Democracy and divided societies
The spread of democracy is central to the promotion of peace and in upholding stable global and regional relations. In the Indo-Pacific region, where there were once few democracies, today democracy has spread to key neighbours such as Indonesia and Malaysia as well as Timor Leste. This has enormous geo-political implications for Australia.
Making such new democracies sustainable with complex societies where ethnic or social cleavages exist can be complicated and uncertain. This can be even more challenging where there has also been a crisis of governance (e.g. the mass violence that preceded independence in Timor Leste) or a change of government after a long period of one-party rule, as in Malaysia.
Challenges facing emerging democracies
New democracies can face a number of challenges such as:
- social and ethnic cleavages dividing voters by race, religion, language, or ethnicity; with minority groups placed at a disadvantage
- generational inequities of young voters vs older voters in an ageing population
- under-representation of women in government
- the legacy of mistrust of new systems and parties following past military or corrupt regimes
- China’s success offers poorer countries an alternative autocratic model of development
- post-conflict elections: elections can be central to many post-conflict agreements, but poorly timed or designed elections might also have negative consequences for the strengthening of both peace and democracy
If you are in a society where there are deep ethnic cleavages, elections will often exacerbate those. You need to look at the electoral rules and change them to have better incentives for politicians to be inclusive.”
Shaping new political landscapes
Professor Benjamin Reilly is an internationally recognised political scientist at The University of Western Australia (UWA) in the School of Social Sciences and a Fellow at UWA’s Public Policy Institute.
His research focuses on new democracies, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. He has worked with the Australian Government, the United Nations and other international organisations advising governments on public policy issues of democratic governance, electoral system reform, and party politics in post-conflict environments.
Countries include: 1998 Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, 1999 Indonesia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2000 Southern Africa, 2001 Fiji and East Timor, 2002 Guyana, 2004 Northern Ireland, 2005 East Timor and Bhutan, 2010 Mongolia, 2012 Egypt, 2015-2016 Philippines and the Solomon Islands; 2014-2015 Myanmar; and 2019 Malaysia.
Cambodia
As a PhD student in the early 1990s, Professor Reilly was part was of a complex United Nations mission which attempted to bring democracy to Cambodia. Years of civil war and conflict ended after peace treaty agreements were signed in 1991. Professor Reilly served with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia in 1993 which ensured implementation of the Agreements and ran the country’s first ever free and fair elections.
“It was a great experience and it made me realise how important political reforms can be.”
Malaysia proved that elections matter
Public engagement to discuss electoral reform in Malaysia
Malaysia’s political landscape changed after the 14th General Election in May 2018; with the change of government ending decades of repression and one-party rule. The elected government is now re-examining the rules of Malaysian politics and redesigning their electoral system to encourage better inter-ethnic relations.
In an initiative funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Professor Reilly and others are part of the Southeast Asia Rules-Based Order project working to strengthen the liberal order in the region. He has produced a series of policy papers on electoral reform, ethnic politics and reform options for Malaysia.
In 2019, Professor Reilly made presentations in Kuala Lumpur on governance reform to the Malaysian Electoral Commission and Electoral Reform Committee. He also gave public lectures on electoral reform at local universities.
Prof. Reilly interviewed on Malaysian television
Some of Prof Reilly’s recommendations were outlined during an interview on Malaysian television:
- establishing an independent electoral commission
- introducing fair electoral boundaries
- transparency around political donations and funding
- preferential voting as a modification of the existing first-past-the-post system, to help restrain ethnic tensions at election time
You need to set up clear, independent processes to investigate allegations of misconduct, fraud, abuse and so on. If they can be done well and in advance, the prospect of having a successful election will increase.
Ethno-democracy in Papua New Guinea
As our nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a country of importance to Australia. However, PNG is a country of enormous ethnic, cultural and regional fragmentation. In his doctoral thesis, Professor Reilly suggested changes to some electoral rules to encourage better relations between tribal and clan groups. These were adopted in a reform of the electoral system some 10 years later.
I try to help countries that are facing ethnic or other cleavages and are interested in redesigning their political systems so that democracy doesn’t fall apart.
Between 2000 and 2002 Professor Reilly was commissioned by AusAid, a public service agency providing policy advice and overseas aid for the Australian government, to advise on political and electoral reform in Fiji and PNG.
Some of the recommendations included:
- electoral reform to include limited preferential voting
- political party reform to promote a strong and less fragmented party system
- rewards for parties that put forward female candidates and encourage independent MPs to join parties
Limited preferential voting was introduced to PNG in 2000 with the aim of providing a greater choice for voters. It was used for the first time in the 2007 general elections.
In 2006, Professor Reilly published a paper testing the political impact of the reforms. There were improvements in political stability, party system cohesion and electoral processes. A review of the existing and alternative government and legislature systems followed in 2014. The report was commissioned by the PNG National Research Institute for the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission.
Voting reform for the Northern Territory
In 2010, the then Minister for Local Government requested an independent review of the electoral system in the Northern Territory by Professor Reilly. The existing exhaustive preferential electoral system had been causing conflicts between Aboriginal clans in some remote areas, which had the unintended effect of helping one group and underrepresenting another.
The Reilly Report concluded that a Single Transferable Vote counting system be introduced as the Northern Territory’s Local Government Electoral System. The modification required no change to existing procedures in single-member electorates, would be congruent with other Australian jurisdictions, and would produce fairer results overall.
Professor Reilly had the support of the Central Desert Shire Council, who tabled a request to write to the Minister in support of the recommendation for a Single Transferable Vote counting system. These recommendations were accepted and introduced by the Northern Territory government.
You’re looking at the way a political system more broadly works, not whether it will advantage one particular party or candidate.
Indonesia sustaining democracy
Prof. Reilly meets Indonesian Foreign Minister Dr Marty Natalegawa. Image credit CDI
After the fall of Suharto in 1999, government officials sought new options for democratic change in Indonesia. In 2001, Professor Reilly provided advice on elections and political party development through International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), an intergovernmental organisation supporting the advancement of democracy worldwide. He also co-authored IDEA handbooks on Electoral System Design and Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict. The handbooks were designed to be used by policy makers and reformers and present comparisons and insights on a range of democratic institutions and processes.
Professor Reilly was the Director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions from 2005 until 2010. During this time worked with a South Pacific and Southeast Asian countries to strengthen their political institutions, held international workshops and seminars in Indonesia and other priority countries, and conducted research on democratic processes.
Indonesia is now one of the most successful democracies in South East Asia. It has managed a staggered series of reforms, removed military representation in parliament, introduced presidential elections and has reformed political party laws to restrict ethno-regional parties from dominating.
The democratisation of Indonesia has drastically reduced the possibility of conflict which did exist in earlier decades.
Maine, a frontier for electoral reform
Prof. Reilly has presented his research globally. Image credit CEU Daniel Vegel
Despite the majority of states in the United States using a ‘first past the post’ system of voting, in 2016 the state of Maine introduced ranked choice voting (RCV), for their future Congressional elections. The ranked-choice system of voting was new to them, but is similar to the preferential system used in Australia. It was used for the first time at Maine’s midterm elections in November 2018 when it was welcomed by voters but received political resistance from Republicans. It is now being promoted as a reform in neighbouring Massachusetts.
Since its adoption, Professor Reilly has presented talks in the US on the new system, its comparison to Australia’s electoral system and the lessons that can be drawn from both countries experience. Presentations were held in 2018 in Boston, Maine, and at the Embassy of Australia in Washington DC, which was facilitated by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In September 2019 he presented a comparison of the Australian and American experience in Washington DC and at a public lecture as part of Social Sciences Week at UWA.
