Liberalization In Asia Research Articles

Rethinking Gender, Reimagining Healing in Minjung Theology: An Indonesian Feminist Theological Rupture

This article rethinks gender and its impact on a reimagination of healing in Minjung theology. I argue that rethinking gender in Minjung theology by reconnecting its three features of collectivity, art, and event from a feminist trauma perspective ruptures the dominant masculine, heterosexual, and liberation grammar in Minjung theology and creates a new imagination of Minjung theology as a discourse of healing. I call this oscillation between rethinking gender and reimagining healing a feminist theological rupture embedded in a grammar of trauma and resilience. This grammar is a theological addition to Minjung theology’s core emphasis on resistance and liberation. I intend to extend and complexify Minjung theology’s masculine and heterosexual grammar and make it more accessible to feminist, queer, and broader contemporary theological praxes for healing. Methodologically, I use a self-reflexive approach by weaving the feminist and queer voices of South Korea and Indonesia with my own voice as rupturing voices to examine the complex tapestry and relevance of Minjung theology. As a result, this article unveils the plausibility of Minjung theology as a grammar of healing that resonates with the rich and complex stories of trauma, witnessing, healing, and liberation in Asia.

Contemporary Theology in Asia: Current Challenges and Future Directions

This article explores old issues and current challenges from new perspectives. It offers explorations of the role of the Trinity in interreligious dialogue and the roles of interreligions in Asian contemporary theology. It proposes some methodological concepts of how Christians should reconsider people of other faiths through the lens of the Trinity, and also how Christians should witness to shalom against sin in engagement with other faiths for the common good of social, gender and ecological liberation in Asia.

Russian Policy of the Pivot to the East: Puzzle of Exports, FTAs and Eurasian Integration

The idea of the lagging Pivot suggests that the Russian policy of the “Pivot to the East” cannot last successfully on a long-term basis given the extensive lag between the political and economic dimensions of the Pivot, in Russia and abroad. One of the most inevitable and necessary conditions of bridging this gap can be found among the instruments of trade liberalization. Here we should shift our focus from Russian interests to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) which has a privileged mandate on merchandise trade negotiations with third countries and blocs like ASEAN: Russia has not been able sign any FTA on its own since 2015. However, this puzzle was relatively poorly studied both in Russia and abroad and this paper attempts to fill this gap. We briefly analyze the scope of trade between Russia and key Asian markets (which still remain mostly limited to North-East Asia) to define the most sensitive export markets for Russia, then we systematize existing barriers which could be potentially eliminated by international trade negotiations and compare them with existing international activity of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). The results of our study clearly demonstrate an objective demand for more intensive EAEU activity on trade liberalization in Asia with a particular focus on non-tariff barriers (NTBs).

ANTHROPOLOGY: “BASTARD CHILD” OF IMPERIALISM’S COMING OF AGE AT THE DAWN OF 21ST CENTURY

Abstract Complexities of power/knowledge relationships are widely recognized, theorized and examined in multiplicities of contexts in social sciences and humanities. In this presentation I will, however briefly, examine how and why anthropology, often referred to as the bastard child of nineteenth century Western imperialism, has transformed itself at the dawn of twenty first century, at least according to the American Anthropological Associations (AAA:2012), to become one of the “most humanistic of sciences and scientific of humanities.” A discipline with the current goals of producing and “disseminating anthropological knowledge to solve human problems”, according to the AAA, the institutional governing body of the field in the United States of America. History of the development of anthropology, like other social sciences and humanities disciplines, has been shaped by the diverse relationships of its practitioners, the anthropologists, to the fluid nature of Western imperial powers. That is, transforming from empires of commerce, and conquest to “empires by invitation or empires of trust”, during the twentieth century, especially after the Second World War. Here I will focus on the following significant questions: How did the instrumental uses by Western colonial powers of anthropologists and cultural knowledge they produced about the non-Western colonized societies during the nineteenth and early twentieth century shape trajectories of the development of the discipline? How or whether the ab/uses of anthropology and anthropologists changed during the two World Wars as well as the anti-colonial wars of liberation in Asia, Africa and Latin America? What were the impact of Western decolonization, onset of the Cold War, wars by proxies, and creation of neo-empires by “invitation/trust”, on anthropology, after the end of WWII? More significantly, how did the triumph of Western Capitalism over the USSR, the beginning of war on global terror (after September 11-2001) and the need for counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns in the Middle East influence militarization/weaponization of anthropology and anthropologizing the military? Also explored will be the role of recently trained non-Western or “native” anthropologists in reassessing anthropology’s imperialist past and its extremely critical contemporary stance.

The Impact of Infrastructure on Trade and Economic Growth in Selected Economies in Asia

Infrastructure plays a key role in facilitating trade, especially since recent trade liberalization in Asia has resulted in significant tariff reductions. This study quantifies the impacts of both hard and soft infrastructure on trade volume for exporters and importers in the region as well as on various economic growth indicators.

Trade liberalization in Asia and FDI strategies in heterogeneous firms: evidence from Japanese firm-level data

This article clarifies the reasons for the recent rapid growth of foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries, particularly Asian countries. For this purpose, we theoretically and empirically examine the mechanics of both horizontal FDI and vertical FDI (VFDI) to shed light on the role of trade costs. Our empirical analysis using a logit or multinomial logit model of Japanese firms’ FDI choices reveals that the tariff reduction in Asian countries has lowered the productivity cutoff for VFDI. This result indicates that since developing countries, particularly Asian countries, have experienced a relatively rapid decrease in tariff rates, the increase in VFDI through tariff reduction led to the recent surge of FDI in developing countries.

Regional Integration in the Americas: State of Play, Lessons, and Ways Forward

The Americas have been a key driver of regional trade agreements (RTAs) since the 1990s. This study considers the effect of these agreements on trade liberalization, and the lessons that this offers for other parts of the world, notably Asia. It finds broad geographical coverage of RTAs in the Americas, and evidence that these agreements have broadened and deepened liberalization. It stresses the importance of looking beyond tariffs on goods, to consider liberalization of services and removal of non-tariff barriers, both for academics assessing the true extent of liberalization, and for policymakers looking to ensure well-functioning RTAs. It suggests that RTAs can encourage broader liberalization in Asia, but some sectors will be resistant to liberalization. Moreover, efforts must be made to harmonize the provisions of RTAs, to avoid costly multiplication of rules and to ensure a web of bilateral deals does not undermine multilateral trade.

The Building Block versus Stumbling Block Debate of Regionalism: From the Perspective of Service Trade Liberalization in Asia

When debating the pros and cons of economic regionalism, have we focused more on trade in goods at the expense of services? This article argues that regionalism is certainly a building block not a stumbling block to a multilateral trading system, using the service liberalization scheme of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a case study. At the same time, it is critical to set out a proper institutional arrangement to ensure that regional service liberalization initiatives reinforce the global service regime. This article proposes an amendment of the current Article V of the General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS) to define the appropriate relationship between multilateralism and regionalism in the context of services.

External Liberalization in Asia, Post-Socialist Europe, and Brazil

External Liberalization in Asia, Post-Socialist Europe, and Brazil

Foreign Direct Investment and Investment Liberalization in Asia: Assessing Asean's Initiatives

This paper explores ASEAN's attempts at investment liberalization. Investment liberalization is variously associated with net positive effects on inflows of investment capital, technology transfer, employment, export generation, economic growth and development. As a net historical beneficiary of investment flows, the paper hypothesizes that ASEAN's stated commitment to investment liberalization should by now be realizing progress in each of four areas: a). absolute reductions in national autonomy in relation to investment screening and conditionality provisions; b). increased transparency in respect of member-states national investment regimes; c). enhanced standardization and codification of regulatory standards governing investment related provisions across member states; and d). enhanced centralized coordination and decision making in respect of investment governance. Each of these areas is investigated in relation to ASEAN's three primary investment agreements and the ensuing regimes that govern investment provisions and policy practices among member states.

External Liberalization in Asia, Post‐socialist Europe and Brazil edited by Lance Taylor

<i>External Liberalization in Asia, Post‐socialist Europe and Brazil</i> edited by Lance Taylor

External liberalization in Asia, post-socialist Europe, and Brazil

External liberalization in Asia, post-socialist Europe, and Brazil

Financial development and financial liberalization in Asia: Thresholds, institutions and the sequence of liberalization

This paper investigates whether financial openness leads to financial development after controlling for the level of legal/institutional development, and whether trade opening is a precondition for financial opening. The focus is on Asia. In a panel encompassing 87 less developed countries over the period 1980 to 2000, a higher level of financial openness is found to spur equity market development only if a threshold level of legal development has been attained, a condition which tends to prevail particularly among emerging market Asian countries. On the issue of sequencing, trade openness is found to be a prerequisite for successful inducement of financial development via capital account liberalization.

The institutional environment and effects of telecommunication privatization and market liberalization in Asia

Are the privatization and market competition models resulting in the leveling of the supply-side playing field, and are they demand driven as expected? Quantitative indicators of network expansion and efficiency provide a partial and inconclusive picture. Instead, an evolutionary property rights framework is favored. Examined in detail are the institutional environments that lead to particular types of property rights which in turn affect network expansion and efficiency. The article offers two conclusions: (a) introducing market competition is slow, messy and difficult to manage but, where present, it is better for growth than privatization alone, and (b) network expansion and efficiency are most noticeable where adequate property rights and enforcement mechanisms are in place. It also conjectures that the “East Asia Model” toward network expansion may not be easily generalizable.

Challenging triumphalism and convergence: the limits of global liberalization in Asia and Latin America

The economic crises in 1997–9 in Asia, Brazil and elsewhere represent collectively the first post-Cold War ‘crisis of globalization’, and a significant set-back for the process of international economic liberalization. Contrary to some arguments, the crises do not represent the final ideological triumph of liberalism in a post-Cold War era. Rather they must be seen as a further spur to rethinking significant aspects of the neoliberal project. A comparative analysis of Asia and Latin America in this context demonstrates that while trade liberalization and a broad neoliberal economic strategy are unlikely to be abandoned, there is strong evidence that the tide of capital account liberalization has turned, and that emerging ‘sites of resistance’ are becoming salient factors in the political equation in the relationships of both regions to the wider global economy. Asian and Latin American responses to the crisis of globalization refute notions of convergence, on which many recent conceptions of the global political economy have rested, and point to the emergence of a genuine contestation of policy ideas that will have significant implications for the future management of the global economic order.

The Global Economic Crisis, Contagion, and Institutions: New Realities in Latin America and Asia

This article uses the current economic crisis in Asia to analyze the impact that economic turmoil—especially economic contagion—in emerging markets can have on the process of social, political, and economic institutionalization and reform in Asia and Latin America. It argues that continued financial instability will result in increased democratization and transparency in Asia, as has happened in Latin America as a result of its struggles to consolidate and reconcile democratization and economic reform from the late 1980s to today. This transformation in Asia will temper the argument that the Asian development model was the path Latin America should have followed. This does not mean, however, that the reform path that the Asian countries choose will be successful or certain. Rather, although many authoritarian tenets of the Asian model will be challenged by calls for political and economic reform, the ultimate degree of liberalization in Asia will be uneven and incomplete, especially if the economic crisis deepens. Conversely, Latin American nations will need to use the Asian crisis as further evidence that the most sustainable form of economic and political reform necessitates a renewed commitment to promoting democracy and liberal institutions.

Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States by Rita Nakashima Brock and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite Minneapolis, Fortress, 1996. 373 pp. $22.00

Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the United States <i>by Rita Nakashima Brock and Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite</i> Minneapolis, Fortress, 1996. 373 pp. $22.00

The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia

The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia

The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia

The Playful Revolution: Theatre and Liberation in Asia

The playful revolution: theatre and liberation in Asia

Preface I. Revolution, Freedom, and Theatre II. Building Stages of People Power: The Philippines Educational Theater Association III. Inside the Philippine Theatre of Liberation Network IV. Resistance Theatre in South Korea: Above and Underground V. The Factionalized Indian Theatre of Liberation VI. Killed in Action: Safdar HashmiOs Street Theatre in Delhi VII. Of Stages and Mosques: The Irresistible Rise of PakistanOs Political Theatre VIII. Beyond the Shadows of Wayang: Theatre of Liberation in Indonesia IX. Theatre of Liberation Experiments in Thailand X. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index