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International Forum >> The Democracy Forum for East Asia>> Improving Governance and Accountability through Research: The Role of East Asian Think Tanks in the Policy Process
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Introduction
Session I: Think Tanks in East Asia: Who They Are and What They Do Session II: Think Tanks as Participants in the Policy Process Session III: The Role of Think Tanks in Improving Governance and Deepening Democracy Agenda Participants |
Session III: The Role of Think Tanks in Improving Governance and Deepening Democracy Moderator: Kie-Duck Park (Sejong Institute) The final session of the conference examined what think tanks are doing to promote, strengthen, and deepen democracy in East Asia today. Participants reviewed proposals developed by East Asian think tanks to reform political and constitutional institutions in their respective countries-and how these proposals had fared in the public arena. And they reported on how their own work had benefited from the experiences of other researchers in East Asia and elsewhere. Jose Luis MC Gascon, executive director of the National Institute for Policy Studies, said that to understand the role of think tanks in the Philippines, it was necessary to go back to the collapse of the Marcos regime in 1986. That event set in motion important reforms in government, the economy, and many other aspects of Filipino public life. These changes continue to the present day, driven forward in part by a civil-society sector that includes numerous reform-minded NGOs, plus policy research centers that work with them. In the immediate post-Marcos years, Mr. Gascon said, the Philippines underwent a period of major economic reform during which the primary focus was on macroeconomic policy. One think tank to emerge at this time was the Foundation for Economic Freedom, which had been successful in getting some of its free-market proposals enacted. The results of these reforms were mixed, however, and by the time the Asian economic crisis struck in 1998 there was already growing sentiment against what was loosely called "globalization" or the global market economy. A number of NGOs had emerged to fight what they saw as the disruptive effects of globalization, and their work was supported by think-tank studies. Other reformers launched NGOs and think tanks on such issues as electoral reform, institutional reform, capacity building, and transparency. Fortunately, Mr. Gascon said, one of the principal objectives of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the current president of the Philippines, was to turn what she called "a weak state" into "a strong republic," so the various reform efforts had at least symbolic support from the highest levels of government. At this time, reformers had begun to focus on proposals such as one for the creation of a new Internal Revenue Management Administration that was expected to improve tax and customs collections not only to solve budget shortfalls but to reduce opportunities for corruption. This continues to be a major advocacy issue at the present time. With support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, a consortium of Filipino government agencies, NGOs, policy-research centers, and international consultants launched the AGILE Program (that is, Accelerating Growth, Investment, and Liberalization with Equity), which provided policy research and reform ideas on economic development, macroeconomic policy, poverty reduction, and job creation through the promotion of investments. Another project that involved collaboration among NGOs and research institutes was the Transparency and Accountability in Governance (or TAG) Network, Mr. Gascon said. NGOs and think tanks are also active in electoral reform. Among the most pressing needs Mr. Gascon identified are campaign finance reform, automating the "archaic electoral system," and allowing absentee balloting. "There are as many as 7 million Filipino citizens residing abroad," he said. "They send lots of money back home-and they too should be able to vote." "The public is demanding constitutional reform, and as a result there are many reform ideas out there," Mr. Gascon continued. One group called the Center for Social Policy had actually prepared a draft constitution that would establish a new fundamental law by 2010. But Mr. Gascon did not want to paint an entirely positive picture of the think-tank sector in his country. "We still need to integrate policy research into the policy process, and think tanks need to expand their audience to include churches, NGOs, and ordinary citizens." He said that there has been insufficient research on the effects of many policy reforms on the poor and that "research groups that focus on the issues of the poor have low impact on the formal policy-making process." Finally, Mr. Gascon said, "few think tanks in the Philippines engage in rational debate with each other. We need to improve the balance of access to institutions of decision making among our think tanks." Ghia Nodia, who then made the second opening presentation, said that, "my country-Georgia-is so similar to the Philippines that I could repeat almost all of Mr. Gascon's remarks." He decided instead to focus on two questions that moderator Kie-Duck Park had posed to all participants: "How can a think tank have an impact?" and "How can it improve governance?" "The most obvious way to have an impact is by working with the government," Mr. Nodia said. Of course, he continued, this depends on the existence of governments that are willing to work with nongovernmental research centers; this varied tremendously in the postcommunist countries. In Georgia, for example, several government agencies were willing to consider policy recommendations from think tanks. And he had found that some reform-minded legislators are more open to new ideas than are most government bureaucrats. Conversely, there were some agencies-particularly law-enforcement agencies-that consider NGO reform proposals to be implicit challenges to their legitimacy. And throughout the region there remains a holdover class of former communist officials who had never accepted the premise that NGOs should participate in the policy process at all. One area where Georgian research centers have worked with the government is in looking for ways to cooperate with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Mr. Nodia said. But when his institute suggested that it go beyond NATO membership to develop a national security doctrine for Georgia, the government instead commissioned a group of Western advisors to draft such a doctrine in secrecy. "In general, the Georgian government is reluctant to have open policies available for anyone to see," Mr. Nodia noted. "Georgian NGOs have stepped into the power vacuum left by weak political parties and a government with no overarching concept…People like me are on television all the time on a wide variety of issues…We are 'opinion multipliers,'" he said. But having a demonstrable impact is proving to be much more difficult, Mr. Nodia concluded. Dogu Ergil, president of the Center for the Research of Societal Problems (TOSAM) in Turkey, responded to President Arroyo's categorization of the Philippines as "a weak state" (cited earlier by Mr. Gascon) by describing his country as "a weak nation with a strong state." In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to call Turkey "a subservient nation with an omnipotent state," Mr. Ergil said. For him, the key to understanding Turkish politics was the predominant role played by the military, which filtered many domestic political issues through the lens of "state security." An additional feature was the legal connection between Turkish ethnicity and state citizenship, which prevented non-Turks from being full participants in political and social life. Finally, Turkish politics featured a bias toward the status quo that resulted in considerable corruption and inefficiency. It was in such a political environment that Mr. Ergil and his colleagues had launched TOSAM, whose long name was chosen, he said only partly in jest, so that the government would not understand what it was. One of the defining moments in TOSAM's history came in 1995, during one of the periodic violent phases of the Kurdish rebellion. While the Turkish government defined the Kurds as "terrorists," TOSAM conducted research that showed that as many as 90 percent of the Kurds in the areas of greatest conflict did not want a separate state or the partition of Turkey. In fact, 100 percent of the Kurds were willing to accept Turkish citizenship, but on the condition that their Kurdish identity be respected. "When these results came out, there was an intellectual earthquake in Turkey," Mr. Ergil said. No one had done empirical work on such sensitive questions before. As it happened, the resulting public discussions triggered by TOSAM's research went beyond the Kurdish question to the more radical idea of making the state subservient to society. "We started a whole new discussion in Turkey," Mr. Ergil claimed. "This is the merit of real independent research." More recently, TOSAM has done research on Turkey's application for membership in the European Union and has launched a project on democratic culture that included a "Democracy Radio" call-in show and a civic education program. TOSAM even participated actively with some other NGOs in preparing a draft constitution that is now before the parliament. For LAO Mong Hay, the key concept for postcommunist reformers is the rule of law. Cambodia, for example, does not have a strong state; it has a strongman. Cambodia has a multiparty system but no real multiparty democracy, since neither nonruling parties nor NGOs have any real effect on government policy. "How can we inculcate democratic values into our society?" Mr. Lao asked. "We need a parliament that can stand up to and control the government, instead of the other way around." He therefore recommended that international donors devote at least part of their support to research institutions that focus on democracy and the rule of law. Damba Ganbat said that while he appreciated the difficult conditions in other Asian countries, his own native land had also had a long troubled history: "Mongolia was an absolute monarchy for fifteen centuries, then we had two centuries of Manchu rule, and then seven decades of communism." This ancient nation thus only has ten years of experience with democracy, so there remains "a popular mentality that the government should decide everything," Mr. Ganbat said. The postcommunist constitution did provide for a formal separation of powers, but this was not reflected in actual practice. Both parliament and the political parties conduct rudimentary research, but civil society remains weak; and the development of an independent policy-research sector in Mongolia is still in its earliest stages, Mr. Ganbat reported. Kahn-Chae Na, a professor of sociology at Chunnam National University in Korea, pointed out that the discussion thus far had assumed that a cooperative relationship existed between think tanks and the government. When examining the current role of think tanks in a society, however, special emphasis needed to be given to their commitment to judge critically the current political system and to suggest alternatives to it. Mr. Na's own institute-the 5.18 Center of Chunnam National University-focuses on democracy and human rights in Korean society, conducts applied research, and participates in social movements. In Mr. Na's view, one of the most important roles of think tanks in any society is to articulate a practical strategy for the development of democracy. Despite differences among conditions in particular countries, almost all think tanks face a common set of challenges. This fact, he said, should lead to a collective and cooperative relationship among research centers regardless of their location that could help all of them improve their operations and enhance their impact. But for Ryrat Suwanraks, political conditions in Thailand were much more conducive to collaboration between think tanks and the government. The new 1997 constitution strengthened Thailand's credentials as a participatory democracy, she said, and so it is fully appropriate for independent research groups to work with the relevant agencies responsible for economic planning or with those that fight corruption, money laundering, and other problems. As she had mentioned earlier in the conference, Ms. Suwanraks saw a close connection between the Thailand Development Research Institute's work on economic and regulatory issues and its work on governance. In addition to preparing a background paper that led to the declaration of good governance as a national agenda, TDRI had also supported decentralization and local good-governance initiatives. And it promotes the better understanding of democratic values among Thai youth through high-school learning-by-doing programs. TDRI also conducts research on public-sector reform and electronic procurement, conflicts of interest, corruption, and a regulatory framework and concession conversion for the telecommunications industry-all of which contribute to greater transparency and accountability in the public sector. Thus, although most researchers at the TDRI are economists, the results of their governance-related work helps strengthen democracy in Thailand, she stressed. For Thawilwadee Bureekul, the entire mission of King Prajadhipok's Institute was to be a "democratic development program" through its research, training, and public outreach. "A colleague from Singapore once told me that that Indonesia was beyond repair," Nanang Pamuji Mugasejati observed. While he hoped that this was not true, Mr. Mugasejati agreed that there was some validity to the statement. He noted, for example, that he had once asked a policeman why the police department did not have greater transparency for routine transactions like getting a driver's license or reporting a crime. "If I can make it complex, why should I make it simple?" the policeman replied. Unfortunately, such attitudes are not uncommon in Indonesia, and so there are few short-term incentives to promote good governance. In such an environment, it is futile for think tanks to work on major issues of democratic reform, Mr. Mugasejati said. A more productive strategy is to focus on technical issues and to start with solutions at the micro level. "I think Taiwan is a special case," Szu-chien Hsu said. "We face an identity problem that is tearing our society apart. But this same problem has also helped to propel democratization." While Mr. Hsu could not identify any Taiwanese think tank that focused exclusively on democracy, he did believe that think tanks had raised the standard of research in general, and that this had contributed to consolidating democracy in Taiwan. But Raymond Wu replied, "we still do not have the spirit of democracy in Taiwan." He was discouraged that party infighting is hampering the reform efforts of the country's president, for example, and that so little is being done to resolve Taiwan's economic problems. Mr. Wu also noted that although conference participants "do share a lot of experiences, we also have different views of what think tanks should be." He closed by expressing a willingness to network with other think tanks whose research agendas parallel those of the Chinese Eurasian Education Foundation. In reply to Mr. Diamond's question on why his country was not moving toward democracy, MAO Yushi said that while most government officials believed that there eventually will be democracy in China, a few key officials at the top did not want to see this happen quickly. Insisting that, "we do not need a revolution," Mr. Mao added that, "we do need a gradual process to educate everybody… If everyone does his little bit, the democratic system will come sooner." Even so, Mr. Mao expected that "this transition could take ten, twenty, or even thirty years… The problem is not just with the government," Mr. Mao concluded, but with "people who are accustomed to living in an authoritarian regime, which has existed for thousands of years in China." But XIA Yeliang put Mr. Mao's comments in a more personal context: "I am forty-two years old and I have only voted once in my life." For him, the impetus to bring democracy to China would not come from "the people" but from "the middle class, the newly rich, business leaders, and intellectuals." And he said that reformers should begin with clear criteria of good governance, such as respect for international human rights standards, freedom of speech and of the press, and free elections. Mr. Diamond noted that when think tanks press for policy reforms, they may threaten particular narrow interests, but when they press for institutional reforms to deepen democracy, they threaten entire agencies of government and perhaps the entire political system. Seen in this light, "reform in China will be the ultimate policy reform," Mr. Diamond observed. He also appreciated Mr. Mugasejati's suggestion that one might begin with smaller technical reforms but added that, "to bring about a real transition to democracy, perhaps a better strategy would be to press for the rule of law now." Finally, Mr. Diamond said, research institutes need to build broad networks that include the NGO community and mass media: "We need coalitions of actors from below (civil society), from within (the political system), and from without (the international community)." "People think that better policy can make a better regime," WANG Juntao said. But in his view, China's economic liberalization-and all the ongoing talk of political reform-had not done much to change the fundamental nature of the regime. "Without tying the king's hands, there can be no rule of law," Mr. Wang argued. Mr. Wang also challenged the idea that policy research can improve governance and deepen democracy. "In a transitional society, economic and social policies often conflict with regime transition. Unless we commit to making democratization a priority, it will probably be bypassed in favor of other social or economic goals," Mr. Wang said. Byung Kook Kim said he was inspired by learning from other participants about their work and their efforts to promote democracy. But he was also humbled when he recalled a conversation he once had with a key mid-level officer of a prominent think tank. This individual, Mr. Kim said, appeared regularly on Korean public-affairs discussion programs and led the effort to monitor members of the National Assembly by grading their performance. When Mr. Kim asked the man how he had become knowledgeable about the policy issues he discussed so authoritatively on television, he replied, "I read the newspapers." For Mr. Kim, basing one's policy positions on newspaper articles was a far from ideal way to monitor the legislature or other policy makers. To be more responsible, NGOs in Korea need to improve their competencies, Mr. Kim concluded. But Dogu Ergil from Turkey had the final word: "There can be no democracy without democrats! There is no bad government or bad administration apart from the people who permit and support such things." For this reason, Mr. Ergil considered civic education and the pursuit of knowledge about public life to be absolutely essential to democracy. This also provided, in his judgment, the core mission of think tanks in democratizing countries. |
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