Asian Regimes Research Articles

The imperial security state: British colonial knowledge and empire-building in Asia

1. Introduction 2. The military revolution of the nineteenth century 3. Imperial state formation, the professionalization of the army, and the making of experts 4. Forming intelligence, making an archive 5. Disciplining the space of Asia: triangulation and route books 6. Regulating the facts of Asia: military reports and handbooks 7. The uses of intelligence 8. The effects of the imperial security regime in Asia and Great Britain 9. Imperial security and the transformation of Asia Bibliography.

“The Yalu River Era of Developing Asia”: Japanese Expertise, Colonial Power, and the Construction of Sup'ung Dam

Through investigating the construction of one of Japan's largest infrastructure projects during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), this article examines the formation of a technocratic regime of colonial development expertise that was an important pillar of Japanese imperial rule and continued to have powerful effects throughout postwar Asia. It analyzes how a particular form of technical expertise and the wider discourse of “Scientific Japan” as the modernizer of Asia were legitimated and naturalized, as well as how they operated as a system of colonial power. Japan and other East Asian regimes after the war continued to invoke forms of technocratic expertise with origins in the colonial era as part of their state-led development programs, often with adverse effects on their populations. Thus this article concludes that there is a continuing need to critique, historicize, and denaturalize such regimes of expertise invoked by networks of bureaucrats, businessmen, engineers, and experts.

Assessment of Impact of Foreign Direct Investment in India FDI in Banking and Finance

The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) environment in India has undergone a drastic change since the economic reforms in 1991. The positive changes can be particularly attributed to the evolving policy framework. The main thrust of the financial sector reforms has been the creation of efficient and stable financial institutions and development of the markets, especially the money and government securities market. Indian banks going global and many global banks setting up shops in India, the Indian banking system is set to involve into a totally new level it will help the banking system grow in strength going into the future. India offers attractive investment opportunities for foreign companies and has adopted a number of policies to attract foreign direct investment into the country and the country seems to offer perhaps one of the most liberal FDI regimes in Asia. It’s even reviewed that the investment climate has not improved in India as a result of lack of good governance, corruption, political instability and disturbance, bureaucratic inertia, and poor law and order situation. Indian government incentives to foreign investors, particularly Special Economic Zones, the Indian regulatory environment as it affects investment, and the effect of India’s global, regional, and bilateral trade agreements on investment from the United States and other countries.

All in the family? Migrants, nationhood, and care regimes in Asia and North America

If a ‘migrant in the family’ is the prevalent pattern of care work in Mediterranean societies today, what are the emergent patterns in other familialistic societies, and what factors are driving or impeding them? We address these questions by examining the cases of Japan, Korea, Canada, and the US. Our analysis shows that while care work patterns in all these four countries resemble those of the Mediterranean countries in their increased use of migrant care workers, they also differ from the Mediterranean and among themselves, partly because of their varying conceptualizations of nationhood. We argue that concepts of nationhood are significant but not all-determining in efforts to reconcile care work and migration regimes.

Loan Loss Provisioning Practices of Asian Banks

In the wake of the Asian financial crisis, many regimes in Asia adopted stricter provisioning requirements, as well as discretionary measures, with the objective of increasing provisioning in good times in response to rising levels of risk. Based on a final sample of 240 banks in 12 Asian economies, the evidence is that countercyclical loan loss provisioning has dominated throughout emerging Asia, most strikingly so in the case of India. Thus, loan loss provisioning did not simply become more conservative at all points in time subsequent to the Asian financial crisis, but actively leaned in a fashion that ameliorated swings in earnings and the macroeconomy.

Management of Exchange Rate Regimes in Emerging Asia

This paper revisits the issue of exchange rate regimes in emerging Asia. It is divided into two main parts. The first part compares de jure and de facto exchange rate regimes in Asia over the decade 1999–2009. The second part focuses on the sustained stockpiling of reserves in developing and emerging Asian economies since 2000 (interrupted only briefly by the global financial crisis). The paper concludes with some observations on the management of Asian currencies in light of the global financial crisis and concerns about global imbalances.

The Political Economy and Culture of Human Rights in East Asia

The Asian values debate has been one of the preeminent human rights debates in the world for the past two decades. The claim of some East Asian regimes for continued authoritarian government and denial of certain human rights on the grounds that this is in harmony with Asian values, helps preserve community and leads to higher growth is disputed in this article. This is done on the basis that liberal constitutionalism – which is defined here as democracy, the rule of law and human rights – when indigenised through debate and adaption to local conditions is not only in keeping with traditions but, as the experience of many countries in East Asia itself reveals, is better at managing the diverse interests that emerge in rapidly changing societies and is thereby a generator of political and economic stability. Thus, the East Asian discourse offers insights for human rights debates in many other developing countries globally.

Zaitakukaigo ni okeru Koreisha to Kazoku: Toshi to Chiho no Hikakubunseki (Elderly People and Families in Home Care: A Comparative Analysis of Cities and Provincial Areas in Japan)

In the ten years following the introduction of the Long-term Care Insurance (LTCI) system (kaigo hoken seido), the amount of elderly care services within Japan has increased dramatically. For example, the number of users of home-help services (hōmon kaigo) increased from 518,000 in 2001 to 1,154,000 in 2009, and in Japan, we are living in an age in which 4.1% of those aged 65 years or over are using home-help services. Japan has been called a conservative regime, a mixture of liberal, conservative and social democratic regimes, or an East Asian regime in international comparative studies on welfare states. Whatever the case, the fact that the family plays a major role in providing welfare in Japan is undeniable (Saito et al. 2010: 43–45). The introduction of the LTCI system is highly significant for Japanese society, which did not have universal elderly care until the 21st century. How have the conditions of elderly care changed? How have people’s awareness changed? How has the role of the family changed? An analysis of elderly care conditions provides us with an important benchmark when seeking to understand the characteristics and recent trends of the welfare state in Japan.

At the resort: Southeast Asian tourist workers and regimes of global citizenship

International five‐star tourist resorts are arguably distinctive cultural sites that can reveal much about the logics of globalisation. The Malaysian resort that is the subject of this article is a multi‐layered cultural site that seeks to evoke an imagined memory of colonial idyll and local authenticity. It is at the same time a site of complex regimes of global citizenship. Both guests and workers, it turns out, are members of a mobile, transnational cosmopolitan class. But they do not enjoy the same privileges of citizenship. Such resorts evidence a growing international system of multi‐tiered regimes of global citizenship in a climate where states have become adept at managing the interfaces between local and global, modern and pre‐modern, marketised and planned, indigenous and immigrant, having developed a new politics of race, nationalism, and belonging that adapts to the contingencies of global flows in ways that far exceed the generic routines of globalisation theory and especially its expectations about national decline.

From the Arab Street to the Silk Road: Implications of the Unrest in North Africa for the Central Asian States

An American political geographer and noted specialist in the electoral geography of the post-Soviet states explores the extent to which underlying social, political, and economic conditions in North African countries experiencing regime change prompted by mass political unrest (Egypt, Tunisia) resemble those prevailing in the five Central Asian states. The author compares the countries' rankings on a number of relevant indicators (e.g., Human Development Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, Freedom House indices of political rights and civil liberties) before undertaking a more qualitative assessment of human rights, institutional control, and external support for current Central Asian regimes. Although Uzbekistan, the most populous state with the most repressive regime in the region, is a focus of attention, the same abuses and challenges are evident, albeit in varying degrees, in other vulnerable post-Soviet countries of Central Asia.

Russia's Very Secret Services

Russia's <i>Very</i> Secret Services

Economic conditions of female-headed households in Taiwan in comparison with the United States and Sweden

This study investigated the economic conditions of female-headed households in Taiwan and compared them with those in the United States and Sweden in 2000. At the descriptive level, we investigated the socioeconomic backgrounds of the households, the rate of poverty, distributive effects of public and private transfers, and Gini coefficients at each stage of income distribution. We then conducted logistic regression analyses of the poverty rate at the last stage of income distribution. The major finding was that within the context of a small welfare state, Taiwan had the lowest poverty rate before transfers and the second lowest poverty rate after transfers of the three countries we studied. Moreover, at the last stage of income distribution, only two independent variables (education and work status of the household head) affected the poverty rate. We conclude that Taiwan, as one of the developmental welfare regimes in Asia, had created a different way of enhancing the economic wellbeing of female-headed ...

Asia’s Leading Holding Company Jurisdictions – Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore’s Fight for Global Business

The author compares three of the most popular holding company regimes in Asia, i.e. Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, in addition to covering significant anti-avoidance developments relevant to cross-border activities in the region. The article concludes with a summary of the main strengths and weaknesses of each of the three jurisdictions in relation to holding companies.

The Evolution and Impact of Asian Exchange Rate Regimes

This paper revisits the issue of the evolution and choice of exchange rate regimes in Asia. The paper first compiles and discusses the de jure in various developing and emerging Asian economies. It then goes on to offer a simple empirical estimation of the degree of influence of the G3 currencies in selected Asian currencies over the past decade. The paper finds some evidence of evolution of Asian exchange rate policies toward an apparent “fear of appreciation” rather than “fear of floating” per se. The broader point though is a general reluctance of many Asian economies to allow for a “benign neglect” of their currencies both in terms of managing volatility as well as in terms of leaning against the wind. The paper examines some of the concerns with exchange rate flexibility that persist, and offers an extended discussion on the appropriate exchange rate regimes for Asia in the future.

The exchange rate regime in Asia: From crisis to crisis

Prior to the Asian financial crisis, most Asian exchange rates were de facto pegged to the US Dollar. During the crisis, many economies experienced a brief period of extreme flexibility. A ‘fear of floating’ gave reduced flexibility when the crisis subsided, but flexibility after the crisis was greater than that seen prior to the crisis. Contrary to the idea of a durable Bretton Woods II arrangement, Asia then went on to slowly raise flexibility and reduce the role for the US dollar. When the period from April 2008 to December 2009 is compared against periods of high inflexibility, from January 1991 to November 1991 and October 1995 to March 1997, the increase in flexibility is economically and statistically significant. This paper proposes a new measure of dollar pegging, the “Bretton Woods II Score”. We find that Asia has been slowly moving away from a Bretton Woods II arrangement.

The role of external factors in advancing non-liberal democratic forms of political rule: a case study of Russia's influence on Central Asian regimes

This article argues that deliberate and unintentional external influences play both direct and indirect roles in advancing non-liberal democratic political rule. Specifically, it identifies four key external factors whereby Russia has strengthened Central Asia's authoritarian rule: the diffusion of ideas and norms; the growing use of economic and cultural power; the minimal but strategic use of hard power; and the development of regional organizations. The article shows how Russia has consolidated and further entrenched authoritarianism by mapping its impact on the strength of Central Asia's regimes−its management of political contestation, use of coercion, containment of civil society, and degree of legitimacy. Through ‘regional authoritarian learning’, Russia has also strengthened its own autocracy. The conditions conducive to the advance of authoritarianism include the ‘receptivity’ of ideas and practices, the provision of benefits (financial or legitimacy), and perceived threats to regime survival.

The EU in Central Asia: successful good governance promotion?

A reappraisal of security and economic interests has led to increased engagement by the European Union with Central Asia in the past few years. As a new foreign policy tool the EU adopted a new partnership strategy for Central Asia in 2007. The strategy aims to integrate both interest-based and governance-related policy ambitions. In the two years since the strategy was adopted activities concerning the implementation of good governance-related initiatives are still rather weak. This article discusses the obstacles and prospects for good governance promotion in Central Asia. The prospects for external good governance promotion in stable authoritarian environments are limited. Domestic economic pressure increases the willingness of the Central Asian incumbent governments to enter into international agreements and widens the scope of external good governance promotion. Yet the prioritisation of interest-based policy objectives and the reluctance to employ conditionalities on the part of the EU provide an opportunity for the Central Asian regimes to limit their concessions and feign reforms. Initiatives focusing on grassroots levels appear to be the most promising in terms of the diffusion of ideas of good governance and democracy.

Varieties of regulatory regimes in Asia: the liberalization of the higher education market and changing governance in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia

Under intensified pressures for improving the global competence of university graduates, national governments across different parts of the globe have to on the one hand expand higher education enrolments and on the other hand assure high quality in teaching and research in order to make sure their higher education systems can compete globally. Many Asian states have been in the forefront of this effort to improve national competitiveness by raising their higher education enrolment rate. As state financing and provision alone will not satisfy the growing demands for higher education, governments in Asia adopt more pro-competition policy instruments and increasingly look to the market/private sectors in running higher education. Therefore the private higher education sector has paid for much of the higher education sector expansion, leading to revolutionary changes and imparting a growing ‘privateness’ to Asian higher education systems. This article sets out in this wider socio-economic context to examine the rise of transnational higher education in three Asian societies: Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. With particular reference to examining how the growing prominence of privateness in higher education has challenged the conventional education governance models, this article critically examines how these Asian states have reinvented their regulatory regimes to govern the growing complexity and highly contested public-private mix in higher education.

Shaping Mutual Recognition Regimes in Asia: Some Lessons from the Japan-Singapore Arrangement

Many debates have been focused on mutual recognition in the context of the EU or the US-EU framework. Instead, this paper attempts to evaluate the rise of mutual recognition in Asia. Using an empirical approach, this paper inquires whether or not mutual recognition regimes are emerging in Asia, and if so, how these new regimes differ from the models in the EU or transatlantic framework. To summarize, this paper observes that mutual recognition in Asia simply remains a continuous learning process between governments, without fully facilitating global administrative actions that can ‘promote transparency, participation, and accountability’.

Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America: Social Policy in Development Contexts – By Ian Gough and Geof Wood, with Armando Barrientos, Philippa Bevan, P. David, and R. Room Globalization and the Future of the Welfare State – Edited by Miguel Glatzer and Dietrich Rueschemeyer The Decline of the Welfare State: Demography and Globalization – By Assaf

Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America: Social Policy in Development Contexts – By Ian Gough and Geof Wood, with Armando Barrientos, Philippa Bevan, P. David, and R. Room Globalization and the Future of the Welfare State – Edited by Miguel Glatzer and Dietrich Rueschemeyer The Decline of the Welfare State: Demography and Globalization – By Assaf