Against this background people-centered and participatory democracy and human rights in Asia are increasingly challenged. First, Asia offers a quite different prospectus from the triumphalist pronouncements of the ardent proponents of neo-liberalism that market-driven globalisation will lead to a world of inclusive liberal democracies. An emergent political-economic regime — “authoritarian liberalism” in which a market economy is linked to an authoritarian polity, is being gradually institutionalised in the region. Asia is progressing towards the resurgence, or deepening of, a variation of authoritarianisms: (semi-)authoritarian regimes in Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore and Thailand; the military governments in Bangladesh and Myanmar; the monarchy in Brunei; one-party rule in China, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam; a military general leadership and culture of impunity in Indonesia; and an administration predisposed to authoritarianism and the militarisation of the cities and countryside in the Philippines. These authoritarian regimes are predominantly founded on the logic of the capitalist market. Time and again, research has concluded that authoritarianism, alongside war and poverty, can lead to increased human rights violations.

Second, Asia is increasingly becoming a security complex of semi-authoritarian liberal governments, a process inter-linked with the rising militarism in the region. The US-led “war on terror”, launched in Asia as a response to the 9/11 terror attacks, has been used to give legitimacy to “exceptional” powers for some Asian governments, expanding their discretionary powers of detention and surveillance. For the USA, Asian governments have become strategic sites for opposing terrorism. At the same time, they are often characterised by government that has limited accountability to its citizens, relatively unfree and unfair competitive elections, partially curtailed civil and political rights, and compromised associational autonomy. For many citizens in the region the two processes are linked. Regional stability in post-9/11 Asia seems to come from a “peaceful coexistence among semi-authoritarianisms,” rather than among democracies.

Third, the destruction of the environment in Asia is a tangible manifestation of the contradictions of globalisation. The short-term requirements of global competitiveness and the logic of production for profits have conflicted with the long-term needs of sustainable development. Globalisation has provided global and domestic powers to the capitalist market over developmental issues, thereby eroding peoples’ rights to development and even human life itself.

What the contemporary political economy of Asia signifies is that the respective security and development projects of Asian regimes can thrive, and can be promoted, even within constricted democracies. The process of more people-centered and participatory democratisation in the region has been stalled.

In the European Union, the problem of the democratic deficit for its citizens is often construed as a simple political and institutional issue. This presentation focuses on the lack of access of ordinary citizens to EU institutions, the combined legislative and executive powers of the Council of the European Union, the restrictions on the European Parliament, and the relative power of the European Commission. However there is also a more fundamental anti-democratic logic that has always underpinned the dynamics of EU integration, and this is increasingly manifested in contemporary Europe. This logic is that EU institutions, their laws and treaties, are oriented toward the preservation of the hegemony of corporate power over the vast majority of European citizen’s and that the institutions are more responsive to market forces than to popular-democratic forces.

Though less so than in Asia, political institutions and the codification of rights varies considerably from one European country to another. At the EU level, however, there is a strong tendency towards a decline in accountable democratic practice (as was traditionally conceived in the West) and the respect of rights. Democratic practice implies the possibility to choose. In particular, this right to choose is limited when a growing number of laws and regulations are related back to non-parliamentary institutions (WTO, Council of Ministers and the European Commission) or when none of the political parties in a position to lead a government is ready to break from the framework of neoliberal globalisation. When people have the opportunity to express a choice that does not conform to the wishes of those governing, this choice is not ratified but circumvented, as was the case after the rejection by referendum in France and in the Netherlands of the draft project of the European Constitution.

In the name of competitiveness, anti-terrorism, and the fight against clandestine immigration, civic and social rights have eroded. Here too, as a legacy of various histories, the laws differ considerably from one European country to another. However the decline of social protection (health, unemployment, protection under labour codes, etc.) is being experienced in more and more European countries. The economic disengagement of states often makes workers defenceless with respect to the power of multinational corporations. The protection of civic and citizen’s rights is being eroded with the implementation of so-called “security policies”, while trade union and community actions face greater risk of being criminalised. The collective civic frameworks are being eroded and sectors of the population (migrants, refugees, Muslims, Romas, among others) find themselves being used as scapegoats. In a growing number of countries, women’s reproductive rights are also under attack. The erosion of rights is not only quantitative. We are reaching a point where people as a whole begin to be treated as suspects. In this context, the integration of former Eastern European countries to the EU is happening in very unequal ways.

Europe still benefits from a more favourable political situation than much of Asia. However the current dynamics in the two regions are increasingly linked and sometimes similar. This can link the democratic struggles in both regions more than ever before.

The pressing need now is to consolidate and coordinate, at the national and transnational levels, people-centered, participatory democratic forces—progressive civil society, social movements, and media. Without inclusive politics, accountable government and women’s rights, the most marginalised—disabled people, people living with HIV/AIDS, urban poor, workers, migrants, refugees, indigenous peoples—will continue to have their rights denied.