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About three-fourths of the world?s population live in the Asian region. At the same time, these countries are, to varying degrees, facing rapid demographic aging, fostering a stark increase in the absolute number of older people as well as in their percentage of the population as a whole. By the end of the twenty-first century, slightly over fifty percent of the world?s population aged sixty and over, and nearly 40 percent of those aged eighty and over lived in Asian nations; this is projected to rise to 57 percent and 48 percent, respectively, over the next twenty years. This paper analyzes elder care in various Asian nations, focusing on the role of the state, cultural and religious values promoting filial obligation, and the place of non-governmental organizations; the availability and types of retirement systems, medical care, nursing homes and long-term care community services; and the impact of rapid economic growth and Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) on the needs of older people and their care givers. The paper also addresses the relationship between political institutions (i.e., type of regime, strength of parties, presence of interest groups and organized labor, etc.) and the emergence and nature of a nation?s social welfare provision. In addition, it discusses the gender-based dimensions of poverty and economic inequality among the aged in developing Asian countries. [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]

While debates continue over the causes of the Asian crisis, several propositions have developed considerable currency. Two of these are that pegged exchange rates and the liberalization of capital controls played major roles in generating the crisis and its spread. A related argument frequently made is that the maintenance of highly restrictive controls helped countries such as China and India weather the storm. While rather widely held, these propositions have been subjected to relatively little systematic empirical analysis. The major purpose of this paper is to help fill this void. Our results offer several challenges to conventional wisdom. While it is undoubtedly true that China and India had restrictive controls and that they were not hit hard by the crisis, there could well be other causes for their insulation. For example, China had very high reserves and prior to the crisis, India had substantially increased the flexibility of its exchange rate regime. These issues need to be investigated within the framework of multi-variate analysis so that a number of possible influences can be taken into account. In this paper we draw upon a fundamentals based crisis model of the Asian and Mexican crises to examine the roles of exchange rate regimes and capital controls in the Asian crisis. We combine our formal statistical analysis with emphasis both on the conceptual foundations of the institutional measures used and on case study analysis of a number of the countries involved. Beyond the particular conclusion offered we hope that this analysis illustrates how case study and large N statistical analysis can complement each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is a government budget allocation mechanism that channels a specific portion of the national budget to the constituencies of Members of Parliament (MPs) to finance development projects. The practice, which has spread across developing countries mainly in Asia and Africa since mid-1980s, can be characterised as a distinctive form of social development because MPs are vested with a degree of authority in selecting projects. In this light, CDFs provide a unique analytical lens to examine the power dynamics between various political actors and institutions and more broadly, the nature of democracy in developing countries. This paper examines whether CDFs empower the legislature vis-à-vis the executive and, if so, why the executive gives up power to the legislature by comparing the interactions between CDFs and politics in seven countries in Asia and Africa. By proposing a typology of the politics of CDFs by identifying two major dimensions, 1) power balance between the executive and the legislature and 2) regime change, this paper argues that a CDF introduced following a regime change is likely to be a strategic tool for the executive to dissolve patronage politics controlled by former leaders and to gain support from MPs to run the new government effectively, while a CDF introduced without a regime change tends to be a preventive measure of the executive to avert a risk of losing MPs' support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) have proliferated rapidly in Asia in recent years, an unprecedented phenomenon in a region in which state-led institution-building efforts were largely unsuccessful during the Cold War years. Nevertheless, the formation of trade agreements in the region is consistent with global trends, and it is in the larger context of debate on whether such agreements constitute "building blocks" or "stumbling blocks" to multilateral trade liberalization that this paper examines the qualitative aspects of these institutional mechanisms and their impact on trade flows. In the scholarly community, research on PTAs has expanded tremendously over the last decade, reflecting the proliferation of trade agreements worldwide. By and large, however, this literature has tended to treat PTAs as homogenous in both their effects and their provisions. While some recent research has examined PTAs in terms of credible commitment, these studies have focused on specific aspects of PTAs such as dispute settlement mechanisms or escape clauses. In this paper, we investigate the provisions of reciprocal trade agreements (RTAs) in Asia, focusing our attention on those agreements that are professedly geared toward trade liberalization through reciprocal exchanges of trade concessions. We build on the concept of credible commitment, i.e., that states "tie their hands" through international agreements and thus signal strong commitment to trade liberalization to other international actors. We argue that a broad range of agreement provisions will affect an RTA's ability to achieve its primary objective, namely trade liberalization. We develop a coding scheme that measures the strength of a wide variety of provisions in the legal texts of RTAs. After weighting the different components into a single index of credibility, we apply this index to Asian RTAs to evaluate the impact of RTAs on trade flows as a function of credible commitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does the recent increase in free trade agreements (FTAs) in East Asia mean for regional trade and investment patters, and for the chances for regional cooperation? Why are East Asian governments so eager to engage in FTA negotiations? The paper argues that competition and rivalry are central elements in the on-going process of regional institution building in the realm of trade. The paper fleshes out three logics of FTA competition that create a strong incentive for FTA proliferation. In economic terms, the objectives include the desire to gain preferential access to a main market of destination; to secure non-transparent protection through rules of origin and to counter the trade discrimination effects from existing FTAs. In terms of political objectives, large countries aim to emerge as credible regional leaders, while smaller nations attempt to become FTA trade hubs to raise their visibility in the politics of international trade. Finally, the difficulty the WTO has experienced in adopting a new set of trade rules on issues such as investment protection, competition policy, and labor or environmental standards, has created an incentive for many countries to compete through their FTAs in the definition and dissemination of new rules in these areas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the overheated regional competition for energy, Northeast Asia currently faces anenergy security dilemma. South Korea and Japan, two of the largest economies in the region,are competing heavily in the energy market. By comparing South Korea and Japan's energystrategies at their governmental level, we can understand microcosm of the energy securitydilemma in Northeast Asia. This study started from a simple question of whether two countries compete in terms ofcoal policies or not. Coal is less prized in advanced industrial countries because of itsnegative aspects such as climate pollution though many developing countries find it anattractive energy source. I was wondering if coal still plays a significant role in the SouthKorean and Japanese economy, both of which are highly advanced and industrialized. The first hypothesis to be explored is, therefore, that coal is still a strategic resource toboth South Korea and Japan. The other hypothesis will be that the two countries competeagainst each other through their own coal policies. This paper will examine how importantcoal is in the two countries' economies and why coal is getting important in South Korea andJapan. In addition, this paper will analyze the similarities and differences of the twocountries' strategies for securing coal, focusing on policies regarding clean coal technology. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is analyzing the 'realist' support for the current regime as well as the support for democracy as a set of 'idealist' principles in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It is also analyzing political support for non-democratic regimes as alternatives to democratic governance. The main conclusion of this paper is that mass public support for democracy as best form of government is encompassing an absolute majority of citizens in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia and Belarus as well as a relative majority of the Russian citizens. Political support for the current regimes is declining between 1992 and 2002 and collapsing in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia. This collapse of public support for the current political regime contributed to the 'revolutions' in Georgia and Ukraine. The share of supporters for authoritarian regimes in Russia and the other post-Soviet countries decreased from about one third to one fifth of the respective electorates. ..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]

AIDS is a devastating problem for many developing countries, especially in Africa and Asia. Globally, over 40 million people have been diagnosed as HIV positive. Despite the numerous studies and reports on deaths due to AIDS, its epidemiological features, and its relationship to poverty and development, few studies to date have systematically analyzed how political factors and policies may help curtail the spread of AIDS. In this paper, we consider how a variety of domestic factors influence HIV infection rates across countries. We argue that states with higher state capacity tend to slow down the spread of HIV/AIDS epidemic. Moreover, we argue that democracies tend to be more responsive to the needs of the population and can be more efficient in curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS. We empirically evaluate our hypotheses using a cross-sectional times series sample of 117 countries. Although preliminary, our empirical results indicate that state capacity is related to levels of HIV/AIDS infection rates. There is also evidence that democracy and HIV/AIDS infection rates have a reversed U-curve relationship. More systematic research, linking infectious diseases with political variables is required to understand the impact of epidemics on state?s ability to govern and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian financial crisis ushered in a new era for the participation of civil society in the mechanisms of governance of the international economy. Following the crisis, the United Nations reasserted itself in the process as a ?partner? with the Bretton Woods financial institutions, and actively sought collaboration with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in an issue area where they had not previously been active. These activities culminated in the 2002 Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) and its follow-up activities. As the participation of NGOs grows in the FfD area, this paper considers which elements of civil society have coalesced around the UN and its organs, as well as which elements have not done so, by comparing the conference participants with the material providers of development finance. In this way, it seeks to broaden and deepen our understanding of how organized interests across issue-areas assert themselves in both the national, and international community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asia’s economic upsurge around the world had not been fully realized by the European Union (EU) by the early 1990s. Only with the end of the Cold War and the subsequent development towards stronger integration in Europe, did Europe slowly recognize emerging Asia, East Asia in particular. The EU’s 1994 New Asia Strategy proposed a far-reaching change in the EU’s policy towards this region and a first step leading to the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). As EU’s third largest trade source in Asia, Taiwan has to respond cautiously to the effects of changes to EU’s Asia policy. Owing to China’s opposition, Taiwan is not included in the ASEM framework. This will damage the EU-Taiwan relationship and weaken the island’s role in geopolitics. This paper’s main purpose is to consider the EU’s policy redirection toward East Asia and to examine the ASEM’s functions in the building of EU-Asia partnership. Taiwan’s response to this change is another focus. The EU’s New Asia Strategy is leading the EU to forge new economic participation and political ties with Asia by establishing the ASEM structure. Since 1996, the ASEM has developed a comprehensive network for interregional cooperation and dialogue. Following the APEC’s approach, ASEM 3 set an agenda to establish a free trade area between the EU and East Asia by 2025. The ASEM also successfully built a forum for pre-discussing WTO ministerial meeting issues in order to establish preliminary negotiating positions and possibly resolve anticipated conflicts. In the political arena, the EU tries to link political issues to economic cooperation. Nevertheless, a politicized ASEM process will hamper economic ties and a bilateral partnership. Lacking ties to the ASEM, Taiwan will face geopolitical and economic marginalization. Owing to China’s interference, Taiwan’s attempt to gain access to the ASEM is more likely to be reached through the less political and more flexible ‘WTO’ approach. Taiwan might also intensify business relations and establish further political contacts through the European Parliament (EP). Several pro-Taiwan resolutions recently passed by the EP justified the path. Nevertheless, sustainable economic competitiveness and development are more important to fight against marginalization in the process of EU-Asia inter-regional cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalization of finance and concomitant increase in financial crises increased the demand for a new ‘international financial architecture.’ Most of the scholarly and policy focus has centered on the role of the international financial institutions (IFIs) - the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. This paper argues that focusing on the IFIs overlooks the ability of the economic great powers to substitute governance structures as a means of advancing their common preferences. Because financial regulation produces a cleavage of interests between the developed and developing states, the developed great powers have relied on club organizations and forum-shopping among substitutable governance structures to create new modes of coordination. This argument is demonstrated by reviewing the development of new financial codes and standards in the wake of the Mexican and Asian financial crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian economic crisis ravaged numerous economies in the late 1990s. Significant social and political disruption followed the fall in Asian currency prices. The newly industrialized states of Asia were particularly hard hit, yet some also experienced swift turnarounds, reaching pre-crisis currency rates and economic output. The enduring puzzle of the crisis is the role of bureaucratic-business ties as a background cause of the crisis and determinant of governmental policy responses. In this paper, we adapt Tsebelis? veto player model to include bureaucracy as a formal actor in the adjustment process. We argue that states that minimized the control of developmental bureaucracies over finance and direct managerial decision-making weakened the institutional capacity of bureaucrats to veto adjustment policies, both before and after the 1997 crisis. Moreover, we find that a tradition of strategic regulatory guidance is associated with favorable economic performance, provided that bureaucrats had subjected private firms or state-owned enterprises to competition (or even business failure) historically, and where the risks associated with financial decisions were not socialized by the state. [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]

The diffusion of democracy has received growing and widespread attention among scholars of democratization in recent years. In quantitative testing, it is now common to control for neighbor diffusion, regional diffusion, global diffusion, or diffusion through alliances and regional international organizations. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to whether and how democratic diffusion effects are moderated. In this paper, I argue that an autocracy's material power is likely to attenuate pressures to democratize due to foreign intervention, external demonstration effects, or snowballing. Using cross-national data on democratic transitions from 1950-2008, the results suggest that democratic diffusion is strong for autocracies with little material power and influence but non-existent for powerful autocracies, as measured by the Correlates of War project's comprehensive index of national capabilities (CINC). Democratization was also more likely after the Cold War among weaker autocracies. A case study of the third wave of democratization in East Asia qualifies these quantitative findings, as it demonstrates that democratic diffusion can still topple materially capable dictatorships if U.S. influence is strong. The results have implications for China, in particular, where many authors have predicted democratization based on modernization and democratization trends in Asia but ignore the government's geopolitical size and massive investments in military power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does petroleum extraction make ethnic identities politically relevant? This paper postulates that it does. Specifically, I argue that rent-seeking possibilities and negative externalities associated with large-scale resource extraction create incentives for ethnic mobilization in petroleum-rich regions. Moreover, I hypothesize that this process should lead to the emergence of particularly small ethnic groups. These arguments are tested on the basis of a spatial research design employing geo-coded data on politically relevant ethnic groups and productive petroleum fields. Preliminary evidence suggests that there does seem to be a robust association between petroleum extraction and the emergence of small, politically mobilized ethnic groups, but the effect is confined to ex-colonial countries in South-Saharan Africa and Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines why some party systems collapse, while similar systems confronting what seem to be equally insurmountable obstacles survive. I argue that when party systems neglect their central task of linking society and the state, they lose their reason for existence and fail. Parties may provide linkage through any combination of three major strategies: programmatic representation, group-based incorporation, and clientelism. But if the major parties in the system are unable to satisfy mounting or changing demands for linkage and therefore fail to capture voter support, the party system collapses. When new demands challenge the core representational profile of a party system and the system's context undermines appropriate adaptation, linkage deteriorates and the party system fails. Using Boolean algebra and comparative historical analysis of eight cases of party system collapse and survival in Latin America, Europe and Asia, I detail how linkage disintegrates, account for party system failure in some contexts, and explain how other threatened systems have endured. I find that programmatic representation deteriorates when economic crisis occurs in a context of international policy constraints and inter-party agreements, that group-based incorporation decays when the structure or type of politically salient social cleavages transform and threaten powerful, entrenched interests, and that clientelism suffers when political reforms increase demand at the same time that parties face economic crisis and reforms cut that them off from benefits to distribute. When all types of linkage deteriorate, the entire system collapses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the relationship between the South Asian immigrant body, small-town America, and diaspora, building on research I completed on a community of South Asian immigrants in Muncie, Indiana. Gaining an understanding of this relationship requires putting the historical knowledge about the South Asian immigrant experiences in the United States into conversation with writings of U.S. history that have treated the non-white, non-European immigrant as "outside" or "other" to a making of America. At least part of the challenge lies first, however, in looking at how the history of South Asian immigration to the United States has been written - as heavily ethnographic. Ethnographic research is crucial to recovering neglected narratives of America's past. Yet, the dominance of ethnographic work in South Asian American studies has produced a body of scholarship that portrays the South Asian immigrant experience in the United States as a collection of discrete, localized experiences that may not share strong historical relationships with each other or the political and historic shaping of America. I suggest the concept of diaspora might help widen our lens for viewing America's past by showing how small American cities such as Muncie might be seen as always global. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major ASEAN+3 financial initiatives in the post-Asian Financial Crisis period has been the Asian Bond Markets Initiative. ABMI is meant to reduce regional economies' dependence on dollar-based finance, and thus their vulnerability to swings in the values of local currencies against the dollar. But puzzlingly, despite its regional basis and rationale - and very unlike the Chiang Mai Initiative - ABMI's institutional design is based fundamentally on self-paced liberalization, with actual cooperation confined to some modest cooperative research efforts and demonstration projects, plus a minimalist monitoring process. This paper explains that puzzle through a public goods analysis, in which the key questions are the degree to which gains are truly regional (or capturable) and whether a coalition can be assembled to provide the necessary backing. In the East Asian case, this translates into whether the benefits to Japanese financial institutions will move the Japanese state (the only viable candidate for solo provider of public goods) to provide sufficient initial liquidity to get the ball rolling. ..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]

This paper considers why some of the postcommunist countries of Europe and Eurasia established democratic polities while others did not and, in particular, what role the European Union may have played in the democratization of postcommunist Europe. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about a cross-national comparison of political business cycles is presented. The argument that the effects of political cycle theory is stronger in developing countries than OECD countries due to higher levels of poverty is explored. It compares the political cycles in the OECD with political cycles in Latin America, Asia and Africa using cross-sectional time-series. Results suggest that political business cycles are ubiquitous in Latin America with respect to wide variety of economic outcomes.

Deliberation councils have attracted considerable attention for their potential to inject expertise, diverse perspectives, and a deliberative space into the poliymaking process. Despite persistent criticism and considerable evolution in membership and operation, sectoral and transformative deliberation councils remain central to Japanese policymaking, though specialized councils for labor have to some extent been bypassed in recent years. Over the past quarter of a century a variety of deliberation councils directly or indirectly influenced by Japan have appeared in other Asian countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. Patterns of operation and the distribution of councils vary across countries, but in all three cases membership of women, consumers, and general interests is even thinner than in Japan, while the impact of partisan politics is more direct, pervasive, and unsettling. Regional epistemic agreement on the functional legitimacy of deliberation councils has not yet appeared, but it could in the future. [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]

Focuses on the regionalism and nationalism in Northeast Asia. Benefits of nationalism for a region; Comparison between the international organizations in Europe and Asia; Factors which affect the nationalism of Northeast Asian countries.

Due to the transnational cooperation among environmental NGOs, effective campaign was exercised against Taiwan¡¯s plan to transport nuclear waste to North Korea. Solidarity of NGOs in South Korea, Taiwan, and other parts of the world successfully deterred hazardous deal between Taiwan and North Korea during the period from 1997 to 1998. This study explores identity, stages, and successful conditions of the NGO activities on the issue. First, about identity of NGO movement on this issue, the major activities of the NGOs in this campaign were collective challenges to the states through direct action. Therefore, such campaigns by KFEM, Green Korea and Greenpeace could be considered as social movements. Second, NGOs solidarity played an important role in deterring the shipment plan in two ways. NGOs promoted the issue to the international public agenda by identifying problems and drawing the attention of the public and policymakers. Also, the solidarity of NGOs could strengthen arguments of the opposing group and weaken the position of the Taiwanese government in their public debate. Third, NGOs in Northeast Asia worked more effectively because this issue involved potential physical harm to vulnerable people in the Korean peninsula and neighboring countries. Furthermore, there were apparent and simple target states which were responsible for the potential grave danger. Finally, among actor characteristics, the vulnerability of target actors explains one of the conditions of NGO success. The government of Taiwan was vulnerable to international public opinion because it seriously attempted to overcome isolation and expand diplomatic relations and was sensitive to pressure because the gap between stated commitment and practice was undeniable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the terms transnational law and state transformations are increasingly used, we need clearer conceptual work and more empirical study. This Article sets forth and applies a socio-legal approach to the study of transnational legal processes and their effects within countries. First, the Article clarifies the concepts of transnational law, transnational legal process, transnational legal order, state change and transformation, and recursivity. Second, it provides a typology of five dimensions of state change that we can assess empirically - changes in substantive law and practice; broader shifts in the boundary between the state, the market and other forms of social ordering; changes in the architecture and allocations of authority among state institutions; the shaping of markets for professional expertise and expertise's role in governance; and shifts in normative frameworks and the accountability mechanisms and associational patterns that convey them. Third, it explains the factors that determine the variable effects of transnational legal processes and organizes these factors into three clusters, which are: the character of the transnational legal norm and order; the relation of the transnational legal order to the receiving state in terms of power and the place of intermediaries; and the affinity of the transnational legal norm with demands of domestic elites and other constituencies in light of domestic political struggles and the extent of change at stake. Fourth, it introduces five empirical studies of transnational legal processes' differential effects in six regulatory areas in Asia, Africa and South America that illustrate these points. Together they provide a guide of how to study the interaction of transnational and national legal processes, and the extent and limits of transnational legal processes' effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption that civil conflicts cluster is widespread among scholars of conflict research. Previous studies have suggested that refugee flows are one mechanism that explains this diffusion effect. However, there exists no general agreement in the conflict literature as to why this is the case. Our study aims to unwind the mechanisms that link refugee flows and conflict. We argue that the refugee flow's ethnic composition and their ties with the host community are determinant factors for conflict diffusion. Using a first-ever compiled dataset on the ethnic composition of refugees covering the Horn of Africa and Eurasia from 1975 to 2009, we show that a refugee influx can cause conflict when refugees disrupt the ethnic power balance. Refugees sharing ethnic kinship with a politically marginalized group in their host country may support that group, thereby posing a threat to the group in power, possibly resulting in conflict. Our findings suggest that a disaggregated approach towards refugee flows is essential to understand the mechanism of refugee-related conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although new and strengthened regional institutions have emerged in most regions of the global economy, institutional variation has persisted. The key dimensions of institutional variation considered here are decision rules; commitment devices, such as legalization and enfranchisement; and membership rules, which influence the success of both deepening and widening regional institutions. On these dimensions, Asian regional institutions share a common institutional design: consensus decision rules; limited delegation of authority from national governments; refusal to enfranchise non-state actors; and adoption of convoy membership rules. In addition, economics and security are not linked institutionally. Comparisons to Europe and Latin America offer explanations for the distinctiveness of Asian regional institutions. Regional characteristics-greater heterogeneity; strategic rivalries; and openness to external influence-have reinforced the existing institutional model. Dynamics of regional politics and economic integration have also contributed: peace building and economic collaboration are not linked, and demands for liberalization have been largely satisfied by unilateral measures and global commitments. Neither sovereignty costs nor the effectiveness of existing Asian institutions is a convincing explanation for Asia's distinctiveness. The likeliest route to a new model of Asian regional institutions is a calculation that the agenda of deeper integratio-creating an Asian common market- is essential to economic growth (and political survival) and that deeper integration in turn requires new regional institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is Asia lagging behind other regions in creating regional judicial institutions? What lessons from the operation of such institutions elsewhere could be valuable to Asian regional economic integration? I show that Asian states are not unusually averse to refer inter-state disputes over trade, investment, and territory to global judicial institutions. Moreover, Asian states are not unique in their reluctance to resolve regional inter-state disputes through judicial means: Regional judicial institutions elsewhere have also rarely been used to resolve inter-state disputes. The most valuable lesson for Asia from experiences elsewhere is the role that regional courts can play in resolving disputes between administrative agencies and private parties about the implementation of international law. I suggest various ways in which these lessons can be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the China's leadership and its attentions on the Indian Ocean. It discusses several facts which includes real and growing dependence on foreign supplies of oil, natural gas and other commodities through seas, Beijing, China as a greater maritime consciousness in Chinese society and impact of soft power influence on China's engagement strategy in Asia.

The article provides updates on a collaborative project that aims to develop empirical and computational models of the polities in Inner Asia from 4th century BCE until the aftermath of the Mongol empire. Noted is the significance of the documentation of the empirical patterns of the polities in Inner Asia to the validation of the simulation models of the evolution of the region. It is said that both the fundamental social system and the polities of Inner Asia originated in a mobile pastoralist economy.

The article discusses the controversies concerning history textbooks in Northeast Asia. In 2005, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade noted 51 items in the Japanese history textbooks which should be revised by the publisher. The issue of political bifurcation over history textbooks is not new in Japan. According to the article, there is much effort to redress the woes over the Japanese history textbooks. It notes that joint colloquia among the historians have produced textbooks which contain neutralized pedagogical contents.

The article examines how central states practiced the balance of power in historical China and why this mechanism was weak at controlling the rise of the Middle Kingdom. China Proper, the maximum territorial reach achieved by the Qin dynasty in 214 BC, formed a unified empire for only 980 years due to the prevalence of civil wars and armed rebellions throughout Chinese history. According to the author, China did not always enjoy supremacy in historical Asia.

Political thought is rich in Asia. The West has jut not recognized it. An encounter with this political thought permits us to comparatively examine the development of such core Western concepts as democracy, freedom, and equality. In this essay, we find that Asian political thought emerged from a different historical context than in the West. This context was one of the three chronological waves of classic Asia's "galactic polities," its agonizing subjugation to Western colonialism, and its modern search for an authentic, independent political voice. Plied through these three contextual waves, such Western developed concepts as democracy, freedom, and equality undergo a reframing and even a re-naming in an examination of their evolution in Asia in enriching ways for both the East and the West. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is there no NATO in Asia? Rationalists and constructivists debate over the impact of power, institution, and identity in explaining this highly contested question. We introduce a new argument embedded in prospect theory from political psychology—a prospect-threat alliance model—to account for the variation of U.S. alliance strategy in Europe and Asia after Word War II. Through setting the threat level as a reference point for leaders' prospects of gains or losses, the prospect-threat alliance model argues that (1) high threats place decision makers in a domain of loss and multilateral alliances become a favorable alliance choice because states are more likely to take the risk of constraining their freedom of action for more help from multiple allies; (2) low threats, on the other hand, position leaders in a domain of gain and bilateral alliances win out because states are risk-averse in terms of maintaining their freedom of action in seeking security through alliances. U.S. policy toward NATO and SEATO after World War II are two case studies to test the validity of the prospect-threat alliance model. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen a rapid rise in the number of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) proposed and signed by Asian countries. What are the principal factors behind this sudden interest in bilateral FTAs in Asia? To address this question, we have collected data on all FTA projects in the Asian region. Our data include both those agreements that have been completed, and those that have been considered formally at some level. We hypothesize that the variables associated with the successful completion of an agreement may be quite different from the factors that lead an agreement to be proposed—or even negotiated—in the first place. In this preliminary analysis, we focus on general welfare considerations and the salience of domestic political constraints as important factors affecting the formation of bilateral FTAs. We find support for the effects of openness, a proxy for the domestic strength of protectionist economic interests. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northeast Asian countries have been engaged in disputes over history. While their historical contentions have caused suspicions and frictions among them, I argue that they have also served as a medium of dialogue that helps establish a common understanding about the individual countries' contemporary reality and future direction. Historical contentions contribute to such a dialogue if and only if two conditions are met: regional actors recognize each other as legitimate participants in a dialogue about the salient past; and they contend over the past within a common framework of meaning. In the immediate post-war period, the region's order began as a collection of parallel national spheres where the region's actors remained within a common framework but without recognizing others' legitimacy. Northeast Asia, through historical contentions in the 1980s and 1990s, produced an embryonic form of a regional public sphere that made possible transnational communications about the region's future and each nation's desires, but it now stands at a fork between strengthening the regional public sphere and fracturing it into a contentious regional sphere. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we provide a preliminary theory of international cooperation in migration. We argue that there are three preconditions for migration cooperation to occur: the presence of wealth disparities between nations, labor market shortages, and migration flows between host and home countries. States confronting these conditions that are able to control flows unilaterally and effectively have no reason to negotiate international agreements. Where states are unable to control flows unilaterally, the impetus to negotiate international agreements increases as the state costs of providing public and private goods to migrants increases. These agreements are likely to be bilateral (between the host country or host region such as the European Union and home country) and the terms of the agreement and the gains from migration are subject to market power. When host countries face unlimited (unskilled) labor supplies, they are essentially oligopsonists, and are able to set the terms of the agreement. We assess migration cooperation in Asia, focusing on Australia and New Zealand, to provide evidence consistent with our hypotheses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the cold war, U.S. strategists have suggested four strategies for the hegemon, hegemonic dominion, selective engagement, offshore balancing, and multilateralism. Rather than debating which strategy is the best for the U.S. all the time, this research focuses on examining which policy is more likely to be chosen by the hegemon—the United States—under different strategic conditions through a new neoclassical realist argument—a power-perception hegemonic model. I argue that (1) U.S. foreign policy depends on how U.S. policymakers perceive U.S. hegemonic status in the international system; (2) under rising and stable hegemony, selective engagement and hegemonic dominion are two possible power-maximization strategies given the weak security constraints from the system; (3) under declining hegemony, offshore balancing and multilateralism are more likely to be chosen by U.S. policymakers to pursue security because of resumed security imperative from anarchy. U.S. policy toward Asia after the cold war is a case study to test the validity of the power-perception hegemon model. I conclude that U.S. policymakers should be ready for life after Pax-Americana and the early implementation of offshore balancing and multilateralism may facilitate the soft-landing of declining U.S. hegemony. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's recent experiment in promoting democracy and free market capitalism in East Central Europe suggests that external actors can significantly affect political and economic reform. In contrast to the European Union's pro-democracy position, Russia's support for authoritarian regimes in Belarus and the Ukraine illustrates that external actors can also assist authoritarian regimes. How do external actors influence regime change? What are the mechanisms through which international pressure changes the regime?Based on field research in Slovakia and secondary research on Belarus and Romania, I theorize that external actors can influence regime change through four different mechanisms. 1) The external actors can use incentives (e.g. EU membership) and/or sanctions (e.g. barriers to trade) to influence the regime preferences of the economic elite. 2) External actors, through offering incentives and unifying issues, can assist the pro-democratic opposition political parties in cooperating and thereby making them a viable alternative to the illiberal government. 3) External actors, through international scrutiny and election monitoring, can increase the costs for the non-democratic elite of repressing democratic opposition movements and political parties. 4) International financial and technical support for domestic civil society organizations may increase domestic pressure to democratize. Increased public pressure for democratization may change elite calculations about the costs of repressing democratization. The first mechanism can either promote democratization or help consolidate authoritarian regimes. The last three mechanisms only encourage democratization. International pressure has the highest likelihood of influencing democratization when all four mechanisms occur.A deeper understanding of how external actors influence regime change may help policy-makers and scholars develop better expectations about the likelihood of success of American and European programs promoting political and economic reform in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article argues that the projected U.S. national missile defense (NMD) has less to do with a vital defense against the stated nuclear missile threats than U.S. primacy and therefore, with NMD, it is likely for the public to see more instability in regional politics in Northeast Asia. From the perspective of realism, security threats in international relations are inevitable unless the international system itself changes. Power resources available to a state determine how the state acts in response to international incentives or threats.

The article presents a study which synthesized previous accounts on domestic institutions and sovereign debt in order to derive and test several hypotheses regarding debt default in selected Latin American and Asian counties from 1980 to 1999. A history of international debt crises and periodic incidences of defaults from 1820s to 2003 is chronicled. The author concluded that the political constraints matter regardless of the quantity of available financial resources to pay the debt of international institutions such a the International Monetary Fund.

The article presents a study which examines the cooperative leadership role of Japan in international affairs. The country's role in the formation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the Cambodian peace process in 1991, the Asian financial crisis and its aftermath from 1997 to 1998, and the war in Iraq in 2003 are assessed. The characterization of Japanese leadership is elaborated concluding that the country exercises the role through intellectual means.

We investigate risk-sharing networks in order to better understand the high volatility experienced by many developing countries. We introduce a new methodology based on random matrix theory to study how networks between companies in Asia, the Middle East, and South America propagate idiosyncratic volatility and aggregate the shocks at the level of an industry sector, country or region. Our evidence uncovers dense regional networks that cross national boarders and enable risk-sharing on the regional level; and we are able to identify the central roles played by regional economic powers such as China and India in Asia. The extent of overlap in the networks we identify suggests that idiosyncratic shocks may be a much larger determinant of volatility in the developing world than previously thought. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]