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The massive destructive consequences of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami,have called attention to the phenomenal failure of the international community to provide early warning before the disaster,and the chaotic disaster relief efforts after the extent of the catastrphy became evident.These lessons have made the need for the establishment of an institutionalized disaseter warning and disaster relief regime a matter of great urgency.This paper offers a well structured agenda ,detailed outline of the fundamentals ,and the parameters pertaining to the main issues such a regim would have to address.Due to the enormity of the task,the paper makes an argument for an Asia first approach due to the experience acquired since 2004 in that region.If it will be successful there, the regime buildig policy process can be extended to other regions.These incremental expansion would eventually lead to the establisment of a politically integrated and coordinated global early warning and disaster relief regime. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last ten years or so since 1992 Rio Earth Summit,there has been a virtual explosion of regional activity for environmental protection in Northeast Asia (NEA). Environmental cooperation has been institutionalized at both bilateral and multilateral levels and various projects to curb regional environmental problems have been adopted and implemented. The environment became reformulated as a regional political issue. Environmental cooperation in NEA shows an interesting characteristic in progress. Countries have developed formal cooperation at bilateral level by concluding either environmental treaties or agreements and setting up joint committees for implementing cooperation. Although less formal then bilateral cooperation, cooperation at the multilateral level also has shown a steady progress. Norms for collective action were firmly established and institutional arrangements were agreed. However, overall, environmental cooperation in NEA has been progressing into non-binding cooperation without clauses clearly describing official commitments for compliance and legal restrictions for non-compliance at either bilateral or multilateral cooperation. Adopting conventions or protocols has been avoided or rejected in negotiations. Why environmental cooperation in NEA is non-binding? This paper is an attempt to answer the question by exploring the progress of environmental negotiation in the region. Considering that environmental cooperation is a foreign policy issue of countries, the non-binding cooperation in NEA are policy choices of countries. By exploring political, economic, and environmental interests behind positions of countries in environmental negotiation, the paper concludes that the non-binding commitment for environmental cooperation could be a rational policy choice of countries in the region. In exploring countries’ interests in environmental politics in NEA, archival research, document analysis, and particularly, extensive elite interviews were applied to collect qualitative data. Elite interviewing was in particular an excellent form of data collection for this paper since the behavior of interests can be best described and explained by those who are deeply involved in policy-making processes. In this research, the validity of interviewees’ statements was determined by examining their plausibility, checking for internal consistency, referring to documents and reports from the government, research institutes, and environmental NGOs, and corroborating with other interviewees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses an emerging interaction between bilateral and multilateral security arrangements for conflict resolution in Asia since the 1990s by emphasizing the correlation of Asian hegemony management with foreign policy strategies of the US, China and Japan. As protracted conflicts of the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits have threatened regional prosperity and stability, regional security institutions have become an important policy concern in the post-Cold War era. Detecting nascent multilateral institution-building in Asian regional security, this paper asks how and why US-led bilateral alliances interact with multilateral security arrangements such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and the ASEAN-Plus-Three. In order to examine this puzzle, the paper focuses on three points: (1) foreign policy strategies of three countries, (2) domestic interests concerning the feasibility and legitimacy of supplementing bilateralism with multilateralism in Asian security, and (3) impacts of Asian hegemony management on establishing regional security institutions. The paper compares the three countries’ preferences to regional security by focusing on the relationship between bilateralism of the US-led alliances and multilateralism. It then tries to demonstrate that both the dynamics of Asian hegemony management and the policy preferences concerning bilateralism and multilateralism are essential in understanding regional security arrangements in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on theories from international relations, international law, and comparative politics, this paper tests the relationship between international human rights norms and human rights protection. Using a cross-national time series data set for 169 countries over the period 1976-2000, the paper explores the temporal and spatial patterns in the growth in the international human rights regime and the protection of human rights, and then models their mutual relationship using non-recursive estimation techniques, while controlling for the influences of democracy, wealth, international interdependence, warfare, population size, and regional differences. The results of the analysis show three things. First, the norms-rights relationship between the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and the protection of civil and political rights is statistically significant and stronger than for the rights-norms relationship. Second, democracy, wealth, and international interdependence help explain both treaty ratification and greater protection of human rights. Third, the norms-rights relationship is less strong for Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Overall, the findings suggest that formal participation in the international regime of human rights complements patterns of development, democratisation, and global interdependence, all of which are related to a greater protection of human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of this paper is, will it be possible for other regions to achieve a full monetary integration, like the EU did, by introducing a single common regional currency? What factors will shape the future of East Asian currency integration? The major issue discussed in this paper is whether the creation of an East Asian Central Bank (EACB) as an institution for a single currency management is possible and what are the necessary conditions to achieve this goal. This article applies a constructivist approach to regional monetary integration. I argue that sharing a common knowledge about monetary cooperation is a necessary condition for the achievement of monetary integration. In particular, the role of the committee of governor of national central banks is especially important. The task of this independent committee is to offer a plan of regional monetary policy. A region will achieve a high level of international monetary cooperation when a group of specialists working on monetary policy propose a blueprint of monetary integration and several ministers in the region agree with the plan. Regional members? attitude toward monetary integration is defined by the restricting structure on the regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international actorness of the European Union (EU) might be difficult to capture by exploring the past. Observers have emphasised EU's sui generis character and largely studied its internal processes giving rise to an increasing international presence and common foreign policy. However, the EU's international role has been increasingly important in anticipating the future. Accordingly, scholars have focused on EU's impact and role(s) in world politics. The key aim of this paper is to elucidate how the theoretical concept of Europeanization - as developed within the EU studies - might help us understand EU's international actorness. It is suggested that it enables us to account for (i) how the EU produces international action and (ii) how the EU's external engagements and interaction with other regions and actors feed back to its politics. The emphasis of this paper is on the latter. EU's relations with Asia are used as an exemplar. Since the mid 1990s, the EU has developed and adopted common strategies and policies towards Asia and its key actors. Its engagements have taken several forms including inter-regional dialogue as well as multi- and bilateral arrangements. Subsequently, the paper will examine what impact, if any, Asia has had on the EU. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Asian balance of power is changing rapidly due to rapid and simultaneous rise of the two Asian powers, China and India. Both countries have great power ambition and potentiality. They have more than one billion people, huge and rising economy, and growing military, industrial, and scientific capabilities. Their large geographical size and geo-strategic location also make them key actors in Asian politics. Future Asian security, stability and peace will absolutely depend on the relationship between these two countries. The question is: how these two countries have been engaging with one another since the end of the Cold War? What factors influencing their relations? This paper discusses these two questions. The paper is divided into the following sections: section one looks at the brief history of the relationship; section two discusses positive aspects of their relationship; section three examines negative aspects of their future relationship; and last section synthesizes the paper and makes a conclusion.Key Words: China, India, Sino-Indian relations, Asian balance of power, peace, and stability. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though a free trade area in the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) is now being advocated, the prospects are doubtful. In fact, the region-wide FTA-buildings which were proposed twice in the past were at a standstill. Why is the region-wide FTA-building so difficult in the Asia Pacific? This paper addresses this question from the variables that have contributed to APEC’s evolution. Briefly speaking, “consensus” that has kept APEC stable and developed can be explained as an obstruction simultaneously. In order to explain why consensus may boost up and impede the regional governance, this paper deploys two factors that can make the opposite effects on consensus. One is the pending decision and another is the information gap. It will argue that consensus can impede the FTA-building through the examination of the past experiences. It will also suggest that the negative sites of consensus encourage creating bilateral FTAs. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a preliminary conceptualization of a theory of nonhegemonic international orders (NHIO). To varying degrees, IR theories, including realism, liberalism, constructivism, and Gramscian critical theory have privileged hegemonic power and socialization in international order-building. Nonhegemonic international order theory (NHIOT) holds that international order is not simply a function of the power and preferences of hegemonic actors (or powerful states). A nonhegemonic order may be defined as a relative stable pattern of interactions without the individual or collective hegemony of great powers. NHIOT makes the following assumptions: (a) the main actors/agents in international relations are states, social groups, and international organizations; (b) the international system is an anarchy but hegemony is not a natural or inevitable solution to anarchy; resistance to hegemony may be a more a natural tendency; (c) the structure of the international system is both material and ideational and hence resistance to hegemony can be both material and ideational; (d) international cooperation is possible not only to organize resistance to, but also the socialization of, hegemony-seeking actors; and (e) nonhegemonic actors are not just passive recipients of universal ideas or collective goods, but active borrowers and exporters. The paper offers some examples of nonhegemonic international orders such as the diffusion of Indian political ideas in precolonial Asia, the Chinese tributary system, European Union’s security community, and Indonesia’s postcolonial role within Southeast Asia. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the ninth in a series in which the political careers of civilizations/world systems receive snapshot codings of their overall power structures at feasible intervals. The narratives are produced by collating histories with large frames of reference. The codings are done using a nominal variable, polarity, with seven available values. Previous articles in the series have examined the Indic system 550 BC--AD 1800, the Far Eastern 1025 BC--AD 1850, the Southwest Asian c. 2700--1500 BC, the Northeast African c. 2625--1500 BC. The Northeast African and Southwest Asian systems and sequences merged c. 1500 BC to form the Central system. Previous papers have coded this system from 1500 BC to 200 BC. The current paper narrates and codes the century from 200 BC to 100 BC at 10-year intervals. During this century, the Central system moved from unipolarity to hegemony and back; the polar state/hyperpower and hegemon was Rome. The century ended with Rome's economic and military capabilities increased, but with its strategic position in the Central system relatively weakened, because the core areas of its new potential main enemies (Parthia and Pontus) now lay farther from its military reach than those of its former potential main opponents (Macedonia and Syria). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is intended to set the framework for the entire panel by tracing in broad strokes the place of Asian studies in the field of (post)communist studies and in comparative politics writ large. During the first two decades after World War II studies of China and Japan were commonly carried out within the unifying theoretical framework of modernization theory. The decline of modernization theory in the 1970s, however, led to a more attenuated relationship between specialists of Asian countries and the broader field of comparative politics. In the post-Cold War era, in spite of the common challenges faced by reformers in (post)communist Asia and Europe, there have been even fewer lines of intellectual communication and integration across Asian studies, the study of postcommunist Europe, and the field of comparative politics writ large. A handful of noteworthy exceptions notwithstanding, students analyzing transitions in postcommunist Europe have not taken advantage of the rich empirical analysis coming out of scholarship on Asian countries embarking on reform. Similarly, Asian studies remains comparatively insular, ignoring potentially insightful analyses coming out of transitional settings that emerged out of the former Soviet bloc. This paper argues that a broader, more refined field of comparative (post)communism needs to do a better job of comparing the experiences of Asian and East European reforms, and that this will also help reinvigorate the lines of communication between both fields and comparative politics writ large. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates if it is possible that the long ASEAN Peace since 1967 is a part of the East Asian Peace, which started elsewhere 12 years later. Instead of claiming causal relationship the paper suggests that the approaches that gave rise to ASEAN were also the genesis of East Asian Peace. The argument is that it is possible that East Asian peace, just as the ASEAN Peace, has originated in collectively adopted subjective approaches and orientations based on common constructions of the factual and normative reality of world politics. These approaches and orientations were first born in Southeast Asia after the regionally disastrous conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia, which involved the not-yet formally independent entities of Brunei and Singapore, and the regional states the Philippines (as Indonesia's ally), and Thailand. It is possible that the origin of East Asian Peace is the approach and orientation called, the ASEAN Way. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the evolving security architecture of the Asia-Pacific region in an effort toward constructing a conceptually based taxonomy of alignment systems. The paper identifies three primary systems of alignment: alliances, security communities and strategic partnerships. First, it considers how alliances, traditionally analyzed in reference to the Cold War models of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, need re-conceptualizing to reflect the state of the current twenty first century security environment. Second, it critically considers security communities to determine the continued tenability of this concept. Thirdly, it aims to promote some conceptual clarity with respect to the widely employed but poorly understood notion of ‘strategic partnerships’ as a form of alignment. In order to empirically test and reinforce the conceptual base of the paper, the following Asia-Pacific alignments are examined as representative archetypes of these three alignment systems: the US hub/spoke ‘alliance’ network, the ASEAN ‘security community’ and the Sino-Russian ‘strategic partnership’. Through this composite conceptual-empirical process the paper seeks to advance a better conceptual understanding of the dynamic security architecture of the Asia Pacific region. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the changing characteristics of the fundamentally distrustful, conflict-ridden, and power and interest-centric international politics in Northeast Asia and their implications for the region's stability especially in the post-Cold War era. No doubt that the power and interest-centric realist paradigm maintains its explanatory dominance in capturing the lack of reconciliation or institutionalization of regional cooperation both in postwar and post-Cold War Northeast Asia. When it comes to prescribing for the lack of institutionalized multilateralism or security cooperation, however, the analytic power of realist perspective becomes "sterile." It is so because realists assume the goals, values and preferences of the units or nation states as largely fixed or determined by the anarchical international system. Such a realist paradigm has frequently led to a self-fulfilling prophecy: as if inevitably pressured by the system, states pursue their narrow and myopic national interests, further exacerbating security dilemma for all concerned. Strikingly pronounced indeed is the continued primacy of such contending national interests in Northeast Asian affairs, as manifested in the North Korean nuclear deadlock and the close integration of Japanese foreign policy with America's global anti-terror war. The present paper scrutinizes, in particular, the uniquely increasing trend in military spending in post-Cold War Northeast Asia as a way of further documenting the ominous changes as well as the problematic consequences of fallacious policy paradigms underlying the concerned state behaviors. To help prevent the security dilemma from spiraling into a slippery and perilous path of arms competition requires the concerned states and their policymakers to switch their realist assumptions, redefine their self-interests, and learn to embrace international societal norms and perspectives which build on reality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts the factors that shape soft line US security strategy in Northeast Asia with its hard line strategy in the Persian Gulf. There are structural constraints that moderate the US policy toward North Korea. These are: US-Japanese alliances, US-South Korea economic relationship, and rising China. The US policy towards Iraq, on the other hand, is hardened by the US concern to guarantee the continuous flow of oil and by its relationship with Israel. Consequently, the US has adopted appeasement and engagement policies in northeast Asia while containment, regime change, and war resolution in the Persian Gulf. The US policy in these two regions has generated a number of challenges that neither the US nor the international community is sure yet how to address them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millions of people crossing previously tightly controlled national borders in Northeast Asia each year are becoming an important element of international relations in the region, changing the economic, social, cultural, and even political landscape of the border regions of China, Japan, Mongolia, and Russia. The paper examines recent trends, current issues, and future prospects of cross-border migration and its role in promoting or threatening the development of regionalism in Northeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cumulative impact of globalization and internationalization in Europe and Asia is profound. This chapter develops its argument in several steps. Sections 1 and 2 highlight, respectively, the significance of regionalism and regionalization and of globalization and internationalization. Sections 3 and 4 illustrate the different ways that globalization, internationalization and regionalization combine to create a world of open regions. They do so by investigating cultural affairs, an issue that illustrates with particular clarity the confluence of international and global factors. Section 3 analyzes cultural diplomacy, like national security, a central prerogative of the state. Internationalization theory expects persistent national differences, illustrated here by the different approaches that the Japanese and German state have taken in this policy domain. Section 4 looks at popular culture, like finance, a preferred domain for processes that are escaping state control. Globalization theory expects convergence across nations and regions. Taken together, both sections make two claims. First, different combinations of global and international effects create open regionalism in both Europe and Asia. Second, the international and global processes that create openness are not sufficiently powerful to wash away enduring regional differences that set Asia apart from Europe. Section 5 identifies these differences. In Asia the politically defining institution is the market, typically operating along ethnic or national lines. Identity capitalism is thus the characteristic practice of Asian regionalism. Europe’s defining institution is law with its primarily regulatory effects on policies and behavior. Formal political institutions are the most typical regional practice of European regionalism. The paper’s final section 6 contrasts briefly today’s open regionalism in cultural affairs with the historical experience of closed regionalism of the 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the ninth in a series in which the political careers of civilizations/world systems receive snapshot codings of their overall power structures at feasible intervals. The narratives are produced by collating histories with large frames of ref ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion of norms in the international sphere is usually described as a process at the interface directly between countries or via international organizations which are engaged in the legitimation of particular norms. This paper looks at the role of ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief paper tries to answer the question of how the understanding of new security conditions is affecting the (re)creation of regional identity in Asia, and is an Asian Security Community possible. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the relation between the Regional Cooperation in the world developed countries and its wave reaches to the Asian region. Continuing to the EU and NAFTA, APEC, AFTA, ARF, EAEC (ASEAN+3), CER, developed quickly, and during these years, ASEAN+6 and furthermore Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO) raised swiftly in the Asian region. In this paper we would like to concentrate on the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, which was built as the biggest Regional Cooperation by the 1.5 billion population in 2001, now if the observers are included (like India, Mongolia and Iran), the population will be 2.8, the huge mega-region with Asian big countries, which have nuclear weapon, energy, power, ideology, and skepticism towards Euro-Atlantic Democracy.. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream IR theories have difficulty explaining the regional politics patterns that emerged in the post-cold war. The ‘distribution of power’ cannot explain how a state’s perception of external threats generates different policy outcomes. In the post-cold war era, regional powers’ perception of external threats is not convergent, unlike during the cold-war era. The U.S. military posture has undergone a major shift since 9/11. The concept of a ‘war on terror’, a ‘long war’, non-proliferation, and the ‘China threat’ now dominate U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. relies less on a static alliance system. Meanwhile, North Korea has been identified as a member of the ‘axis of evil’ with its WMD programs and nuclear ambition. In Northeast Asia, the regional powers’ (the members of the Six-Party Talks-South Korea, North Korea, Japan, China, Russia, and the U.S.) perceptions of the North Korean nuclear threat differ because their state identities produce different understandings of North Korea. In focusing on the U.S., South Korea and North Korea in the Six-Party Talks, this paper traces the relationship between state identity and the perception of threats, and examines how changes in state identity generate different perceptions of external threats and different foreign policy outcomes. Keywords: Perception of Threat, State Identity, Regional Security Dynamics ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of quantitative studies of the causal relations between ethnic constellations, cultural value patterns, and internal (i.e. intra-state) conflicts several lacunae exist. One particularly important concerns the methodical linking of empirical conflict data with modern conflict theories. On the one hand, empirical analysis is often not guided by theory. If theories play a part, they represent rather inductive ad hoc explanations or solutions to empirical puzzles. A research approach which has been deductively deduced from and systematically integrated into a sociological macro theory would therefore be desirable.On the other hand, theories of internal conflicts are frequently adherent to the rational choice paradigm. In order to complement the dominant, actor-centered approach, it therefore seems appropriate to search for a radically systemic theory of conflict. Existing approaches in this respect, however, either assume conflicts to be a sign of dysfunctionality - as Talcott Parsons did - or they are not useful for empirical analysis - like Niklas Luhmann's notion of conflict. The proposed paper will try to resolve some of the extant deficits by developing a theoretical model of conflict in societal systems, followed by an exemplary application of this model to the empirical situation in Asia and Oceania.On the basis of the concept of autopoietic, self-referential social systems according to Luhmann, it is possible to tie in other system-theoretical approaches into our considerations. First to be mentioned (1) is a combination of the classical principle of holarchic structures, involving suprasystems and subsystems, with the principle of holonomic structures according to David Bohm and Karl Pribram, dealing with implicate order. In addition to establishing political and socioeconomic subsystems, this procedure also allows for an entirely new approach regarding the conception of culture as the whole of the societal system being implicitly present in its parts, and thus for a well-defined localization of ethnic, religio-linguistic factors, as well.Furthermore (2), transferring the notion of dissipative systems into the context of social systems has turned out to be of considerable value for the model, which we developed to ascertain the causal links between a country's strain due to conflict and structural context factors. Dissipative systems are those which maintain their self-organized structures by emitting into their environments their inner entropy - i.e. the "mess of disorder" that has been accumulated due to the increase of their self-complexity. We assume that in societal systems this self-complexity increases because of the occurrence of conflicts. What we understand by the term of conflict is a potential state of the societal system, involving a divergence from political, socioeconomic or cultural norms inherent in the societal system. The entropy being produced by this can be exported from the emergent societal system to the underlying systems of interpersonal communication. In these social systems, then, is the approaching "low-grade" energy being autopoietically constituted in the form of physical violence as a mode of communication.Finally (3), the term of "attractor" deriving from the natural sciences, is very central for the model advanced here. An attractor is an "attractive" state for a system. Applied to conflict as a system's state this means that a conflict attractor is a location in the state space where the occurrence of conflict is probable. The dimensions of the societal state space are shaped by ethnic, political, and socioeconomic factors.The model outlined here is intended to be a frame of analysis for empirical explorations. For this purpose, the quantitative data on political conflicts from the Heidelberg database of the Conflict Information System (CONIS) have been available... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does ASEAN respond to East Asia integration? This paper first examines the mixed responses of ASEAN members to two competing proposals for East Asian integration, ASEAN+3 versus ASEAN+6. Then, I will argue that ASEAN is rejuvenating itself through institution building, so that it can maintain centrality and remain relevant to the process of East Asia integration. Such endeavors stem primarily from the fear that ASEAN would be eclipsed by extra-regional powers, namely China and Japan, both of which are increasingly exerting leadership in East Asian regionalism. In fact, ASEAN has proceeded its institution building for some time through ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the ASEAN+3 framework, and FTAs. The most significant attempt is the ASEAN Charter recently agreed upon in November 2007, which should transform ASEAN towards a more rules-based organization. Over all, East Asia integration poses both challenges and opportunities to ASEAN. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A huge worldwide wave of bank acquisitions in developing countries by industrialized countries' banks occurred in the 1990's. Latin America provided the most active game board on which bank acquisitions played out, in terms of value of acquisitions, but Asia, Central Europe and countries in other regions also saw bank sales. Financial economics has traditionally analyzed bank acquisitions from an efficiency perspective, arguing that banks are driven to exploit the efficiency gains obtained through buying other banks. But I argue, with support from recent studies in international politics, economics and banking finance, that these waves of bank privatization and acquisition are driven instead by political dynamics at the national and international levels. I propose a multilevel model, a modified "gravity model" from international economics, to explain the broad variation in cross-border bank acquisitions across developing countries. Through this model, I suggest that "closeness", measured in legal, political economic, cultural and spatial terms, promotes cross-border bank acquisition. I illustrate this model with cases from Northeast Asia and Latin America.The more controversial forms of FDI involve industries of strategic interest, of which banking is one. Banks are at the center of modern economies. Banks are monitored and governed by national and international organizations established for that purpose and they lobby these organizations. Banks are also "privately monitored" by investors and other interested parties. In short, banks and financial systems operate in a complex web of politics. Governmental actors are pulled and pushed toward banks and banks' power. They are pulled by banks' ability to deploy liquidity in productive ways, and pushed by the perceived need to regulate and monitor banking activity. I propose that cross-border bank acquisition can be examined through a multilevel model examining "attraction" between acquirer and target bank by examining national, bilateral and international factors. This paper sketches a preliminary hierarchical linear tobit model using longitudinal datasets. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractUnlike its presence in the world of politics, religion failed to take a prominent role in political science in the modern era. Recent research suggests this might be changing. It also suggests that in order to study religion scholars need datasets on the subject. This study introduces a new dataset on religious discrimination at the minority level. In this paper, first, the role of religious discrimination in the triangle of religion, equality and ethnic conflict is discussed. Second, the process of data-collection, including case selection, forming a religious discrimination index, coding and back-up coding issues, is outlined. Third, some descriptive statistics and preliminary results are presented. The statistics indicate that Western Democracies treat their religious minorities much better than Middle Eastern countries or Asian countries. Yet, the Middle East, which is considered as the most prominent example of a region with religious discrimination, does not have a significantly higher average religious discrimination value than Asia. Similarly, even though states with a Muslim majority seem to be less tolerant compared to states with a Christian majority, in states with other majority religions such as Buddhism or Hinduism, discrimination against ethnoreligious groups is present as well. Moreover, religious discrimination values for the minorities in Western Democracies increase after September 11. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a mix of expectations about how coalition politics affect the policies and decision making processes of coalition cabinets. This paper is an exploratory analysis of these expectations, using cases of foreign policy decision making in India and Turkey. While some of the expectations about decision making processes are met, (particularly in the Turkish case), specific views about the content of foreign policies are not confirmed (particularly in the Indian case). The purpose of this analysis is to build hypotheses on the conditions under which some expectations are realized and the contingency factors that intervene between alternative expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the conference paper titled "Civil-Military Relations and Foreign Policy in the United States" prepared for the "International Studies Association Convention." It examines the role of U.S. president as the civilian commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and the U.S. Congress which has a constitutional mandate to both raise and support armies and declare war. It discusses civil-military experiences of the U.S., Japan and China.

Scholars have long appreciated a variety of ways in which relations between civilian political leaders and military commanders, military forces, and military doctrines can affect foreign policy choices and behavior. Only recently, however, have scholars attempted to think about these in general theoretical terms, and for the most part they have focused their attention on civil-military relations in the United States, and primarily in the context of the Cold War. The question arises whether insights from existing work on civil-military relations can help us understand international relations in the Asia Pacific region in a post-Cold War context in which the "War on Terror," nation building, and problems of non-proliferation dominate states' foreign policy agendas. This paper and others on this panel seek to address these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past fifteen years have seen arguments from all theoretical schools predicting that Asia will very soon be riven with conflict. Indeed, so common has been this pessimistic sentiment that it could properly be called the consensus view on Asian international relations. However, in recent years, scholars have begun to criticize the pessimistic prediction. Most importantly, a number of scholars have pointed out that other Asian states do not appear to be balancing against China. This debate over the empirical evidence in Asia leads directly to questions about the theoretical models we use to explain Asia. The goal of this essay is to adduce a defensible theoretical argument for hierarchy in international relations. At the heart of my essay is a relatively simple theoretical point: power is not the only variable that matters in international relations. The preferences of states, and the manner in which they convey these preferences to other states, will have a profound effect on whether states fear each other or whether they trust each other, and whether they compete with each other or find a way to accommodate each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acording to the neoliberal conventional wisdom, international regimes promote cooperation among nations. However, such a neoliberal theory does not practically fit in Northeast Asian region. The UNCLOS regime seems unlikely promote cooperation among China, Japan, and Korea. Why does the neoliberal conventional wisdom seem not work in Northeast Asia? Rather than realist approach to explain the puzzle, historical approach is instrumental. As for the puzzle, because of the internal limit and the goal of the UNCLOS itself, the regime unlikely helps cooperation in the region. In addition, victim-nationalism, inveterate distrust, and territorial disputes among states in Northeast Asia are main obstacles in practical cooperation. These peculiar factors in Northeast Asia result from their modern history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is apology?theoretically a simple action that could mitigate a crisis situation?not utilized more frequently in interstate relations? Apologies constitute a frequent issue among Asian countries as well as in the U.S.’ bilateral relations and can generate significant internal and interstate debate. This project considers recent incidents in which China has requested an apology from the United States, and the short- and long-term impact on international peace and stability of such discussions. Two case studies will be investigated: the apology debates over the EP-3 incident of 2001, and the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade of 1999. Both cases involved significant interstate and domestic contestation over the form, content, and definition of apologies. Indeed, certain assumptions underpin predominant readings of such incidents?whether from a legal, diplomatic, realist, or political economic framework?and most of these interpretations do not take the importance of cultural processes into adequate account. Given that these states have had difficulty in constructing shared meanings of apologies, it will be necessary to examine common understandings of ‘apologies,’ and what they are thought to entail given past history. Close investigation might provide suggestions as to how such situations could be navigated more constructively in the future and thus will add to discussions of preventive diplomacy and crisis management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]