During the long rule of the BN (Barisan Nasional) coalition prior to 2018, Malaysia's parliament, the Dewan Rakyat, was largely absent from analyses of political contestation between the ruling government and its opposition. Nevertheless, during this period, opposition MPs were active users of available legislative tools such as parliamentary questions, offering a rich source of data about their priorities and political positioning. This article investigates how MPs from the opposition used parliamentary questions to build their public reputations, and whether those reputations were built around attention to local, subnational, or national issues. It uses an original dataset of over 37,000 oral questions submitted by MPs in Malaysia's House of Representatives from 2008 to 2018. I find that opposition MPs were more likely to focus on local and subnational reputation-building compared to ruling government MPs. These differences were especially pronounced in East Malaysia, where opposition MPs were heavily oriented towards local infrastructure and issues of state underdevelopment and autonomy. I explain these findings as a result of the opposition's need to build a constituency reputation in lieu of access to state resources, as well as a greater responsiveness to local- and region-specific grievances. This focus both complements, and differs from, how Malaysia's MPs used extra- parliamentary strategies to cultivate personal and party reputation.
{"title":"The Geographic Scope Of Opposition Challenges In Malaysia's Parliament Sebastian Dettman","authors":"Sebastian Dettman","doi":"10.5509/2023962253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2023962253","url":null,"abstract":"During the long rule of the BN (Barisan Nasional) coalition prior to 2018, Malaysia's parliament, the Dewan Rakyat, was largely absent from analyses of political contestation between the ruling government and its opposition. Nevertheless, during this period, opposition MPs were active\u0000 users of available legislative tools such as parliamentary questions, offering a rich source of data about their priorities and political positioning. This article investigates how MPs from the opposition used parliamentary questions to build their public reputations, and whether those reputations\u0000 were built around attention to local, subnational, or national issues. It uses an original dataset of over 37,000 oral questions submitted by MPs in Malaysia's House of Representatives from 2008 to 2018. I find that opposition MPs were more likely to focus on local and subnational reputation-building\u0000 compared to ruling government MPs. These differences were especially pronounced in East Malaysia, where opposition MPs were heavily oriented towards local infrastructure and issues of state underdevelopment and autonomy. I explain these findings as a result of the opposition's need to build\u0000 a constituency reputation in lieu of access to state resources, as well as a greater responsiveness to local- and region-specific grievances. This focus both complements, and differs from, how Malaysia's MPs used extra- parliamentary strategies to cultivate personal and party reputation.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41642497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Malaysia's 15th general election in November 2022 decisively ended the country's dominant-party system. What might take its place, however, remains hazy—how competitive, how polarized, how politically liberal, and how stable an order might emerge will take some time to become clear. The opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope), having secured a plurality of seats, but with a sharply pronounced ethnic skew, formed a coalition government with the previously dominant, incumbent Barisan Nasional (National Front) and smaller, regional coalitions. This settlement resolved an immediate impasse, but relied upon obfuscation of real programmatic, ideological, and identity differences, raising questions of longer-term durability or results. Examining this uncertainty, we broach three broad queries, with resonance well beyond Malaysia. First, we examine the fragmentation and reconsolidation of Malaysian party politics to explore how party dominance transforms or collapses. Second, we explore the extent to which its dominant party defined or confirmed Malaysia as electoral- authoritarian, and whether we should still consider it so.Third, we ask what possibilities Malaysia's apparent party-system deinstitutionalization opens up for structural reform beyond parties. Does the deterioration of that system—more than simply the previous dominant party's electoral loss—clear the way for more far-reaching liberalization? All told, we find that Malaysia's incremental dismantling of its dominant-party system does not also spell the end of electoral authoritarianism. Party and party-system deinstitutionalization leave the system in flux, but illiberal reconsolidation is as plausible as progressive structural reform.
{"title":"Decline and Fall of Malaysia's Dominant-Party System Meredith L. Weiss and Ibrahim Suffian","authors":"M. Weiss","doi":"10.5509/2023962281","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2023962281","url":null,"abstract":"Malaysia's 15th general election in November 2022 decisively ended the country's dominant-party system. What might take its place, however, remains hazy—how competitive, how polarized, how politically liberal, and how stable an order might emerge will take some time to become\u0000 clear. The opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope), having secured a plurality of seats, but with a sharply pronounced ethnic skew, formed a coalition government with the previously dominant, incumbent Barisan Nasional (National Front) and smaller, regional coalitions. This settlement\u0000 resolved an immediate impasse, but relied upon obfuscation of real programmatic, ideological, and identity differences, raising questions of longer-term durability or results. Examining this uncertainty, we broach three broad queries, with resonance well beyond Malaysia. First, we examine\u0000 the fragmentation and reconsolidation of Malaysian party politics to explore how party dominance transforms or collapses. Second, we explore the extent to which its dominant party defined or confirmed Malaysia as electoral- authoritarian, and whether we should still consider it so.Third, we\u0000 ask what possibilities Malaysia's apparent party-system deinstitutionalization opens up for structural reform beyond parties. Does the deterioration of that system—more than simply the previous dominant party's electoral loss—clear the way for more far-reaching liberalization?\u0000 All told, we find that Malaysia's incremental dismantling of its dominant-party system does not also spell the end of electoral authoritarianism. Party and party-system deinstitutionalization leave the system in flux, but illiberal reconsolidation is as plausible as progressive structural\u0000 reform.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42704603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the redress campaign waged by activists in Japan on behalf of roughly 2,000 North Korean A-bomb victims (pipokja). These victims were repatriated from Japan after being subjected to the 1945 US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while under colonial rule. From the early 1990s through to the twenty-first century, activists in Japan pursued redress for these A-bomb survivors in close synchronicity with the redress movements centred on South Korean victims. Highlighting the potential of the individual as entrepreneur within collective action settings, the redress developments were initiated and largely driven by an activist, Lee Sil-gun (1929–2020). Although Tokyo and Pyongyang were initially reluctant to acknowledge that A-bomb survivors existed in North Korea, in the face of sustained pressure by the Japan-based activists, the two governments facilitated a limited redress process for the victims by making various concessions on the issue. How did these activists navigate the structural constraints of the authoritarian North Korean state and the volatile bilateral relationship in enacting their transnational activism? How were they able to elicit concessions on their redress objectives from Tokyo and Pyongyang in the absence of formalized diplomatic relations? Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Japan and South Korea, this article probes these questions by empirically tracing and analyzing the evolution of the redress campaign for the North Korean A-bomb victims. I utilize the concept of polylateral diplomacy to elucidate the dynamic of engagement between the activists and the two governments.
{"title":"The Forgotten Victims of the Atomic Bomb: North Korean Pipokja and the Politics of Victimhood in Japan-DPRK Relations","authors":"Lauren Richardson","doi":"10.5509/202396161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/202396161","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the redress campaign waged by activists in Japan on behalf of roughly 2,000 North Korean A-bomb victims (pipokja). These victims were repatriated from Japan after being subjected to the 1945 US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while under colonial\u0000 rule. From the early 1990s through to the twenty-first century, activists in Japan pursued redress for these A-bomb survivors in close synchronicity with the redress movements centred on South Korean victims. Highlighting the potential of the individual as entrepreneur within collective action\u0000 settings, the redress developments were initiated and largely driven by an activist, Lee Sil-gun (1929–2020). Although Tokyo and Pyongyang were initially reluctant to acknowledge that A-bomb survivors existed in North Korea, in the face of sustained pressure by the Japan-based\u0000 activists, the two governments facilitated a limited redress process for the victims by making various concessions on the issue. How did these activists navigate the structural constraints of the authoritarian North Korean state and the volatile bilateral relationship in enacting their transnational\u0000 activism? How were they able to elicit concessions on their redress objectives from Tokyo and Pyongyang in the absence of formalized diplomatic relations? Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Japan and South Korea, this article probes these questions by empirically tracing and analyzing the evolution\u0000 of the redress campaign for the North Korean A-bomb victims. I utilize the concept of polylateral diplomacy to elucidate the dynamic of engagement between the activists and the two governments.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70801399","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article discusses the repeal of Singapore's Section 377A, the anti-gay sex law, which was announced by Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong during the 2022 National Day Rally. I contend that the declaration by PM Lee demonstrates the possibilities and limits of advocacy coalition-building in Singapore. Utilizing the concept of calibrated social liberalization, I postulate that the repeal of Section 377A was the government's response to shifting societal attitudes and years of strategic and adroit advocacy coalition- building. However, predicated upon this success is that LGBT issues are not critical to the People's Action Party's (PAP) legitimacy, which is why it is willing to allow for contestations in this sphere. The PAP engages in social liberalization, without significant political liberalization; even then, the cultural liberalization is not absolute, as the government attempts to strike a political-electoral compromise with conservatives. Ultimately, calibrated social liberalization occurs in areas where there is significant public support, and on issues regarding which the government has no clear ideological predispositions.
{"title":"The Politics of Compromise: Analyzing the Repeal of Section 377A in Singapore","authors":"W. Abdullah","doi":"10.5509/2023961105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2023961105","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the repeal of Singapore's Section 377A, the anti-gay sex law, which was announced by Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong during the 2022 National Day Rally. I contend that the declaration by PM Lee demonstrates the possibilities and limits of advocacy coalition-building\u0000 in Singapore. Utilizing the concept of calibrated social liberalization, I postulate that the repeal of Section 377A was the government's response to shifting societal attitudes and years of strategic and adroit advocacy coalition- building. However, predicated upon this success is that LGBT\u0000 issues are not critical to the People's Action Party's (PAP) legitimacy, which is why it is willing to allow for contestations in this sphere. The PAP engages in social liberalization, without significant political liberalization; even then, the cultural liberalization is not absolute, as\u0000 the government attempts to strike a political-electoral compromise with conservatives. Ultimately, calibrated social liberalization occurs in areas where there is significant public support, and on issues regarding which the government has no clear ideological predispositions.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42720014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study explores the origins of pervasive elderly poverty in South Korea, which persists despite the continuous expansion of welfare programs and the consolidation of popular democracy in the country. Predicated upon the historical-institutional details of the development of welfare programs, this article examines and elucidates how the instrumentalization of welfare policy-making since the onset of state-led industrialization and the progress of electoral democracy since the democratic transition have hindered the implementation of e ective anti-poverty policies. It argues that the exponential politicization of welfare issues amid the demise of the agenda-setting and implementation capacity of the welfare bureaucracy has resulted in a political preference for low-benefit, quasi-universal solutions without an increase in taxes or contributions, which has crowded out the policy option of imposing su ciently generous measures targeted at this vulnerable segment of society. As pervasive elderly poverty persists, old-age welfare has been substantially privatized and dualized, compelling seniors to find market-based alternatives or to work in low-paying precarious labour sectors. Consequently, trust in South Korea's public welfare system has declined, impeding the formation of pro-welfare solidarity despite the overall growth of the universalist welfare system and popular democracy.
{"title":"The Political Origins of Persistent Elderly Poverty in South Korea","authors":"Sunil Kim","doi":"10.5509/202396135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/202396135","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the origins of pervasive elderly poverty in South Korea, which persists despite the continuous expansion of welfare programs and the consolidation of popular democracy in the country. Predicated upon the historical-institutional details of the development of welfare\u0000 programs, this article examines and elucidates how the instrumentalization of welfare policy-making since the onset of state-led industrialization and the progress of electoral democracy since the democratic transition have hindered the implementation of e ective anti-poverty policies. It\u0000 argues that the exponential politicization of welfare issues amid the demise of the agenda-setting and implementation capacity of the welfare bureaucracy has resulted in a political preference for low-benefit, quasi-universal solutions without an increase in taxes or contributions, which has\u0000 crowded out the policy option of imposing su ciently generous measures targeted at this vulnerable segment of society. As pervasive elderly poverty persists, old-age welfare has been substantially privatized and dualized, compelling seniors to find market-based alternatives or to work in low-paying\u0000 precarious labour sectors. Consequently, trust in South Korea's public welfare system has declined, impeding the formation of pro-welfare solidarity despite the overall growth of the universalist welfare system and popular democracy.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43413294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hariyadi, Akhmad Rizal Shidiq, A. Yusuf, Dharra Widdhyaningtyas Mahardhika
Very few studies explicitly, let alone quantitatively, examine gaps in religious intolerance among individual Muslims based on a liation with major Muslim organizations in Indonesia. Most existing studies either focus on a single organization (non-comparative), are at the organizational policy level (not examining individual attitudes), or use a limited number of samples in their analysis. Against this backdrop, this study compares Indonesian Muslims' levels of religious intolerance based on their a liation with Muslim organizations or traditions: Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Muhammadiyah, and other organizations. We utilize a large-scale household survey, the 2014 Indonesia Family Life Survey-5, and run an ordinal logistic regression to identify organizations' rank on the religious intolerance scale. We find that Muslims without any a liation with a Muslim organization (some 18 percent of Indonesian Muslims) are the most tolerant. Against this reference group, we find that NU followers are generally the most tolerant, followed by those a liated with Muhammadiyah, and those a liated with other Muslim organizations. This finding adds a stock of knowledge to our understanding of religion and society, especially regarding interfaith relations in Indonesia and in the Muslim world in general. Methodologically, this study also shows the benefit and feasibility of identifying the dynamic of religious intolerance using a quantitative approach at a micro level.
{"title":"Comparing Religious Intolerance in Indonesia by Affiliation to Muslim Organizations","authors":"Hariyadi, Akhmad Rizal Shidiq, A. Yusuf, Dharra Widdhyaningtyas Mahardhika","doi":"10.5509/20239615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/20239615","url":null,"abstract":"Very few studies explicitly, let alone quantitatively, examine gaps in religious intolerance among individual Muslims based on a liation with major Muslim organizations in Indonesia. Most existing studies either focus on a single organization (non-comparative), are at the organizational\u0000 policy level (not examining individual attitudes), or use a limited number of samples in their analysis. Against this backdrop, this study compares Indonesian Muslims' levels of religious intolerance based on their a liation with Muslim organizations or traditions: Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Muhammadiyah,\u0000 and other organizations. We utilize a large-scale household survey, the 2014 Indonesia Family Life Survey-5, and run an ordinal logistic regression to identify organizations' rank on the religious intolerance scale. We find that Muslims without any a liation with a Muslim organization (some\u0000 18 percent of Indonesian Muslims) are the most tolerant. Against this reference group, we find that NU followers are generally the most tolerant, followed by those a liated with Muhammadiyah, and those a liated with other Muslim organizations. This finding adds a stock of knowledge to our\u0000 understanding of religion and society, especially regarding interfaith relations in Indonesia and in the Muslim world in general. Methodologically, this study also shows the benefit and feasibility of identifying the dynamic of religious intolerance using a quantitative approach at a micro\u0000 level.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46098694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In May of 2022, Bongbong Marcos won a commanding 59 percent of the vote to become president of the Philippines. His victory was, on some level, shocking to scholars and analysts of Philippine politics. As a result, a plethora of di erent theories have been proposed, in an attempt to explain why Marcos won. In this paper, we use nationally representative survey data to explore which factors predict (and do not predict) voting intention for Marcos. We find that, a) support for former President Rodrigo Duterte, b) positive perceptions of the late President Ferdinand Marcos and martial law, and c) ethnic (linguistic) identity are strong predictors of voting for Bongbong Marcos. On the other hand, age, education, and income are not. Consequently, theories based on continuity, coalition, history, and identity provide the most leverage on the question of why Bongbong Marcos won the election.
{"title":"Continuity, History, and Identity: Why Bongbong Marcos Won the 2022 Philippine Presidential Election","authors":"Dean C. Dulay, A. Hicken, A. Menon, Ronald Holmes","doi":"10.5509/202396185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/202396185","url":null,"abstract":"In May of 2022, Bongbong Marcos won a commanding 59 percent of the vote to become president of the Philippines. His victory was, on some level, shocking to scholars and analysts of Philippine politics. As a result, a plethora of di erent theories have been proposed, in an attempt to\u0000 explain why Marcos won. In this paper, we use nationally representative survey data to explore which factors predict (and do not predict) voting intention for Marcos. We find that, a) support for former President Rodrigo Duterte, b) positive perceptions of the late President Ferdinand Marcos\u0000 and martial law, and c) ethnic (linguistic) identity are strong predictors of voting for Bongbong Marcos. On the other hand, age, education, and income are not. Consequently, theories based on continuity, coalition, history, and identity provide the most leverage on the question of why Bongbong\u0000 Marcos won the election.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43067505","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
On June 25, 1975, Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi imposed a national emergency (the Emergency) in India, suspending civil and political rights. Lasting for 21 months, the Emergency was the only dictatorial turn in India's democratic history. The authoritarian rule was in response to an assertive citizens' protest against Prime Minister Gandhi, which demanded her resignation on the grounds of the centralization of power, corruption, rising prices, and in the name of fair wages for workers and unemployment. The higher courts had also debarred her from contesting elections. Since then, the dominant accounts of this period have tried to ascertain answers to three questions: Why was the Emergency imposed? What did the Emergency entail? And finally, why was it lifted? The books in this review essay together comprise a tour de force on these three aspects, while also seeking to go beyond these questions. Christophe Ja relot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975–77 shows how the Emergency has cast a long shadow and is also a window into understanding some of the present trends in Indian politics. Gyan Prakash's Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy's Turning Point claims that the Emergency had both a "before" and "afterlife"; the origins of excessive state power are inherent in the Constitution. Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr.'s The Emergency: An Unpopular History provides a revisionist account of the Emergency through the lenses of parliamentary discussions. While engaging with these important books, this review essay suggests an alternate "afterlife" of the Emergency that is untreated in the works discussed here.
1975年6月25日，印度总理英迪拉·甘地宣布全国进入紧急状态，暂停公民权利和政治权利。紧急状态持续了21个月，是印度民主历史上唯一的一次独裁转向。印度的独裁统治是为了应对民众对甘地总理的抗议。民众以权力集中、腐败、物价上涨、工人工资公平和失业为由，要求甘地总理辞职。高等法院也禁止她参加选举。从那以后，关于这一时期的主流报道试图找出三个问题的答案:为什么实行紧急状态?紧急情况带来了什么?最后，为什么它被解除了?这篇评论文章中的书共同构成了这三个方面的杰作，同时也试图超越这些问题。Christophe Ja relot和Pratinav Anil的《印度第一次独裁:紧急状态，1975-77》展示了紧急状态是如何投下长长的阴影的，也是了解印度政治当前趋势的一扇窗。吉安·普拉卡什的《紧急事件编年史:英迪拉·甘地与民主的转折点》声称，紧急事件既有“前”，也有“后”;过度国家权力的根源是宪法所固有的。Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr.的《紧急状态:一段不受欢迎的历史》通过议会讨论的镜头对紧急状态进行了修正主义的描述。在与这些重要书籍接触的同时，这篇评论文章提出了另一种紧急情况的“来世”，这在这里讨论的作品中是未被处理的。
{"title":"India's Authoritarian Turn: Understanding the Emergency (1975–1977) and Its Afterlife","authors":"Himanshu Jha","doi":"10.5509/2023961119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2023961119","url":null,"abstract":"On June 25, 1975, Prime Minister (PM) Indira Gandhi imposed a national emergency (the Emergency) in India, suspending civil and political rights. Lasting for 21 months, the Emergency was the only dictatorial turn in India's democratic history. The authoritarian rule was in response\u0000 to an assertive citizens' protest against Prime Minister Gandhi, which demanded her resignation on the grounds of the centralization of power, corruption, rising prices, and in the name of fair wages for workers and unemployment. The higher courts had also debarred her from contesting elections.\u0000 Since then, the dominant accounts of this period have tried to ascertain answers to three questions: Why was the Emergency imposed? What did the Emergency entail? And finally, why was it lifted? The books in this review essay together comprise a tour de force on these three aspects, while\u0000 also seeking to go beyond these questions. Christophe Ja relot and Pratinav Anil's India's First Dictatorship: The Emergency, 1975–77 shows how the Emergency has cast a long shadow and is also a window into understanding some of the present trends in Indian politics. Gyan Prakash's\u0000 Emergency Chronicles: Indira Gandhi and Democracy's Turning Point claims that the Emergency had both a \"before\" and \"afterlife\"; the origins of excessive state power are inherent in the Constitution. Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr.'s The Emergency: An Unpopular History provides a revisionist\u0000 account of the Emergency through the lenses of parliamentary discussions. While engaging with these important books, this review essay suggests an alternate \"afterlife\" of the Emergency that is untreated in the works discussed here.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43647336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How do China and South Korea see their relationship after 30 years of normalization, and why have views shifted since 2017? Research on perceptions and their foreign policy implications usually draws from official discourse and public opinion. This review essay assesses the nature and drivers of China-South Korea mutual perceptions by comparing their academic literature on bilateral relations. Scholarly accounts may offer longer-term interpretations of specialized interests, and a fuller picture of how and why views vary. On both sides of the China-South Korea academic debate, the quantitative volume of studies and qualitative appraisal of relations declined in the 2017–2021 Xi Jinping-Moon Jae-in period. Levels of optimism/pessimism vary by issue-area. Views of third-party constraints on security relations, and domestic political influences on societal relations, drive mutual pessimism. Koreans are more pessimistic about the economic partnership and reassess historical relations more unfavourably, which trace back to views of relative dependence and hierarchy. Three implications emerge for post-2022 relations in light of leadership transition in Beijing and Seoul. Enduring security priorities require minimum strategic interdependence and stronger trust-building mechanisms. Positive functional spillovers from economic and local/nonstate cooperation remain in question. And lasting cultural costs of political disputes compel joint efforts to enhance mutual understanding. Overall, shifts in structural and ideational factors that historically drove normalization are driving the current discord, and prompting both sides to lower future expectations of each other.
{"title":"Mutual Perceptions and China-South Korea Relations: A Comparative Study of the Academic Literature","authors":"See-Won Byun","doi":"10.5509/2023964723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2023964723","url":null,"abstract":"How do China and South Korea see their relationship after 30 years of normalization, and why have views shifted since 2017? Research on perceptions and their foreign policy implications usually draws from official discourse and public opinion. This review essay assesses the nature and drivers of China-South Korea mutual perceptions by comparing their academic literature on bilateral relations. Scholarly accounts may offer longer-term interpretations of specialized interests, and a fuller picture of how and why views vary. On both sides of the China-South Korea academic debate, the quantitative volume of studies and qualitative appraisal of relations declined in the 2017–2021 Xi Jinping-Moon Jae-in period. Levels of optimism/pessimism vary by issue-area. Views of third-party constraints on security relations, and domestic political influences on societal relations, drive mutual pessimism. Koreans are more pessimistic about the economic partnership and reassess historical relations more unfavourably, which trace back to views of relative dependence and hierarchy. Three implications emerge for post-2022 relations in light of leadership transition in Beijing and Seoul. Enduring security priorities require minimum strategic interdependence and stronger trust-building mechanisms. Positive functional spillovers from economic and local/nonstate cooperation remain in question. And lasting cultural costs of political disputes compel joint efforts to enhance mutual understanding. Overall, shifts in structural and ideational factors that historically drove normalization are driving the current discord, and prompting both sides to lower future expectations of each other.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":"163 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134980090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How did North Koreans reform their agricultural technology after the massive famine in the 1990s? While the existing literature focuses its analysis on the nexus between the state and market to assess the possibility of a transition economy, we instead examine agricultural methods and technologies employed in farmlands to evaluate the nature of technological reforms. After identifying technology reforms on the basis of primary sources published in the DPRK such as yearbooks, academic journals, and newspaper articles, as well as other materials published in South Korea, Japan, and the United States and by international organizations, we classify them into two kinds of initiatives: modernization measures that sought to address the earlier failure to modernize agricultural technologies, and ecology-friendly farming practices designed to reduce or reverse the negative externalities of industrial agriculture such as overdependence on chemical fertilizers or erosion of soil fertility. While the two are commonly seen as incompatible by scholars of agriculture, we conclude that North Koreans synthesized the two to transform their decaying industrial agriculture into a more modernized and ecology-friendly sector. They have, through these reforms, maintained food sovereignty as their pillar of agriculture but complemented it with food security on a national scale as a way to maximize their agriculture outputs. Most of these initiatives seem to continue to date although it remains to be seen if they have actually succeeded in increasing overall agricultural productivity and sustainability.
{"title":"Food Security or Food Sovereignty? Agricultural Technology Reforms after the Famine in North Korea","authors":"Harumi Kobayashi, Jae-Jung Suh","doi":"10.5509/2023964673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2023964673","url":null,"abstract":"How did North Koreans reform their agricultural technology after the massive famine in the 1990s? While the existing literature focuses its analysis on the nexus between the state and market to assess the possibility of a transition economy, we instead examine agricultural methods and technologies employed in farmlands to evaluate the nature of technological reforms. After identifying technology reforms on the basis of primary sources published in the DPRK such as yearbooks, academic journals, and newspaper articles, as well as other materials published in South Korea, Japan, and the United States and by international organizations, we classify them into two kinds of initiatives: modernization measures that sought to address the earlier failure to modernize agricultural technologies, and ecology-friendly farming practices designed to reduce or reverse the negative externalities of industrial agriculture such as overdependence on chemical fertilizers or erosion of soil fertility. While the two are commonly seen as incompatible by scholars of agriculture, we conclude that North Koreans synthesized the two to transform their decaying industrial agriculture into a more modernized and ecology-friendly sector. They have, through these reforms, maintained food sovereignty as their pillar of agriculture but complemented it with food security on a national scale as a way to maximize their agriculture outputs. Most of these initiatives seem to continue to date although it remains to be seen if they have actually succeeded in increasing overall agricultural productivity and sustainability.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134980349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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