Persuaded to seek power: Local women politicians in Southeast Asia

Women are underrepresented in politics and Southeast Asian women are no exception. Some women enjoy relatively higher status in family and civic life as compared to others. Be that as it may, gender divisions in Southeast Asian politics and governance are pronounced across the region and cast doubt on the representativeness of the region’s political regimes, whether they are democratic or authoritarian or some hybrid thereof. Recent decades have seen notable gains in women’s political power, exemplified by the rise of such prominent female leaders as Cory Aquino, Gloria Macapagal-arroyo, Aung San Suu Kyi and Megawati Soekarnoputri. There is a prevailing perception that Southeast Asian women –especially those highly educated or from powerful families – can do well politically or even better than their male counterparts. In contrast, there is little understanding of how women strive and succeed as political leaders in the region’s local societies. The analysis of women in local politics may be approached from innumerable dimensions but they commonly assume that women’s political empowerment would ensure that issues of particular concern to women would figure more prominently on political agendas. Some studies suggest that women’s political power is fundamental to participatory, responsive and equitable decision-making. Both sets of assumptions raise interesting questions, particularly in light of the global and regional trends toward political decentralization, and especially given prominent claims that such decentralization improves the quality of democracy. This paper examines recent developments in women’s political empowerment in local politics and governance of four Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. It does so by looking at both the quantity and the quality of women’s political representation at the provincial level of governance. The paper focuses on the impact of broad changes, such as democratic reforms – which often include decentralization measures, economic transformation, and social turmoil, on women’s political representation in the day-to-day politics and governance. The paper compares women’s political status in four different socio-political settings: an Islamic society that has experienced sweeping political and social transformations, on the one hand, and the Islamization of society, on the other; a Buddhist society that has come through a long winding path of democratic movements, military coups and popular uprisings for the past three decades; a Catholic-dominant society in which local big men are conventionally considered dominating politics and government institutions; and a hybrid society in which despite the rapid economic development, political office is still a crucial path of social mobility. Against such backdrops, the paper examines the integration of women issues in the political agenda and the impact of women’s political representation on general political reforms. In the four distinctive socio-political settings, the paper investigates the reasons women seek power, whether women power-seekers fare better in a particular setting than in others, and how women’s political rise has been intertwined with broad socio-political change. Ultimately, this paper will show whether an increasing number of female leaders in Southeast Asia’s local governments have been accompanied by women’s greater control over local political processes and outcomes.