Patriarchy in East Asia provides a coherent comparative analysis of gender in five East Asian societies. This is the first work of its kind done by a sociologist who is also fluent in all of the ...local languages.
"This book is a lively and insightful contribution to what will be a major debate of the twenty-first century: how profound differences of culture and value will give a different shape to the core ...institutions of modernity in different civilizations. Drawing on both philosophical analysis and wide empirical knowledge, Daniel Bell examines the continuing importance of Confucianism in East Asia, and its relevance for democracy, human rights, and capitalism. What's more, as a normative theorist, he goes beyond this to argue for the legitimacy of some persistent differences. This engaging and well-written book will provoke much-needed controversy in our overly complacent Western societies."--Charles Taylor, author of "Multiculturalism and Sources of the Self" "Daniel Bell's "Beyond Liberal Democracy" challenges the prevailing idea in Western liberal political theory that liberal democracy is a universal value. By comparing East Asian and Western perspectives on issues such as human rights, democracy, and capitalism, Bell forcefully demonstrates that East Asian political traditions contain morally legitimate alternatives to Western-style liberal democracy. He demonstrates a rare knowledge of both Western and Eastern political philosophies. Bell's work will help Western political scientists understand the contribution of East Asian cultures to political theory. But equally it will help East Asian scholars understand their own political tradition through a comparative perspective."
East Asian economies of the 1980s and 1990s were among the most competitive exporters of manufactured products and sustained growth rates far higher than those of other countries, developing or ...industrial. But the crisis of 1997-1998 uncovered weaknesses in the system, and faith in the potential of the region to sustain growth was shaken.The next decade is likely to be decisive for East Asia. The region will maintain and augment its past economic successes only if individual countries pursue a three-stranded formula for growth, through policies that provide the macroeconomic stability and the institutional foundations needed for a growth spiral led by innovation. The future performance of East Asia’s middle-and high-income countries rests on their creating a competitive environment keyed to knowledge-based activities supporting innovation and the commercialization of new ideas.
Why does North Korea behave erratically in pursuing its nuclear weapons program? Why did the United States prefer bilateral alliances to multilateral ones in Asia after World War II? Why did China ...become "nice"-no more military coercion-in dealing with the pro-independence Taiwan President Chen Shuibian after 2000? Why did China compromise in the negotiation of the Chunxiao gas exploration in 2008 while Japan became provocative later in the Sino-Japanese disputes in the East China Sea? North Korea's nuclear behavior, U.S. alliance strategy, China's Taiwan policy, and Sino-Japanese territorial disputes are all important examples of seemingly irrational foreign policy decisions that have determined regional stability and Asian security.
By examining major events in Asian security, this book investigates why and how leaders make risky and seemingly irrational decisions in international politics. The authors take the innovative step of integrating the neoclassical realist framework in political science and prospect theory in psychology. Their analysis suggests that political leaders are more likely to take risky actions when their vital interests and political legitimacy are seriously threatened. For each case, the authors first discuss the weaknesses of some of the prevailing arguments, mainly from rationalist and constructivist theorizing, and then offer an alternative explanation based on their political legitimacy-prospect theory model.
This pioneering book tests and expands prospect theory to the study of Asian security and challenges traditional, expected-utility-based, rationalist theories of foreign policy behavior.
InStrategic Coupling, Henry Wai-chung Yeung examines economic development and state-firm relations in East Asia, focusing in particular on South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. As a result of the ...massive changes of the last twenty-five years, new explanations must be found for the economic success and industrial transformation in the region. State-assisted startups and incubator firms in East Asia have become major players in the manufacture of products with a global reach: Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision has assembled more than 500 million iPhones, for instance, and South Korea's Samsung provides the iPhone's semiconductor chips and retina displays.
Drawing on extensive interviews with top executives and senior government officials, Yeung argues that since the late 1980s, many East Asian firms have outgrown their home states, and are no longer dependent on state support; as a result the developmental state has lost much of its capacity to steer and direct industrialization. We cannot read the performance of national firms as a direct outcome of state action. Yeung calls for a thorough renovation of the still-dominant view that states are the primary engine of industrial transformation. He stresses action by national firms and traces various global production networks to incorporate both firm-specific activities and the international political economy. He identifies two sets of dynamics in these national-global articulations known as strategic coupling: coevolution in the confluence of state, firm, and global production networks, and the various strategies pursued by East Asian firms to attain competitive positions in the global marketplace.
Korea and East Asia Frank, Rüdiger; Swenson-Wright, John
2013, Volume:
1
eBook
This book critically addresses the potential of the liberal concept of collective security to provide a solution to conflict in East Asia, with a focus on the Korean peninsula.
Although attention has focused on public sector initiatives to fight corruption on the demand side, private companies in every region have developed programs to fight it on the supply side. ...Policymakers and advocacy groups consider such preventive efforts to be a critical component of the anti-corruption toolkit. Company based programs to fight fraud and corruption, rely on ethics and the implementation of compliance systems. Pioneered in the US during the 70s, they consist of statement of values, a company code of conduct, training programs, decision making and reporting mechanisms. Based on case studies of international and regional corporations, this book documents an impressive trend: companies of very different size, nationality and background have been moving forward in recent years. The book look at the content of the program and at issues pertaining implementation and effectiveness such as the role of the business culture. It analyzes the incentives, internal and external, that drive the adoption and implementation of those techniques. . Many examples of actual mechanisms and alliance to disseminate good practices are presented, often involving partnerships with the public sector or the civil society
Beyond Japan Katzenstein, Peter J; Shiraishi, Takashi
07/2018
eBook
Have Japan's relative economic decline and China's rapid ascent altered the dynamics of Asian regionalism? Peter Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi, the editors of Network Power , one of the most ...comprehensive volumes on East Asian regionalism in the 1990s, present here an impressive new collection that brings the reader up to date. This book argues that East Asia's regional dynamics are no longer the result of a simple extension of any one national model. While Japanese institutional structures and political practices remain critically important, the new East Asia now under construction is more than, and different from, the sum of its various national parts. At the outset of a new century, the interplay of Japanese factors with Chinese, American, and other national influences is producing a distinctively new East Asian region.
Rogue Flows Iwabuchi, Muecke & Thomas
2004, 20041101, 20040101
eBook
Rogue Flows brings together some of the best and most knowledgeable writers on consumption and cultural theory to chart the under-explored field of cultural flows and consumption across different ...regions in Asia, and the importance of these flows in const
We use politeness every day when interacting with other people. Yet politeness is an impressively complex linguistic process, and studying it can tell us a lot about the social and cultural values of ...social groups or even a whole society, helping us to understand how humans 'encode' states of mind in their words. The traditional, stereotypical view is that people in East Asian cultures are indirect, deferential and extremely polite - sometimes more polite than seems necessary. This revealing book takes a fresh look at the phenomenon, showing that the situation is far more complex than these stereotypes would suggest. Taking examples from Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and Singaporean Chinese, it shows how politeness differs across countries, but also across social groups and subgroups. This book is essential reading for those interested in intercultural communication, linguistics and East Asian languages.
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