Does public opinion count? Knowledge and support for an ASEAN Community in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore

Moorthy, Ravichandran; Benny, Guido

doi:10.1093/irap/lct008

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…A third set of studies examines the issue of legitimacy by analysing public awareness of ASEAN (Benny et al, 2018;Benny, 2012, 2013). Moorthy and Benny (2013), for example, assert that 'increased awareness and knowledge of the public regarding the ASEAN Community will eventually translate into increased support. Thus, it is imperative to involve the public more actively in the process of ASEAN Community building'.…”

Section: Locating Asean's Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpreting Legitimation Through Participation: The ASEAN Civil Society Conference

Gerard

2021

J of Common Market Studies

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The dynamics of the relationship between political participation and legitimacy have received limited attention, despite the widely held view that the former contributes to the latter. This article advances conceptualizations of this relationship by demonstrating how participatory innovations can be analysed as processes of legitimation. Studies of participation highlight how institutional actors define the terms of participation, but do not attend to how these terms function in constructing legitimacy. Studies of legitimation, conversely, emphasize participation but pay limited attention to how participatory innovations form. Building on these linkages, the article describes how the modes of participation framework can be used to evaluate the legitimating potential of participatory innovations and demonstrates this in the case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Civil Society Conference. The article demonstrates that more participation does not necessarily increase legitimacy, and calls for greater attention to what is being legitimated and to whom through participatory innovations.

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Section: Locating Asean's Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Interpreting Legitimation Through Participation: The ASEAN Civil Society Conference

Gerard

2021

J of Common Market Studies

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“…Both these facets help to curb public dissatisfaction, develop strategies that improve public support and ultimately reduce volatility. The merits of public opinion are echoed by research on democracy that shows that accounting for public opinion itself was an essential cornerstone of crafting successful, well-received policies on integration (Benny and Abdullah, 2011; Moorthy and Benny, 2013).…”

Section: Policy Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For similar reasons, the formation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Community, which did not involve public opinion surveys, has attracted criticism for its opacity in decision-making (Collins, 2008). Yet, Moorthy and Benny (2013) conduct a survey experiment to show that, like Haller (2009), participation in public surveys about the ASEAN Community initiative itself increased awareness and knowledge about it in a way that ultimately increased support for the organization.…”

Section: Policy Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The economic costs of protests and policy recommendations for preventing them: the case of Hong Kong

2021

JCEFTS

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Purpose This paper aims to examine the economic costs of protests at micro-to-firm, market sector and aggregate levels. This paper then develops institutional policy recommendations for allaying these costs. Design/methodology/approach This paper conducts a case study of the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong by examining news articles, online discussions and economic indices from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department. This paper further develops policy insights from an analysis of the Hong Kong Basic Law (the city’s mini-constitution) and insights from economic research. Findings This paper discovers that the protests may have caused overall volatility in firms, market sectors and the overall economy, measured in production disruptions, revenue losses and declines in employment. Among Hong Kong’s four major industries, the most severely stunted market sectors were tourism and retail, as well as trading and logistics, whereas financial services and professional and producer services experienced mixed effects. This paper develops two institutional policy recommendations for government and corporate policymaking for reducing volatility and ultimately safeguarding economic growth: the separation of political ideology and economics; the systematic use of public opinion analytics to pre-test the reception of policies. Practical implications Corporate strategists and policymakers would benefit from and advance the economy by better insulating business decision-making from political biases and by investing in public opinion analytics. Originality/value Much of economic theory treats social transformations as externalities. This paper adopts a different approach by foregrounding the role that social transformations play in shaping the economy. To this end, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is among the first to examine the anti-extradition bill protests of Hong Kong, arguably the most significant and widespread protests in the city’s and the region’s history.

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“…Over the years, ASEAN leaders have sought to re‐define the region through the creation of an ASEAN Community, with the aim of building the existing loose ‘association of regional countries’ into a much closer ‘ASEAN community of nations’ (Moorthy & Benny, 2013). The ASEAN member nations, however, consist of multilingual, multicultural and socially diverse communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

English and regional identity in ASEAN

2021

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has deployed English not only as its sole working language but also as a tool for forging regional identity, unity and solidarity among its ten member‐states. Drawing on the concept of ‘imagined communities’ and, by extension, ‘imagined identity regionalism’, this article provides a critical examination of this policy desire and asks the question whether the desire should be read as a form of political rhetoric or an achievable goal for ASEAN. We argue that the unifying potential of English language as an imagined regional community and identity has yet to be realised. At best, English can be seen as contributing to ASEAN's ‘functional identity’, rather than a more substantive ‘socio‐cultural identity’. It is suggested that although the birth of a distinct hybridised variety of ASEAN English may facilitate a bottom‐up linguistic identity imagination for ASEAN, such an ideal appears utopian at this time.

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Does public opinion count? Knowledge and support for an ASEAN Community in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore

Cited by 13 publications

References 11 publications

Interpreting Legitimation Through Participation: The ASEAN Civil Society Conference

Interpreting Legitimation Through Participation: The ASEAN Civil Society Conference

The economic costs of protests and policy recommendations for preventing them: the case of Hong Kong

English and regional identity in ASEAN

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