James J. Przystup, Ronald N. Montaperto, Gerald W. Faber, and Adam Schwarz
Publication Date:
04-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The onset of the Asian economic crisis in May 1997 assured the end of the tottering "New Order" regime of President Suharto. Economic collapse re-energized social and political grievances long muted by the cumulative effects of steady economic growth and political repression. In May 1998, the discredited Suharto regime collapsed. In June 1999, democratic elections led to the formation of a reform government led by President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Though the Chinese Communist Party clings to its monopoly on power and fully intends to avoid “walking down the road of the Soviet Union,” it is implementing revolutionary political reform in the countryside. For the past decade, multi-candidate elections, in which candidates need not be members of the Communist Party, have been held in hundreds of thousands of Chinese villages. Abdicating its prerogative to appoint village chiefs, the Party has conceded that elected ones are more effective. The grassroots-level governance reform (jiceng zhengquan gaige) not only empowers ordinary citizens and encourages them to take part in the decision-making process. It also institutionalizes the concepts of accountability and transparency.
In September 1994, the Commission on Radio and Television Policy, bringing together the New Independent States, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the United States, met in St. Petersburg, Russia, to discuss the most important policy issue of the electronic media: how to strengthen the independence of radio and television. The members of the Commission represented several different approaches and types of government, but, in the end, there was unanimous agreement on a communiqué urging all parties to defend and extend autonomy of the media.