Asian Power and Politics

Asian Power and Politics PDF Author: Lucian W. PYE
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674042417
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
In a major new book, Lucian Pye reconceptualizes Asian political development as a product of cultural attitudes about power and authority. He contrasts the great traditions of Confucian East Asia with the Southeast Asian cultures and the South Asian traditions of Hinduism and Islam, and explores the national differences within these larger civilizations. Breaking with modern political theory, Pye believes that power differs profoundly from one culture to another. In Asia the masses of the people are group-oriented and respectful of authority, while their leaders are more concerned with dignity and upholding collective pride than with problem-solving. As culture decides the course of political development, Pye shows how Asian societies, confronted with the task of setting up modern nation-states, respond by fashioning paternalistic forms of power that satisfy their deep psychological craving for security. This new paternalism may appear essentially authoritarian to Western eyes, but Pye maintains that it is a valid response to the people's needs and will ensure community solidarity and strong group loyalties. He predicts that we are certain to see emerging from Asia's accelerating transformation some new version of modern society that may avoid many of the forms of tension common to Western civilization but may also produce a whole new set of problems. This book revitalizes Asian political studies on a plane that comprehends the large differences between Asia and the West and at the same time is sensitive to the subtle variations among the many Asian cultures. Its comparative perspective will provide indispensable insights to anyone who wishes to think more deeply about the modern Asian states.

Asian Power and Politics

Asian Power and Politics PDF Author: Lucian W. PYE
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674042417
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431

Get Book Here

Book Description
In a major new book, Lucian Pye reconceptualizes Asian political development as a product of cultural attitudes about power and authority. He contrasts the great traditions of Confucian East Asia with the Southeast Asian cultures and the South Asian traditions of Hinduism and Islam, and explores the national differences within these larger civilizations. Breaking with modern political theory, Pye believes that power differs profoundly from one culture to another. In Asia the masses of the people are group-oriented and respectful of authority, while their leaders are more concerned with dignity and upholding collective pride than with problem-solving. As culture decides the course of political development, Pye shows how Asian societies, confronted with the task of setting up modern nation-states, respond by fashioning paternalistic forms of power that satisfy their deep psychological craving for security. This new paternalism may appear essentially authoritarian to Western eyes, but Pye maintains that it is a valid response to the people's needs and will ensure community solidarity and strong group loyalties. He predicts that we are certain to see emerging from Asia's accelerating transformation some new version of modern society that may avoid many of the forms of tension common to Western civilization but may also produce a whole new set of problems. This book revitalizes Asian political studies on a plane that comprehends the large differences between Asia and the West and at the same time is sensitive to the subtle variations among the many Asian cultures. Its comparative perspective will provide indispensable insights to anyone who wishes to think more deeply about the modern Asian states.

The Spirit of Chinese Politics

The Spirit of Chinese Politics PDF Author: Lucian W. Pye
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674832404
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Lucian Pye, one of the most knowledgeable observers of China, unfolds in this book a deep psychological analysis of Chinese political culture. The dynamics of the Cultural Revolution, the behavior of the Red Guards, and the compulsions of Mao Tse-tung are among the important symptoms examined. But Pye goes behind large events, exploring the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture and the stable elements of the national psychology as they have been manifested in traditional, Republican, and Communist periods. He also scans several possible paths of future development. The emphasis is on the roles long played by authority, order, hierarchy, and emotional quietism in Chinese political culture as shaped by the Confucian tradition and the institution of filial piety, and the resulting confusions brought about by the displacements of these traditions in the face of political change and modernization. In this new edition Pye adds a chapter on the basic tension between consensus and conflict in the operation of Chinese politics, illustrating the "spirit" in action, and another discussing the great gap that persists between the worlds of the political leadership and of society at large in post-Tiananmen China.

The Nature of Asian Politics

The Nature of Asian Politics PDF Author: Bruce Gilley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316060446
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
The Nature of Asian Politics is a broad and thematic treatment of the fundamental factors that characterize politics in the fourteen key countries of Southeast and Northeast Asia. Bruce Gilley begins with an overview of state-society relations, then moves on to the fundamental questions of development and democracy, and finally shifts to an exploration of governance and public policy in the region. This book proposes an Asian governance model that is useful for understanding politics from Japan to Indonesia. By reviving an earlier paradigm known as oriental despotism and applying it to political theories on the Asian region, this book is likely to attract wide debate among students of Asian politics and among Western policy makers seeking to engage the region.

Pathways to Power

Pathways to Power PDF Author: Arjun Guneratne
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442225998
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
Pathways to Power introduces the domestic politics of South Asia in their broadest possible context, studying ongoing transformative social processes grounded in cultural forms. In doing so, it reveals the interplay between politics, cultural values, human security, and historical luck. While these are important correlations everywhere, nowhere are they more compelling than in South Asia where such dynamic interchanges loom large on a daily basis. Identity politics—not just of religion but also of caste, ethnicity, regionalism, and social class—infuses all aspects of social and political life in the sub-continent. Recognizing this complex interplay, this volume moves beyond conventional views of South Asian politics as it explicitly weaves the connections between history, culture, and social values into its examination of political life. South Asia is one of the world’s most important geopolitical areas and home to nearly one and a half billion people. Although many of the poorest people in the world live in this region, it is home also to a rapidly growing middle class wielding much economic power. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, together the successor states to the British Indian Empire—the Raj—form the core of South Asia, along with two smaller states on its periphery: landlocked Nepal and the island state of Sri Lanka. Many factors bring together the disparate countries of the region into important engagements with one another, forming an uneasy regional entity. Contributions by: Arjun Guneratne, Christophe Jaffrelot, Pratyoush Onta, Haroun er Rashid, Seira Tamang, Shabnum Tejani, and Anita M. Weiss

Asian Americans and Politics

Asian Americans and Politics PDF Author: Gordon H. Chang
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804742016
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
This volume is the first to take a broad-ranging look at the engagement of Asian Americans with American politics. Its contributors come from a variety of disciplines—history, political science, sociology, and urban studies—and from the practical political realm.

Structure, Audience and Soft Power in East Asian Pop Culture

Structure, Audience and Soft Power in East Asian Pop Culture PDF Author: Beng Huat Chua
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9888139037
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
East Asian pop culture can be seen as an integrated cultural economy emerging from the rise of Japanese and Korean pop culture as an influential force in the distribution and reception networks of Chinese language pop culture embedded in the ethnic Chinese diaspora. Taking Singapore as a locus of pan-Asian Chineseness, Chua Beng Huat provides detailed analysis of the fragmented reception process of transcultural audiences and the processes of audiences’ formation and exercise of consumer power and engagement with national politics. In an era where exercise of military power is increasingly restrained, pop culture has become an important component of soft power diplomacy and transcultural collaborations in a region that is still haunted by colonization and violence. The author notes that the aspirations behind national governments' efforts to use popular culture is limited by the fragmented nature of audiences who respond differently to the same products; by the danger of backlash from other members of the importing country's population that do not consume the popular culture products in question; and by the efforts of the primary consuming country, the People's Republic of China to shape products through co-production strategies and other indirect modes of intervention.

Southeast Asian Perspectives on Power

Southeast Asian Perspectives on Power PDF Author: Liana Chua
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415683459
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Over the last half-century, Southeast Asia has undergone innumerable, far-reaching changes that have consequences not only for large-scale institutions and processes, but also for everyday life. This book focuses on the topic of power in relation to these transformations, and looks at its various social, cultural, religious, economic and political forms. Consisting of empirically rich case studies, the book works from the ground up, seeking to capture Southeast Asians' own perspectives, conceptualizations and experiences of power.

Thailand’s Political Peasants

Thailand’s Political Peasants PDF Author: Andrew Walker
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres
ISBN: 0299288234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
When a populist movement elected Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister of Thailand in 2001, many of the country’s urban elite dismissed the outcome as just another symptom of rural corruption, a traditional patronage system dominated by local strongmen pressuring their neighbors through political bullying and vote-buying. In Thailand’s Political Peasants, however, Andrew Walker argues that the emergence of an entirely new socioeconomic dynamic has dramatically changed the relations of Thai peasants with the state, making them a political force to be reckoned with. Whereas their ancestors focused on subsistence, this generation of middle-income peasants seeks productive relationships with sources of state power, produces cash crops, and derives additional income through non-agricultural work. In the increasingly decentralized, disaggregated country, rural villagers and farmers have themselves become entrepreneurs and agents of the state at the local level, while the state has changed from an extractor of taxes to a supplier of subsidies and a patron of development projects. Thailand’s Political Peasants provides an original, provocative analysis that encourages an ethnographic rethinking of rural politics in rapidly developing countries. Drawing on six years of fieldwork in Ban Tiam, a rural village in northern Thailand, Walker shows how analyses of peasant politics that focus primarily on rebellion, resistance, and evasion are becoming less useful for understanding emergent forms of political society.

From Bandwagon to Balance-of-Power Politics

From Bandwagon to Balance-of-Power Politics PDF Author: Avery Goldstein
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804718509
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
A Stanford University Press classic.

A Different Shade of Justice

A Different Shade of Justice PDF Author: Stephanie Hinnershitz
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469633701
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
In the Jim Crow South, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and, later, Vietnamese and Indian Americans faced obstacles similar to those experienced by African Americans in their fight for civil and human rights. Although they were not black, Asian Americans generally were not considered white and thus were subject to school segregation, antimiscegenation laws, and discriminatory business practices. As Asian Americans attempted to establish themselves in the South, they found that institutionalized racism thwarted their efforts time and again. However, this book tells the story of their resistance and documents how Asian American political actors and civil rights activists challenged existing definitions of rights and justice in the South. From the formation of Chinese and Japanese communities in the early twentieth century through Indian hotel owners' battles against business discrimination in the 1980s and '90s, Stephanie Hinnershitz shows how Asian Americans organized carefully constructed legal battles that often traveled to the state and federal supreme courts. Drawing from legislative and legal records as well as oral histories, memoirs, and newspapers, Hinnershitz describes a movement that ran alongside and at times intersected with the African American fight for justice, and she restores Asian Americans to the fraught legacy of civil rights in the South.