The
survival of the existing empires relied heavily on
a ruler’s successful relationships with others in
power. Unlike the West, Southeast Asia never
experienced an equivalent to Roman law which
might have introduced “rational bureaucracies”
in the Weberian sense and brought a more formal
and legalistic systemization to the local politics.
According to Busse, after the process of
decolonization, the traditional polity was
transformed into what some specialists have called
“bureaucratic polities”.