You are cordially invited a special seminar by Prof. Meredith L. Weiss.
The details are as follows.

Date and Time: June 28th, 2016 16:00 – 18:00
Place: Tonan Tei on the second floor of Inamori Memorial Building,
CSEAS, Kyoto University

Speaker: Dr. Meredith L. Weiss, Professor, Department of Political
Science, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at
Albany, State University of New York

Title: Going to the Ground (or Astroturf): A Grassroots View of Regime
Resilience

Abstract:
While disproportional access to electoral resources and curbs on civil
and political rights clearly matter to the persistence of
electoral-authoritarian regimes, long-term acculturation to political
norms and modes of governance on the ground further complicate these
regimes’ transformation. Singapore and Malaysia, the world’s most
durable examples of electoral authoritarianism, exemplify this pattern.
A combination of what amounts to classic machine politics with the
structural “assist” of sub-par elections renders electoral
authoritarianism increasingly resilient over time, not just because it
is hard or unlikely for voters to vote in new leaders, but also because
the aspiring or elected opposition may end up reproducing rather than
subverting key attributes of that regime. Clientelist political praxis
may be highly responsive, offer direct accountability, and align with
voters’ rational self-interest, at least in the short term. However, its
persistence impedes pursuit of new ideological or programmatic
objectives, perpetuates piecemeal and inefficient allocation of
resources, assumes that most voters should expect little from state
policies, and discourages attention to proactive legislation, in favor
of more localized, reactive politics. A machine-oriented political
regime, then, is not only exceptionally hard to shake, but suboptimal in
the long term.

Bionote:
Meredith L. Weiss is Professor of Political Science at the University at
Albany, State University of New York. She is the author of Student
Activism in Malaysia: Crucible, Mirror, Sideshow (Cornell SEAP/NUS
Press, 2011) and Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society and Coalitions
for Political Change in Malaysia (Stanford, 2006), as well as numerous
journal articles and book chapters, and editor or co-editor of six
volumes, most recently, the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Malaysia
(2015), Electoral Dynamics in Malaysia: Findings from the Grassroots
(ISEAS/SIRD, 2014), and Global Homophobia: States, Movements, and the
Politics of Oppression (Illinois, 2013). Her research addresses
political mobilization and contention, the politics of development,
forms of collective identity, and electoral politics in Southeast Asia.

Moderator: Hau Caroline, CSEAS, Kyoto University