bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Strong Demands and Weak Institutions: The Origins and Evolution of the Democratic Deficit in the Philippines
Authors: Hutchcroft Paul D. , Rocamora Joel
Published: March 2016

No country in Asia has more experience with democratic institutions than the Philippines. Over more than a century—from the representational structures of the Malolos republic of 1898 to the political tutelage of American colonial rule, from thecaciquedemocracy of the postwar republic to the restoration of democracy in the People Power uprising of 1986—Filipinos know both the promise of democracy and the problems of making democratic structures work for the benefit of all. Some 100 years after the introduction of national-level democratic institutions to the Philippines, the sense of frustration over the character of the country's democracy is arguably more apparent than ever before. On the one hand, the downfall of President Joseph Estrada in January 2001 revealed the capacity of many elements of civil society to demand accountability and fairness from their leaders; on the other hand, the popular uprisings of April and May 2001—involving thousands of urban poor supporters of Estrada—highlighted the continuing failure of democratic structures to respond to the needs of the poor and excluded. Philippine democracy is, indeed, in a state of crisis.
China: A Challenge or Opportunity for the United
States?
Authors: Wang Jianwei
Published: March 2016

Ever since the end of the Cold War, the United States—from the
government to the public, from the White House to Congress, from
policymakers to pundits, from China specialists to people who
know little about China—has engaged itself in the seemingly
endless debate on China. Immediately after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, people debated whether China was still important
to the United States and whether the Sino-U.S. special
relationship was worth preserving. Since the early 1990s, with
China's remarkable economic “soft landing” and the consequent
robust and sustained economic growth, Americans seemed to have
reached a consensus that China still matters to the United
States for better or worse. U.S.-China relations were often
referred to as one of the most important bilateral relations to
the United States. But important in what way? Much debate ensued
with a series of frictions between the two countries that
climaxed in the dispatch of two U.S. aircraft carriers to the
South China Sea during the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the
U.S.-led NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in
1999, and the midair collision between the two air forces in
2001. The U.S. media tirelessly asked the question: “China:
friend or foe?” The pattern for U.S. China policy since the end
of the Cold War is that whenever the relationship appeared to be
stabilizing and a consensus was shaping, new crises emerged and
destroyed the hard-won progress, triggering another round of
debate on China as if people never learned anything from the
previous debate; the old and familiar discourse started all over
again.
The U.S.-China Peace: Great Power Politics,
Spheres of Influence, and the Peace of East
Asia
Authors: Ross Robert S.
Published: March 2016

East Asia in the post–Cold War era has been the
world's most peaceful region. Whereas since 1989
there have been major wars in Europe, South Asia,
Africa, and the Middle East, and significant and
costly civil instability in Latin America, during
this same period in East Asia there have been no
wars and minimal domestic turbulence. Moreover,
economic growth in East Asia has been faster than
in any other region in the world. East Asia seems
to be the major beneficiary of pax
Americana.
State Preferences and International Institutions: Boolean Analysis of China's Use of Force and South China Sea Territorial Disputes
Authors: Huang Teh-yi
Published: March 2016

Thanks to supercharged economic growth, coupled with abundant physical and human capital, as well as political clout as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China is a rising great power on the world stage. Whereas the former China under its closed, mysterious, and communist ideology was characterized as a threat to Asian and world peace during the Cold War years, today, ironically, a more open and internationally engaged China again triggers the “China threat” rhetoric. Despite China's constant assurance of peaceable foreign policy intentions and claims that it will “never seek hegemony,” skeptics rebuke these as a mere smokescreen that covers an enormous forward thrust, evidenced, for example, by the expansionist moves toward islets in the South China Sea. On the one hand, whether aggressive moves qualified China as a threat is still debated. On the other hand, whether provocative actions would escalate into large-scale militarized conflicts that jeopardize regional stability constitutes the immediate concern.
Multiple Principals and Collective Action: China's Rural Credit Cooperatives and Poor Households' Access to Credit
Authors: Ong Lynette
Published: March 2016

Ample empirical evidence suggests that Rural Credit Cooperatives (RCCs), which are the core credit institutions in rural China, are not accountable to their member households. This article argues that this conundrum can be explained by an institutional analysis of the credit cooperatives using the multiple principals-agent framework: the credit cooperatives as agents are accountable to multipleheterogeneousprincipals—with multipleconflictingobjectives. The multiple principals are (1) the County RCC Unions, which exercise control using the evaluation criteria on which the remuneration of grassroots RCC officers is assessed; (2) local party secretaries, who exert influence through top personnel appointment and dismissal in the credit cooperatives; and (3) member households, which are a “collective” principal. In a multiple-principals scenario, the “collective” principal has weaker control over the agents due to the “collective action” problem.
Corporate Unionism and Labor Market Flexibility
in South Korea
Authors: Yang Jae-jin
Published: March 2016

There is significant variance in the strategies
of labor market flexibility under the same
pressure of globalization. This article attempts
to explain that variance by examining closely the
Korean case, with particular attention to the
response of labor, one of the most intractable
actors in the reform process. After theorizing the
nature of social welfare as a quasi-collective
good and hypothesizing labor's responses based on
Olson's theory of collective action, the study
seeks to explain Korea's low commitment to
flexicurity and the resultant dualism in the labor
market. The core argument here is that the
collective action problem among atomized corporate
unions has led to high employment protection for
regular workers in big business at the expense of
marginal workers without appropriate social
protection.
Electoral Reform and the Costs of Personal
Support in Japan
Authors: Carlson Matthew M.
Published: March 2016

How does the choice of electoral rules affect
politicians' incentives to campaign on the basis
of personalized support? This article examines to
what extent the adoption of new electoral and
campaign finance rules affects the incentive of
politicians in Japan's Liberal Democratic Party to
rely on personal support organizations called
koenkai. The core of
the analysis utilizes newly collected campaign
finance data. The empirical analyses confirm a
considerable weakening in the number of koenkai
across systems as well as a decreased need for
politicians to spend money in the proportional
representation tier. These results highlight the
importance of previous organizational legacies as
well as the efforts of political actors to
mitigate the effects of rule change on their
election and reelection prospects.
The 2008 Malaysian Elections: An End to Ethnic Politics?
Authors: Pepinsky Thomas B.
Published: March 2016

Malaysia's twelfth general elections, held on March 8, 2008, dealt a stunning blow to the incumbent Barisan Nasional regime. For the first time since 1969, the coalition did not receive its customary two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament. Moreover, the opposition was able to form governments in five out of eleven peninsular Malaysian states. This article uses electoral, economic, and demographic data to test a number of potential explanations for these outcomes. Evidence indicates that the regime's decreased majority is the consequence of non-Malay voters' rejecting the incumbent regime in favor of secular opposition parties.
Japanese Lower House Campaigns in Transition: Manifest Changes or Fleeting Fads?
Authors: Koellner Patrick
Published: March 2016

Electioneering for the Japanese Lower House has undergone significant changes in recent years. While voter mobilization strategies still figure prominently in the local-level campaigns of individual candidates, political parties increasingly use voter-chasing strategies at the national level. Such chasing strategies, whose manifestations in Japan have so far included the manifesto and the media-spin approach, target in particular the growing number of independent voters. The concurrence of elements of continuity and change in electioneering has led to a “hybridization” of Lower House election campaigns. The article examines this phenomenon in the light of newer conceptual and theoretical approaches to electoral politics in democratic settings.
Strategies, Institutions, and Outcomes Under SNTV in Taiwan, 1992–2004
Authors: Patterson Dennis P. , Stockton Hans
Published: March 2016

During the five democratic elections held in Taiwan from 1992 to 2004 inclusive, the formerly dominant Kuomintang Party (KMT) was temporarily supplanted by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as the nation's largest political party. Most explanations for this have focused on party fragmentation and the changing patterns of electoral competition it helped create. These are important factors, but they have not been tested empirically at the level where candidates won and lost legislative seats, the level of the election district. This article offers such an empirical test, and it will show that these two factors had a direct impact on the ability of DPP and KMT candidates to obtain legislative seats. We also show that these factors carried indirect impacts by hurting the ability of the KMT and DPP to nominate in a way that they would obtain all the seats that their obtained vote shares would allow.
Kidnapping Politics in East Asia
Authors: Samuels Richard J.
Published: March 2016

In this article, I examine two contemporary cases in which the same foreign adversary, North Korea (DPRK), violated the sovereignty of neighboring states. I use a comparison of South Korean and Japanese reactions to political captivity to assess institutional performance in democratic states and ways in which these dynamics are connected to international politics. We see how “captivity narratives” can be differentially constructed and deployed and howpolicycapture can be achieved by determined political actors. Civic groups in both countries worked to mobilize political support, frame the issue for the media, and force policy change. In Japan, politicians were more willing to use the abduction issue for domestic political gain than in Korea, where the political class was determined to prevent human rights issues (including abductions) from interfering with their larger political agenda, including improved relations with the DPRK.
Explaining the Tribute System: Power,
Confucianism, and War in Medieval East
Asia
Authors: Wang Yuan-kang
Published: March 2016

In this article I remedy the popular
misconception that the East Asian international
system was hierarchical and non-egalitarian in
history. I argue that the tribute system is mainly
a function of power. Backed by power, Confucian
norms and rules became the rules of the game in
the system. Power asymmetry gave rise to hierarchy
in foreign relations while power symmetry led to
diplomatic equality between great powers. East
Asia during the tenth to the thirteenth centuries
was a multistate system without a regional
hegemon. In the Song-Liao international system
(960–1125), due to power symmetry, the two great
powers conducted their foreign policy on the basis
of formal equality. In the Song-Jin international
system (1127–1234), the weaker Song China became a
Jin vassal state and acknowledged its inferior
status in the Jin-derived hierarchy. In studying
historical East Asia, Confucian rhetoric needs to
be examined against power reality. Only by taking
power seriously can we get a better understanding
of the East Asian international system.
Distinguishing Between China and Vietnam:
Three Relational Equilibriums in Sino-Vietnamese
Relations
Authors: Anderson James A.
Published: March 2016

Premodern Sino-Vietnamese relations may be
described by three systems of engagement that I
have labeled Strong China/Weak Vietnam, Weak
China/Strong Vietnam, and Strong China/Strong
Vietnam. These three states of interaction appear
at various points, beginning with Vietnamese
encounters with the Qin empire (221–206 b.c.e.)
through the early modern era. Brantly Womack has
already described the historical Sino-Vietnamese
relationship as politically “asymmetrical” with
China playing the strongman role, and the three
relational equilibriums described here do not
contradict Womack's thesis. Instead, I explore how
the generally asymmetrical states of affairs were
molded by historical context and the specific
ambitions of elite in the frontier region. While
the general conditions of the Sino-Vietnamese
relationship were asymmetrical, the choices
available to Chinese and Vietnamese leaders in
different periods varied widely.
Changing Definitions of Sovereignty in Nineteenth-Century East Asia: Japan and Korea Between China and the West
Authors: Park Seo-Hyun
Published: March 2016

The arrival of Westphalian sovereignty principles in nineteenth-century East Asia was not a uniformly transformative “shock” as commonly assumed. The Sino-centric order did not suddenly disappear; rather it lingered and evolved in a gradual and contested process of change. I argue that enduring domestic understandings of sovereign autonomy affected how Westphalian sovereignty was interpreted in Japan and Korea. Even as the regional structure shifted from regional hierarchy under China to a Western-led international state system, the lens of hierarchy—the long-standing sense of vulnerability and the need to attain autonomous status in a world of great powers—remained unchanged. In addition, each ruling regime in East Asia attempted to reconcile Westphalian sovereignty with existing diplomatic practices to protect its own interests within the Sino-centric order, which resulted in a new hybrid system of interstate relations encompassing notions of both equality and civilizational hierarchy. Within each country, contestation on sovereignty occurred in multiple stages, driven by existing security relationships and changing domestic politics debating the competing standards of civilization in the region.
Petition and Repression in China's Authoritarian Regime: Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Authors: Wong Stan Hok-wui , Peng Minggang
Published: March 2016

China has established a petition system to elicit information about grievances. However, the petition system may have perverse effects because it also reveals to the center the failure of local-level officials to resolve those grievances. Anecdotal accounts suggest that local officials have incentive to silence petitioners, often with the use of repression. In this article we study whether non-regime threatening petitions would provoke local governments' coercive response. To tackle the endogenous relationship between petition and repression, we take advantage of a natural experiment afforded by a change in hydroelectricity policy in China. In particular, we use provincial hydropower outputs as an instrument to identify citizen petitions. We find that citizen petitions significantly increase a province's spending on its repressive apparatus. The results suggest a paradoxical outcome of China's petition system: while it may help reduce the national authority's use of repression, it has caused an explosion of repression within the authoritarian system as a whole.
Regionalization and Regionalism in East Asia
Authors: Kim Samuel S.
Published: March 2016

What will the future of East Asia be like in the years ahead? More than a decade after the end of the Cold War, we are still confronted with the fundamental question of whether a new world order will be shaped primarily by state, regional, or global forces and actors. This great puzzle of both theoretical and real-world significance has been widely debated among scholars and policy pundits of diverse normative and theoretical orientations, only to generate many competing explanations and prognostications.
The Chinese Axis: Zoning Technologies and Variegated Sovereignty
Authors: Ong Aihwa
Published: March 2016

Concepts of regionalization and regionalism have dominated discussions of emerging global orders. With the rise of the European Union (EU), scholars have begun to look for similar multilaterally negotiated regional organizations in the Asia-Pacific region.
Growing into Trouble: Institutions and Politics in the Thai Sugar Industry
Authors: Doner Richard F. , Ramsay Ansil
Published: March 2016

Why do some economies grow for several years and then stall? One obvious answer is that these economies have “overheated.” Another is that foreign demand for their products has dried up. This article explores a longer-term explanation—namely, that the institutions favorable for one stage of economic growth are less suitable for a subsequent stage. This idea of “growing into trouble” is consistent with Dani Rodrik's argument that the institutions required to stimulate growth may not be sufficient to sustain growth. We push this idea further by exploring the different requirements of structural change versus upgrading. Structural change connotes an economy's diversification through new investments, often producing real income growth. But economies can diversify without being more efficient, or their initial competitiveness can be based largely on transient factor endowment advantages. Upgrading refers to the competitiveness of these diverse activities achieved through locally based productivity improvements.
Financial Reform, Institutional Interdependency, and Supervisory Failure in Postcrisis Korea
Authors: Kim Hong-Bum , Lee Chung H.
Published: March 2016

In the aftermath of the economic crisis of 1997–1998, South Korea undertook a number of reforms in financial supervision. Questions have been raised, however, as to whether Korea has in fact succeeded in creating a system of financial supervision capable of dealing with certain risks and responding to new challenges. This article examines Korea's recent experience in financial instability resulting from misconduct by credit card companies as a case in point and argues that the postcrisis reform in financial supervision was limited to changing formal institutions for financial supervision and that further reforms will have to be undertaken in other related institutions if Korea is to improve its financial supervision.
How Globalization Drives Institutional Diversity: The Japanese Electronics Industry's Response to Value Chain Modularity
Authors: Sturgeon Timothy J.
Published: March 2016

The failure of Japanese electronics firms to participate fully in the Internet-fueled growth of the global electronics industry during the late 1990s triggered a period of questioning among top executives. This article examines Japanese managerial responses to the organizational model “value chain modularity,” which was deployed by the US electronics firms driving the creation of the Internet. While there were partial but significant steps taken in the direction of this new US model—increased specialization, outsourcing of low-end products, and shared factory investments in Japan—wholesale restructuring was resisted. This evidence is consistent with larger patterns of gradual institutional change in Japan. I argue that the result of this process will likely be increased, not diminished, institutional diversity over time. While globalization has accelerated the pace of change by opening new avenues for organizational experimentation and institutional layering, the drag on organizational change exerted by existing institutions slows the process enough to allow institutional and organizational innovations to develop into coherent systems with distinct characteristics. The result, inevitably, will be a uniquely Japanese approach to the challenges posed by globalization.
Economic Interdependence and Peace: A Game-Theoretic Analysis
Authors: Benson Brett V. , Niou Emerson M. S.
Published: March 2016

Most of the contemporary policy debate regarding economic interdependence and peace has focused on devising responses either in favor of or in opposition to the prevailing notion that trade is positively and unconditionally correlated with peace. The China and Taiwan case—noteworthy for the simultaneous presence of an ever-increasing economic interdependence and an adversarial political relationship—provides an interesting counterexample to the leading positions in the literature. What is missing in the literature is a model that studies states' decisions to trade and initiate conflict as a function not only of their own utility but also of their perceptions about how their opponent will respond. States' decisions to trade depend on the likelihood that their prospective trade partner will initiate a conflict, and decisions to initiate a conflict depend on perceptions of the likelihood that the target will concede. In this article, the authors develop a model that expands the domain of the trade-peace analysis by endogenizing and analyzing states' decisions to trade and initiate conflicts.
The Evolution of South Korea's Rural Institutions: The Political Economy of Export Promotion and Market Protection
Authors: Pinkston Daniel A.
Published: March 2016

South Korea's economic takeoff in the 1960s triggered a scholarly debate over the causes behind its economic growth. Neoclassical economists and “statist” scholars focused on government policies toward the industrial sector, but as this article shows, they have neglected to consider the political economy behind the government's targeting of the agricultural and livestock sectors for export promotion. In fact, the South Korean government's support of export-led growth—aimed at the rural sector as well as industry—transformed the nation's agricultural and livestock institutions from instruments of development and export promotion into protectionist mechanisms. This article discusses how complete market liberalization would have resulted in more efficient resource allocation and reveals how political considerations affected the institutional arrangement in the South Korean countryside and the subsequent liberalization of agricultural and beef markets.
Chronic Food Shortages and the Collective Farm System in North Korea
Authors: Sung-wook Nam
Published: March 2016

This article considers the problem of North Korea's collective farms from a micro-institutional perspective. It begins with an analysis of the collective farming system introduced in 1958, the changes in 1966 that allowed for sub-work teams, and the further reform of 1996 that permitted a new work squad system. The normalization of North Korea's agriculture is not just a technological problem; rather, it requires reform of the collective farms and their incentives: the removal of the inefficient elements in the shorter term and the promotion of family farming in the medium to longer term.
Institutional Incentives and Informal Local Political Groups (Phuak) in Thailand: Comments on Allen Hicken and Paul Chambers
Authors: Nelson Michael H.
Published: March 2016

Post-1997 Thai politics have been shaped by the effects of two momentous events that occurred almost at the same time: the introduction of far-reaching structural changes by the 1997 constitution, and the appearance of a singularly overbearing and centralizing political leader—Thaksin Shinawatra. To political analysts, this situation has provided uniquely rich opportunities to observe over a number of years whether constitutional engineering had the envisaged effect of restricting the politicians' “undesirable” actions, and whether the intended institutional change was realized. However, the coincidence of constitutional change and the occurrence of Thaksin has also made it necessary to distinguish the effects of structural changes from the effects of the new form of political leadership.
In Response to Michael H. Nelson
Authors: Chambers Paul
Published: March 2016

I am flattered by Michael Nelson's interest in my article (“Evolving To ward What? Parties, Factions, and Coalition Behavior in Thailand Today,” Journal of East Asian Studies 5, no. 3). He takes issue with my discussion of four levels of parliamentary games: the arenas of lead party in a coalition government versus lead party in the opposition camp; inter-party games in a coalition government; inter-factional games; and games between individual MPs themselves, the most micro-level. Nelson is right to suggest that “we really need a more realistic and comprehensive conceptualization of local-provincial-regional-national political linkages” in Thailand. However, that is not what I sought to do in my article. As I make clear, my focus is on the national level of analysis with regard to parties, factions, and coalition behavior in Thailand.
How Americans Feel About Asian Countries and Why
Authors: Page Benjamin I. , Rabinovich Julia , Tully David G.
Published: March 2016

Americans' feelings about foreign countries are embedded in foreign policy belief systems and affect policy preferences. The analysis of nine surveys of the US general public conducted between 1978 and 2006 indicates that on average Americans have had rather lukewarm or slightly cool, nearly neutral, feelings toward China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia; warm feelings toward Japan and Australia; and cold feelings toward North Korea and (at least since 2001) toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Individuals' feelings are affected by certain personal and social characteristics. High levels of formal education tend to make people feel considerably warmer toward most of these countries—especially Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India. Education increases information: those who know more about the world generally express warmer feelings. But most important are internationalist attitudes, especially putting a relatively low priority on US domestic threats and concerns, embracing capitalism and world markets, and espousing world antipoverty goals. National security considerations play only a limited part. Policy implications are discussed.
“Red China” and the “Yellow Peril”: How Ideology Divides Americans over China
Authors: Gries Peter Hays
Published: March 2016

Based on a 2011 national survey, I argue that while US conservatives feel somewhat cooler toward the East Asian democracies than US liberals do, they feel much cooler toward China. Greater average conservative than liberal prejudice lingers, cooling attitudes toward the “Yellow Peril” of all Asian countries, but communism is a larger source of ideological differences over China. For cultural, social, economic, and political reasons, conservatives feel substantially cooler than liberals toward both communist countries in general and “Red China” in particular. I conclude by suggesting that with gerrymandering and ongoing ideological sorting, these ideological differences over China on Main Street may come to play a greater role in the making of US China policy.
Between Pork and People: An Analysis of the Policy Balance in the LDP's Election Platforms
Authors: Winkler Christian G.
Published: March 2016

In this article I examine changes in the election manifestos of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party. While the existing literature agrees that the LDP's policy platform has changed considerably since the introduction of the new election system in the 1990s, their analysis focuses on material policies such as pork barrel and welfare. Postmaterialist policies such as environmental protection have hardly been discussed, even though they have been relevant since pollution swept progressive mayors into power in the 1960s. I examine election platforms from 1956 through 2013, and argue that the LDP has carefully adjusted its policy mix by putting a greater emphasis on postmaterialist policies. My analysis also shows that while electoral reform has had an impact on the policy balance between postmaterialist and materialist policies as well as clientelist and programmatic policies, these changes are not linear, but vary from decade to decade.
The Electoral Power of Japanese Interest Groups: An Organizational Perspective
Authors: Maclachlan Patricia L.
Published: March 2016

What explains the electoral staying power of many Japanese interest groups in the wake of electoral reform? Electoral explanations provide part of the answer; candidates in elections to both houses of the Diet continue to face incentives—many of them unintended—to court the organized vote. But missing from such accounts is an explanation of why economically noncompetitive groups provide the bulk of such support. The primary reason for this, I argue, is organization. As a result of their historical linkages to the bureaucracy, many interests developed hierarchical, national organizational structures that enabled them to carry out a variety of vote-gathering functions that the parties had trouble performing themselves. Although electoral reform and long-term demographic trends have weakened the electoral influence of interest groups, these organizational complementarities between groups and the parties continue to matter in Japanese elections—including under conditions of two-party competition. To illustrate these points, I trace the evolution of interest group politics from the era of LDP dominance through the rise of two-party competition and the LDP's recent return to power, using postmasters associations and agricultural cooperatives as case studies.
Public Diplomacy and North Korea Policy: Diverging Effects of U.S. Messages in the United States and South Korea
Authors: Mo Jongryn , Hahn Kyu S.
Published: March 2016

The Bush administration has pursued a new, hard-line approach to the current nuclear standoff with North Korea. In efforts to build public support from the American public as well as from its allies in the region, the Bush administration has carefully framed, in distinctive ways, the nature of the crisis and the grounds for an appropriate response to North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship. To assess the effects of these U.S. messages designed to build public support for its hard-line approach, we conducted a short experimental study in the United States and in South Korea. Our results indicate that many of these messages induce diverging responses in the two countries, implying that the Bush administration's rhetoric designed to build domestic support does not have comparable effects in South Korea.
Progress Through Setback or Mired in Mediocrity? Crisis and Institutional Change in Southeast Asia
Authors: Ritchie Bryan K.
Published: March 2016

A well-developed thesis in political economy claims that crises create opportunities for change. Yet despite creating similar preferences for change, the Asian financial crisis led to reform of policies and institutions in some issue areas and in some countries of Southeast Asia, but not in others. In this essay I find that policies and institutions associated with technological upgrading of the economy, and particularly the manufacturing sector, are often immune to reform efforts, for two reasons. First, reform demands that policymakers know what to do; and second, they must know how to do it. Whether countries can discover and adopt new “templates” for reforming technology policies and institutions depends on the capacity of preexisting institutions to foster participative rather than simply consultative public-private collaboration. Such collaboration is most likely when decentralized yet coordinated bureaucracies facilitate meaningful participation from private actors, including business, labor, and academia, in forming, implementing, monitoring, and enforcing development policies.
International Patterns in National Identity Content: The Case of Japanese Banknote Iconography
Authors: Hymans Jacques E. C.
Published: March 2016

The present article suggests that expressions of Japanese identity may be more malleable and receptive to international influences than is usually thought. Through a study of the evolution of images printed on Japanese banknotes and of the political processes behind that evolution, the article shows Japanese state elites consciously following international models of identity content. In particular, it describes the shifts in Japanese banknote iconography in the early 1980s and again in the early 2000s as the product of a drive for conformity with the iconographic norms of European currencies. The state has been the main protagonist in this story, but for a full accounting of the magnitude and pace of iconographic change on the yen, it is necessary to unpack the “black box” of the state.
Postindustrial Pressures, Political Regime Shifts, and Social Policy Reform in Japan and South Korea
Authors: Peng Ito
Published: March 2016

This article examines how postindustrial pressures and political changes have shaped recent social policy reforms in Japan and South Korea. Postindustrial pressures are categorized intoexogenousandendogenousfactors: exogenous being economic globalization and internationalization, endogenous being changing family and gender relations and demographic shifts such as population aging and declining birthrates. I argue that we need to attend more closely to the interactions between postindustrial and political factors to explain social and welfare policies in these countries. The conventional view on East Asian welfare states no longer adequately explains recent social welfare policy changes in the region.
Development, the Second Time Around: The Political Logic of Developing Western China
Authors: Shih Victor
Published: March 2016

The Great Development of the West is no more than grand conferences held in the west (Xibu Dakaifa zhishi xibu dakaihui).

—State Council officials in charge of developing the west

On the surface, the Great Development of the West (GDW, Xibu Dakaifa) campaign seems like a classic maneuver by a developmental state to bolster the growth of an underdeveloped region. Even in 2002, GDP per capita in western China, which includes the provinces of Xinjiang, Tibet, Ningxia, Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Qinghai, Yunnan, and Guizhou, remained at U.S.$666, or just more than half of the national average (see Table 1). The poorest province in China, Guizhou, had a GDP per capita of only U.S.$375, roughly equivalent to Haiti's GDP per capita in 1999. The effort to develop western China, according to the official rhetoric, was aimed at shifting western China's developmental trajectory closer to that of the rest of China, thus decreasing regional inequality and bolstering overall growth.
Industrial Policy, Chinese-Style: FDI, Regulation, and Dreams of National Champions in the Auto Sector
Authors: Thun Eric
Published: March 2016

Long after the start of the reform period, and well after the proven success of the private sector, the fate of the state-owned sector in China continued to disturb the sleep of many policymakers in the Chinese central government.
Measuring and Explaining Party Change in Taiwan: 1991–2004
Authors: Fell Dafydd
Published: March 2016

This article examines party platform change in a third wave democratic country, Taiwan, during its first fourteen years of full multiparty elections. A variety of datasets show that Taiwan's parties have moved from polarized positions toward a moderate center on all core electoral issues. However, the parties have not converged into indistinguishable catchall parties; instead they have instituted a state of moderate differentiation. The degree to which Taiwan's parties have moderated and been electorally successful has been intimately tied to the internal balance of power between election-oriented and ideologically conservative factions or leaders. In response to public opinion and electoral competition, Taiwan's election-oriented leaders attempted to drag their parties toward centrist positions. The key variable constraining convergent party movement and maintaining differentiation has been the strength of ideologically conservative party factions. When these ideologically oriented factions have held the upper hand in parties, they have promoted ideologically orthodox but often unpopular policies. Even when the election-oriented faction is in control at the party center, secondary factions have been able to constrain movement away from party ideals.
Local Conflict in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Understanding Variations in Violence Levels and Forms Through Local Newspapers
Authors: Barron Patrick , Sharpe Joanne
Published: March 2016

Responding to conflict, in Indonesia and elsewhere, requires an understanding of its distribution, forms, and impacts. In this article, we outline an attempt to use local newspaper monitoring to measure the levels and impacts of violent conflict during the period 2001–2003 in two Indonesian provinces (East Java and NTT). We also assess variation in incidence, impact, and form across and within areas. The study data suggest first that previous research has vastly underestimated the impacts of violent conflict in Indonesia. Comparing our data with those of the previous attempt to use newspapers to map conflict in Indonesia (by the UN Support Facility for Indonesian Recovery [UNSFIR]), we find three times as many deaths from collective violence. These differences are a function of the level of news sources used, with provincial papers picking up only a small proportion of deaths in our research areas. Further, we argue that the impacts of certain types of violence between individuals should be included, leading to even higher figures. Second, our data call into question the dictum that violence in Indonesia is concentrated in a small number of regions. While there is variation between districts, we record large impacts from collective violence in areas not previously considered conflict-prone. Third, substantial variations in conflict form are found across regions, and these result in different kinds of impacts. This underlines the importance of consideration of the role of local factors in driving conflicts and suggests that approaches must be tailored to local conditions. Finally, we demonstrate that using local newspapers to measure and analyze conflicts presents a useful tool for understanding conflict in Indonesia. The use of subprovincial news sources captures more accurate estimates of conflict incidence than other methods, such as provincial newspaper mapping or surveying. It can also provide a basis for a deeper understanding of variations in patterns of conflict across areas and provide insights into how we might respond.
Ethnic Conflicts in Indonesia: National Models, Critical Junctures, and the Timing of Violence
Authors: Bertrand Jacques
Published: March 2016

Beginning in the mid-1990s, there was a sudden rise in violent ethnic conflict in Indonesia. Two aspects that require explanation are the timing and clustering of this type of conflict historically. Other studies have not adequately explained these aspects. Methodological and thematic choices have generated problems with identifying and explaining clustering. Microlevel studies fail to account for the broader changes occurring at a macrolevel. Some researchers have chosen to broaden the scope of analysis of violent events to provide explanations of violence more generally. After reviewing these other studies, I argue that a historical institutionalist approach remains best able to explain the clustering of conflicts and the following period of stability. Changing institutional contexts at critical junctures created rising anxieties as well as opportunities to renegotiate group inclusion and status in the Indonesian state.
Policy Learning or Diffusion: How China Opened to Foreign Direct Investment
Authors: Ye Min
Published: March 2016

When China embarked on economic reform in the late 1970s, its leaders aspired to learn from Japan's developmental policies that were restrictive of foreign capital. In the 1990s, China strove again to emulate Japan and South Korea in restricting foreign direct investment and promoting indigenous corporations. Despite these efforts, China's industrial catch-up was in fact led by FDI, in sharp contrast to the classic Japanese/Korean paradigm where FDI was strictly circumvented. Why was China unsuccessful in learning restrictive FDI policies? How did a new developmental path emerge in China? The answer lies in China's strong networks with diaspora communities. Through a diffusion mechanism, ties between local governments and diaspora capital helped initiate and catalyze China's FDI liberalization, despite the central efforts to learn from Japan and South Korea. Two critical reform episodes are examined: (1) the establishment of special economic zones and (2) the reform of state-owned enterprises.
Contentious Histories and the Perception of Threat: China, the United States, and the Korean War—An Experimental Analysis
Authors: Gries Peter Hays , Prewitt-Freilino Jennifer L. , Cox-Fuenzalida Luz-Eugenia , Zhang Qingmin
Published: March 2016

Chinese and Korean protests over “revisionist” Japanese histories of World War II are well known. The impact of contested Chinese and US histories of the Korean War on US-China relations today has received less attention. More broadly, there has been little research seeking to systematically explore just how history textbook controversies matter for international relations. This article experimentally manipulates the impact of nation (US/China), of source (in-group/out-group textbooks), and of valence (positive/negative historical narratives) on measures of beliefs about the past, emotions, collective self-esteem, and threat perception in present-day US-China relations. A 2 × 2 × 2 design exposed randomized groups of Chinese and US university students to fictional high school history textbook accounts of the Korean War. Findings reveal significant effects of nation, source, and valence and suggest that the “historical relevance” of a shared past to national identities in the present has a dramatic impact on how historical controversies affect threat perception.
Asian Financial Cooperation in the 1990s: The Politics of Membership
Authors: Hamanaka Shintaro
Published: March 2016

A commonplace view holds that the trend toward Asian financial regionalism is a relatively new phenomenon, developing in response to the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis in particular. In this article I challenge this view by analyzing financial regionalist projects before the crisis. Asian countries, especially Japan, sought to establish an Asia-only financial cooperation framework throughout the 1990s. The policy stance of the United States, in contrast, was to participate in Asian forums and/or by itself propose and establish regional groupings that included the United States. This competition between Japan and the United States is a key factor in understanding the rise and fall of various regionalist projects and also has theoretical implications for membership politics in regional financial cooperation frameworks.
Review Essay: What Happened to the Study of China in Comparative Politics?
Authors: Reny Marie-Eve
Published: March 2016

In 1986, Kenneth Lieberthal observed that the study of China in the United States had had little effect on the evolution of political science. Over twenty years later, its impact on the core debates in comparative politics seems to have been no more significant. Why have some of the most influential books in the study of contemporary Chinese politics not been significant in the discipline of comparative politics? Based on a quantitative overview of forty-two comparative politics syllabi, my argument is twofold. First, China scholarship has isolated the study of Chinese politics by primarily publishing in area journals, building analyses around debates exclusive to Chinese politics, and generating knowledge with limited contemplation of its potential for generalization outside China. Second, comparative politics seems to have been caught in a “democratic prism,” which has impeded scholars' ability to adapt some of the debates to empirical changes associated with China's rise and development.
Slowing at Sunset: Administrative Procedures and the Pace of Reform in Korea
Authors: Baum Jeeyang Rhee , Bawn Kathleen
Published: March 2016

Overhaul of administrative procedures is an important part of most democratic transitions, and procedural regularization and transparency are often seen as steps toward the consolidation of democracy. Administrative procedures affect policy decisions, but whether particular procedural reforms facilitate or hinder democratic responsiveness depends on the details of the procedure and the political environment. In this article, we examine a particular procedural reform: the adoption of a sunset provision in Korea as part of an omnibus administrative procedures package at the end of Kim Young Sam's presidency. A sunset provision might be seen as clearly promoting democratic responsiveness by requiring the winner of the most recent election to explicitly decide whether to keep or drop old rules and regulations. Alternatively, it might be seen as limiting a democratically elected leader's ability to change policy in accordance with his mandate, by requiring expenditure of effort and resources just to maintain a status quo. We argue that the second interpretation applies to the Korean case. We use a spatial model and evidence from regulatory decisionmaking to argue that Kim Young Sam favored the sunset provision because it would constrain the policy decisions of future presidents. Our model offers an explanation for why Kim Young Sam would propose a sunset provision that limited the life of his own regulations.
The Effect of US Foreign Policy on the Relationship Between South and North Korea: Time Series Analysis of the Post-Cold War Era
Authors: Yoon Jong-Han
Published: March 2016

In this study, I examine the effect of US foreign policy on the relationship between South Korea and North Korea. In particular, I analyze whether two different foreign policy approaches—the hard-line approach and the soft-line approach—have played a role in advancing or slowing steps toward peace in the Korean peninsula. I use the Integrated Data for Events Analysis dataset for the period 1990–2004. By employing a Vector Autoregression model, which analyzes the behavioral patterns of South and North Korea and the United States, I find that US foreign policy affects the relationship between the two Koreas by affecting North Korea's behavior toward South Korea. The triangular relationship among the United States, North Korea, and South Korea shows a reciprocal behavior pattern. This finding suggests that a soft-line and reciprocal US foreign policy toward North Korea is critical to maintaining peace in the Korean peninsula.