom House gives numerical ratings (from 1-7, with 1 being the most desirable rating) for a countrys political rights and civil liberties conditions. These ratings are the basis of Freedom Houses decision to designate a country as Free, Partly Free, or Not Free (Freedom House 2011c). Freedom House gathers its data through expert surveys, the findings of which are reached after a multilayered process of analysis and evaluation by a team of regional experts and scholars (Freedom House 2011c). As of this writing, readily available online are Freedom in the World analyses from 2002-2011. Freedom House lowered the status of the Philippines from Free from 2002-2005 to Partly Free status from 2006 onward. The change was due to credible allegations of massive electoral fraud, corruption, and the governments intimidation of elements in the political opposition [all during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration (2001-2010)] (Freedom
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House 2006). Before the downgrade, Freedom House gave the Philippines a Political Rights score of 2 and a Civil Liberties score of 3. In 2006, the countrys Political Rights score was lowered to 3, while the Civil Liberties score remained the same. In 2008, the countrys Political Rights score was further lowered to 4, as a result of serious, high-level corruption allegations; the pardon of former president Joseph Estrada [who Arroyo succeeded by virtue of constitutional succession, following Estradas conviction for plunder after he was ousted by the military defection-cum-mass demonstration known as People Power 2 (2001)]; and a spike in political killings in the run-up to legislative elections [in 2007] (Freedom House 2008). The Political Rights score would remain at 4 until 2011, when it went up back to 3, due to comparatively peaceful and credible presidential and legislative elections held in 2010, when automated voting machines were used for the first time in the Philippines (Freedom House 2011a). Table 1 shows these rating changes over the years more clearly. In its country reports, Freedom House consistently characterizes the Philippines as once one of the wealthiest countries in Southeast Asia that fell from grace, so to speak, due to economic mismanagement, widespread corruption, insurgencies, and 14 years of dictatorship under Ferdinand Marcos [1972-1986] (Freedom House 2002; 2005; 2008). The administrations of Corazon Aquino (who became the countrys chief executive after Marcos was ousted by the coup plotters-civil society revolt now referred to as People Power 1) and her successor, Fidel Ramos (one of the aforementioned anti-Marcos coup plotters), are described as a period of steady gains after a lengthy period of significant lossesa time of national recovery. Freedom House describes Joseph Estradas administration as a step backward from achieving democracy, with Estrada being dogged by allegations of both corruption and that it gave favourable treatment to the business interests of well-connected tycoons almost at the beginning of his term (Freedom House 2002). His ouster is viewed uncritically. Arroyo is initially portrayed by Freedom House in a favorable light (i.e., during the first two years of her unelected term [2001-2004]). Come her term as an elected chief executive, Freedom House began to look at her much more negatively; her decision to run for the presidency despite her earlier promise not to thereby being the first incumbent president running for a fresh mandate since Marcos in 1969her pardoning of her predecessorthe countrys first judicially declared plundererand the questionability of her win over a more popular candidate likely made it inconceivable for the Freedom House analysts to continue to view Arroyo favorably.
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Table 2: EIU Democracy Indices for the Philippines, 2007-2011 Year 2007 2008 2010 2011 Rank (over 167) 63 77 74 75 Overall score 6.48 6.12 6.12 6.12 Electoral 9.17 8.33 8.33 8.33 process and pluralism Functioning of 5.36 5.00 5.00 5.00 government Political 5.00 5.00 5.00 5.00 participation Political culture 3.75 3.13 3.13 3.13 Civil liberties 9.12 9.12 9.12 9.12 Adjectival Flawed Flawed Flawed Flawed ranking democracy democracy democracy democracy Sources: Taken from Kekic 2007, 4; EIU 2008, 6; 2010, 5; 2011, 5.
Given its age (it celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2011) and scope, as well as the accessibility of its analyses, Freedom House understandably set the global standard in democratization metrics. However, numerous other indices have come in its wake, with many of them criticizing Freedom Houses focus on measuring freedom despite its raison dtre being the support of democratic change, [the monitoring of] freedom, and [advocating] for democracy and human rights around the world (Freedom House 2011b).
Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index

In 2007, the Economist Intelligence Unit set up a democracy index as a rival of Freedom Houses freedom assessments, in the belief that Freedom Houses subscription to the thin concept of democracy of Robert Dahl needed to be broadened to include aspects of society and political culture in democratic societies (Kekic 2007, 1). The EIU Democracy Indexs categories of democratization are the following: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture (EIU 2010, 1). It thus still bears some resemblance to the Freedom House framework, but it is more overtly a ranking tool than the Freedom in the World surveys.
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Part of the EIU Democracy Index methodology involves conducting expert surveys to measure how well a country is doing in the aforesaid categories (Kekic 2007, 8). In addition to these expert surveys, according to the EIU, a crucial, differentiating aspect of [their] measure is that [they] use, where available, public opinion surveysmainly the World Values Survey (Kekic 2007, 8). WVS data is used as [indicators] based on the surveys predominate heavily in the political participation and political culture categories, and a few are used in the civil liberties and functioning of government categories (Kekic 2007, 8). Apart from the World Values Survey, the EIU also consults Eurobarometer surveys, Gallup polls, Latin American Barometer, and national [surveys; in] the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessment are used to fill in the gaps (Kekic 2007,8). Table 2 summarizes what the EIU Democracy Index has been saying about Philippine democratization since 2007 until 2011. Whether it was democracy in stagnation (2008), democracy in retreat (2010), or democracy under stress (2011), it seemed that (whoever) the experts consulted and (whatever) opinion surveys studied by the EIU team show that the country is not progressing at all toward becoming a full democracy. Judging from the lack of any discussion on the Philippines in the EIU Democracy Index reports, the EIU seems to view the Philippines as an unremarkable flawed democracy. But to be fair, one cannot expect the EIU Democracy Index to be a tool for conducting in-depth democratization diagnostics, as the index is more useful in tracking global/regional trends in democratization, as well as showing which democracies are better than others, according to EIUs limited criteria; given its name, EIU ironically excludes democratization in the economic field from its indicators of democratization.
Democracy Ranking of the Quality of Democracy

The Democracy Ranking of the Quality of Democracy (DRQD) is in many ways very similar to the democracy assessments discussed. It is also in one way very similar to the CADI ADI. According to David F.J. Campbell, Academic Director of the Democracy Ranking Association, the structure of the conceptual formula of the Democracy Ranking [of the Quality of Democracy] would be: quality of democracy = (freedom + other characteristics of the political system) + (performance of the non-political dimensions [e.g., socioeconomic development]) (2008, 41). This formulation echoes the CADI formulation of democratization as liberalization + equalization (leading to de-monopolization/citizen empowerment). The similarity is
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Table 3: Democracy Ranking of the Philippines according to DRQD (2004-2009) 2004-05 2005-06 2007-08 2008-09 Rank (out of 100 49 45 64 56 democracies) Score (out of 51.19 56.95 46.91 53.97 100) Sources: Based on Campbell, et al. 2010, 11 and Campbell and Plzlbauer 2010, 2.
largely due to both assessment frameworks having the same theoretical foundations in the work of Guillermo ODonnell. According to the CADI ADI guidebook, [as observed by Guillermo ODonnell,] transition from authoritarianism does not guarantee transition to democracy. Second, transition to democracy, i.e., achievement in electoral democracy does not involve realization of representative [democracy]. Third, transition to substantive [democracy,] i.e., [socialization,] does not directly follow transition to democracy (CADI 2011, 3). Drawn from these observations is the CADI notion that democratization must be seen involve non-political elements to make a comprehensive democratization assessment. The DRQD, meanwhile, based their approach to assessing democracy on ODonnells understanding of democratization as being based on the principles human development, which focuses on the basic conditions or capabilities that enable individuals to act (behave) as agents (in Campbell 2008, 27), and human rights, which are clustered into political rights, civil rights, and social rights (in Campbell 2008, 27). Even if their theoretical bases are the same, the CADI ADI and the DRQD cannot be assailed as identical, not only because the latter is based in Austria while the former is headquartered in South Korea. By the name itself, the DRQD is another ranking tool. It ranks democracies (i.e., countries classified by Freedom House as Free or Partly Free) based on ODonnells guidelines for measuring democracy. DRQD highlights the top ten and the bottom ten democracies in a two-year period. Another key difference is methodological; the DRQD rankings are the result of investigating what happens if the Freedom Ratings from Freedom House are [combined] with Human
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Table 4: Philippine EAB Respondents Support for Democracy Percent of Democracy is... respondents Desirable for our country now 88.1 Suitable for our country now 80.2 Effective in solving the problems of society 60.7 Preferable to all other kinds of government 63.6 Equally or more important than development 21.8 None of the above 1.5 All of the above 6.7 Mean number of items supported 3.1 Source: Culled from the table in Chu et al. 2009, 144.
Development Index [indicator scores] of the United Nations Development Program (Campbell 2010, 1). Using this method, comprehensive democracy scores are obtained. Table 3 shows DRQD rankings for the Philippines (with corresponding scores) within the years 2004-2009. By far the most all-encompassing of the democracy indices discussed thus fara fact wholly attributable to the type of data taken into consideration)the DRQD is nevertheless not an ideal tool for pinpointing locally determined deficiencies in democratization, a weakness that all global democracy indices share. At best, like the Freedom in the World surveys and the EIUs Democracy Index, the DRQD can be used to show how the country is faring against other democracies in maintaining/improving its democratic status. Are the Asian democracy indices predating the conduct of the CADI ADI surveys any different?
Asian Democracy Indices East Asia Barometer

The group of scholars known as the East Asia Barometer (EAB) conducted national random-sample surveys in 2002 in five new democracies [including the Philippines, new apparently because it underwent decades under authoritarian rule before 1987], one old democracy (Japan), one quasidemocracy (Hong Kong), and one authoritarian system (China) (Chu et al. 2009, 143). The survey was conducted again in 2005-2006 (Chu et al. 2009, 146). The EAB survey is also referred to as the Comparative Survey of
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Table 5: Philippine EAB Respondents Authoritarian Detachment Item Percent of respondents Reject strong leader 69.4 Reject military rule 62.7 Reject no opposition party 69.6 Reject experts decide everything 76.8 Reject all authoritarian options 35.6 Reject no authoritarian options 4.1 Mean number of items rejected 2.8 Source: Culled from the table in Chu et al. 2009, 147.
Democratization and Value Changes in East Asia (SWS 2007), a name that should give a clue as to its purpose. In the Philippines, EAB surveys were conducted by Social Weather Stations (Guerrero 2004, 9; SWS 2007), a non-stock, non-profit, and politically non-partisan social research institute (Guerrero 2004, 1). 1,200 respondents (300 each in Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao) were interviewed in both survey rounds (SWS 2007). The EAB asked questions designed to estimate [their respondents] level of support for democracy and to obtain their respondents assessments of the suitability of democracy for their country (Chu et al. 2009, 144). In one set of questions, the respondents were asked to indicate their answers using a ten-point scale, with 1 expressing either their preference for complete dictatorship or their belief that democracy is completely unsuitable in their country, and 10 expressing either their preference for complete democracy or their belief that democracy is perfectly suitable in their national society (Chu et al. 2009, 144). In another set of questions, EAB determined citizens apathy for authoritarian alternatives by asking respondents whether or not they would favor strongman rule, military rule, single-party rule, and technocratic rule by experts (Chu et al. 2009, 146). Tables 4 and 5 show the results of SWSs 2002 survey (as published in an article in The Washington Quarterly) in the Philippines. According to EAB, when their survey was conducted in 2005-2006, support for democracy in the Philippines dramatically decreased. Like Freedom House, EAB (implicitly) attributes this loss to the apparent shenanigans of the Arroyo regime (Chu et al. 2009, 146).
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EAB also asked their respondents, "[if] you had to choose between democracy and economic development, which would you say is more important?" to which most respondents chose the latter; according to EAB, less than one-fifth of those polled in the Philippines wanted democracy over economic development (Chu et al. 2009, 145). This is rather unsurprising, given how many people in the country are mired in poverty. What is surprising is that EAB found that many people in the Philippines (more than a third of the respondents in their last survey) still find military rule acceptable (Chu et al. 2009, 146). This seems incredible given the publicized horrors thousands suffered under Marcoss martial law regime. (According to Rigoberto T. Tiglao, Marcos unleashed one of the bloodiest eras in Philippine history. Salvaging [extrajudicial killing], hamletting and torture became bywords that characterized the reign of terror under the regime (1988, 56).) Also unexpectedly, EAB found the Philippines to be unique as, after a "correlation analysis," they found that the Philippines is the only country where democracy is looked upon positively, but authoritarian alternatives to providing solutions to societys dilemmas are not disfavored by the majority (Chu et al. 2009,147). Apparently, in the Philippines, there is no increase in the rejection of authoritarianism when a democratic regime is performing well in providing democratic rights and freedoms" (Chu et al. 2009, 153). Nevertheless, EAB suggests that "democratic governments must win citizens' support through better performance, both in political and policy [terms,]" i.e., they must show their citizens that "democracy works" (Chu et al. 2009, 154-155). Clearly, EAB considers democracy and development as connected, but does not subscribe to the notion of economic democratization, indeed positioning democracy against economic development in its surveys. It essentially looks into citizens support for democracy as a type of government, as a way of assessing one level of democratic consolidation according to Larry Diamond (i.e., the mass publics belief in and valuation of democracy) (Chu et al. 2009, 153-154).
The ARDA Asia Democracy Index

The Asia (at times styled by the media as Asian) Democracy Index of the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia (ARDA) was claimed by the researchers behind it to be the first democracy assessment that allows people in Asia to internally assess and evaluate the political situations of their own countries (ARDA c2004). According to Paul D. Scott, the project director of the Asia Democracy Index, the survey is the first of its kind where politically aware individuals have been asked to assess the level of democratic
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Table 6: The Results of the 2005 ARDA ADI Country by Rank 1. Japan 2. Hong Kong 3. Taiwan 4. Bangladesh 5. Philippines 6. Thailand 7. Indonesia 8. Mongolia 9. Sri Lanka 10. South Korea 11. Pakistan 12. Cambodia 13. Malaysia 14. Nepal 15. Singapore 16. Myanmar Source: From Scott c2007.
Score 62.41% 62.01% 55.47% 53.21% 51.18% 50.85% 50.38% 50.33% 50.19% 47.30% 46.88% 44.17% 41.93% 32.13% 30.42% 19.16%
development of their respective political systems (Scott c2007). Apart from the departure from the Western canon of measuring democracy, Scott lists the following deficiencies of previous democracy assessments that the ARDA ADI sought to address: first, the excessive reliance on information provided by governments; second, the over-reliance on economic indicators (although [ARDA acknowledges] that democratic development may well enhance economic growth and vice versa); third, the adoption of a nonprescriptive approach; and fourth, the polling [of] communities that may have little understanding and knowledge of the countries being studied (Scott c2007). The sole ARDA ADI study was conducted in 2005. Sixteen countries in Asia were studied. ARDAs criteria for assessing democratization are the following: civil rights, elections and electoral processes, governance and corruption, the media, rule of law, and participation and representation (Scott c2007). Local nongovernmental organizations were tapped to conduct the survey in each of the sixteen countries (Scott c2007). Readily available online information does not disclose who conducted the ARDA ADI survey in the Philippines, though the ARDA website reveals that J.R. Nereus O. Acosta, erstwhile member of the Philippiness House of Representatives and current
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Secretary-General of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, was one of the signatories of ARDAs Resolution of Formation (ARDA c2000). A standardized, twenty-two item questionnaire was the instrument utilized for surveying at least 100 politically aware respondents per country (Scott c2007); each local affiliate was given the leeway to formulate their own definition of politically aware (such as familiarity with political parties or political occurrences) (Au Waipang 2007). Table 6 shows where the Philippines places among the sixteen countries surveyed by ARDA in 2005. The Philippines placed remarkably high in this ranking, with a score that is nearly a point higher than Indonesias and several points higher than South Koreas, both of which outrank the Philippines in other recent democracy rankings. Even in the criteria-specific rankings, it scores higher than both countries (Au Waipang 2007). Scott acknowledged worries of their potential affiliates that the ARDA ADIs methodology might cause some countries to appear unrealistically democratic (Scott c2007). Criticism of objectivity of the ARDA affiliate assessors has also been made; regarding the Singapore study, one blogger pointed out that the members of the Singapore assessment team were all human rights activists vehemently opposed to the current regime (Au Waipang 2007). The local assessors of Philippine democracy described in the next section appear to have ensured that such criticism cannot be hurled against them by ensuring that their bases for assessment are data from a wide variety of sources.
Philippine Assessments of Democracy The Philippine Democracy Agenda Series

In 1997, a set of studies on sectoral perspectives on democracy and citizenship were published in the book Philippine Democracy Agenda [PDA]: Volume 1 - Democracy and Citizenship in Filipino Political Culture. Among these studies are Anna Marie A. Karaoss Perceptions and Practices of Democracy and Citizenship among Urban Middle Class Families, Wahab Ibrahim Guialals Perceptions on Democracy and Citizenship in Muslim Mindanao, Renato M. Lees Perceptions of Democracy and Citizenship in the Philippine Business Sector, and Arturo C. Nueras Workers Political Culture: Perceptions of Democracy and Citizenship. These particular studies are mentioned here because of the similar methodologies the researchers behind them utilized to obtain their dataall of them conducted key informant interviews and/or surveys (some also consulted
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readily available data from pollster groups). In addition, these studies collectively show how citizens outside of the government from various socioeconomic classes considered their role in their allegedly democratic state. Diverse class/cluster opinions regarding democracy in the Philippines were collected through these studies (albeit with the common caveat that the sample sizes for surveys or the number of key informants interviewed were small). For example, Karaos found that while most middle class Philippine citizens believed that democracy can work in the Philippines, members of this class were more cynical of electoral politics than the lower classes (1997, 127); meanwhile, Guialal discovered that the concept of democracy and citizenship enshrined among the Muslims [in Southern Philippines] is reduced to mere participation in elections, except among the educated (1997, 161). The PDA studies thus call attention to the sheer diversity of the national population of the archipelagic state called the Philippines. They thus also alert national survey takers to review their stratification categories to conform with the realities of divisions in Philippine society.
IDEA-NCPAG Philippine Democracy Assessments

According to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), an intergovernmental organization that supports sustainable democracy worldwide that is based in Sweden (Landman 2008, 31; 32), their democracy assessment framework revolves around the question, [how] democratic is [a subject country] and its government [from the perspective of its citizens]? (Landman 2008, 9) IDEA lists numerous unique characteristics of their assessment approach, such as insider assessors and the use of the assessors qualitative judgements strengthened by quantitative data (Landman 2008, 9-10). The key democratic principles of IDEA are popular control over decision makers and political equality of those who exercise that control (Landman 2008, 10-11). The main purpose of a democracy assessment using the IDEA approach is to contribute to public debate and consciousness raising, allowing for the expression of popular understanding as well as any elite consensus (Landman 2008, 10). The assessments results must also be prescriptive (Landman 2008, 10), with policy implicationswhich is probably why the policy study-oriented University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), through Dr. Edna E.A. Co, led the conduct of the assessments in the Philippines.
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IDEA allows the local affiliate assessors using their framework to choose which among their indicators of democracy to assess (Landman 2008, 10). The first Philippine assessment, published in 2005, was about Free and Fair Elections and the Democratic Role of Political Parties. In 2007, there were two concurrent assessments published, one on Minimizing Corruption, and another on Economic and Social Rights. The 2010 assessmentthe latest in the seriesis about The Rule of Law and Access to Justice. The analyses conducted by IDEA-NCPAG are meticulous, given the amount of data their assessors need to process. It shares the previous PDA studies push for greater introspection to defeat anti-democratic forces instead of focusing on providing indices of democracy. All four studies agree on one pointin the Philippines, the means toward further democratization (legal or otherwise institutional) as well as guaranteeing the unhindered exercise of civil, political, and human rights exist, but the proper implementation or integrity of these means is dismal or questionable.
Synthesis
The last fifteen years of studies on the state of the Philippines progress toward democratizationqualitative, quantitative, or a combination of both collectively paint a portrait of a nation struggling to prove itself worthy of its claims to be a democratic state. The aforedescribed studies agree that that struggle was approaching a stalemate about a decade after the countrys current, anti-authoritarian constitution (1987) was ratified; more recent assessments are inclined to conclude that Philippine democratization has stalled, or that anti-democratic backsliding repeatedly occurs in the country. Nevertheless, all the assessments discussed are unanimous that democracy still exists in the Philippines and is strongly desired by most of its citizens; the local anti-dictatorship chant never again to martial law!first heard during the waning years of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorshipstill appears to resonate with the majority. All the assessments discussed also have their share of notable strengths in measuring democratization, as with all democracy metrics. the Philippine CADI survey team believes that the CADI ADI reflects many of the merits of the above assessments, such as the great weight given by the Freedom in the World analyses and the EIU Democracy Index to political and civil liberties; the identification of human development as an index of democratization by the DRQD; the highlighting of the rejection of authoritarianism as a means of assessing democratic consolidation by the EAB surveys; the emphasis given on the insiders perspective by the ARDA ADI; the surfacing of local multi-sectoral perspectives on democracy by the
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TWSC PDA studies; and the IDEA-NCPAG assessments identification of, thereafter recommending solutions to the hindrances to further democratization in the Philippines. The survey results of the CADI ADI project, besides adding to or updating the above described data (especially those of discontinued democracy/ democratization level perception studies), were expected by the 2011 Philippine survey team to fill many of the gaps unaddressed by the assessments discussed, notably the lack of focus on the majority of assessments on economic democratization. The Philippine CADI members also had no desire to emulate the researchers behind most democracy indices in their aim to package their work mainly as contributions to the field of comparative democracy/democratization. Indeed, as the author of this research note states elsewhere, the CADI researchers advocate what can be metaphorically illustrated as scientifically gazing at the detritus in [the] navels [of the countries subjected to ADI evaluation] in order to clean them thoroughly (2011). Of course, no democratization index can ever show a complete portrait of democratization in any country; there are always a few elements of democracy that are disregarded or undervalued. They can also be subject to usage contrary to their stated function; they can be utilized for not so academic ends, or any purpose that is a far cry from the objective examination variety. A government may use such measurements to say that the nations citizenry or the international community believes that all is right with the way it manages the country, or to attack outsiders as grossly misinformed democratization assessors. At worst, they can be used by the rulers of a not so well-run state (or even what can be referred to as an internally terroristic regime) to disregard local or international constructive criticism of their countrys political/socioeconomic system. In short, as are many things, no democratization index is perfect. But as long as they can fire up debates on democratization, then these indices can be considered invaluable assistants in bringing societies closer to attaining lasting democracy. Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Ma. Celine Anastasia P. Socrates for assisting in gathering some of the resources for this research note.
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References
ARDA (Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia). c2000. ARDA - About Us. http:/ /www.asiademocracy.org/content_view.php?section_id=4. . c2004. ARDA to Produce Index on Democracy in Asia. http://www.asia demo cracy.org/content_view.php?section_id=11&content_id=308. Au Waipang, Alex. 2007. Singapore Second Last in Asia Democracy Index. Yawning Bread (blog). http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2007/yax-780.htm. Campbell, David F. J. 2008. The Basic Concept for the Democracy Ranking of the Quality of Democracy. Vienna: Democracy Ranking. . 2010. Key Findings (Summary Abstract) of the Democracy Ranking 2010 and the Democracy Improvement Ranking 2010. http://www. democracyranking.org/ dow n l oads /Ke y % 2 0 f i n di n g s % 2 0 of% 2 0 t h e % 2 0 De m ocracy % 2 0 R an k i n g % 202010_A4.pdf. Campbell, David F. J., Plzlbauer Paul; and Thorsten D. Barth. 2010. Democracy Ranking 2010 (Scores). Vienna: Democracy Ranking. Campbell, David F. J. and Georg Plzlbauer. 2010. The Democracy Ranking 2009 of the Quality of Democracy: Method and Ranking Outcome. Comprehensive Scores and Scores for the Dimensions. Vienna: Democracy Ranking. Chu, Yun-han; Diamond, Larry; Nathan, Andrew J.; and Doh Chull Shin. 2009. Asias Challenged Democracies. The Washington Quarterly 32 (1): 143-157. Co, Edna E.A.; Tigno, Jorge V.; Jayme-Lao, Maria Elissa; and Margarita A. Sayo. 2005. Philippine Democracy Assessment: Free and Fair Elections and the Democratic Role of Political Parties. Manila: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the UP National College of Public Administration and Governance. Co, Edna E.A.; Fernan, Raon L. III; and Sta. Ana, Filomeno III. 2007. Philippine Democracy Assessment: Economic and Social Rights. Manila: Anvil Publishing. Co, Edna E.A.; Lim, Millard O.; Jayme-Lao, Maria Elissa; and Juan, Lilibeth Jovita. 2007. Philippine Democracy Assessment: Minimizing Corruption. Manila: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, British Council, Transparency and Accountability Network, Philippine Democracy Audit. Co, Edna E.A.; Malaluan, Nepomuceno; Neame, Arthur; Manuel, Marlon; and Musngi, Miguel Rafael V. 2010. Philippine Democracy Assessment: Rule of Law and Access to Justice. Quezon City: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Action for Economic Reforms. EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit). 2008. The Economist Intelligence Units Index of Democracy 2008. http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy% 20Index%202008.pdf. . 2010. The Economist Intelligence Units Index of Democracy. http://graphics. eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf. . 2011. The Economist Intelligence Units Index of Democracy. http://www.sida.se/ G l o b al / A b ou t % 2 0 Si da /S% C 3 % A 5 % 2 0 a rb e t ar% 2 0 v i / E I U _ De m o crac y _ Index_Dec2011.pdf. Freedom House. 2002. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2002/philippines. . 2003. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2003/philippines. . 2004. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2004/philippines.
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. 2005. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2005/philippines. . 2006. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2006/philippines. . 2007. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2007/philippines. . 2008. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2008/philippines. . 2009. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2009/philippines. . 2010. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2010/philippines. . 2011a. Freedom in the World Philippines. http://www.freedomhouse.org/ report/freedom-world/2011/philippines. . 2011b. Freedom House About Us. http://www.freedomhouse. org/about-us. . 2011c. Methodology. http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/ freedom-world-2011/ methodology. Guerrero, Linda Luz B. 2004. Social Weather Stations: Asias Oldest Barometer. Quezon City, Philippines: Social Weather Stations. Occasional paper. Guialal, Wahab Ibrahim. 1997. Perceptions of Democracy and Citizenship in Muslim Mindanao. In Diokno, Maria Serena I. ed., Philippine Democracy Agenda: Volume 1 Democracy & Citizenship in Filipino Culture, 159-174. Quezon City, Philippines: Third World Studies Center. Karaos, Anna Marie A. 1997. Perceptions and Practices of Democracy and Citizenship among Urban Middle Class Families. In Diokno, Maria Serena I. ed., Philippine Democracy Agenda: Volume 1 Democracy & Citizenship in Filipino Culture, 113132. Quezon City, Philippines: Third World Studies Center. Kekic, Laza. 2007. The Economist Intelligence Units Index of Democracy. http:// www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf. Landman, Todd ed. 2008. Assessing the Quality of Democracy: An Overview of the International IDEA Framework. Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Lee, Renato M. 1997. Perceptions of Democracy and Citizenship in the Philippine Business Sector. In Diokno, Maria Serena I. ed., Philippine Democracy Agenda: Volume 1 Democracy & Citizenship in Filipino Culture, 205-224. Quezon City, Philippines: Third World Studies Center. Nuera, Arturo C. 1997. Workers Political Culture: Perceptions of Democracy and Citizenship. In Diokno, Maria Serena I. ed., Philippine Democracy Agenda: Volume 1 Democracy & Citizenship in Filipino Culture, 225-238. Quezon City, Philippines: Third World Studies Center. Reyes, Miguel Paolo P. 2011. What Can An(other) Asian Democracy Index Do for Regional Integration in Asia? Paper presented in the Fifth Asian Political and International Studies Association Congress, Overseas Chinese University, Taichung, Taiwan, 24-25 November. Scott, Paul D. c2007. Myanmar Ranks at the Bottom; Japan Tops the Asia Democracy Index 2005. http://www.asiademocracy.org/content_view.php? section_id=11&content_ id=586.
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Social Weather Stations. 2007. June 2007 Social Weather Survey: Satisfaction with How Democracy Works Recovers to 54%. http://www.sws.org.ph/ pr070911.htm. CADI (The Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index). 2011. The Guidebook: The Asian Democracy Index. Seoul, South Korea. Unpublished manuscript. Tiglao, Rigoberto T. 1988. The Consolidation of the Dictatorship. In Javete-De Dios, Aurora, Petronilo Bn. Daroy and Lorna Kalaw-Tirol eds., Dictatorship and Revolution: Roots of Peoples Power, 26-69. Manila: Conspectus.
The following short essays were read during the 2012 Asian Democracy Index Conference, held on 30-31 August 2012 at Claro M. Recto Hall and the Third World Studies Center, University of the Philippines-Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines. During the conference, both the results of the 2011 pilot test and the preliminary findings of the then ongoing 2012 ADI survey were presented.
Comments on the 2011 ADI Pilot Test

FELIPE B. MIRANDA Man is the measure of all things: of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not. - Protagoras (On Truth) Man, it has been said, is the measure of all things. One must also immediately add that he happens to be the measurer toothe metrician in contemporary social science jargon. Particularly in the past fifty years, democracy has warranted mans interest and therefore his focused efforts at understanding and measuring it. All over the world, democracy studies and indices have proliferated, with many of them being international attempts at comparing the extent and quality of democratization in cross-sectional as well as time series studies. Others are clearly national ventures; as democracy becomes an iconic concern, more and more polities try to establish their political bona fides with various indicators and indices of democratization. This particular morning we are offered an opportunity to assess the utility of an Asian Democracy Index (ADI), a collaborative project that the Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index (CADI) identifies itself with. Our University of the Philippines host for todays conference, the Third World Studies Center (TWSC), is now a member of this scholarly consortium. I must thank both TWSC and CADI for inviting me to react to the overall presentation of the Asian Democracy Index as well as the findings of several national papers using the ADI analytical frame in surveys of experts on democratization. Several points come to mind as I try to discharge my responsibilities as a reactor today. First, I wonder whether the ADI has sufficiently explored the concept of democracy in its modern or contemporary guise. The liberal and egalitarian dimensions of modern democracy, even as they signal a welcome expansion
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Felipe B. Miranda is professor emeritus at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He is also a founding fellow of Social Weather Stations and the founder of Pulse Asia, Inc.
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of democracy beyond the traditional procedural concerns of regular elections, legal enactments, and formal constitutional structures, could be more explicitly joined by equally essential democratic concerns such as participative politics and accountable governance. To make the conceptualization truly modern, another dimensiona human quality of lifemust also be included and join the four dimensions of democracy identified by the consortium. There can be no democracy, Asian or otherwise, if these modern integral elements are not explicitly, and with equal valence, made part of the democratic theoretical frame. A historical fallacy, to give a fuller twist to Philippe Schmitters felicitous phrase, is not only committed when one demands of past societies what are properly attributes of our current times but also when one fails to apply to our present societies attributes that are already characteristic of our times. A human quality of life, participatory politics, and accountable governance must not only be explored as secondary dimensions of democracythey must join what ADI has already identified as crucial to all democratic frames: liberalization and equalization. Furthermore, is it not possible to be a bit more ambitious in embedding these five integrals within a generous but specific time frame (say half a century), such that if no demonstrable improvement in the quality or extent of any of these five basic democratic variables can be seen, a regime assessor, on theoretical grounds, is able to classify a given regime as nondemocratic? As part of a conceptual clean-up relevant to all functional democratization metrics: democracy and democratization are not the same; neither is democracy and freedom. Democracy is a type of political regime with specific regime properties; democratization, on the other hand, is the process that moves any regime towards democracy or greater and more enduring, deepened or consolidated, democracy, even if the starting of democratization point is antithetical to democracy. Likewise, freedom may be an important feature of liberal democracy and democracy may facilitate freedom but they are not the same. Fareed Zakaria, for instance, outlines a provocative scenario of a world where illiberal democracy exists. Having suggested in what ways we might make the democratic conceptualization behind the ADI stronger and more salient to our modern times, one can add a few more notes that properly focus on its survey and index design. We are told by ADI paper writers that ADI guidelines prescribe the use of an expert rather than a general public survey. For any given country, it would be good to standardize the meaning of expert and, as in the Indonesia paper, a profile of those finally selected as survey respondents should be included in the final report.
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While an exploratory survey at this point is the most that could be targeted by ADI members, it would be advisable to increase the target number of experts to more than the current 27. The current difficulties of ADI national investigators in locating experts across the board result in noticeably skewed profiles leaving critical grid cells without respondents. A more liberal, more realistic time frame might be considered to encourage more right experts to participate. The results of expert surveys would do well to be validated by surveys of alternative experts or the same survey in modified Delphi. Ultimately all expert surveys should be validated through a general public survey. Like other indices (Freedom House, Israeli Democracy Index, Economic Intelligence Unit Democracy Index), mean calculations for all values generated in the ADI assume that the categories/variables considered (whether at the highest or lower levels of theoretical generalization) employ at least interval, if not ratio scales. Furthermore, that within any given category, the subcategories have equal significance or weights. This may make for convenient calculation, but it is conceivable that at any given time some variables may reallyand should havemore weight than others. The pacing of political or economic democratization may actually reflect threshold effects, i.e., for any given country, it takes more effort to improve as one approaches a threshold point. The general finding across ADIs national surveys indicating that experts rate liberalization better/higher than equalization and that political liberalization occurs sooner than economic liberalization, suggests that uneven weights and threshold valuation might be more realistically applied than equal weights and categorical estimates for some countries at some critical point(s) in their political or economic development. Subjective interpretation of the figures generated could be threatening to the avowed goal of relative objectivity in using the ADI. How big a difference in index points makes for a significant difference between and among index scores? Unlike the Korean paper, the Indonesian and Philippine papers report index scores that most of the time do not differ by more than two index points. Also consider: how do we know that midpoint on a scale of 0 to 10 is halfway towards becoming a modern democracy? Even given this numerical eleven-point scale, why cannot a 7 or even an 8 be the legitimate, qualitatively more sensible midpoint in gauging the progress of a country towards reaching democratic status, consolidated or otherwise? As has been pointed out in many contemporary examination of prominent democracyrelated indices, so much subjective evaluation is usually reflected in international and national democracy index work.
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ADI probes allow for individual country definition of its lead categories, e.g., political orientationsthe present Indonesian and Korean probes as reflected in the national papers are basically the same, but the Philippine Left and Right orientation does not fall within the same categorization of pro- and anti-government. The issue of standardizing questionnaire design may need another ADI discussion and the possibility of comparative democratic indexing across Asian countries may again be assessed even if, as it now stands, ADI indexing work emphasizes validity primarily within specific national rather than cross-country frames. The possibility of a Delphi being brought to bear on ADI work requires yet another step, feeding back to the experts their own initial consensus and finding out whether they would conform to it. Even experts may, after this procedure, be said to be vulnerable to Elisabeth Noelle-Neumanns spiral of silence. Exploratory surveys and nothing more may be realistically expected at this stage for ADI investigators. This pilot indexing work, even given its natural/normal weaknesses at this stage, nevertheless has its proper contribution to make in the challenging study of democratization monitoring. In the social sciences, we still have to appreciate what in the natural sciences one takes for granted: that most initial experimental work discovers what to avoid doing precisely because we make full contact with it.
Comments on the ADI Project from the Indian Perspective

BONOJIT HUSSAIN It has long been proposed by proponents of democracy from a certain ideological vantage point that political democracy becomes meaningful only when its frontiers are ever expanding in the realm of social and economic citizenship (good living standards, life with dignity free of discrimination and fear, universal access to education, health, housing, etc.). This means that democracy is not only an end in itself that needs to be pursued but also a process that is not devoid of conflicts and contestations under the global system it necessarily operates within. And, I believe, the Consortium of Asian Democracy Index (CADI) is yet another noble effort towards reaffirming the same. I have been asked to comment on the CADI project from the point of view of someone who is consideringthe possibility of conducting the survey in India. Let me start by saying that while going through the CADI theoretical framework, I was struck by the absence of any discussion on social diversity vis--vis democracy. To put in the terminology of CADI, the theoretical exposition as far as social de-monopolization is concerned is rather weak. The relationship between democracy and diversity has proven to be particularly difficult in South Asia, for both ends of this relationship pose a challenge in this region. The nature of diversity itself is a challenge to political imagination. Probably more than any other region in the world, South Asia represents a bewildering mosaic of different collective identityreligious, linguistic, ethnic, sub-regionalwhich overlap and cut across one another in innumerable ways. This difficulty in the relationship between democracy and diversity has essentially to do with the idea of Westphalian notion of modern nation-state whose boundaries must also correspond and coincide with homogenous cultural boundaries.
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Bonojit Hussain is an independent researcher and political analyst from Assam, India. He is affiliated with New Socialist Initiative-Delhi Chapter.
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Hence, it is of utmost importance to realize the fact that in India (like in numerous non-homogenous countries in the Third World), formal equal political citizenship exists in a very unequal society marred by issues of castes, indigenes, oppressed nationalities, gender, etc. which perpetuates exclusion and oppression in the everyday lives of millions. From the Indian experience, it can safely be noted that a well functioning multi-party democracy does not ensure everyday democracy at the local level. A political democracy at the national level does not realize itself in a meaningful sense without social and economic justice at the local level. Really existing democracy in Asia has failed to address the issues of the downtrodden, oppressed and marginalized on many accounts. The issues of exclusionary structures, which violate socioeconomic and cultural rights, have become a part of official State discourse but more often than not just as lip service. A good illustration on this point would be again India, where out of approximately three million (in both tiers of State and central government) elected representatives, two million are women and twenty-two percent represents dalits and indigenes (adivasis), and yet women, dalits and indigenes remain more oppressed and vulnerable than ever before. It can be argued that within the present really existing democratic framework, representation often becomes a mechanism of producing new rent-taking political elites who might still bear the name of the marginalized. Like I hinted above, even though India has a formal political democratic setup, democracy is visualized, and it operates within the larger paradigm of nation building/nation, without recognizing or evading the homogenizing tendencies of the notion of modern nation itself which renders minority nationalities and linguistic, religious and other minority as the other. This has led to conflict with the State, often militarizing the society; examples are innumerable starting from Indias Northeast and Kashmir. Another aspect in the CADI framework that struck me was the unsubstantiated use of concepts (both in theoretical and descriptive sense) like civil society and nongovernment organizations (NGOs). If CADI is using civil society in a Gramscian sense, then it needs to spell it out, as it is a much used and abused concept in contemporary political theory. For the past two decades the most popular concept in the analysis of the social basis and agent of democratic struggles among the Western academia and activists as well as external support for democratic political reform (notably from western donors) have undoubtedly been civil society. Civil society has been said to be the powerhouse which sustains democracy through associational engagement and democratic deliberation. Many Western proponents of the so-called third wave democracies point out that civil society
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promotes democratic consolidation by inculcating not only the participatory habits, interests, and skills of democratic citizenship but also the deeper values of a democratic political culture, such as tolerance, moderation, willingness to compromise, and a respect for opposing views. Of course civil society as a category and as a concept has a very rich history and no doubt that deliberation in public sphere is crucial to sustain an inclusive democracy that be. But if we were to consider the fact that civil society in the third wave sense in a largely rural Asian context is confined to urban centres and the middle classes, there arises serious doubts on fairness and equality in deliberations. The public sphere of Asian civil society essentially excludes certain voices and marginalizes others by glossing over intersection of class/gender/race/ caste/nationality. The language that so-called civil society operates through and deliberates is the language of legality and civic morality derived from the notion of modern state, whereas in a Third World country like India, majority of the population doesnt have access to knowledge (or even basic literacy) that produces expertise over that language. In other words, the deliberative language of Indian civil society is monopolized by few in the larger society. On the other hand, a careful look at Indian or rather Asian society (excluding perhaps the first world countries in Asia) can be telling of the fact that civil society as it is constituted today is not autonomous of the State. The realm of collective action and deliberation of civil society functions within the parameters laid down by the State. Within that permissible parameters civil society can do whatever they want, but once it puts forth redistributive demands which might destabilize the very socioeconomic structures generating inequalities, the civil actor might be relegated beyond the dark realm of civic rights and law. Now, again, CADI should be careful in using NGO as a conceptual term; it is understood differently by political masses in different countries, depending on where the countries (the nation, the people) stand in the global division of labor. Across the Third World countries, for politically conscious masses the concept of NGO immediately gets connected with multilateral lending agencies like World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) who have been funding scores of NGOs to promote the ideology of self-help. These NGOs are often hailed as agents of democratic deepening, but a closer critical look might reveal something else. Not much attention has been paid to analyze or critically engage whether NGOs promoted by World Bank and ADB help deepen democracy or undermine it at a structural level. Most of these NGOs are service providers or promoter of self help groups operating in local level, and in the process they provide an opportunity for the democratic State to roll back from providing basic services and amenities
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to its citizen. And since these NGOs, unlike the State, are not accountable to the people in a real sense, in the process it transforms historically hard earned basic rights into services. The era of neoliberal globalization of capital and free market ideology has seriously weakened the social character of democracy. While neoliberalism promotes a form of market utopia of prosperity and at the same time it has also been destroying peoples lives in form of extreme commoditization. The fate of people is being constantly thrown into the floating global market away from the will of the voters. It has been happening because neoliberalism requires the State to constantly withdraw from its welfarist role, which was obtained through struggle, and to become more interventionist in favor of capital. Recent glaring examples again come from India, the largest functioning democracy in Asia, where the democratic State is increasingly putting its weight behind big capital against its own denizens (whereas traditionally it played a mediating role, biased though, between capital and people/labor). And, I believe, this is what the CADI survey had to measure. It is complex but it is a workable and desirable initiative which could possibly enable processes of understanding Asian democracy in all its complexities, yet not be colored by Western unilateralism.
Reaction to the Findings of the 2011 ADI Pilot Test and the Preliminary Findings of the 2012 ADI Survey
TEMARIO C. RIVERA I would like to thank the organizers of this conference for this opportunity to share my comments on their presentations. Let me start with some overall comments. In any exercise of this kind, much of the clarification has to do with the kinds of concepts we use. If the concepts we use are not clear, no amount of indexing will be very useful. There has to be a consistency between the kinds of concepts we use and our attempts at measuring or indexing. Let us start with the concept of democracy. The whole exercise seeks to explain, directly or indirectly, the concept of democracy and democratic consolidation, or address what in the literature is sometimes referred to as the problem of improving the quality of democracy. Conceptually, I think CADI needs to clarify precisely what it means by democracy, as pointed out earlier by Professor Miranda. There is an extensive literature and long debates about these conceptscontentions about whether to use the procedural definition of democracy or a more substantive one. Reading your papers and listening to the presentations, it is clear that you seek an understanding of democracy that goes beyond a simply procedural definition. But it would be more satisfactory if you can clarify what we might consider to be the common attributes of a democratic political system. Let us focus on the four countries included in the study. From your presentations, you all assume that these four countries (South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines) are now democratic political systems. However, in our book, Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy (Miranda et al. 2011), we argue that at this stage we cannot strictly call the Philippine political system a democracy. At best, it is
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Temario C. Rivera is a former professor at the International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan and the editor of the Philippine Political Science Journal.
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democratizingit is not yet a full democracy. In fact, one common description of the Philippines is that it is an oligarchic democracy. Is that not an oxymoron? If it is an oligarchic democracy, is there a democracy at all? Why dont we just call it an oligarchy for that matter? All of these are reflections of the need to clarify a very basic conceptual issue. What is a democratic political system? Can we agree on its key attributes? Is it different conceptually from democratization? These are some of the things that we would like to see in the final output of the group. More closely related to the exercise of indexing is the concept of democratic consolidation. Again, I believe that the unstated assumption of all these indexing exercises is that we want to have a sense of how consolidated these democratic systems areassuming that to begin with, of course, they are indeed democracies. All of these exercises in indexing will be much clearer if we are given a sense of what sort of scores would be considered to be reflective of a democratically consolidated system. When you come out with a final output, it would be useful if you can agree on what kinds of scores might constitute something that would qualify as a democratically consolidated system. Thus, using your index ratings would you consider a country with an overall index of 5.0 or 6.0 as democratically consolidated, for instance? Why or why not? Another issue about indexing, of course, is weighting. At the moment you do not have a system of weighting for your indicators. I am not sure whether you will go into that exercise, but again, that is something you might want to look into. For instance, should you give a greater weight to the demonopolization processes that are taking place within the political sphere as against the economic sphere or the civil society sphere? Are these issues that you would like to address in your final output? Some of you also have done tests of correlations and significance on your variables. I think two countries have done thatIndonesia and the Philippines. But it seems that there is no common agreement whether or not to use these tests. What stands out from the four country exercises so far is that the process of de-monopolization, to use your concept, has taken place most impressively in the sphere of politics. Thus, one of the questions you might also want to pursue is whether there is any causal relationship between the level of democratic consolidation in the political sphere with those of the two other spheres. Or you might even raise a more interesting question: where is the direction of the causality, if there is such causality? Is it democratization that is facilitating the process of de-monopolization? Or is it the other way around? You might want to pursue some of these questions.
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Another general comment on the methodology for all the country studies would be the choice of respondents. Again, there is no uniformity on this question. As you have rightly pointed out, the question of defining and choosing experts itself is already quite a problem. How do you choose experts? The four teams have adopted different responses to this question. The Philippine team, apparently, is now in the process of seriously evaluating its earlier classification of experts as selected mainly on the basis of their ideological affiliation: a left-center-right continuum. This premise assumes that ones ideological affiliation is a fairly stable and coherent one but in reality, one can have a range of ideological positions on different kinds of issues. I was also struck by our Malaysian colleagues basis for their choice of respondents. It appears to be a very subjective and a very limited pool, not to mention what I think is an over-representation of the Chinese experts, given the demographic composition of Malaysia. I hope that in the final report you can also provide a clear, more up-todate contextualization of the indexing process, i.e., clarifying the political and the social context by which a reader will be able to make more sense out of the figures. Some of you are already doing that but you might want to relate it more directly to the indexing system. For instance, why is it that in comparing two years, say 2011 and 2012, you have in the case of two countries a decrease in the index of democracy? What were the most important political factors, both internal and external, that might have contributed to this? Or if there has been a significant increase in the democracy index, the reader would also be interested in understanding the context for these developments. For instance, in Indonesia, the context there might be significantly related to some reforms initiated by President Yudhoyonos administration. It would be interesting if you can point out if there have been any significant policy initiatives or institutional changes that might have taken place to affect these indices. The Korean situation has always fascinated me because historically, Korea, together with Japan, was one of the very few cases which defied the projections of some well-established economic studies. Recall the famous Kuznets curve that basically said that when a country is experiencing rapid economic growth, that growth will inevitably be accompanied by the worsening of income inequality in the earlier years of growth. But even during the period of the dictatorship, the Korean experience belied such an analysis. Significant economic growth took place under the military dictatorship but income inequalities were addressed by major institutional reforms, for instance, the successful land reform program. Based on your studies, you said that in the last two years, the progress in your political index has not been accompanied
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by an increase in your economic index. Again, we want to understand the context for this. Part of the explanation perhaps would be the impact of the economic crisis, especially after 2008, and the subsequent institutional reforms. In Malaysia, political contestation has also become more robust with the emergence of a vibrant opposition under the leadership of Anwar Ibrahim. It would be interesting to find out whether or not these recent developments would significantly affect your democracy indices. These are some of the comments that I would like to share with you. As you can see, my biggest concern has to do with conceptual issues as I pointed out in the first part of my commentary. Thank you very much.
The 2011 ADI Pilot Test: Some Comments on the Reports

EDNA ESTIFANIA A. CO First of all, let me thank the Third World Studies Center (TWSC) of the University of the Philippines for inviting me to this presentation forum on the Asian Democracy Index (ADI). Secondly, let me congratulate the TWSC and the other Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index researchers from Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, and India for being part of this democracy study in Asia. It is indeed important that each country and the citizens of that country do examine the state of their democracy. Sometime in June 2011, I was asked by the TWSC to respond to the ADI surveyI am sorry that I failed to participate in the survey and interview. I did not evade the survey; I was simply caught in the web of responsibilities and activities at that time that the TWSC needed the survey. After reading the democracy index draft reports and having heard from the presentations today, I am pleased and thankful that I did not make it as a respondent to the survey. I would not want to be classified as either a citizen who has L (left) leaning, or R (right) political inclinations; neither do I want to be labelled as progovernment or anti-government. I dont think there is a straight jacket taxonomy of individuals given ones views on various issues and elements under study, and under movable times and circumstances. In other words, ones views on democracy and its various elements may change given differing or changing periods and circumstances, players, events and such other variables. I am not going to comment on the substance and findings of the democracy studies on Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Their scholars and people have the better right to talk about their own democracy.
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Edna Estifania A. Co is professor and dean of the National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines-Diliman.
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On the ADI Methodology

I appreciate three things about the study, namely the identification of a) an initial focus, b) the benchmarks used across countries, and c) the attempt at rigor in putting together the survey data and information alongside the insights and analysis of the expert-reviewers. However, somehow, somewhere I feel that the analysis drops and fades due to a lack of a clear agreement on fundamental concepts of democracy. I also hope to see an analysis that establishes the causation of democracyat whichever state it is observed in a country. I did not see much of that analysis in the reports. I must admit that I am not a great believer of the American Freedom House approach nor am I a fan of the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index. At best, I could only acknowledge the efforts done by the so-called many experts on democracy worldwideand how they measure democracy including the use of metrics. It may be good to know the state of democracy of a country or of countries with the use of metrics, rating and ranking. And for some academics, such information are worthwhile good-to-know sources based upon certain indices and comparative barometers shown by scores and rankings. I welcome these approaches and the data that result from such rankings. After all, ours is a liberal world. However, I believe there are other ways of examining democracy, and especially so, by the citizens of a country whose democracy is being scrutinized. I think the ADI approach reflects a cross-section of opinions about certain indicators of democracy from autonomy, competition, pluralization, and solidarity which fall under the broad principles of liberalization and equalization. I certainly agree that these are among the universal principles of democracy and their subprinciples, so to speak. However, I think the measures of democracy could still be expanded and that these core and subprinciples could still be broken down to articulate: a) other normative values of democracy such as representation, participation, effectiveness and accountability among others, as well as b) the dynamism of democracy which is mirrored for example in the various institutions, mechanisms, operational platforms and programmes, including the dynamics between and among the institutions and other bearers of democracy in a country at a given time or period. As we know, the time or period under which democracy is assessed is pivotal. Citizens should regularly examine their own democracy because events, issues, and challenges to democracy are moving and they do change from time to time. One may also examine the presence of laws and policies that warrant democracy and the practices of these policies and laws, as observed and
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witnessed by the community of democracy. If I may add to suggest, one can include as well the negative indicators that are observable. To me, a study on democracy should be a conversation among peoples and groups in a particular society. A conversation among citizens of a country is important if one wants to see a truly cross-sectional view on democracy and the state of democracy. A conversation about democracy draws in many more playersperhaps not just the so-called experts from the private sector, the academe, the nongovernment organizations/civil society organizations (NGOs/CSOs) as are the sources of information/data adopted by the ADI study. A conversation about democracy is important and should be much more inclusive. To my mind, it is important to draw in the ordinary citizens as among the experts of democracy. For example when one speaks of the Rule of Laware the victims of injustice and those who seek justice part of the circle of informants? Are they considered experts? Are the marginal members of indigenous communities and Muslim population included as among the key informants in a meaningful search and understanding of democracy where rule of law and justice are measured? What if there are different rules of law brought about by culture, ethnicity, and by political tradition and history, thereby making local informants the main and best sources of information on democracy and rule of law? Or are the marginal groups such as labor, farmers, indigenous communities considered as experts on democracy benchmarked by economic and social rights? Are they represented in the dissection of the subprinciple of competition? I raise doubt about the inclusiveness of the NGOs/CSOsthe NGOs/ CSOs are a strange nomenclature these days, when even political elites foundations could be categorized as NGOs or CSOs. I have my doubt about civil society organizationsa nomenclature now challenged globally because the CSOs do not necessarily reflect the membership-based, warm bodies of citizens that make for a more inclusive citizenry. To ensure a reference to the broad constituency of peopleI would rather seek the direct participation of citizen groups in the data gathering exercises rather than simply pick representatives of some civil society groups. Let me humbly share our experience in assessing democracy. Bringing people from a cross-section of society on democracy or principles of democracy has been an amazing experience. In fact, bringing diverse people together serves as an instant triangulation of views, understanding, and dissection of democracy. We did this when we touched base with a cross-section of Muslim women, indigenous peoples, health workers, local municipal health officers, private health practitioners and district health officersall considered
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experts on health under our assessment of peoples economic and social rights. Prior to this, on our corruption assessment, we brought together church advocates, public school teachers, barangay officials, and NGO representatives in trying to assess the nuances of corruption and how corruption or its absence is a measure of democracy. With an ongoing examination of local democracy in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, we engage and converse with the Ullamah, the local leaders, the unschooled folks in villages, the local election advocates and former officers of the Commission on Elections among others. We also engage legislators from the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. The cross-sectioning of experts instantly brings with it differences in views, itself a plurality of ideas, itself democratic in process. The diversity of views are recorded and noted by the assessors. No censorship, no editing. But certainly the data come with evidence-based analysis. I should also think that a conversation about democracy should include government and its many offices or representatives. For how could one dissect democracy and the state of democracy, and yet not include the supposed protectors and those who ought to be the ardent promoters of democracy? How could one dissect political democracy from the point of view of bystander experts of elections, and yet not include the men and women who make elections happen and who ought to make electoral democracy work? Their absence would indeed make for a biased perspective on the workings and performance of democracy. It is interesting that in Mongolia for example the initiative to scrutinize democracy was taken by the government of Mongolia itselfworking with academics, community people, and government channels. Such democracy assessment in Mongolia has led to a suggestion for a ninth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) relevant to their country, on top of the eight United Nations Development Programme-prescribed MDGs. How could one dissect democracy and the subprinciples of subsidiary and pluralization or solidarity when for example, local government officials are not considered as among the experts or the source of information? How could one examine democracy measured by the rule of law and access to justice and the extent by which democracy exists without involving lawyers, judges, policemen as enforcers, barangay officials who are the basic arbiters of justice, the victims of injustice, the poor who are usually kept out of the loop of justice, and the Supreme Court which is the ultimate protector of justice? Democracy studies are interestingly a democratic exercise in themselves they should be inclusive in terms of sources of information, of experts,
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and of process. The people of such country are themselves the experts on democracy and on the state of their democracy. I imagine that there are no clear cut and dried answers to democracy enquiryhence, there is not a fixed score or rank in the democracy ladder. Beyond the scores or the rankings determined by outside experts, there is the collective, albeit diverse interpretations of the state of democracy by the citizens of that country. Finally, what is pivotal to a democracy enquiry are the questions asked to assess democracy the quality of these questions and how these questions are framed. The questions should be able to help fathom the breadth and depth of democracy, its many measures, the roles of institutions, players, and the processes. The answers to the query on democracy are in the hands of various respondents and informants and there are probably no singular, correct answers to the democracy questions. What is vital is the solidness of the questions that we raise and how they are framed enough to generate responses from an inclusive set of informants.
Democracy Study: What for?

Let me end by asking the question: What does a democracy study serve? In my view, it is meant to move democracy forward, or at least to face up to the challenges of democracy through the collaborative efforts by those I call here as representatives and experts of democracythe government, the middle class, the academics, the poor, the women, the labor sector, the poor, the policymakers, and so on. The purpose of a democracy study is something not for the shelf to keep and to collect dust. It is something to touch base with and to pursue precisely so that we could realize or strengthen democracy. Having said so, we in the democracy assessment wagon always say that our democracy study and its findings are a platform upon which we wish to continue to engage our citizens and our policymakers in addressing democracy. By doing so, we are not only expert academics but are also active citizens who have a mission in the public sphere. We hope to use our democracy study to pursue our conversation with people and sectors who matter in shaping democracy.
Reaction to the ADI Pilot Studies: Indonesia, the Philippines, and South Korea
MALAYA C. RONAS The most promising aspect of this program is its contribution to the conceptualization of Asian democracy. Its demonopolization and equalization indices capture the characteristic of formally democratizing polities within an economic and social environment of severe equity problem. This is the situation of most democratizing Asian countries. The paper on Indonesian democratization, for example, notes that the overall Asian Democracy Index of 4.99 points on a scale of 0-10 indicates that developments and achievements are out of balance with the concept of propping up democracy in the ongoing process of transition. Moreover, it states that Indonesian democracy has been propped up by significant liberalization of politics, but this has been accompanied by low equalization in the economic sphere. Further, the paper asserts that the index findings appear to confirm various criticisms by experts regarding the oligarchy phenomenona serious issue that Indonesian democracy now faces. Lastly, the paper expressed doubt about the claim of some studies that Indonesian democracy has been consolidated. In the context of the potential of Consortium for the Asian Democracy Index (CADI) in contributing to the conceptualization of Asian democracy, it is regrettable that the paper about Philippine democratization sees no need to engage in this discussion. It states: We have since abandoned any desire to contribute efforts if there is a distinctly Asian type of democracy; it is an unending debate that we can find no value in contributing to.
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Malaya C. Ronas is former full professor at the Department of Political Science, College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of the Philippines-Diliman.
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The challenge in pursing this task is formidable. But when successfully achieved, this effort of CADI would benefit similarly situated democratizing countries in the Third World. The pessimism of the Philippine paper is not shared by the paper on South Korean democratization. The paper states: This survey also brought to the attention some common characteristics of democracy in Asia. For example, though democratic exercises of free and fair elections are carried out regularly, economic inequality is an enduring problem. The ADI is significant thus for a generalization of the characteristic of Asian democracy by its accumulation of empirical data. Closely related to the observation of the pilot studies that politics is liberalizing amid the glaring economic disparities is the need to understand the oligarchy phenomenon. South Koreas economic disparities might not be as glaring as those in Indonesia and the Philippines, but it continues to experience the enduring problem of economic inequality. Hence, the Indonesian paper suggests that part of CADIs future studies is to examine the oligarchy phenomenonthe monopolies, conglomerates, and chaebols. In regard to the methodological issues, the self-criticisms of the pilot studies are instructive. The Indonesian paper acknowledges the importance of looking at the relations between these sectors (political, economic, and civil society) in influencing the overall democracy index score. The Consortium might like to consider perspectives, such as Seymour Martin Lipsets, that emphasize the significance of the economic and social preconditions of a democratic polity. The Korean paper observes the 1) difficulty in comparing democratic realities of countries with one another, and 2) the problem of how to tackle the huge differences between scores of respondents. The papers preferred approach, which is accepted in all the other papers, is to hold supplemental surveys through the Delphi survey method. In addition, the Consortium should also consider clarifying its level and rule of aggregation (Munck 2009, cited in Miranda et al. 2011, 22) in dealing with these methodological concerns. The Philippine paper discussed the issue of representativeness. The research team plans to double the number of respondents. It prescribes an ideal mix: nine [left-left leaning] and nine [right-right leaning] respondents per field, with one L-LL and one R-RL. The team also plans to double nonLuzon respondents. While the issue of representativeness is important, a
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prior problem needs to be tackled. The pilot studies use different classifications of respondents. The classes of respondents vary from conservative-moderateliberal, pro-government, independent, anti-government, to leftistrightist. The Consortium should rethink their varying classifications of respondents to avoid conceptual conflation or overstretching (Miranda et al. 2011). In conclusion, we should not lose sight of the inspiration of the framers of CADI. As stated in the Philippine paper, they see the undue concentration of politico-socioeconomic power as the main obstacle to democratization. CADI is animated by the war against authoritarianism waged on several fronts. Indeed, this inspiration makes CADI partisans for democracy worthy of being supported by democrats all over the world.
References
Miranda, Felipe B., Temario C. Rivera, Malaya C. Ronas, and Ronald D. Holmes. 2011. Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy. Quezon City: The Philippine Commission on Human Rights and United Nations Development Programme. Munck, Gerardo L. 2009. Measuring Democracy: A Bridge between Scholarship and Politics. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
For inquiries regarding submission of articles, reviews, and other content for possible publication in Asian Democracy Review and other matters related to the journal or the Asian Democracy Index project, please email us at cadi.democracy@gmail.com.

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