The resulting volatility has significantly affected the policy-making process, as parties in the same ruling coalition are forced to spend more time negotiating policy, weakening party discipline and encouraging party defections in voting. There are many extremely complex issues involved in assessing democratic political reforms. First, there is a tendency to compare political trends in Asia with idealistic models of Western political development. Many participants felt that while it is important to keep abreast of international developments, strictly following Western benchmarks is neither useful nor realistic, and could significantly hamper the region's own efforts towards political reform. Each nation has its own political culture, which clearly affects the scope of reform, but it is important to remember that political behavior can also eventually change political culture.
Democratic reform is thus mainly an incremental, rather than revolutionary, process.
One thing that is unlikely to change is the relative cost of elections, which will always be high. Thus, the focus of campaign finance reform should be to make the financing transparent and accountable. Each nation has its own political culture, which clearly affects the scope of reform, but it is important to remember that political behavior can also eventually change political culture.