ABSTRACT The article deals with the complication of the narratives surrounding the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). Its political overtones exude economic cooperation and security superficially on the edges of evolving regional order in the Middle East buttressed by the declining U.S. influence and China’s growing inroads, formulating a vacuum in the order for India to stretch its arms. The connotations invite three crucial points of contention seeking to understand the potential of the claims. First, how prepared are the Western constructs of the Arab-Israeli normalization to uphold India’s politico-economic security against its asymmetrical and limited resourcefulness compared to Arab countries, in addition to curbing Chinese advancement; second, if this corridor will turn out to be a critical reinforcement for India to consolidate its regional overtures to China; finally, whether it can outweigh India’s broader approach to a comprehensive connectivity framework concerning Eurasia and South Asia wherein Iran is central.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of causal inference in the on-going methodological debate in political science research. Here, we critically engage the extant literature, take stock of the major debates, articulate key gaps and its limitations. Then, we leverage published journal articles in Web of Science (WoS) database collections and analyze them according to their publication years, topics, research areas, and countries/regions that they focused on. Finally, we did the same review at the country-level to look for nuanced patterns. We found that there is an influx of causal inference articles that are primarily election-related and concerns about the government and law. A good number of these studies focused in developed countries, while only limited interest in developing countries. Ultimately, we demonstrate that while the trend of much political science research has been the pursuit of causal inference, many regional and national-level studies of this kind remain scant and marginal. This is particularly revealing in the Philippine context which suggests potentially minimal exposure and lesser interaction and dissemination of the core ideas of establishing cause-and-effect in social science. This bears implications to the state and trajectory of empirical political works in Philippine political science.

ABSTRACT In this article, we study how the introduction of a None of the Above (NOTA) option in Indian elections since 2013 has affected voting patterns and election outcomes. First, we examine the relationship between position on the ballot with electoral outcomes by constructing a simple statistic that measures relative performance by position on the ballot or Electronic Voting Machines. Within non-party options, we show that the last option on the EVM ends up being a salient choice, which is an inversion of the usual findings in the literature on order effects, where earlier options are generally preferred. Second, the NOTA option is the salient choice for voters who choose not to vote for a party, and thereby substituting for independent candidates. This share is more than can be explained by ballot position alone. We argue that the existence of a NOTA option is not merely a procedural technicality; instead, voters use NOTA as a strategic option to express their protest.

ABSTRACT Over the past three decades, terrorism has directly threatened China's national security and has played a key role in its foreign policy. The nature of terrorism in China is changing, as is the Chinese government's response to the threat. Despite the issue's importance, there is still little knowledge about the changing face of terrorism in China. Thus, this study fills the gap in the literature on this subject by reviewing the terrorism threat against China after the Cold War from 1989 through 2020, based on the global terrorism database. The study's main findings reveal that China is not a significant target of terrorism when compared to other powers. Terrorism in China is domestic and concentrated in four specific districts, chiefly caused by the Uyghurs Uprising. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the BRI did not cause a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks against Chinese citizens outside China.

ABSTRACT Vigilante groups in Indonesia are changing. These actors and activities are not only connected with conventional international vigilantes (i.e. extremism organizations) but also the local extremism organizations that recently emerged and perpetrated violence extremism and intolerant activities at the international, national, and local levels. These activities organizations have, for instance, encouraged the formalization of religious teachings and the elimination of things deemed incompatible with religion—including the ongoing secularization of the public sphere. Responding to religious and theological issues in the public sphere, these organizations aim to erase or replace those they perceive as hindering their plans. Diverse organizations, through their local, national, and international networks, have been able to operate at the local level. This article aims to analyze vigilante groups after Indonesia's 2019 general election by paying attention to vigilante actors, activities, agencies, and networks. This study uses networking and political mobilization theories, as well as the political sociology perspective. This study uses data collected through big data and bibliometrics, covering 200 articles published between April 2019 and May 2021, then analyzes it was using Nvivo-12 Plus.

ABSTRACT Nepal experienced three major political systems in the last seven decades: the multiparty political system (1958–1961 and 1990–2007), the panchayat political system (1961–1990) and the federalist political system (2007 onwards). Each political system carried its own political philosophy, claiming to inscribe participatory democracy at its core. The research is designed as an in-country comparative case study, taking three key political systems as its units of analysis. It asks how did ordinary people participate in the polity and politics of such diverse yet frequently changing political systems in Nepal? Interpreted from a participatory governance perspective, the research finds that citizen participation in public decision-making apparatuses has been transcending significantly over the last seven decades, yet ordinary people with no political affiliation have been facing difficulty in influencing decisions that affect them.

ABSTRACT This article investigates rumours of a communist resurgence as a recurring theme invoked in Indonesian politics. In both the 2014 and 2019 presidential contests, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) was accused of being a PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) adherent, and a false narrative that he was the ‘communists’ candidate’ persisted throughout the campaigns. Despite the PKI having been banned and effectively defunct since 1966, large amounts of political disinformation that centred on its rebirth and the threat from communists dominated media narratives. The attack was expanded to include many key figures, including political elites and Jokowi’s allies and sympathizers. Using interviews with elite individuals and documentary research, this article argues that the ‘communist imaginary’ was deployed by campaign managers in the elections through the exploitation of constant anxieties regarding perceived villains. Furthermore, it has also been used as an excuse for military, as well as paramilitary factions, to grab greater power within the electoral context, as evidenced by their aggressive speeches and actions. The rumour of a communist threat, I will argue, provides a simple, effective way to distract the public from actual electoral issues.

ABSTRACT This research contributes to an understanding of the ‘intertwined destiny’ of China’s twin initiatives, the BRI and the CSD. We find that the security implications of the twin initiatives drive different patterns of responses among ASEAN states. The dynamism emanates from diversifying preferences of ASEAN states amid complex interdependence. The BRI does a better job of projecting China’s material and soft power, as it aligns closely with ASEAN states’ comprehensive national interests. The CSD fares less well because it seeks to impose Beijing’s hegemonic claims on the SCS, thereby posing a security challenge to claimant states in the region. The nuances suggest that the charm of the BRI cannot be readily converted into a passport for the CSD. For some ASEAN states, power asymmetry inherent in their relations with China requires a security commitment from this giant northern neighbour, which Beijing is still reluctant to provide.

ABSTRACT The present study provides an overview of the history of the civil service in South Korea, focusing on political appointments at the upper levels of the bureaucracy. We limit our investigation’s scope to presidential appointments of ministers and underscore the necessity for additional scholarly attention to this subject. To empirically assess these appointments, we introduce a novel dataset and conduct an analysis that examines the demographic characteristics and career paths of past ministers, alongside the types of political patronage employed in their appointments. This analysis utilizes the analytical framework of loyalty versus competence as proposed by (Ouyang, Y., Haglund, E. T., & Waterman, R. W. (2017). The missing element: Examining the loyalty-competence nexus in presidential appointments. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 47(1), 62–91.) and the typology of patronage outlined by (Panizza, F., Peters, B. G., & Ramos Larraburu, C. R. (2019). Roles, trust and skills: A typology of patronage appointments. Public Administration, 97(1), 147–161), which is further elaborated by (Peters, B. G. (2023). Patronage in Asian political systems: A framework for research. In B. G. Peters, C. Knox, & B. Kim (Eds.), Political patronage in Asian bureaucracies (pp. 1–21). Cambridge University Press). Our findings reveal that, irrespective of the regime or ministry, programmatic technocrats are the most prevalent type of presidential appointee in South Korea, with nearly half being former bureaucrats. Although most ministers in South Korea align with this category, we also discern significant variations across different regimes and ministries. These findings provide insights into the practices of political appointments in South Korea’s civil service and contribute to the literature on public administration and governance.

ABSTRACT The geopolitical situation created by Russia and China over Ukraine has made it difficult for businesses in Germany, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, to manage their logistics and supply chain processes effectively. The objective of this paper was to examine the impact of the geopolitical situation on the supply chain of German family-owned SMEs in 2022, focusing on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and China. The researchers used a quantitative research study that sampled 50 participants drawn from four family-owned SMEs in Germany. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the participants. The path analysis results reveal a significant relationship between price changes and Germany's family-owned SMEs’ supply chain processes (b = 0.716, t = 15.469, t < 0.05). The positive sign indicates that an increase in the independent variable results in an increase in the dependent variable. The positive sign indicates that an increase in organizational characteristics increases attitude towards green practices. The study concludes that supply inflation, price cost, and supply cost fundamentally affect the supply chain processes of Germany-owned SMEs. The German government and other stakeholders in the SME sectors should develop policies that aim to provide financial and regulatory assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany through public-private partnerships.