Modular Comparisons : Grounding and Gauging Southeast Asian Governance (original) (raw)

This paper argues that analytical tensions between comparability and distinctiveness, which often drive a wedge between disciplinary and area-studies debates, are not irreconcilable. Drawing on original research of public governance in Southeast Asia, I contend that layered comparisons – which blend different levels of analytical scope and abstraction – offer a valuable methodological instrument for empirical cross-fertilization. To showcase layered comparisons in practice, I present four interconnected studies of democratic decentralization in Southeast Asia. The analysis combines indepth city-level analyses and subnational cross-sections (that draw heavily on Indonesia’s multilevel governance experience) with an intraregional governance comparison (that expands the focus towards the Philippines and Thailand). To shed further light on the question why democratic decentralization produces desirable outcomes in some polities, but not in others, the discussion fluidly traverses micro/macro-level confines and within-case/cross-case perspectives. In doing so, the concept of layered comparisons provides a methodologically-nuanced perspective on Southeast Asian governance and a means to bridge prevailing area-discipline divides.