“From Resource Curse to Resource Cure: Transforming Neoliberal Mineral Regimes in Southeast Asia to

Abstract

This is a three-country comparative inquiry into the resource-rich states in Southeast Asia, namely: Indonesia and its high-grade coal, Myanmar’s jade deposits and the Philippines’ mineral reserves, informed by the lens of Robyn Eckersley’s Green State assertion of ‘ecological democracy’ as a means to reverse the effects of resource curse. This paper will not however, establish a correlation between natural resource abundance indicators and the GDP per capita growth of the three countries. Instead, this will point qualitatively to the intrinsic anomalies in their natural resource governance policies following the neoliberal’s free market economy specific to the extractive industries, that allow the destruction of the ecology.

The first section of this essay will show the current ‘resource curse’ phenomenon in the three countries above-named. In the second section, such a situation will be contextualized within the entrenchment of elite capitalism within the free market extractivist industry defining their natural resource governance policies. The last section will explore an array of environmental ethos ranging from green anarchism to ecological modernism, to environmental managerialism and eventually privileging ecological democracy as the preferred framework in taming the voracious consumerist posture of liberal democracies should the green agenda of preserving the harmony and balance of a healthful ecology be advanced alongside economic development.

Keywords: Resource Curse, Mining, Ecological Democracy, Neoliberal Regimes, Green State

Introduction

Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines offer an interesting contrast of democratic consolidation (or decline) in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is the region’s most enduring and the only consolidated democracy since its democratization in 1999 (Pepinsky, 2017). On the other hand, Myanmar is the most promising as an emergent democracy, albeit, in a limited arrangement due to the military’s veto power whereas the Philippines’ democracy since the 1986 People Power Revolution giving the country pride in the annals of global democracies has weakened (Meinardus, 2005) over the years as state administration circulated among the central elites.

Despite the different stages of democratic consolidation of these three Southeast Asian countries, there are common features central to their political economies: a] the resource curse and its possible links with, b] a free market economy they all espouse.

While these countries are blessed with some of the world’s prime natural resources, they also suffer in turn from the scourge of inequitable economics, poor governance and resource-based conflicts. This is what the “resource curse” suggests, a concept formulated by Richard M. Auty (1993) showing the inversely proportional relationship between natural resource abundance and economic performance of a given country. Where there is enormous natural resource, there is sluggish growth in terms of economic development.

The resource curse thesis of Auty (1993) has been established by many other studies as logically plausible. Sachs and Warner (1995) for instance, found out that abundance in natural resources was correlated negatively with economic growth with their examination of a diverse set of resource-dependent economies covering the period between 1970 and 1989. Regionally, Dr. Karnjana Sanglimsuwan (2010) concluded that “countries with abundance of natural resources seem to have lower economic growth and poor economic performance than countries with fewer natural resources,” after correlating the resource abundance and economic growth rates of twenty-two (22) countries across Asia Pacific from years 1970 to 2008.

Some claims indicate that authoritarian states with centrally-planned economies have more propensity to suffer from the resource curse than any other form of regimes. Furthermore, it is also allegedly true to countries that are usually repressive (Merchant-Vega, 2011) as they often suffer from massive corruption and political violence. In Southeast Asia, the resource curse logic is found strongly evident in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (Sanglimsuwan, 2010) – all embracing authoritarianism with single-party administrations. But interestingly, it is also very apparent in democratic regimes like Indonesia, Philippines and now Myanmar.

This essay will therefore point to Southeast Asia’s democracies and their neoliberal free market economy especially in the extractive industries as the primary culprit in disturbing the ecological balance of nature, in heightening the immutability of the resource curse. Apparently, little has been done in understanding the role of policy in causing and at the same time in reversing the curse. This article will further argue that for as long as the current eco-political order of the three countries shadow the voracity of the global markets, the dream of a sustainable future will always be dragged by its feet. The overriding assumption here is that the neoliberal regimes’ usual appetite for insatiable consumption eventually leads to the depletion of the already finite natural resources and minerals which often results to the generation of different forms of conflicts, economic deficits and political volatility.

Given the above-hypothesis, a plethora of issues may be raised in terms of natural resource governance with these three countries confronting the dilemma of gratifying their consumerist markets on one hand to keep the growth momentum and of preventing the depletion of natural resources on the other hand to ensure a sustainable future. Mining corporations for instance insist that the key to genuine economic growth is the exploitation, utilization and the development of natural resources arguing that these countries stand on a multi-billion-dollar worth of natural wealth, its full potentials not being optimized. Local communities meanwhile believe that the path to a sustainable development is in the preservation, conservation and protection of these natural resources as these are not infinite and the need to secure a green future is vital for human survival. Both claims are essential to the careful analysis of the state’s development agenda as dependence to natural resources grow exponentially high and ecological destruction unthinkably widespread in the region.

As such, a closer look at the state-level policy covering the extractive economic activities becomes imperative in this attempt to offer normative instructions in mainstreaming ecological democracy within the institutional frameworks of natural resource governance. Eckersley’s Green State (2004) suggests that a new form of liberal democracy must be introduced where decision-making processes are expanded to the community of the affected in order to make relevant, sensitive and ecological-friendly choices. Hence, the state-society relation becomes of primordial importance in reversing the resource curse especially that a good government, capable of formulating policies to assuage the economy and safeguard the ecology is crucial in reversing the resource curse to a resource cure (Sanglimsuwan, 2010).

Resource Curse in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Myanmar and Philippines

Southeast Asia is naturally blessed with abundant resources. From the thick forests of the mainland, to the vast waters of its archipelagic sub-region, to the rich and fertile soils of its countries, Southeast Asia has been a traditional source of raw materials and natural resources. With favorable climatic conditions, it has some of the world’s most superior deposits of minerals upon which many of the region’s potential economic development depends so much (Pombhejara, 1981). Cases in point are the high-grade coal of Indonesia, the top-of-the-line jade of Myanmar and Philippines’ premier mineral reserves like gold, copper and nickel.

Indonesia. The global mining community sees Indonesia as one of the highly ranked producers of coal and the 5th largest exporter of thermal coal next to China, USA, Australia and India (Indonesia Investments, 2016). According to Greenpeace (2014) on the other hand, Indonesia controls only 3% of the global coal deposits. However, miners have been extracting these in a very unprecedented fashion in the last few years. In 2012, over 450 million tons of coal have been produced, exporting the same to China and other countries in Asia while domestic consumption was invariably low. The extraction of coal swelled unimaginably in recent memory allowing Indonesia to out-produce Australia as the largest exporter of coal in 2011. Indonesia’s coal is largely concentrated in the islands of South Sumatra, South Kalimantan and East Kalimantan. Despite this, mining in general which includes coal, only contributes 4% on average to the GDP of Indonesia with the exception in 2011 when it peaked at 6.14% (PWC, 2017).

Myanmar. Considered as one of Southeast Asia’s most blessed countries in natural resources, Myanmar earns billions of dollars simply exporting oil, gas, minerals and its most precious gems like jade. Jadeite deposits especially coming from the Kachin State is dubbed as having the highest quality of jade in the world and supplies up to 70% of the global market’s demand for premium jadeites (Hughes, 2000). The Upper Myanmar region which used to be covered by forests are now stripped naked owing to the gradual dismantling of the mountains over the past hundred years in the hope to struck jade in a life-changing fashion. The jade mines in Hkpant, Upper Myanmar are considered as Asia’s most precious gem following the value of African diamonds. In its first ever Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Report last March 2016, the government released the data showing that extractives, primary of which are jade, oil and gas, contributed on an average of 6% to their GDP, 24% of government revenues and 38% of exports (The World Bank, 2016). The same report revealed that around $3.13 Billion of government revenues were generated from 57 companies in year 2014 alone although Global Witness’ investigations suggested that a total of $31 Billion amount of jade was mined in the same year (cited in Pye, 2016).

Philippines. The Philippines is equally blessed with 9 million hectares of mineralized land. Undeniably, there is wealth lying beneath its soil and that makes the country the fifth most mineral-endowed country in the world with its 32 known metallic and non-metallic resources spread across the state with gold, nickel and copper on top of the list (Ecoteneo, 2012). The Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) has estimated that the country has around $840 billion worth of untapped mineral wealth, as of 2012 (Chavez, 2017). In addition, MGB reports that mining has contributed only an average of 0.91% to the GDP from 2000-2009, peaking only in 2007 at 1.44%. The same can be said in Zamboanga Peninsula (1.06%), Northern Mindanao (0.66%), Southern Mindanao (3.97%), SOCKSARGEN (0.14%) and CARAGA (6.38%) regions (Mines and Geosciences Bureau, 2010), whereas, agriculture, fishery and forestry account for around 15% of the Philippine GDP. Mining’s share of total exports has only averaged 3.5% from 2000-2009. In 2016, mining contributed only .6%to the country’s GDP (Chavez, 2017

Table 1.0 therefore, shows how negligible mining industry is to the development of the three countries. While mining companies have argued incessantly on the benefits of minerals development, what is not being told is that benefits and investments are worlds apart. Often, miners advance that minerals development will attract and bring in multi-billion dollar investments. The truth is, only a pittance inures to the benefit of the owners of the minerals, the state. The multi-billion-dollar project cost, while very economically desirable, actually goes to the purchase of equipment, machines, ore processing that are done overseas, and payment of consultants who are mostly foreigners. According to Cielito Habito (2010), around 43% of the said investment accrues to operating surplus, where the benefits primarily go to the investors more than the local economy.

Mining also falls short of its promise to generate millions of employment opportunities. True to many mines across the world, employment may only be intensive in the initial stage of exploration and operation but eventually labor absorption is likely to decline over time since people are replaced by labor-saving technologies. For instance, the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia is approximately a $100 billion investment over 40 years that is the world’s 3rd largest copper mine. It has generated 11,400 jobs (half Mongolian; half foreign) during the construction phase but only 3,500 jobs will be permanent, eventually (Bauer, 2012) and most of which are the foreign workers.

With very minimal contribution to the GDP, mining in Indonesia (4%), Myanmar (6%) and Philippines (.91%), proves that there is no truth to the claim that mining can save their economies. In fact, in comparison with their Asian neighbors, their economic indices are relatively lower than those non-resource-rich countries like Singapore, Brunei, South Korea and Japan further reinforcing the logic of resource curse in the region (refer to table2.0 below).

Indonesia registered a GDP per capita in 2017 of $12,378, Philippines with $8,299 and Myanmar with $6,285 with only Cambodia ($4,010) lower than Myanmar and Laos ($ 7,367) and Vietnam ($ 6,786) lower than the Philippines. The rest in Southeast Asia registered higher GDP per capita with Thailand ($ 17,786), Malaysia ($ 28, 870), Brunei ($76,743) and Singapore ($90,531) registering better figures than Indonesia (ASEAN, 2017). The bigger economies in the neighboring East Asia also showed promising GDP per capita like Japan ($49,468) and South Korea ($49,349).

If there us truth to the resource curse axiom, as claimed by various studies, the cases of Indonesia, Myanmar and Philippines, where natural resource is abundant yet slow in economic growth, add more to the proofs of negative correlation between resource abundance and economic development. Dr. Sanglimsuwan (2010) supports these observations with her conclusions showing that 1] resource curse is stronger in countries with higher share of ores and metals in their export; 2] countries with higher government effectiveness grow faster economically than those with lower government effectiveness; and 3] resource curse also emerges in countries with bad institutions. In short, government effectiveness and regulatory institutions also play crucial roles in causing and eventually reversing the resource curse.

The resource curse is further compounded in Myanmar with lack of transparency on government spending from mining excises given that the military continues to enjoy a lion’s share of the state revenues allegedly being siphoned by corrupt rulers. Myanmar’s military elite still has economic monopoly in exploiting the country’s natural resources under the names of Union Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) and the Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) with the general population suffering from various forms of social injustice (Linn, 2013). This explains why Myanmar remains to be one of the world’s least developed countries and ranks 130th out of 180 countries in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 2017, scoring slightly higher than the bottom four which includes South Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia (TI, 2017).

Indonesia suffers equally from a climate of corruption especially in its business environment. Efficiency of business is limited by a corrupt judiciary derailing dispute settlement processes. Bribes still exist in the public service and the same appears to be unregulated with legislators extorting payments and bribes from large companies in relation to registration of businesses, tax reports or requests for permits (GAN Integrity, 2018). Poor law enforcement further exacerbates corruption with anti-corruption laws not clearly implemented. As such, Indonesia ranks 96th in Transparency International’s (2017) CPI. Despite the shift from autocratic to a democratic state, Indonesia remains to be considered as one of the most corrupt countries in the world (Gallup, 2018). An anemic quality of the rule of law, endemic corruption in politics, undermined regulatory efforts of the state remain as challenges to Indonesia’s democracy (Croissant and Lorenz, 2018a:76).

Meanwhile, corruption in the Philippines continues despite Duterte’s rough anti-graft rhetoric (Jennings, 2017). The president himself admitted that corruption has been deeply embedded in Philippine bureaucracy and eliminating it needs longer time and tougher treatment from the leaders of the government coupled with the vigilance of the citizenry. Bribe taking still happens especially in the local government units where most of the licenses and permits are secured by business investors including mining companies. In the recent Transparency International (2017) CPI, Philippines ranked 111th out of 180 countries in the world, worse than its 2016 101st ranking.

With abundant resource managed by a bad and less effective government because of corruption, the three countries exhibit a declining economic growth, in fact worsening. Put together, Indonesia, Myanmar and Philippines, while among the top natural resource abundant countries exporting minerals, gems and natural resources across the world, have shown some of the poorest economic development in the region partly because of the inability of their governments to deliver public goods making natural resource management susceptible to bribery, overconsumption and different forms of corruption.

The government effectiveness and the openness of the regulatory system can play a determining role in whether the benefits from natural resources are well-distributed, which can lead to more prosperity, less conflict and more sustainable economic growth of the country (Sanglimsuwam, 2010). But with a consumerist neo-liberal policy in resource extraction, the curse will find difficulty in reversing itself towards becoming a blessing. A new democratic order needs to be in place to secure a rationalized development of natural resources and its equitable distribution where the community of the affected gets involved in rendering public choices to balance the insatiable appetite of a consumerist market.

Neoliberal Democracies: Implications to Natural Resource Governance

The countries that are subject of investigation in this essay are the region’s democratic regimes of varying degrees. As described above, Indonesia seems almost completely consolidated, Myanmar is an emerging democracy with the installation of a civilian government while Philippines, the oldest democracy at that, is on the regression.

The Republic of Indonesia is “regarded as one of the only few relatively stable and well-functioning democracies” in the region (Croissant and Lorenz, 2018a:73). But this evolved from the long years of Sukarno authoritarian regime under his “guided democracy” based on “pancasila” (2018a:75) which was later on transferred to Suharto and his “new order” government in 1968 after the fall of the communist PKI. The resulting system of corruption, collusion and nepotism caused the downfall of the Suharto regime to usher in the era of democratization or “reformasi” (2018a:76) beginning in 1998. Despite the challenges that followed its democratization, Indonesia is foretold to be “Southeast Asia’s strongest and most stable democracy” (Mietzner, 2012).

Meanwhile, Myanmar was under the military rule of the tatmadaw since the successful coup in 1962. It was only in 2011 when the military started disengaging itself from politics by ratifying a new constitution disbanding the junta, allowing free elections, and transitioning into a civil-led democracy (Croissant and Lorenz, 2018b:179). Reforms are underway with the legalization of political parties, release of political prisoners beginning with Aung San Suu Kyi and allowing freedom of speech and assembly. In the first democratically elected public posts, the NLD dominated the parliament with Aung San Suu Kyi’s close confidant, Htin Kyaw elected as the Union president. However, with the tatmadaw still having a powerful veto, Myanmar’s civil society remains suspicious of this easing of military powers. While an emerging democracy, the future of Myanmar remains uncertain.

Lastly, the Philippines’ democratic consolidation after its independence in 1946 remained in the hands of a few elites and dynastic clans circulating among themselves as a result of the cacique democracy (Anderson, 1988) established under centuries of Spanish occupation. While democracy was disrupted with the rise of Marcos’ authoritarian regime, it was restored in 1986 through the People Power revolution. However, with the restoration of democracy came the restoration of the elite capture of the state (Corissant and Lorenz, 2018c:218) which led to the debilitation of democracy thirty years since. The growing frustration of the elite’s inability to fulfill the promise of EDSA led to the unprecedented rise of Davao’s mayor to presidency. Under the current Duterte administration, his tough-talking persona and crass politics continue to undermine democratic institutions allowed by his popular support and making the country’s democracy illiberal in form.

As the region’s leading democracies, a logical assumption follows that perhaps, these countries embrace a neoliberal framework in advancing their economic agenda especially those in the extractive industries. Often in public discourses, neoliberalism is viewed as an antagonist to environmentalism (Nikula, 2017), the latter raising various challenges that limits the force of capitalism. In many contexts, ecological arguments are used as ideological weapons questioning the current neoliberal order. But how neoliberal are Indonesia, Myanmar and Philippines in terms of their state policies specific to mining?

In Indonesia, there was so much hope in the election of Joko Widodo in 2014 against Prabowo Subianto with his promise of populist reforms and a “mental revolution” in his governance (Colorni, 2015), especially in addressing serious issues of the environment in Indonesia like deforestation, wholesale plunder of natural resources by multinational corporations and destruction of ecological communities. Allegedly, this would have to be approached by installing nationalist economic policies in defense of their resources. On the contrary, observers noted that Jokowi instead emphasized Indonesia’s neoliberal agenda (Colorni, 2015). By failing to arrest the further destruction of the environment, Jokowi seemed to perpetuate the plunder of Indonesia by foreign corporations.

Because of a relaxed policy in mining, the influx of foreign investors had been unprecedented in recent years competing for the high grade coal deposits as well as copper and gold. On account of this, Indonesia’s environment bore the brunt of extractivism. In fact, it is the second fastest deforesting country in the world (Colorni, 2015) at a rate faster than Brazil and Congo. A consequence of this resource extraction is the issue of pollution and the production and management of tailings, toxic chemicals and wastes.

For instance, in 2017, Indonesia amended its 2014 ban on unprocessed mineral exports allowing miners to haul shiploads of mineral ores to be processed somewhere else (Diaz-Bastin, 2017). The 2014 ban was intended to encourage the growth of Indonesia’s ore processing technologies and therefore add value to their ores prior to shipping. As a result, some mining companies suspended operations and hence, mineral exports drastically declined in 2014. With the 2017 amendment, the Indonesian government in effect is allowing exports of mineral concentrates in the hope of recouping the loses borne of the 2014 ban. As observed, the relaxation of the ban has seen impacts on ecological communities in resource-rich islands of Papua, Sulawesi and Kalimantan (Diaz-Bastin, 2017) that would include pollution of waterways, large-scale deforestations and disruption of biodiversity.

It appears that with the amendment of the mining law, Indonesia is bent on attracting more foreign investors by relaxing its protectionist policy even if it meant to some segments of the Indonesian society as a wholesale plunder of their natural resources. This is further reinforced by Indonesia’s Investment Law that is made friendlier to foreign capitalists when it establishes some forms of incentives through some “investment facilities” including income tax deductions, import duty holidays and accelerated depreciation (Bonnitcha, 2017).

Despite strong public pronouncements from post-1997 financial crisis leaders against neo-liberalism, it was evident that Indonesia pursued a neo-liberal economic strategy as a response to IMF’s liberal structural adjustment packages (Chandra, 2011). Habibie, Wahid and Megawati all embraced a rhetoric in favor of neoliberalism in the forms of a new global economic integration, of entrusting Indonesia into the hands of foreign investors or of trade agreements like the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement. Externally, the imposition of IMF’s economic reform package, regional economic integration and the engagement with bilateral trade agreements have pushed Indonesia to espouse a more neo-liberal economic posture. These policies include reduction of import tariffs on products like coal, minerals, steel, iron and fisheries where the 27% rate in 1985 was reduced dramatically to 9.5% in 1998, 7.2% in 2002, and 6.9% in 2011 (Chandra, 2011). Following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Indonesia’s manufacturing industry also suffered a steep decline because investment shifted towards a resource-driven export economy (Greenpeace, 2014).

Like Indonesia, Myanmar’s laws regulating mining is described as unfair and inefficient (Smith, 2007:218) with human rights violations and environmental destruction surround the industry. An assessment of Myanmar’s mining policy revealed that its top-down natural resource management is principally poised at securing revenues. While its National Environmental Policy (NEP) invokes the responsibility of the state and every citizen “to preserve its natural resources in the interests of present and future generations” and that “environmental protection should always be the primary objective in seeking development,” (NEP 1990 cited in Smith, 2007), the country’s Ministry of Mines’ undermine the state policy with its own objectives including the “policy in the mineral sector to boost up present production, to fulfill the growing domestic demand and to increase foreign earnings.” This revenue-seeking stance of the ministry appears contrary to Myanmar’s NEP.

With absent any environmental governance, Myanmar’s mining laws are directed towards facilitating economic activity, optimizing the resources of some players to the disadvantage of the locals and their ecological communities. As early as 1988, Myanmar passed Law 10/88 which opened the country’s economy to foreign investment in order to promote development of the national patrimony (Smith, 2007:223). However, in all mining concessions, the military (tatmadaw) and their families are given shareholdings as partners of foreign capitalists. In order to make this friendlier to investors, Myanmar’s Foreign Investment Law assures potential foreign investments that it would not nationalize the industry or the investment for the life of the contract or in its extension (Chapter VI, Article 22). Even with the 2016 New Investment Law, the Investment Council is conferred a large degree of discretion in granting exemption to foreign investors from duties, tariffs, taxes, and in giving tax holidays (Bonnitcha, 2017).

Furthermore, the 1994 Mining Law of Myanmar does not require from the mining applicant any Environmental Impact Assessment or Social Impact Assessment covering the projects. The public is not even given an opportunity to participate in deciding whether to allow or not the intrusion of these mining concessions. The only consent guaranteed is that of the military through the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) (Smith, 2007:226). It was therefore concluded by Smith (2007:226) that Myanmar’s Mining Law ostensibly reveals one purpose – “economic governance, devoid of environmental and social measures.” Natural resource governance in Myanmar is hence weak and clearly favors the corporate interests of the capital elites, mostly foreign investors, more than the interest of the public and the environment.

Very close to the environmental governance practice of Myanmar, the Philippines equally suffer from a governance schizophrenia where the Constitutions puts premium on the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology (Article 2, Section 16, 1987 Philippine Constitution) but the Mines and Geosciences Bureau under the supervisory functions of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is mandated to lead the exploitation of the country’s natural resources. The two purposes are mutually contradicting, hence, the uncertainties in the country’s natural resource management which exacerbates governance conflict.

In the Philippine Mining Act (RA 7942), foreign companies are allowed to explore, develop, exploit and utilize the country’s minerals with apparently no ban to the exportation of raw ores. With the strong opposition from the Catholic Church and green groups in the Philippines, the government under the PNoy Administration issued Executive Order No. 79 allegedly to pacify the growing unrest among environmentalists by designating ‘no-go zones” for mining and creating a Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC) to encourage dialogues between and among stakeholders.

However, environmental groups and those opposed to mining allude to the EO as a form of tokenism since under it, the government still can honor existing mining permits, and in fact can still give mining exploration permits despite the ‘no-go-zone’ feature (Palatino, 2012). Since this was only an executive issuance, its inspiration remains to be the principal law, that is, RA 7942, which to many is flawed in many ways. The framework appears to be a sell-out of Philippine minerals as the law mining operators are granted with numerous privileges such as tax holidays up to a maximum of ten years, non-payment of revenue share to the Philippine government other than the two percent excise tax and the one percent royalty should mining be undertaken within the ancestral domains. These are all features of liberalized mining industry in the Philippines.

Camba (2016) argued that the Philippines’ neo-liberal mineral regime “has empowered the mining sector and weakened the anti-mining groups” by elevating state mining institutions to carry out the processes in responding to local needs and privileging an elite group of experts in the industry to determine environmental feasibility of mining projects with little to no participation of the public. This eventually forced opposition to compete with mining companies in an asymmetrical playing field for dialectical interactions and meaningful cooperative problem solving.

What we have achieved thus far is having established that Southeast Asia’s democracies, regardless of their variant, have embraced neoliberal mineral regimes having faith that such a policy framework can generate the much needed rents to salvage their struggling economies. Hence they engaged in state-supported mining activities in the hope of generating profit which is consistent with the interests of the mining investors, mostly foreign corporations – the interest of maximizing profits (Smith, 2007). We have also seen that this economic framework collides with most of their environmental laws. But because of the corporate greed of a consumerist market, environmentalism is dismissed in favor of profits. Ultimately, it is the ecological communities and their natural habitats that stand to suffer.

Green Governance: Options for the Survival of a Green State

When the free market capitalist interests govern the minerals industry of the state, and in this case, of Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines, the state along with its ecology is facing the threat of extinction, unless, a “green state” (Eckeresley, 2004) is advanced. The three countries reviewed are still far from endorsing a politics of environmental protection (Melo-Escrihuela, 2015). It is also very alarming that the mining sector has marginalized the community’s concerns on food security, ancestral domains, human rights, sustainable agriculture, social justice and harmony of nature through monopoly of the powers and apparatuses of state institutions (Camba, 2016). Those who are primarily affected by the destruction of the environment have very little chances of participating in charting the future of their communities and their legitimate concerns are dismissed all too often because state policies are skewed in favor of satisfying the global market in exchange of revenues.

The fall of communism along with the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and when the Cold War ended towards the latter part of the 20th century, the world thought that a new hope to resolve the enduring social ills including ecological decay was born in the fundamental tenets of liberal democracy. However, even those states that espoused the values of liberalism have been confronted by acute political predicaments such as questions of legitimacy, authority and autonomy compounding the growing concerns on trans-geographic issues such as environmental degradation. It is clear that states cannot avoid the environmental problems arising from the interlinks between neoliberalism and capitalism (Melo-Escrihuela, 2015).

At the turn of the century environmentalism and ecologism took centerstage as key development agenda across the globe. These currents have left an indelible mark in contemporary politics challenging states to ferret out the value of these marginal issues in the ever changing society. Central to these problems is the inquiry into the role of the state, either from the point of view of being the cause of ecological decay or as the answer to these environmental crises. Critically too, power relations need to be interrogated amidst the backdrop discourses on environmentalism so as to offer a new configuration of a viable state-society relations. A reflection on the normative value of a green state becomes imperative in this respect.

While a plethora of theories tried to resurrect the pivotal role of the state in understanding politics, environmentalism seems to pull the locus of analysis away from a very state-centered paradigm to a society-centered template of theorizing. By this, the state becomes more ambiguous as horizontal proliferation of power dynamics create more self-organizing, agenda-based and anti-status quo networks like the circles advancing the environmentalist ethos. However, the value of the state remains key in reversing the resource curse and the impact of destruction.

Among the first critiques of the state by the green theorists came from Paterson, Duran and Barry (citing Fritz Schumacher and WCED, 2006:137,138), who spoke about two spatial metaphors of ‘small is beautiful’ and ‘the earth is one but the world is not.’ Here the state is to be challenged in two ways. On one hand, it raises the task of addressing global ecological issues among a territorially disconnected states and of ensuring central state capacity to confront the issues in an ever expanding and modernizing society on the other hand. As an implication, the state is viewed as a central arena of decision-making processes to pursue an ecological agenda. They view the state as “the site around which centralized decisions coalesce, and where forms of representation concerning the impacts of ecological degradation are articulated” (Paterson, et.al.,2006:138).

On the other hand, the state is perceived as a political actor that engages a global regime to manage the trans-geographic effects of environmental hazards. Here, the territorial composition of states across the globe, described as fragmented and distanced, makes it difficult for co-operation, a mechanism needed to face an ecological challenge that spans beyond territorial boundaries. States typically behave to protect its internal interests and given the global scope of environmentalism, the challenge therefore is in constituting a world order to avoid environmental breakdown.

In both contemplations of the state, the green arguments assert that the more effective way to address environmental concerns is to move away from the center of power and democratize decision making through empowering local ecological communities, both from the standpoint of the domestic sphere and the international sphere. These local ecological communities, implied as a logical necessity born of the inadequacy of a centrally consolidated state, reflect the emphasis by the green supporters on the society’s role in state building making green theory more of a society-centered approach than state-centered in understanding the state.

Here, “green anarchism” is being advanced in the form of municipal confederalism (Paterson, et.al., 2006:144), where state structures are dismantled in favor of small, self-reliant communities organized among themselves. This is not endorsed with great favor. In pursuing municipal confederalisms, the green supporters rebuff the modernization of societies as they retreat to primitive ways of living where consumerist behavior is not the norm.

This dis-engagement with the state does not insinuate the state from a form of anarchism which calls for the undoing of the state to give way to independent smaller insular villages that are self-organizing with defined horizontal relationships akin to associationalist federation and a vertical interaction in a form similar to a consociationalist direct democracy. The consequence of this arrangement, if pursued, gives little room for inter-community cooperation where pockets of little states develop a strong propensity for egotism. While they may use coercive forces to protect their self-interests, they may also develop indifference in relation to equally egotistic self-interested insular villages.

Anarchism will render these small self-reliant communities inutile in the face of globally trans-geographic bearing of ecological problems. With multiplicity of global actors, local communities cannot align themselves with any of them for cooperation.

Other green theorists also advance ‘bureaucratic rationalism’ or ‘ecological managerialism’ (Paterson, et.al., 2006:139). There is an observation among green supporters that states behave in a very bureaucratic fashion. All too often, a diverse society is reduced to a simplified standard form. This resulted to what is called ‘resource managerialism’ which implies that natural resources have become commodities to be managed efficiently. The state now holds in trust the natural resources and re-allocates these to satisfy corporate needs. Here, the state acts like a corporate manager ensuring that resources are optimally developed under efficient bureaucratic processes.

There is danger in an instrumentalist rational approach to environmental management. When the state is used to manage resources, the chances of ecological degradation increases where humanity is separated from nature, facts are separated from values, knowledge only produces facts and atomistic method is promoted, where a phenomenon is isolated from the rest of the world. There is a huge danger that the state will fail to see the interconnectedness of ecology as it continues to treat resources simply as a means to an end and that end is the satisfaction of human needs. Eventually, the state becomes the end in itself as it turns to be a voracious consumer of natural resources. The resources are treated as commodities unrelated to the whole ecological community therefore unattached to human existence. This is where social sciences lend credence to the natural sciences in order to re-evaluate state accountability in managing the resources.

‘Ecological modernism’ is also advanced by other green theorists with the core assumption that demonstrates the compatibility of economic growth and ecological sustainability. Taken from the lens of environmentalism, the state is also blamed for being the cause of further destroying the environment by instituting the existing state of affairs, that is, a policy of consumption rather than conservation, a dogma based on exploitation rather than preservation and an ethic of harm rather than protection.

The tendency to consume, exploit and harm are alleged to be naturally a part of the normal actions of the state (Paterson, et.al, 2006:140), the state being the “ultimate hierarchical institution which consolidates all other hierarchical institutions” (2006:141). Jeopardizing the ecological resources that keep all people alive is within the regular behavior of the state. This is entrenched in the state’s natural instinct towards self-preservation where overconsumption of natural resources becomes necessary to support its military capability building efforts and other mechanisms for survival. States compete with each other and in competing, the battlefield becomes rivalrous and access to accumulation of power based on finite and limited resources gets narrower.

This analysis made by the green theorists echoes the earlier assertions of Charles Tilly in his Coercion, Capital and European States (1990), who postulated in part that,

“With a nation in arms, a state’s extractive power rose enormously, as did the claims of citizens on their state. Although a call to defend the fatherland stimulated extraordinary support for the efforts of war, reliance on mass conscription, confiscatory taxation, and conversion of production to the ends of war made any state vulnerable to popular resistance, and answerable to popular demands, as never before. From that point onward, the character of war changed, and the relationship between warmaking and civilian politics altered fundamentally.” (p. 83)

Clearly, when accumulation and concentration of coercion grow together, they form states making resource extraction an intrinsic element of the state. To the green supporters, this must be interrogated and eventually re-formulated for being an anomaly, that is, as the state consumes to survive, it actually accumulates more resources to its own demise, if not arrested the soonest possible time.

The green theorists also warn of looking at the state from an essentialist point of view, that is, treating the state not only a part of the problem but the problem itself because this necessarily calls for the destruction of the state. Nor can the state be viewed as self-reforming and is able to correct itself to achieve the goals of ecological modernization with an indifferent citizenry. Either way, the state shall fail with an absent social pressure. At best, the state must be approached by the communities of people with an end view that it is a powerful tool for the rectification of its anti-ecological posture. This necessitates an exogenous wave of social force requiring society to negotiate with the state. In short, “the green state should be made by the green citizens gathered within civil society (both within and outside the state), forcing the states (and the state system internationally) to change” (2006:152-153), in order to achieve the green agenda.

This is where the ideal green state for environmentalists comes in which follows the tenets of ‘ecological democracy’ (Paterson et.al., citing Eckersley, 2006:150) departing from the typical template of liberal democracy and where the regular assumptions revolve around satisfying the state’s material consumerism. They champion a state that puts premium on the participation of society, preferentially of those distressed by ecological risks in decisively defining policies or choices linked with contrary or favorable consequences to the ecology. To them, the state is where political negotiations transpire to advance a green ecology.

According to Robyn Eckersley (2004), ecological citizenship is necessitated to generate a green state that will re-order the current neoliberal democratic political and economic order. She argues that “the state is still the preeminent political institution for addressing environmental problems. States remain the gatekeepers of the global order, and greening the state is a necessary step, toward greening domestic and international policy and law.” The option for environmentalists therefore is to engage the state in a more creative fashion.

Attention must be shifted towards shaping and re-shaping people’s right to ecological balance operationalized through participation in policy-making processes that will affect the environment primarily. Democratic participation has always been a vital element in pushing for the green agenda (Fischer, 2013). In Eckersley’s (2004) green state, essential elements would include 1] a green constitution, 2] transnationalism, 3] ethics of ecologically responsible state and 4] a rationale for environmental justice (cited in Melo-Escrihuela, 2015). Achieving this requires an ethos of and for ecological democracy, a calculated democracy substantiated by a green agenda, incorporating essences of environmental justice with the participation of the affected communities as a community of justice (Eckersley, 2004).

For the environmentalists, a green state that exhibits a strong ecologically modernizing structure is the “passive-exclusive” form emerging from the German model (Paterson, et.al. citing Dryzek et.al., 2006:148). This state form presupposes the sifting of policy ideas, beliefs and norms from an engaged citizenry to the state through a widely held exogenous compression without obliterating the divide between state and society allowing the free growth and development of such ideas and providing a space for dialectical interactions of divergent paradigms that can lead to the formulation of a strategic approach among environmentalists to re-engineer the policy landscape of the state.

Challenging the status quo therefore, requires a strategic probing into the role not only of the state but also of the society represented by the environmentalists. The vacillating core of power between state and society needs to be re-interrogated in order to formulate a better and more effective approach at negotiating a mutually beneficial arrangement to allow nature to regenerate. Otherwise, the state with all its powers, may successfully immortalize the status quo of environmental consumerism leading to ecological decay.

The brief survey on environmental green theories presents to us conflicting, though not excluding, claims of the state. We have seen that what is more material, is not the question on what the state is but on how the state should be engaged. In a world with intricate social crises, strengthening state-society relations becomes vital. Given the anti status quo bearing of environmentalism, in a society that questions centrality of reason and celebrates individualism instead, the green agenda must be advanced both through inside and outside the state. As such, these clutches of advocates must be empowered to negotiate with the state in a space that recognizes equal power relations, in an arena that honors the powers from the margins and in a context that values connections between the state and the society, “having the ability to have the feet in both camps [the state and the civil society] and the heart in empowerment” (Paterson, et.al. citing Alex Begg, 2006:154).

As Camba (2015) proffered, now is the time when 1] the states must consider the ever growing people’s movements and participation in environmental decision-making processes, 2] environmentalists must invest in upgrading their capacities to dialogue with development investors in the arena of the latter’s scientific expertise and 3] the states must be inclusive and just for those they have neglected over the past years to be truly an ecologically democratic green state

Conclusion

Learning from the fundamental tenets of ecological democracy, there is a huge deal to transform Indonesia, Myanmar and Philippines from being a neoliberal state to a green state embracing ecological democracy as a way forward, should the threat of ecological decay be avoided. In doing so, some bottomlines need to be underscored.

The three neoliberal democracies in Southeast Asia should start treating natural resources, NOT as a commodity that may be sold to the global market feeding the voracious appetite of the consumerist economies but as ESSENCES of their National Patrimony - a heritage inherited from a glorious past and a heritage simply borrowed from the generations yet unborn. As such, an ethos of protection must prevail over a policy of overconsumption.

Protection of the ecology must also be defended from the standpoint of social justice arguments ensuring the equitable distribution of resources with much greater favor to those who are disadvantaged under the current economic and political order like the farmers, indigenous peoples and the fisherfolk. After all, the issue of environmental justice is much embedded in the social and political goals of social justice. It necessitates the equalization of economic and social forces in order to equitably distribute the resources to empower those in the margins and hold those who plunder the natural resources accountable. Toward this, the state plays a critical role as a regulator within a system that is largely captured by greed for profit. It is only through redistributive politics along with the challenge to convert capital-intensive calculus of development to a commitment for the quality of life can environmental justice be truly achieved.

The free market economic policies especially those governing the extractive industry must be re-articulated in order to reverse the effects of the "resource curse" in their countries. Their governments must push for an "ecological democracy" framing of the market economy. This means that Indonesia, Myanmar and Philippines must embrace a framework promoting not the democracy of the many but the democracy of the affected. Those who will stand to suffer or benefit directly from the ills of ecological destruction must positively participate and contribute in all stages of decision making process. Otherwise, the market and the policies that shape it will continue to be in the exclusive hands of the elite capitalists whose interests are perpetuated under the current neoliberal order.

And as Eckersley (2004) puts it, in advancing ecological democracy, the green states are given a new role – that of an “ecological steward and facilitator of transboundary democracy rather than a selfish actor” only interested in economic profits.

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