Duterte, Sukarno, and Sihanouk: Populisms in Comparative Historical Perspective

• In Event: Populism in Comparative-Historical Perspective

Abstract

I aim to do two things in this paper. First, I conceptually clear the ground for delineating "anti-colonial populism" as a type found especially in the Global South. Following Roger Brubaker’s conceptualization of populism as a “discursive and stylistic repertoire” organized around a “core element” of political actors claiming to speak and act in the “name of the people”, I advance anti-colonial populism as one such combination of rhetorical and discursive “elements” organized around a critique of incomplete decolonization. Anti-colonial populisms can be of the Left or the Right, situated historically in the era of decolonization or in the contemporary postcolonial present where decolonization is framed as an unfinished project, and can shape both the domestic social coalition of populists and also the international (re)alignments they pursue once in power. With an eye on making intra-regional, cross-national, and longitudinal comparisons, I proceed to empirically and historically flesh out this conception of anti-colonial populism in the Global South by focusing on three charismatic populists from Southeast Asia spanning the 20th and 21st centuries. These include Sukarno, who led Indonesia through its National Revolution and presided over the Republic’s slide towards civilian authoritarianism and international Confrontations against two European colonial powers (Dutch, British); Prince Norodom Sihanouk, a French installed royal who cultivated a mass movement to undercut republican and revolutionary challengers and strategically invoked anti-colonialism in his search for Cambodia’s independence and neutrality during the Cold War; and Rodrigo Duterte whose initial social coalition was cemented by “penal populism” towards drug dealers inside and anti-Americanism outside. Concomitant to this conceptual and empirical exposition is a second aim: to situate the Rodrigo Duterte’s Presidency – a reference point for contemporary comparativist and IR discussions of populism – in the historical arc of populism among other regional small powers within Southeast Asia, specifically, newly decolonized Indonesia and Cambodia during the Cold War. I will interrogate whether the spectre of that past holds insights for understanding Duterte’s domestic and foreign policies. I will ask what these historical cases might suggest about the trajectory of political authoritarianism within the Philippines under Duterte, and especially, what Sukarno and Sihanouk’s ultimately tragic efforts to respond to intensifying pressures of Great Power competition during the Cold War might suggest about the fate of dramatic international re-alignments of the Philippines under Duterte.

Author

• Deepak Nair, National University of Singapore