The Foreign Service Journal, May 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2018 53 ern way to get rich and stifle opposition at the same time, without democracy or respect for human rights. The Chinese Communist Party showed it was possible to save face, crush the opposition and still nurture a crony capitalism that supplied world markets. Russia, too, provided a boost to autocrats worldwide as Vladi- mir Putin and his allies seized control of the Russian economy and media. Now Putin polls at 80 percent approval and has just been elected for another six-year term. There is no alternative view permitted in the Russian media. “The real story of the state of democracy in Southeast Asia is not the threat of contemporary reversal—it is the strength of durable authoritarianism in the non-democracies,” Cornell Uni- versity’s Thomas Pepinsky wrote recently in Australia National University's online publication, East Asia Forum. “What makes the politics of disorder a thorny problem for Southeast Asian democracy is that these illiberal policies are popular among many citizens,” Pepinksy added. Islamic Militancy and Other Factors The failure of the 2010-2011 Arab Spring gave yet another boost to hardliners in Southeast Asia. From Egypt to Tunisia, Libya to Yemen, the fall of dictators led to chaos and Islamic mili- tancy. Only the staunch monarchs in Morocco and the Persian Gulf kept the lid on and ensured domestic peace, at the cost of stifling the tender shoots of democracy. This virulent religious view has already joined the authori- tarian trend in Southeast Asia. Indonesian politics is living in the shadow of hardline Islamist groups, some of them linked to attacks on foreigners and Indonesian Christians. Other Islamic fighters have taken over parts of the Philippines. Other factors behind the growth of authoritarianism have been population growth and ethnic rivalries. Some countries The only Khmer Rouge refugee camp in Thailand, shown here in 1988, was the most active in fighting the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia just across the border. The camp was located on a main road leading to Bangkok, and many feared it would be the first “domino” to fall. But the Vietnamese never invaded, and the refugees were repatriated to Cambodia after the 1991 peace accord. BENBARBER China showcased a non- Western way to get rich and stifle opposition at the same time, without democracy or respect for human rights.