Bøger i Policy Studies (East-West Cent serien

Analysis uncovers that in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Singapore, the executive is held more accountable by legislatures under electoral authoritarianism than in new democracies. Rather than leading to a transition to democratic politics, this accountability strengthens authoritarian rule.

The impressive and sustained growth of India's automobile industry in recent years has catapulted it into the league of the world's top-seven producers of four-wheelers. This study identifies the main thrusts of policy regimes for the automobile sector since 1947, which began in an overregulation mode in the early period of independence.

This monograph reviews the efficacy of economic statecraft vis--vis North Korea, with a particular focus on the use of sanctions and inducements on the part of the United States in seeking to achieve nonproliferation and wider foreign policy objectives. 110 pp.

In recent decades, several East Asian nations have undergone democratic transitions accompanied by changes in the balance of power between civilian elites and military leaders. These developments have not followed a single pattern: In Thailand, failure to institutionalize civilian control has contributed to the breakdown of democracy; civil-military relations and democracy in the Philippines are in prolonged crisis; and civilian control in Indonesia is yet to be institutionalized. At the same time, South Korea and Taiwan have established civilian supremacy and made great advances in consolidating democracy. These differences can be explained by the interplay of structural environment and civilian political entrepreneurship. In Taiwan, Korea, and Indonesia, strategic action, prioritization, and careful timing helped civilians make the best of their structural opportunities to overcome legacies of military involvement in politics. In Thailand, civilians overestimated their ability to control the military and provoked military intervention. In the Philippines, civilian governments forged a symbiotic relationship with military elites that allowed civilians to survive in office but also protected the military's institutional interests. These differences in the development of civil-military relations had serious repercussions on national security, political stability, and democratic consolidation, helping to explain why South Korea, Taiwan, and, to a lesser degree, Indonesia have experienced successful democratic transformation, while Thailand and the Philippines have failed to establish stable democratic systems.

Following significant interethnic violence beginning in 2008, Chinese intellectuals and policymakers are now engaged in unprecedented debate over the future direction of their country's ethnic policies. This study attempts to gauge current Chinese opinion on this once-secretive and still highly sensitive area of national policy. Domestic Chinese opinion on ethnic policies over the last five years is reviewed and implications for future policies under the new leadership of CPC Secretary General Xi Jinping are explored. Careful review of a wide spectrum of contemporary Chinese commentary identifies an emerging consensus for ethnic-policy reform. Leading public intellectuals, as well as some party officials, now openly call for new measures strengthening national integration at the expense of minority rights and autonomy. These reformers argue that divisive ethnic policies adopted from the former USSR must be replaced by those supporting an ethnic "melting pot" concept. Despite this important shift in opinion, such radical policy changes as ending regional ethnic autonomy or minority preferences are unlikely over the short-to-medium term. Small-yet-significant adjustments in rhetoric and policy emphasis are, however, expected as the party-state attempts to strengthen interethnic cohesiveness as a part of its larger agenda of stability maintenance. About the author James Leibold is a senior lecturer in Politics and Asian Studies at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism (2007) and co-editor of Critical Han Studies (2012) and Minority Education in China (forthcoming). His research on ethnicity, nationalism, and race in modern China has appeared in The China Journal, The China Quarterly, The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern China, and other publications.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is strategically significant because of its size, dynamism, and role in the Asian economic and security architectures. This paper examines how ASEAN seeks to strengthen these assets through "centrality" in intraregional and external policy decisions. It recommends a two-speed approach toward centrality in order to maximize regional incomes and benefit all member economies: first, selective engagement by ASEAN members in productive external partnerships and, second, vigorous policies to share gains across the region. This strategy has solid underpinnings in the Kemp-Wan theorem on trade agreements. It would warrant, for example, a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement with incomplete ASEAN membership, complemented with policies to extend gains across the region. The United States could support this framework by pursuing deep relations with some ASEAN members, while broadly assisting the region's development.

Despite their overall economic growth over the last few decades, countries across Asia still face the complex task of structural transformation. Low-income economies must build formal industrial and service sectors from agricultural and informal bases; middle-income economies must move up the value chain; and high-income economies must continually generate new capabilities at the frontier of innovation. Meeting this challenge requires implementing and adjusting solutions addressing a range of problems--problems whose complexities imply often it cannot be known ex ante whether proposed solutions will succeed or fail. Agencies tasked with delivering rapid growth must be able to act both effectively and nimbly: trying potential solutions, discarding sub-optimal ones, and reallocating resources quickly. The prerequisite for such "learning by doing" is flexibility, an institutional capacity with relevance to tasks beyond economic growth. It is a capacity easy to advocate but hard to build, facing difficult problems of exit costs (especially political), decision-making under uncertainty, and the governance and use of discretion within a bureaucracy. This study focuses on how real-world policymakers might operationalize the capability to be flexible in the agencies they lead or create. It does so through detailed examinations of three types of organizations--venture capital, defense research, and industrial policy--chosen for their ability to flexibly deliver on a portfolio of investments or programs. It concludes by offering a tentative set of techniques and strategies to enable flexible implementation.