Asia Society presents; 64

The Asia Society presides. This is a series of interviews with experts on Asian affairs designed to strengthen our understanding of Asian people and ideas. Your most on this transcribed series is the noted author on the ward winning broadcaster Lee Graham. Here now is Mrs. Graham. Yeah. One of the more exciting historical developments since World War 2 I believe is the fact that more than 70 or at least 60 nations have attained independence. That is an extraordinary amount to have accomplished this feat. However once a nation becomes independent and has a ruler that often has a great deal of trouble in retaining his power in governing his nation. And this whole problem is the subject of a book which I have in front of me and which I like to recommend not only because you may be interested in political science and history but because anybody who seeks to understand the sources of power in the implementation of power would

want to read it. It's called the rulers imperative subtitle strategies for political survival in Asia and Africa. We will confine ourselves to the Asian leaders mentioned in this book because of the nature of our program. The author of the book is our guest and he is a most distinguished person. He is Howard Reagan's Professor Riggins is director of the Southern Asian Institute at Columbia University and professor of public law and government. He served the government in one capacity he was a member of the Policy Planning Council of the Department of State. He has written a book about salon called dynamics of a new nation and other papers and books about Asian affairs. Professor Riggins I like your book very much and I'm sure you take it as a compliment when I compare it in a way to the prince by Machiavelli. I do thank you very much Macchiavelli was one of the early writers though by no means the first who tried to put himself in the position of the ruler and

ask himself what must the ruler do in order to. Stay in power but also in order to manage the kind of his country's affairs in the direction that he wanted to push them. And when I was writing the book I obviously had Machiavelli as one of my models. But there are many others and there were some early Indian writers who tried to do the same thing. Being one of them. What would you say is the main dynamic of a new nation. The problems that a ruler has keeping his power. Well I their multitude of dilemmas that face rulers everywhere. How do you gate around yourself enough power so that you are not constantly spending all your time fending off those who would like to take your place at the same time however how do you. Organize representative devices so that you as a ruler have to

respond to the pressures that are developing in your own society. Otherwise you ignore or you are tempted to ignore important groups that may have aspirations or who may be hurt by your policies. So you have to develop authority but you also have to develop representative modes as well and elected rulers should have less trouble than one who seizes power through a coup d'etat. Yeah a chap who comes in grabs power by a coup d'etat has probably the most difficult time of all because he has no legitimate claim to be there. And why can't he his lieutenants have the ambition of seizing power and replacing him just as he in fact replaced his predecessor. So a chap who comes in by two coup d'etat does have probably the hardest time because a man who comes in through election can be displaced through assassination or last a reelection and a number of other things. But if he seizes it illegally I guess he's probably going to hear this is the whole

problem of legitimacy which political writers talk about. Illegitimacy is a terribly important asset and it's hard to create out of so to speak whole cloth. If you seize power you don't have legitimacy until by your own usual and improved performance you demonstrate that you deserve to be there. However if you come through ala come in through a legitimate election. The very electoral process gives you that legitimacy which the men from the coup d'etat has to earn. Would you say that nations born in Africa and the Far East have more of a problem because the tradition of self government and a legitimate ruler except if he happened to come through a monarchy make these nations have a much more difficult time. Well certainly one of the one of the problems many of them face is that the electoral process or However rulers are now chosen usually has come through the colonial regime. These have been essentially Western political

devices which have been imported into these countries as in India Pakistan salon Indonesia Malaysia Singapore among others. And so the device is for giving legitimacy are essentially foreign On the other hand they cant go back to pre Western or pre-colonial devices because these have no these have even less legitimacy. Of course in Thailand and in Nepal and in Afghanistan there is still there enough of the tradition looks as if theres still enough of the traditional way of. Legitimizing rulers through inheritance through royal succession that they have less of a problem in this respect. Would you say that indicates that people of Asia are more accustomed to the idea of an aristocracy of royalty and that when they have that sort of ruler they are more contented that psychologically this agrees with them better. Well I wouldn't put it the way you put it in the last question but it doesn't necessarily

psychologically agree with them. They do in these in these traditional realms that I mention like Nepal Afghanistan and to some extent Thailand they do have this sense of the continuity of rulership which the which was disrupted in most of the other parts of Asia by the colonial experience. Why wouldn't you agree with the point that psychologically this agrees with would you say if I was emotionally unwell I would say that within within 20 20 25 years it may not. I'm reluctant to accept the notion there's a peculiar Asian psychology which what I felt I felt was I was in your in your observation is I think you're right but it could be growing in a way our range has outgrown it. Yes. You mention a number of rules in your book but we said we talk primarily about the Asian ones. And so those would be Sukarno bender and I commend you and I thank you Nehru and I was the only one still alive although as you point out he's no longer in power.

What would you take those four men and make it a brief comparative study of how they operated. Well as as the Table of Contents suggests. I sort of sort out this problem of rulers the rulers imperative and how they stay in power by discussing some nine eight or nine strategies and one of them is projecting the personality. Many rulers in Asia have depended very heavily upon projecting the personality Soekarno perhaps being the most dramatic example where he became really the center. Political drama which he wrote and produced so to speak and by a really enormous personal effort of projecting his himself throughout his island he did a great deal to unify Indonesia and keep himself at the center of attention so he didn't really develop much of an organization although developing an organization would be the second strategy and lots of leaders have used that. For instance

Mr. Nehru put a lot of effort into developing and sustaining the Congress party which was his organizational armature. President you had the organization of the Pakistan bureaucracy to help him he he tried on several occasions to develop a party it didn't work very well but he did have the bureaucracy which helped him fundamentally. Whereas by contrast Mr. Bender Naka as a third strategy I talk about as of promoting an ideology in a sense. Mr. Bender and I can use the ideology of of modernizing Buddhism on the one hand and a ideology of language politics on the other so each one of these men the three we've mentioned mentioned us for I mentioned thus far use a different kind of strategy and efforts to improve his position in order in order to gain power and to improve his position. Would you say that one strategy of the I think about that you have

delineated in his book what would you make a flat statement that one is superior to the other Oh my certain I certainly would not. It depends on the individual but particularly on the context of government in which he's operating or in context of politics. Every every political figure who is successful is responding very much to the environment that he's in and elements of the environment include sort of constitutional traditions and expectations and what his competitors are doing rather like a business. If your competitors are asleep at the switch you have a very easy time but if your competitors are working hard and very hard against you you have to work very hard yourself. So there's a very close interaction between the ruler and those who are trying to displace him and the economy is also terribly important if he has a lot of economic assets he can reward many of his friends or you can even reward enemies and make them thereby his friends. Whereas if he's poor if his economy

is not growing and it's getting worse he has few assets to share in that way and then then his political task becomes more difficult. The concept of one man one ion man at the helm is I suppose a false one because no man rules alone. He must have a small clique who support him and even adore him I would do what he wants. Yesenia everybody every rule. In Asia certainly everywhere has a has a close coterie of associates who have to themselves be kept loyal So there are certain things a ruler has to do in order to ensure the continued loyalty of his of his immediate entourage when you say there are certain things he has to do. How much of that depends upon their liking him. Well depends a great deal on their judgment about him. It may not be liking it may not be affection and maybe respect or it may be they think that he can provide them with a very specific and concrete rewards that they want although there

are some leaders we usually call this charismatic leaders who have a special quality which in genders between them and their coterie. Relationship of uncritical support and warmth. Would you say that Nehru had this to the greatest extent of those we've mentioned. While I don't know Nehru had it certainly from many in his entourage he was also able to also for his people and also to project it beyond his entourage to the many people in the Indian nation. But I believe there are also people around him who didn't who weren't particularly impressed by him as a person but were just impressed by him as a as an individual who made it possible for them to be close to the seats of power. And that's very attractive to many people. Oh how would you comment on the fact that these days not speaking just of Asia or Africa world leaders seem to be less and less on the personalities. In fact we don't know the names of some of them anymore. We would recognize a face now we might not but the people in the

people in the particular country and that's what counts. Depend often have a very clear image of the personality who is their ruler. But I agree with you I think there's less tendency now for leaders to depend on personality and was the case immediately after independence. Maybe that's because increasingly civilian leaders have been displaced by military leaders in a number of countries say Indonesia for instance instead of the very flamboyant personality of say carno. They now have a very in conspicuous and and modest sort of person in Soeharto general Soeharto who makes no he plays no games he makes no show always there is no drama about him. In fact it's almost the opposite it's as if he if he were conscious about this which he may not be. It's as if he decided that his countrymen were tired of drama and wanted calm for a while. My query about Indonesia would

be just how much longer will the Indonesian people find this very bland and unexciting kind of rule acceptable. In a way one might posit some cycles here after a great period of dramatic dramatic leader one wants calm but after a substantial period of calm with all the frustrations that go into the hard slog of day by day administration and efforts at economic development one may want to change and want some more drama. So nothing stable in politics it's changing all the time. No recommendations hold good for I don't know but it does seem to be that tendency to destroy the personality cult maybe just mistake it is being watched carefully. Maybe sell your home and know who is ruling in the Soviet Union now and after Nasional in Egypt. There seems to be perhaps it's yes or not there was another good example too of someone who was

very very energetically projecting his personality but note even Even Nasser and even sic are now a narrow per great personalities as they were. They need an organization to help promote that personality they need and they need an organization has never had a Congress party to make arrangements so that when. The great leader visits a city. The crowd is there the crowd knows he's coming there's an organization that makes arrangements for him there's an organization which help him solve the enormously complex problems of selecting who should run in an election. In India there are thousands of choices that have to be made as to who shall run. And every time you choose who shall run you you reject a somebody who wanted to run and can't run and how you do with those who don't have the opportunity they want for instance is a very important part of how you how you manage a polity particularly if it's a competitive election polity such as India is.

Would you say there are certain countries in the south and south east Asia which is your particular sphere of study which seem to be on a healthier path and others. Oh that's terribly difficult because in politics it's hard to know what's healthy. For instance in the salon big temple right and you know in the salon case the polity is very healthy in terms of competitive politics there's no other country in Asia which has been so artful and successful at altering leaders through the electoral process. They change leaders three or four times since independence quite peacefully without much without violence except in one case. And a leader who was in was thrown out and somebody was out came in from the point of view of classic Democratic politics. That's excellent. The high and the most healthy polity of all in Asia. Yet that very competitive political process has its liabilities because it's intensified the demands of the people. It's

inflated them and so now a very high proportion of Salon's total government budget goes into public services providing medical attention schools etc. All of which are from the humane side fine but it means there are fewer and fewer resources available for helping with promoting economic development. Would you say that what should be the ideal purposes of power are often quite distant quite distant from what the person in poly is doing. Well I find that a very difficult question to deal with honestly because I don't know what the ideal purposes of power are as you say they are what makes the ideal leader. Well I know well from one from the expedient point of view the ideal leader is somebody who survives. Yes but from the point of view of my own personal values the ideal leader is someone who is able to manage his polity so that opposition groups are able to form and

opposition groups are able to articulate their demands and complaints. But. And the leader is able to respond to the is is feels it necessary appropriate to respond to these complaints before they come become impossibly intense. Promoting revolution a man as a political leader who is sufficiently so rigid that he doesn't respond to the claims of people in his society. For my money is as an un satisfactory ruler. It really should also manage all this with as little intimidation as possible. There are quite a number of rulers who have been successful at surviving for a relatively long people period of time but have been enormously intimidated. They've depended a great deal on repressive policies of the actions of the police or army and for my money that's not a very satisfactory way of ruling. Do you think it's unavoidable on the part of a ruler who was not elected and helped

maintain his power indefinitely that his power eventually corrupts him. No I don't think that's I think that's not necessarily so it's terribly likely. And I think one of the. Earlier one of the great surface sources of wisdom of the traditional Western or Western political tradition is precisely this notion that power is likely to corrupt. And that's one of the reasons we persist in and what some people think is a rather old fashioned notion of making rules available only for a limited period of time and that the ruler has to go before an electorate and have him self tested. And if he fails he withdraws and someone else takes his place. Enormously civilized process yes. Do you think Japan is coming close to that idea of a civilized process as you call it. I don't know I yes certainly as compared to earlier a Japanese experience Yes Japan is very

complicated and I don't pretend to know too much about the inner workings of Japan but yes I would have thought so yes. Would you say that certain countries in Southeast Asia would be more subject to violence and more subject to change. Unexpected change is something in the history will make them less stable. Well certainly I mean that we think again and a whole nother subject really we haven't talked on is that conditions for political stability. Yes. With limited intimidation as compared to period countries where there's going to be an enormous likelihood of disruption. I think that's very hard to say which one is most likely to persist without disruption I on the whole we're dealing with with an area of great instability we just have to recognize this. We have to be my I think more tolerant than we have been of the facts of political the likelihood of political disruption of upheaval of disorder and abrupt political change.

Would you give us your evaluation of the government of South Vietnam. Well I don't pretend to be a specialist on it it's it certainly has fooled a lot of us already by surviving as long as it has. The chances of its being effective over the next five years. High for impossible to make an assessment the chant the Fortuna is something that Machiavelli wrote about. Go back to your earlier observation and chants just play an enormous part in this so I can't really tell. I wouldn't bet much on it frankly. I think one of the unexpected things about Asian nations is the fact that women traditionally were supposed to have a passive role and there you find two outstanding women leaders. Mrs. Gandhi and the prime minister and say not well in the great traditions of both India and salon there have been there have been women who have played prominent prominent roles but on the whole yes I agree with you the women's traditional women's role has been relatively passive. Yes and that is unexpected as far as many people in the West can soon who as it is it

is I'm afraid we have many misconceptions about from you is you have a both these ladies for instance also had a premise that yeah they had a relative they had a predecessor they all they both come from very high levels of society so they both profit from the traditional position of importance of status and respect which no doubt helps them wield this remarkable. I'm out of power that they wield. Yes they did they were blessed with that. This is an enormous help. But the fact that they are women did not prevent their using this power. Yes that's right. Very interesting. Yes. And so when people talk about the emancipation of women in the west one has to point this out in the. Yes very good point. Professor Riggins it's offered to us someone to make any kind of predictions. I think you have already said that some countries will be less stable than others in their government and perhaps that's the most protection one could ask of you. In closing I just buy to you finish with this question.

Would you say that there is one thing of all above all else that we in the West could put into our thinking comprehend political activity of Asia could have and yes I suppose it's an enormous likelihood of disorder in this area. The second thing is large numbers of human beings striving hard with their enormous dedication and devotion to pull their societies forward. At the same time. Against enormous resistance by large numbers of people who for a very honorable reasons don't want to change very much. So we may be suffering from over expectation and impatience all Indeed yes. I thank you very much for being here and I'd like to tell you again that our guest on this program has been how would the Reagans Mr. Riggins is director of the Southern Asian Institute of Columbia University and professor of public law and government. He has sued the United States government and is the author of a book which has been the basis for

this discussion and the book is called the rulers imperative. Thank you very much and goodbye. That concludes tonight's edition of the Asia Society presents with league Graham. This eries comes to you through the cooperation of the Asia Society. If you would like to comment on tonight's program or would like further information about the society and how you can participate in its many interesting activities please write to Mrs. Graham at WNYC New York City 100 0 7. I make a note to join us again next week at this time for another edition of the Asia Society presents. This is the national educational radio network.