The historical record: how traditional is local government in Asia?
In this section, we look briefly at the history of local government in Asia and ask the question: is Asian local government organic or administrative?
Although we tend to think of local government as organised and controlled from the centre in a kind of cautiously retractable beneficence, it is important to remember that modern constitutionalism in the West grew out of local government, not the other way round.
Democracy itself started in the West as an urban phenomenon; in Europe, cities were generally democratic and often quite autonomous in some respects, both in the ancient world and in the medieval period. Standardisation of local government in England, for example, was only achieved in the late 19th century (Wilson and Game 2011, chap. 4). In Asia, on the other hand, local government has largely been directed from the centre, and state-building has mainly involved the conquest of smaller kingdoms by larger ones. The concept of the state tended to that of a centre radiating influence outwards in concentric circles of progressively diminishing influence; this is the galactic state formed in the shape of a mandala (Fukuyama 2011, chap. 7).8 In Japan, the modern state emerged only in the last 150 years, and in South Korea and Taiwan, this occurred even more recently. The Meiji government abolished traditional local daimyo-ruled, castled domains and created new administrative local governments based on a standard pattern. Since the 1946 Constitution, local governments have been elected and autonomous. This approach characterises much of Asian local government as we see it now. Table 1 indicates that Asian local government is highly articulated, with three to six different levels of government and local elections almost everywhere.To the extent that Asian local government has been anything other than the assertion of central power locally, it was in fact villages (i.e., the face- to-face communities) that counter-balanced the impersonal state.
Villages acted as a focus for clan-based resistance and local identity, rather than for deliberate decentralisation (Fukuyama 2011, chap. 6). This tendency of village resistance has somewhat continued into the modern era (Scott 2009). Colonialism continued and reinforced the trend of centralisation. It generally suppressed (or tried to suppress) localism, or tolerated it only by necessity or as a facade of indirect rule.9 In British-ruled territories in the 20th-century, colonial administrations usually organised the local government, often using it as a sandpit for developing national democracy before the granting of independence.10 In the Dutch East Indies in the early 20th century, there was a deliberate attempt at modest decentralisation to urban municipalities. However, these municipalities were based on the Dutch pattern rather than relying on the existing desa or kampong. To this extent, they were administrative rather than organic. Indeed, Van Vollenhoven described them as “Western enclaves in an Eastern society” (Otto 2015).Insofar as there are typically or uniquely Asian types of local government, these are probably, therefore, more likely to be found at the village- rather than subnational-level. Asia does not generally have anything quite like India's panchayat republics, which were deliberately promoted as an indigenous form of governance during decolonisation (Thiruvengadam 2017, 96-98). But Asia does have traditional concepts of village government. These include Vietnam's huong uoc (i.e., village laws/contracts) (Viet Huong 2011), the barangay of the Philippines (Tapales 1992), Malaysia's mukim, Thailand's tambon, Java's desa, and West Sumatra's nagari. In this last case, the von Benda-Beckmanns have shown how decentralisation has resulted in a strong revival of these traditional local-government units since 1999 (Benda-Beckmann and Benda-Beckmann 2013, chap. 7). This revival is an example of organic local government (nagari) resisting the standardisation inherent in the administrative variety (desa) imposed from the centre (267).
Village governance has not yet been the subject of any concerted comparative study in Asia. These units are traditionally named and have their traditionally named officials and (sometimes) deliberative councils or consultative mechanisms. Nevertheless, they seem to practically function as administrative units within the overall democratic governance structure rather than continuing traditional or pre-modern forms of local government in a new constitutional setting. The nagari appear to be an exception, representing both a rebellion against the standardisation (termed desa-fication) inherent in the Indonesian decentralisation project, and an expression of unique Minangkabau adat-based culture (267). Interestingly enough, although the 2014 Village Law allows villages to become adat villages, few outside West Sumatra have actually done so (Vel, Zakaria, and Bedner 2017).Traditional culture normally comes into the picture through the use of local autonomy and community rights to preserve such culture and identity (as in Indonesia, see above, and Thailand, see below). Amidst the tension in Asia between the impersonal state and local identity, using local autonomy for cultural preservation is surely one of the major purposes of having autonomy in the first place.
In Burma, as in India, the British attempted to use the village as a basis for administration, and the village head as a mediator. Furnivall writes of Burmese resistance in the face of British attempts to convert traditional, organic villages with their own headmen into constitutionalised, administrative units. The administrative system was not based on what was naturally there but rather attempted to distort it into something suited to the needs of the administration rather than the expression of custom and tradition (Furnivall 1957, 194ff.).
In Asian states, state-building was done somewhat at the cost of local autonomy. In pre-modern Thailand, for example, the Siamese state that ultimately modernised the country during the Bangkok period was constructed out of small kingdoms (mo'an) corresponding to modern provinces.
The prevailing historical narrative is one of gradual centralisation of power, which eventually embraced the Malay provinces in the South and the Lanna kingdom in the North. Thus, there was nothing corresponding to modern local self-government. However, the detailed 1727 Edict on the Method of Provincial Administration embodies ideals of good governance, a response to rapacious ambitions of provincial governors. It ensures that governors report to the King regularly on all relevant matters. They must not take local women as wives or servants without their parents' consent, must not sit in judgment without being accompanied by a legal officer, and must generally exercise powers for the peace of the district and the happiness of the people (Wales 1934, 126-30). The accretion of power at the centre has now had to be balanced by decentralising reforms, not just in the interests of efficient decisionmaking, but to preserve identity, customs, and culture in a very diverse country (see below).In this section, I have nuanced the idea of traditional Asian local government as entirely state-directed. We now move to the next question: what is the current, constitutional status of local government in Asia?