Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Philippines

After the Second World War, armed conflicts have occurred within rather then between states and most of these conflicts haven taken place in the so-called Third World. Even though the breakdown of the Communist States in 1989/90 has led to another wave of democratization most of these regimes have failed to deepen their young democracies, develop stable institutions and inherit peaceful political competition. Internal armed conflicts prevailed during the last decade.

This is especially true of Asia. The Peace & Conflict Report 2003 notes that about 40% of the groups using full-scale or episodic violence to pursue self-determination demands worldwide during 1998 and 2000 were found in Asia. But “Asia also saw the largest increase in those groups shifting away from full-scale rebellion between the early and the late 1990s, a full twenty-two percent (22%). Thus, while Asian countries have the largest proportion of armed self-determination conflicts, the prospects for containment and settlement also seem the most promising there.” This inevitably raises the question why some countries seem to be able to reduce the intensity of internal conflicts while others are suffering from an increase in armed conflicts or stagnation in peace-building projects.

While historically informed case studies on most of these internal conflicts exist, the question which political, social and economic conditions foster or hinder an internal peace process has not been addressed from a comparative point of view for the region of Southeast Asia yet.

To fill this gap the FES undertakes a scientific project this year. Goal of the project is to publish a comprehensive book as a comparable collection of case studies on different aspects of Political Violence in the ASEAN countries of Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

The project identifies four areas of inner-state political violence for analysis:

Democratization, Elections and Political Violence,
Ethno-Religious Conflicts and Political Violence,
Regime Conflicts and Political Violence,
(and) Criminal Delinquency and Political Violence.

However, most countries, with the exception of the Philippines, are not affected by all modes of violence identified above. Studies on Electoral Violence and Criminal Delinquency are going to be included for Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand. Regime Conflicts will be assessed for Cambodia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Solely, the impact of Ethno-Religious Conflicts will be considered for all of the countries.

The diversity of countries, different modes of political violence and their unique historical background doesn’t allow for a common theoretical framework for the studies. Instead the single country studies will have the design of an informed qualitative approach and analysis of the respective phenomenon of political violence.

a review of existing political violence and its change throughout different cycles or periods of time,
the identification of relevant individual and collective actors and their motives and strategies,
an assessment of the impact of violence on the stability and chances of consolidation for the political system
and a general assessment and outlook with recommendations for policy development.

The main goal of the project will be to focus on the interaction between political violence and political, social and economic variables. The country sample therefore includes a wide variety in terms of regime type, institutional design and intensity of political violence. Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia are democracies that went through transition during the third wave of democratization. Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia on the other hand are anocratic regimes that combine strong elements of authoritarian rule with some democratic practice. The intensity of political violence is especially high in the Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia, while it is low in Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.

	To what extent can incidences of violence be attributed to political institutions, structures and processes and what strategic options and structures of opportunities arise from them for actors, who engage in political violence (type of regime and government, electoral system, process of political liberalization or repression, society–state–relations, weakness of state, local bossism etc.)?
	To what extent are cultural and social factors significant forces (history of conflict, culture of violence, memories of ethnic insecurity etc.)?
	What is the impact of social and economic factors on Political Violence (ethnic heterogeneity, economic development, social and economic inequity etc.)?

A final chapter in the book will compare the different case studies and highlight similarities and differences throughout the countries.