bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Fractional Moments of Solutions to Stochastic Recurrence Equations
Authors: Mikosch Thomas , Samorodnitsky Gennady , Tafakori Laleh
Published: March 2016

In this paper we study the fractional moments of the stationary solution to the stochastic recurrence equationXt=AtXt−1+Bt,t∈Z, where ((At,Bt))t∈Zis an independent and identically distributed bivariate sequence. We derive recursive formulae for the fractional moments E|X0|p,p∈R. Special attention is given to the case whenBthas an Erlang distribution. We provide various approximations to the moments E|X0|pand show their performance in a small numerical study.
Convergence Rates in the Implicit Renewal Theorem on Trees
Authors: Jelenković Predrag R. , Olvera-Cravioto Mariana
Published: March 2016

We consider possibly nonlinear distributional fixed-point equations on weighted branching trees, which include the well-known linear branching recursion. In Jelenković and Olvera-Cravioto (2012), an implicit renewal theorem was developed that enables the characterization of the power-tail asymptotics of the solutions to many equations that fall into this category. In this paper we complement the analysis in our 2012 paper to provide the corresponding rate of convergence.
What attachment to peace? Exploring the normative and material dimensions of local ownership in peacebuilding
Authors: Lemay-Hébert Nicolas , Kappler Stefanie
Published: March 2016

The peacebuilding and academic communities are divided over the issue of local ownership between problem-solvers who believe that local ownership can ‘save liberal peacebuilding’ and critical voices claiming that local ownership is purely a rhetorical device to hide the same dynamics of intervention used in more ‘assertive’ interventions. The article challenges these two sets of assumptions to suggest that one has to combine an analysis of the material and normative components of ownership to understand the complex ways in which societies relate to the peace that is being created. Building on the recent scholarship on ‘attachment’, we claim that different modalities of peacebuilding lead to different types of social ‘attachment’ – social-normative and social-material – to the peace being created on the part of its subjects.
Numerical modeling of radiative recombination during ionization of atoms by means of particle-in-cell simulation
Authors: Khalilzadeh E. , Yazdanpanah J. , Jahanpanah J. , Chakhmachi A.
Published: March 2016

In this paper, a heuristic algorithm based on particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation is introduced to investigate the harmonic generation during the ionization and formation of plasma by a non-relativistic laser field when it propagates through hydrogen atoms. The harmonic generation is considered for the radiative recombination of an ionized electron with its nearest ion. The ionization algorithm is improved by considering the Stark effect and nonzero velocity for ionized electrons. Energy conservation is evaluated during the recombination process. In our code, for the first time, Maxwell's equations are integrated for harmonic fields in a separate mesh using the artificial recombination current as a source term. The simulation results are then used to illustrate the intensity spectrum of generated fields. It is shown that the initial momentum of ionized electrons affects the harmonic spectrum because the energy of radiated photons varies with the electron energy.
Psychosocial Constructs as Possible Moderators of Self-Reported Driving Restrictions
Authors: Jouk Alexandra , Sukhawathanakul Paweena , Tuokko Holly , Myers Anita , Naglie Gary , Vrkljan Brenda , Porter Michelle M. , Rapoport Mark , Marshall Shawn , Mazer Barbara , Man-Son-Hing Malcolm , Korner-Bitensky Nicol , Gélinas Isabelle , Bédard Michel ,   on behalf of the Candrive II Research Team
Published: March 2016

Les associations entre les variables psychosociaux et les comportements de conduite ont été examinés seulement en coupe transversale à ce jour. Dans cette étude, nous avons utilisé trois vagues de données recueillies chaque année de 928 conducteurs âgés (âge moyen = 76.21 ans; 62% d'hommes) s'inscrits pour la cohorte Candrive II, afin de déterminer si des changements dans les attitudes et les perceptions à l'égard de conduire (l'équilibre décisionnel et le confort à la conduite de jour comme de nuit) ont été associés à des limitations à la conduite rapportées chez les aînés et de leurs capacités perçues à conduire. Des modèles à plusieurs niveaux ont révélé que plus de personnes âgées qui ont montré une augmentation des attitudes négatives à l'égard de conduite étaient plus susceptibles de déclarer la pratique de plus en plus restreinte (on évite souvent des situations difficiles de conduite) et des baisses perçues dans la capacité de conduire, par rapport aux individus dont les attitudes envers la conduite restaient stable au cours de deux années. Ce travail confirme les résultats précédents et offre une nouvelle compréhension de la façon dont les attitudes ont trait aux perceptions de conduite (c'est-à-dire, le confort), et l'auto-régulation chez les personnes âgées au fil du temps.
Cognitive Performance, Driving Behavior, and Attitudes over Time in Older Adults
Authors: Rapoport Mark J. , Sukhawathanakul Paweena , Naglie Gary , Tuokko Holly , Myers Anita , Crizzle Alexander , Korner-Bitensky Nicol , Vrkljan Brenda , Bédard Michel , Porter Michelle M. , Mazer Barbara , Gélinas Isabelle , Man-Son-Hing Malcolm , Marshall Shawn ,   for the Candrive Research Team
Published: March 2016

Nous avons théorisé que les changements au fil du temps dans les performances cognitives sont associés à des changements dans les perceptions, les attitudes et les comportements d’auto-régulation des personnes âgées qui conduisent. Les adultes âgés en bonne santé (n = 928) ont subi les évaluations cognitives au début avec deux suivis annuels subséquents, et ils ont rempli des formulaires avec des échelles qui mesurent leurs perceptions, les attitudes et les comportements de conduite. L’analyse multivariée montre des petites relations, mais statistiquement significatives, entre les tests cognitifs et les mesures qui ont été auto-déclarée, les plus grandes amplitudes entre les scores étant sur les sentiers B tâche cognitive (secondes), la perception de la capacité de conduire (β = 0,32), et l’évasion des situations de conduite (β = 0,55) (p <0,05). Selon cette analyse exploratoire, le ralentissement cognitif et le dysfonctionnement exécutif semblent être associés aux capacités à conduire perçues d'être modestement inférieurs et à l’évitement accru des situations de conduite au fil du temps.
Comparison of QOL between patients with different degenerative dementias, focusing especially on positive and negative affect
Authors: Kurisu Kairi , Terada Seishi , Oshima Etsuko , Horiuchi Makiko , Imai Nao , Yabe Mayumi , Yokota Osamu , Ishihara Takeshi , Yamada Norihito
Published: March 2016

Background:

Quality of life (QOL) has become an important outcome measure in the care of dementia patients. However, there have been few studies focusing on the difference in QOL between different dementias.

Methods:

Two-hundred seventy-nine consecutive outpatients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) or frontotemporal dementia (FTD) were recruited. The QOL was evaluated objectively using the QOL Questionnaire for Dementia (QOL-D).The QOL-D comprises six domains: positive affect, negative affect and actions, communication, restlessness, attachment to others, and spontaneity. General cognition, daily activities, and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia were also evaluated.

Results:

The scores of positive affect of QOL-D of AD patients were significantly higher than those of patients with DLB or FTD (AD 3.1 ± 0.8, DLB 2.6 ± 0.9, FTD 2.6 ± 0.7). The scores of negative affect and action of QOL-D of FTD patients were significantly higher than those of patients with AD or DLB (FTD 2.0 ± 0.8, AD 1.4 ± 0.5, DLB 1.5 ± 0.6). The apathy scores of FTD and DLB patients were significantly higher than those of patients with AD. The disinhibition scores of FTD patients were significantly higher than those of patients with AD or DLB.

Conclusions:

The apathy of FTD and DLB patients and depression of DLB patients might affect the lower positive affect of FTD and DLB patients compared to AD patients. The disinhibition of FTD patients might affect the abundance of negative affect & actions in FTD patients compared to AD and DLB patients.
EMISSION TAXES AND STANDARDS IN A GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM WITH PRODUCTIVITY DISPERSION AND ABATEMENT
Authors: Li Zhe , Shi Shouyong
Published: March 2016

We incorporate emission into a general equilibrium model with rich dispersion in productivity among monopolistically competitive plants. Emission is modeled as a by-product of goods production. An abatement technology is available to the plants for reducing emission. We compare an emission tax with an emission intensity standard. The tax is shown to dominate the standard in welfare for all values of market power if either productivity is sufficiently dispersed or the abatement technology is not effective. On the other hand, if productivity dispersion is small and the abatement technology is effective, there exists sufficiently strong market power so that the standard will dominate the tax in welfare. Even in the case where the standard unambiguously induces a higher output of dirty goods than the tax, the general equilibrium framework is necessary for ranking the two policies in welfare.
Frosting on the cake: pictures on food packaging bias serving size
Authors: Brand John , Wansink Brian , Cohen Abby
Published: March 2016

Objective

Food packaging often pictures supplementary extras, such as toppings or frosting, that are not listed on the nutritional labelling. The present study aimed to assess if these extras might exaggerate how many calories† are pictured and if they lead consumers to overserve.

Design

Four studies were conducted in the context of fifty-one different cake mixes. For these cake mixes, Study 1 compared the calories stated on the nutrition label with the calories of the cake (and frosting) pictured on the box. In Studies 2, 3 and 4, undergraduates (Studies 2 and 3) or food-service professionals (Study 4) were given one of these typical cake mix boxes, with some being told that cake frosting was not included on the nutritional labelling whereas others were provided with no additional information. They were then asked to indicate what they believed to be a reasonable serving size of cake.

Settings

Laboratory setting.

Subjects

Undergraduate students and food-service professionals.

Results

Study 1 showed that the average calories of cake and frosting pictured on the package of fifty-one different cake mixes exceed the calories on the nutritional label by 134 %. Studies 2 and 3 showed that informing consumers that the nutritional information does not include frosting reduces how much people serve. Study 4 showed that even food-service professionals overserve if not told that frosting is not included on the nutritional labelling.

Conclusions

To be less misleading, packaging should either not depict extras in its pictures or it should more boldly and clearly state that extras are not included in calorie counts.
HYMAN KAPLAN AND THE G*L*O*B*A*L P*O*V*E*R*T*Y L*I*N*E
Authors: Subramanian Sreenivasan
Published: March 2016

There is a surprising amount of philosophy (in terms of both values and logic) underlying the way we choose to measure poverty, including in the matter of the seemingly uncomplicated task of specifying an income poverty line. The present essay examines some of these issues of fact, value, and reasoning as they apply to the enterprise of assessing magnitudes of, and trends in, global money-metric poverty.
Roundtable Discussion of Richard J. Samuels'sMachiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan
Authors: Pempel T. J. , Garon Sheldon , Kato Junko , Tiberghien Yves , Samuels Richard J.
Published: March 2016

Richard Samuels's bookMachiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japanraises a number of important issues concerning political leadership and the role individual leaders can play in a nation's history. The book won the 2003 Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies and the 2004 Jervis-Schroeder Prize for the best book in International History and Politics, awarded by the International History and Politics section of the American Political Science Association. This is a roundtable involving four critical essays and the author's response. Discussion centers on the book, its methods, its broader applicability, and the ways in which it dovetails with other intellectual concerns, particularly as these apply to contemporary East Asia.
Communication Networks and Changes in Electoral Choices: A Study of Taiwan's 2002 Mayoral Elections
Authors: Liu Cheng-shan
Published: March 2016

Communication networks play an important role in the process of political socialization. This article, based on Taiwan's 2002 Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral election data, investigates the extent to which political discussion with family and close friends affects changes in vote choices. Using two definitions of changes in vote choice—vote switching and partisan defection—the empirical findings support Alan Zuckerman and his followers' structural theory and partially sustain Paul Beck's social support theory. First, partisan voters in both cities who perceive great heterogeneity in their communication networks are likely to switch their vote in two consecutive elections. Second, partisan voters in Kaohsiung who frequently discuss politics within communication networks are not likely to defect their party identification. The implications of the findings for the development of deliberative democracy are discussed.
The Northeast Asian Regional Context for Environmentalism: Assessing Environmental Goals against Other Priorities in the 1990s
Authors: Rozman Gilbert
Published: March 2016

Environmental goals are linked to regionalism, but they are often a low priority for advocates of nationalism. Early in the 1990s idealists assumed that reallocations of money, newly active social movements, and a lively process of regionalism would boost environmentalism to one of the top priorities across Northeast Asia. Soon they found, as regionalism floundered, that countries did not have a strong commitment to the environment and some showed little concern. In a region where state-centered development and national dignity remain powerful concerns, environmental hopes rest on gradual acceptance as a secondary theme as part of balanced regionalism. After fading before great power competition in 1996–99, regionalism made a partial comeback in 2000. Hopes for environmental cooperation rest on new gains for regionalism, but strains in the summer of 2001 suggest that progress will be slow.
Restructuring Environmental Policy in Japan: The 1990s and Beyond
Authors: Akaha Tsuneo
Published: March 2016

Japan's environmental policy has shifted its focus from domestic pollution control in the 1960s and 70s to global environmental policy initiatives in the 1990s, most visibly demonstrated by its hosting of the Kyoto conference on global warming in 1997. This article reviews the nation's effort to restructure its environmental administration and policy since the 1990s and assesses its promises and shortcomings. The discussion includes administrative reform and its impact on environmental policy, Japan's domestic and diplomatic responses to global warming, environmental ODA, and the public's environmental consciousness. It concludes that the administrative restructuring that took place at the beginning of 2001 is but one part of the change Japan needs to undergo in order to realize its goal of sustainable development at home and to live up to the promises its environmental diplomacy has made, including the successful implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.
International Relations Studies in South Korea
Authors: Moon Chung-in , Kim Taehwan
Published: March 2016

In this paper, we review and summarize recent trends of international relations studies in South Korea on three distinct dimensions and, on the basis of this, suggest future directions of research in the field. Our focus throughout the paper is on the constraints and opportunities for the development of indigenous international relations theories and models. Although the confrontational Cold War legacy on the Korean Peninsula sustains the validity of the powerful realist paradigm, we argue that critical challenges are breathing a new life into the academic field of international relations in a time of great change when a new global and regional order has been taking shape since the end of the Cold War. In order to accommodate these new changes and call attention to epistemological pluralism, we posit liberal constructivism, which combines liberalism with constructivism, as a new epistemological alternative to the existing lines of international relations theories. Given the opportunities and intellectual resources, we conclude, the future of the discipline of international relations in South Korea is quite promising.
The Sociology of a Not-So-Integrated Discipline: The Development of International Relations in Japan
Authors: Inoguchi Takashi
Published: March 2016

Stimulated by Ole Waever's (1998) examination of American and European developments in International Relations, this article examines the growth of the discipline of international relations in Japan, focusing on the major currents of the social science tradition since 1868 and the intellectual agenda of international relations since 1945. Postwar scholarship has reflected the main themes and questions of Japanese history — the causes of war, the struggle for peace, Japan's place in the world and Asia, and Japan's role in the Cold War. To an extent, the organization and substance of IR teaching and scholarship in Japan can be explained by reference to certain sociological and historical variables. Discussions about methodology have not mirrored the “great debates” of the United States, but the younger scholars are moving closer to the American pattern. Recent exposure to and interaction with American scholarship has become increasingly visible, allowing Japanese scholars to make important contributions to debates in the US.
The China Factor in the U.S.-Japan Alliance: The Myth of a China Threat
Authors: Soeya Yoshihide
Published: March 2016

This paper argues that “China threat” was largely a myth and that the China factor was not the critical factor leading to the re-affirmation process of the U.S.-Japan alliance in the mid-1990s. It took the 1994 Korean crisis for this to materialize. The China factor was important only as a general background, and the role of the U.S.-Japan alliance in dealing with the rise of China was implicit, remaining in the domain of managing shifting major power relations after the Cold War rather than being directed against the myth of a “China threat.” The paper also argues that preoccupation with Japan as an independent security pole is an important source of confusion about the nature of Japan's security policies and its profile therein, which, as before, will continue to be premised on the U.S.-Japan alliance. It explains actual records of Japanese security behaviors as a series of attempts to cope with the dual identity as a security actor. Japan's readjustment to the post-Cold War security environment, founded upon the re-affirmation of the U.S.-Japan alliance, was a clear case in point.
The “Legacy Problem” and Democratic Consolidation in South Korea and the Philippines
Authors: Lee Nae Young
Published: March 2016

New democracies face the arduous task of determining how to deal with gross human rights violations committed during their authoritarian pasts, or the “torturer problem,” to quote Samuel P. Huntington (1991). A new democracy can enhance its legitimacy if it brings human rights violators to justice, thus demonstrating the supremacy of democratic values, including the rule of law. By ensuring that no wrongdoer will go unpunished, the democratic regime prevents the danger of a future military coup d'état and future human rights abuses. Equally critical, it strengthens the power base of democratic forces by delegitimizing or even occasioning a purge of key authoritarian leaders, who often wield influence within the institutions of power, including the military, even after democratic transition. Punishing past wrongdoings constitutes an act of preempting a democratic reversal. In this sense, the question of the past becomes a struggle over power with today's authoritarian forces and for the future of third-wave democracy.
Budget Review in the National Assembly of Democratic Korea
Authors: Park Chan Wook
Published: March 2016

Although Korea has made significant strides to strengthen its democratic system since the successful transition in the late 1980s as part of the “third wave” of global democratization, a look into the process of making budgetary policy in the National Assembly would suggest that Korean democracy is far from consolidation. Korean politics has shed itself for the most part of its authoritarian past, when the military was the main conduit of action and oppression. The principle of free, regular, and fair competition has taken root as the procedural norm in both national and local elections. Korean citizens enjoy civil liberties to a degree unprecedented in the authoritarian era, and civil society transformed into an increasingly open, transparent, and pluralistic field of political action.
The Politics of the Dokdo Issue
Authors: Choi Sung-jae
Published: March 2016

The Dokdo issue has constituted a popular area of academic enquiry in both Korea and Japan, but few studies have extended their research parameters beyond the question of who is the rightful owner of this island. Whatever the legal merits of competing claims to Dokdo, the Dokdo issue has expanded to represent an important political focus in the domestic affairs of both states, and it remains an omnipresent irritant in Korea-Japan relations. A full understanding of this complex issue cannot be gained simply through legal and historical argument. With the aim of overcoming these existing inadequacies in the academic coverage of Dokdo, this article attempts to identify the dynamics in which extralegal and extrahistorical factors have interacted and complicated this contentious issue.
Signaling Democracy: Patron-Client Relations and Democratization in South Korea and Poland
Authors: Yeo Andrew
Published: March 2016

Facing massive protests, why did incumbent regimes in both South Korea and Poland repress movements for democratization in the early 1980s but make democratic concessions to the opposition in the late 1980s? I demonstrate how the United States and the Soviet Union as superpower patron states influenced democratic transitions in South Korea and Poland. The different outcomes across time are partially attributed to superpower policies toward their client states. Absent in 1980 were strong, credible signals from the United States and the Soviet Union to their respective client states to support political liberalization. But in the late 1980s superpowers affected the calculus of client state elites by either signaling or encouraging governments to make concessions to the opposition.
Labor Rights in East Asia: Progress or Regress?
Authors: Caraway Teri L.
Published: March 2016

This article examines the impact of recent economic and political change on collective and individual labor rights in East Asia. Deploying a new index for measuring de jure and de facto labor rights, the article presents new comparative data on labor rights in the region. Democratization has produced stronger collective labor rights in much of the region, but labor laws in most countries still fall far short of international labor standards. East Asia's labor laws offer similar levels of protection for individual labor rights to the rest of the world when firing costs are taken into account, and low regional averages are primarily an effect of Singapore's extremely weak individual labor rights. Few countries have revised their labor laws in the direction of greater labor market flexibility. However, the distance between law and practice is wide, so improvements in laws are not necessarily reflected on the ground. Flexibility enters through the back door of ineffective labor law enforcement, which in turn has affected the organizing efforts of unions.
The Disbursement Pattern of Japanese Foreign Aid: A Reappraisal
Authors: Tuman John P. , Strand Jonathan R. , Emmert Craig F.
Published: March 2016

Three perspectives on the determinants of Japan's official development assistance (ODA) program are often represented as distinct, valid explanations of the aid program. Yet few studies have attempted to simultaneously test the hypotheses generated from all three perspectives in a global study of Japanese aid flows. This study seeks to improve the understanding of the Japanese ODA program by addressing some of the gaps in the existing literature. Providing a comprehensive analysis, the article investigates the effects of different political and economic variables on Japanese aid disbursement in eighty-six countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East from 1979 to 2002. The findings of the study make several contributions to the literature. First, the results provide strong support for the claim that humanitarian concerns, as measured by poverty and human rights conditions in recipient countries, are important determinants of aid allocation. Second, although much of the previous literature has hypothesized that Japan's aid program seeks to promote Japan's economic interests, little empirical support for this view is found in the present study. Likewise, the disbursement pattern of ODA was associated with only a limited number of US security interests; US economic interests are shown to have no effect on ODA.
Out of the Gray: The Impact of Provincial Institutions on Business Formalization in Vietnam
Authors: Malesky Edmund , Taussig Markus
Published: March 2016

Scholars have long argued that institutional context significantly influences business strategy and economic performance. Research on the relationship between institutions and business strategy, however, has overwhelmingly focused on the decisions of larger, established corporations, mostly neglecting the strategic thinking of smaller, more entrepreneurial ventures. This article seeks to correct this bias by focusing the analysis directly on the critical decision of small-scale entrepreneurs to move from the informal and largely unregulated sector into operation as formal companies. Using a unique dataset and ranking of provincial governance institutions from Vietnam, the authors show that improvements in institutions make firms more likely to choose the formal sector from the start and, for those who do not, to spend less time in the informal sector. The study also finds that property rights have a more salient impact on formalization than other types of institutions.
Soft Balancing, Hedging, and Institutional Darwinism: The Economic-Security Nexus and East Asian Regionalism
Authors: Pempel T. J.
Published: March 2016

East Asia has increased its formal institutional linkages in both the economic and security arenas. This article addresses three questions concerning this expansion. First, why has the number of institutions increased? Second, why is there so little overlap in the purposes and memberships of these many new bodies? Third, why have most regional institutions achieved such limited policy successes? The article demonstrates that the bulk of the neweconomicinstitutions represent collective responses to generalized pressures from globalized finance, whereas the newsecuritybodies deal with regionally endogenous problems of a highly particularistic character. Furthermore, most regional bodies in East Asia still reflect the preeminence of individual state strategies rather than any collective predisposition toward multilateralism per se. East Asian regionalism thus represents a complex “ecosystem” of institutions whose future is likely to see the enhancement of some and the diminution of others through a process referred to here as “institutional Darwinism.”
The Decline of Particularism in Japanese Politics
Authors: Noble Gregory W.
Published: March 2016

Particularistic spending has played a storied role in Japanese politics, but during the last decade of LDP rule, expenditures on roads, bridges, agricultural projects, and the like steadily lost ground to more programmatic outlays on social welfare, science and technology, and public order (but not defense or foreign aid). Prime Minister Koizumi played an important role in this shift, but the trends preceded him and continued under his much weaker successors. The end of the Cold War, increasing foreign investment, and the weakness of the domestic economy probably played mostly minor roles in the decline of particularism. The aging of Japanese society, not least in rural areas, created direct pressure for programmatic spending, while partisan upheaval, the growing share of floating voters, and reforms to the electoral and administrative systems created both an incentive and a greater capacity to redirect attention to the concerns of median voters.
Political Connections and Firm Performance:
The Case of Hong Kong
Authors: Wong Stan Hok-Wui
Published: March 2016

Business interests are overrepresented in
Hong Kong's nominally democratic political
institutions. Many in Hong Kong perceive this as
evidence of the existence of “collusion between
government and business,” a phenomenon that has
stirred public concerns in the city since its
sovereignty transfer. Although anecdotal accounts
abound, no systematic analysis has been conducted
to evaluate the validity of this perception. In
this article I use a rich firm-level dataset to
offer the first systematic assessment of the
effects of political connections on firm
performance in Hong Kong. I define politically
connected firms as firms that have stakeholders
concurrently holding a seat on the Election
Committee, a constitutional body that elects the
city's chief executive. I found evidence, though
not overwhelming, consistent with the “collusion”
hypothesis: political connections do improve firm
performance measured by return on equity and
market-to-book ratio. The improvement is unlikely
due to unobserved confounding factors such as
firms' inherent ability. As for the origin of the
political connections, the data show that a firm's
economic power has little predictive value of its
connections to the Election Committee. Rather,
number of employees matters; firms that hire fewer
workers were more likely to gain a seat on the
1997 Election Committee. This result may suggest
that Beijing plays a more dominant role in the
formation of political connections—that serve
Beijing's co-optation needs rather than the
interests of powerful firms that may have a desire
to “capture” the state.
Do Asian Values Exist? Empirical Tests of the Four Dimensions of Asian Values
Authors: Kim So Young
Published: March 2016

The Asian values debate has been long on speculative advocacy but short on empirical validation, with statistical tests emerging only lately. This study explores two questions: whether Asians indeed hold distinct cultural attitudes when compared with non-Asians and whether these cultural attitudes and beliefs identified as Asian values form coherent dimensions among Asians. The study first identifies four dimensions of Asian values based on a review of various Asian values discourses: familism, communalism, authority orientations, and work ethic. The findings from the empirical analysis based on multilevel models and factor analysis return mixed support for the Asian values hypothesis. Although East Asian respondents do exhibit strong work-related values compared with those from other regions, commitment to familial values and authoritarian orientations are actually lower among East Asians. Also, while preference for strong leadership and parental duty do turn out to form distinct sets of attitudes among South and Southeast Asians, the four dimensions do not constitute a clear value complex in the minds of East Asians.
Occupy Congress in Taiwan: Political Opportunity, Threat, and the Sunflower Movement
Authors: Ho Ming-sho
Published: March 2016

In opposition to a free trade pact with China, Taiwan's Sunflower Movement erupted in spring 2014 and occupied the national legislature for twenty-four days. Drawing from the recent debates on the relation between social movements and the state, I elaborate a revised polity model that focuses on the effects of elite disunity, threat, and movement strategy. The Sunflower Movement originated from a tactical misstep by the ruling party that created an immediate sense of threat from proposed closer economic ties with China, thereby facilitating protest mobilization. Student protesters were able to seize the national legislature because of an internal split within the ruling party and support from the opposition party. However, the failure to further exploit these favorable opportunities exposed the movement to government repression. Fortunately for the movement, the disunity among elites helped the activists manage a dignified exit, which they could claim as a success.
Removing Boundaries, Losing Connections: Electoral Consequences of Local Government Reform in Japan
Authors: Horiuchi Yusaku , Saito Jun , Yamada Kyohei
Published: March 2016

In this article we examine the role of local politicians in affecting national-level election outcomes by focusing on the drastic municipal mergers in Japan that took place in the early 2000s. Specifically, we argue that the political party that relies most extensively on local politicians' efforts for electoral mobilization and monitoring will suffer an electoral slump when municipalities are merged and the number of municipal politicians is swiftly reduced. We empirically show that municipalities with a history of mergers exhibit significantly lower voter turnout and obtain a smaller vote share for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in national elections when compared to other municipalities without an experience of mergers. This result indicates that municipal politicians are indispensable human resources for LDP candidates running for the national parliament.
The Changing Shape of Islamic Politics in Malaysia
Authors: Weiss Meredith L.
Published: March 2016

Malaysia has long been viewed as a model of a “moderate” Islamic polity. Muslims and non-Muslims have enjoyed the same civil and political rights, and Islamic parties have competed alongside secular ones in periodic elections, in spite of the distinctly Islamic timbre of Malaysia's state and society. Growing domestic political volatility, however, has led many to question the viability of political moderation. Mounting Islamism among the public, reflected both in the rise of Islamic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and in the greater priority placed on public displays and enforcement of piety, has spurred and been reinforced by increasingly Islamist political parties. Discussions of political change have come to revolve largely around the place of Islam in party platforms and state institutions. The relative position of Muslim and non-Muslim citizens in the polity has altered with the incremental Islamization of state and society, and observing religious rituals has become a matter as much of state law as of personal choice for Muslims. Internationally, too, Malaysia has come to emphasize more its ties with non-Western and especially Muslim-majority states. Islam has thus become increasingly central to Malaysian politics—even though only slightly more than half the population (all ethnic Malays, and a small proportion of Indians, Chinese, and others) is Muslim.
East Asian Financial Regionalism in Support of the Global Financial Architecture? The Political Economy of Regional Nesting
Authors: Grimes William W.
Published: March 2016

East Asian financial regionalism has advanced significantly since the rejection of Japan's Asian Monetary Fund proposal in 1997. Key ASEAN+3 initiatives include the Chiang Mai Initiative, which is designed to provide emergency liquidity to economies experiencing currency crisis, and the Asian Bond Market Initiative, which seeks to develop regional bond markets. Surprisingly, these initiatives—despite the assertive “regionalist” rhetoric that has surrounded them and their intellectual origins in the analysis of the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis—are explicitly designed to complement existing features of the global financial architecture, including IMF conditionality and global financial standards. The nesting of East Asian financial regionalism within the global financial architecture results from the political-economic interests of the leading economies of the region. In the absence of a major change in the political-economic environment, nesting is a stable equilibrium and is unlikely to change.
Party Fabrication: Constitutional Reform and the Rise of Thai Rak Thai
Authors: Hicken Allen
Published: March 2016

Among the most interesting questions in Thai politics today is how to account for the rise and (until recently) the success of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party. This article describes and analyzes some of the factors that contributed to the rise and success of Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai, arguing that neither Thaksin's personal assets nor the effects of the crisis are enough to explain Thai Rak Thai's rise and success. It focuses instead on the 1997 changes to Thailand's constitution. These institutional reforms were crucial because they altered Thailand's political-institutional landscape in fundamental ways. The reforms provided new opportunities and incentives for political actors that Thaksin and his party adeptly took advantage of. The argument presented is that the key reforms that helped pave the way for the rise of Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai were those reforms that helped reduce the number of political parties and that increased the power of the prime minister relative to coalition partners and intraparty factions.
Dragon Dust: Atmospheric Science and Cooperation on Desertification in the Asia and Pacific Region
Authors: Wilkening Ken
Published: March 2016

Are scientific or nonscientific factors most influential in initiating international cooperation on newly emerging transboundary environmental problems in the Asia and Pacific region? In a case study of long-range atmospheric transport of dust, which is linked to desertification in China and Mongolia, the relative influence of scientific versus nonscientific factors in promoting cooperation in the region is analyzed. The study examines two dimensions of the problem—Northeast Asia and North America—and demonstrates that similar to the distance-dependence of the problem (i.e., dust concentrations decrease the greater the distance from the sources), cooperation follows a parallel relationship (i.e., motivation to cooperate decreases the greater the distance from the sources). Scientific cooperation in Northeast Asia is being institutionalized, but North America has not joined this effort. A synergy between factors must be invoked to explain this situation. In both cases, obvious and often dramatic negative impacts of massive dust storms are an enabling factor allowing more subtle science-related factors to come to the fore.
Western Imperialism and Defensive Underdevelopment of Property Rights Institutions in Siam
Authors: Larsson Tomas
Published: March 2016

Thailand and Japan both faced the threat of colonialism in the latter half of the nineteenth century. While geopolitical vulnerabilities provided Japan with a critical impetus for defensive modernization, they compelled the Siamese state to pursue a strategy of defensive underdevelopment. To understand this paradox, the article explores how variations in the “unequal treaties” imposed on Japan and Siam by Western powers shaped state interests in a policy area of vital importance to the two countries' predominantly agricultural economies: the rural land rights regime.
Veterans, Organization, and the Politics of Martial Citizenship in China
Authors: Diamant Neil J.
Published: March 2016

This article examines the organizational origins of political vulnerability among Chinese military veterans between 1949 and 2006. Recently declassified sources from urban and rural archives show that many veterans, even as they were officially considered core members of the ruling elite and hailed as the “flesh and blood of the revolution,” nevertheless experienced frequent humiliation and discrimination; few citizens sympathized with their plight. The argument here is that much of this mistreatment can be traced to the failure of the state to provide veterans with the opportunity to organize in the context of either fraternal organizations or quasi-autonomous federations. In this respect, their predicament is notably different from their counterparts in democratic, fascist, or corporatist systems, or in other Leninist regimes. Why have veterans in Taiwan, Vietnam, and the former Soviet Union been allowed to form veterans organizations but veterans in the PRC—to their misfortune—have not? This article explains this anomaly.
Democratization and Government Education Provision in East Asia
Authors: Chen Jing
Published: March 2016

Although it is commonly believed that democracy promotes public services such as education, efforts have just started to evaluate empirically how the recent trend of democratization affects education services in the developing world. This article reports on the first regionwide investigation in East Asia. By studying the effects of democracy on multiple education indicators in a time-series-cross-section dataset of eight East Asian countries/political entities, the article examines whether democratic governments increase education spending and access and which social groups are favored in the process. The statistical results, which are corroborated by findings from two case studies, show that democracy plays a progressive role in promoting education spending and school enrollment at the basic level in East Asia.
Income, Electoral Turnout, and Partisan Voting in Taiwan
Authors: Chang Wen-Chun
Published: March 2016

Using data drawn from the Taiwan Social Change Survey, I investigate how citizens' incomes affect turnout and partisan voting. In contrast to studies of other countries, I find that lower-income voters are not less likely to turn out in Taiwan. Moreover, although income does not have strong effects on patterns of partisan voting in Taiwan, there is some evidence that people with income levels just below the middle-income group are less likely to vote for the left-wing party
Southeast Asia's Hybrid Regimes: When Do Voters Change Them?
Authors: Case William
Published: March 2016

Today many governments that seek to perpetuate their power operate hybrid regimes, manipulating institutions yet holding regular elections. In this way, governments gain some legitimacy for their extended incumbency through the residual competitiveness that this regime type allows. However, recent studies show that voters may sometimes grow so activated that they make new use of this competitiveness, however limited, and turn elections into the means by which they can finally change the regime and the government that operates it. This article examines this thesis in Southeast Asia, a region in which hybrid politics have long been practiced. Its main finding is that while change has sometimes taken place, voters—participating only as voters—have never been central.
From Technocracy to Aristocracy: The Changing Career Paths of Japanese Politicians
Authors: North Christopher Titus
Published: March 2016

My study investigates whether there has been a relative decline in the position of the Japanese bureaucracy in their relationship with politicians in recent decades. My hypothesis is that the loss of bureaucratic influence has been a function of the declining position of former bureaucrats within the ruling Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), and that politicians who were able to enter the Diet at a young age (due to hereditary recruitment) have gained influence. Their seniority has placed them at an advantage in promotion to key party and government posts. I use probit and logit analysis of LDP cabinet and Diet members (1955–2003) to demonstrate the decline of former bureaucrats within the LDP in terms of their overall numbers and their occupancy of key posts.
After the Developmental State: Civil Society in Japan
Authors: Pekkanen Robert
Published: March 2016

The Japanese developmental state catapulted Japan into economic prominence. However, almost just as world attention focused on Japan's distinctive model, the era of the developmental state was drawing to a close. A generation of scholars has ably documented the story of Japan's developmental state by focusing on industrial policy. They chronicled how a strong bureaucracy buffered by insulation from politicians lay at the heart of the developmental state. As Joseph Wong points out in the introductory essay to this special issue, scholars have also argued that the developmental state contained within itself the seeds of its own dismantling.1Since the 1960s, formal powers had been stripped from the bureaucracy, leaving it increasingly dependent upon “administrative guidance” not legally enforceable.2By the late 1980s, the very success of the developmental state had eroded the powers of the bureaucracy to set industrial policy.
Bilateralism, Multilateralism, or Regionalism? Japan's Trade Forum Choices
Authors: Pekkanen Saadia M.
Published: March 2016

The Japanese government today is actively and strategically choosing among various institutional forums to deal with its trade partners, namely bilateral venues, multilateral settings, and even preferential regional arrangements. This ongoing high-profile institutional selection is somewhat unprecedented for Japan, and demands a review of the historical and analytical reasons that drive decisionmakers to select one forum over another. Overall, the Japanese case suggests that the aggregate trade forum choices are influenced both by the desire to institutionalize mechanisms for stabilizing a range of expectations and by the necessity of guaranteeing market access and protection of investment in the fastest time possible.
Hong Kong's Post-1997 Institutional Crisis: Problems of Governance and Institutional Incompatibility
Authors: Cheung Anthony B. L.
Published: March 2016

The protest by over half a million people on July 1, 2003, unleashed the most serious crisis of governance in Hong Kong since its retrocession to China in 1997. Triggered by the government's attempt to legislate new national security legislation, it exposed more fundamental institutional defects of an increasingly weakened government. This article puts forward two arguments. First, the political logic of the pre-1997 period was not compatible with the post-1997 political environment and public sentiment, resulting in a widening cognitive gap between government and people. Second, the former colonial administration, despite its non-democratic nature, was able to secure sufficient public acquiescence and acceptance through economic performance and service delivery. The new government was constrained by both economic and fiscal difficulties and unexpected social crises. A declining capacity to perform effectively had further eroded public support. Attempted reforms of the bureaucracy and the introduction of a new ministerial system had caused greater political-administrative disjunction and actually compounded the crisis of governance.