Political Stability

Political stability is the lastingness, the durability and the strength of a current government regime (Ask.com, 2014). A stable political system will have a stable government system too. Therefore, a stable political system will have less or almost no internal warfare or conflicts and huge changes in the government. Political stability also means that the environment is secured, reliable and the people have trust on the government and can count on the government. Revolution, terrorism and confrontation will not take places if there is no political instability in a regime. Political stability is not only the main factor for a nation, the growing economic also important for the nation. Just imagine, with a stable political system but without

A trade surplus which export more than import and there is no deficit in the nation show the economic growth of a country is stable or developing. Economic growth is essentially needed for the people to live in a better way. The economic growth can be measured in nominal terms such as inflation, in flow of foreign investment or by comparing the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) as the capacity in productivity might be different every year. Is it political stability and economic growth are not interrelated or they are interrelated? In this regard, Brunei and Thailand will be used as the elements in the case study to find out the relationship between them whether they are interrelated or not interrelated. Brunei is a small country with small population approximately with 400,000 people. The country is made up of 70% ethnic Malays and the rest is made up of Chinese, Indians and other indigenous population. According to Diamond Typology, Brunei is considered as a political closed regime where the country’s political system is absolute monarchy with no representative form of

Both countries have relative good economic aspect among Southeast Asia countries. Thailand has been graded as a developing country with large reduction of poverty while Brunei recently had diversify its oil dependent industries to non-oil dependent industries such as Islamic Banking to overcome the circumstances that will be faced after the use out of oil in the country. The coup in 1932 ends the absolute monarchy of Thailand and led Thailand to a modern state in the 20th century. It also developed the country’s economy into international rank. Thailand has shifted from a rice producer agriculture country to a rice exporter country and the expansion of monetary system had improve the living standards of the citizens. While, Brunei the oil rich country do have a high economic growth in Southeast Asia. The citizens enjoy all the privileges and pay no personal income tax. The GDP per capita of Brunei in 2013 was 24184.67USD while Thailand gained a GDP per capita of 3437.84USD. Brunei has a drop of 3.05% in its GDP per capita compared with previous year while Thailand had an increase of 1.42% in its GDP capita compared with last year. Basically, this two countries still have a relatively high economic