New Patterns of Urban Political Reform in Southeast Asia

Abstract

What shapes the likelihood and character of urban reform? Drawing on research across 18 Southeast Asian cities this paper analyzes the shape of, and driving forces behind, urban reform. The paper outlines a new mode of urban reform in the region, identifying a key cluster of features that characterize it. We then identify causal factors driving the adoption of these reforms. In doing so, we distinguish among enabling institutional conditions, demand factors, and supply factors. We distinguish the emerging reform model from other forms of city governance common in the region, which vary in the extent to which they involve the uptake of reformist ideas currently in circulation. Specifically, we identify three common patterns that emerge in response to reform pressures: 1) Urban reformers: cities where this new pattern of inclusive governance has become or is becoming the dominant paradigm; 2) Dinosaurs: cities with no observable changes to the status quo; and 3) Patronage entrepreneurs: cities where reforms reinforce, rather than displace, longstanding patterns, or where cities adopt the trappings and language of reform, but without meaningful or lasting changes to underlying patterns of patronage politics. Finally, we explain variation across our cases by examining how differing combinations of factors map onto the various outcomes we observe.