Download or read book The Rhetoric of Benevolent Despotism written by Stephen N. McCarthy and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 946 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Political Theory of Tyranny in Singapore and Burma written by Stephen McCarthy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-18 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering various fields in political science, this new book presents an historical and political-cultural analysis of Buddhism and Confucianism. Using Singapore and Burma as case studies, the book questions the basic assumptions of democratization theory, examining the political science of tyranny and exploring the rhetorical manipulation of religion for the purpose of political legitimacy. A welcome addition to the political science and Asian studies literature, McCarthy addresses many of the current issues that underlie the field of democratization in comparative politics and discusses the issue of imposing Western cultural bias in studying non-Western regimes by analyzing rhetorical traits that are universally regular in politics.

Download or read book Securitising Singapore written by Syed Mohammed Ad’ha Aljunied and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-15 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aljunied examines how the Singaporean government developed a comprehensive state–society strategic relationship by ‘securitising’ vital policy areas because of Singapore’s vulnerability as a global city state. In the twenty-first century, the Singaporean government has strategically renewed an existing form of authoritarian rule by ‘militarising’ national security governance. The main objective is to widen and deepen state power. Senior military-trained civilian political leaders and bureaucrats use military personnel, command and control, terminology and strategy of war to deal with non-traditional security challenges leading to the state’s further domination over civil liberty and civil society. Aljunied analyses the information and communication, health and climate–environment sectors. The case studies highlight the way the Singaporean government has used varying forms of political engagement, surveillance and legislation to limit civil liberty and inhibit the development of civil society. This book is a valuable resource for researchers and students of Singapore Studies as well as for the readers of Security Studies with an interest in the global–local nexus in a small state context. It is a pioneering scholarly study on the national security framework and the use of non-traditional security discourse to strengthen state power and social stability at the expense of political liberalism.

Download or read book Philippine Politics written by Lynn T. White III and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-17 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philippine political history, especially in the twentieth century, challenges the image of democratic evolution as serving the people, and does so in ways that reveal inadequately explored aspects of many democracies. In the first decades of the twenty-first century the Philippines has nonetheless shown gradual socioeconomic "progress". This book provides an interpretive overview of Philippine politics, and takes full account of the importance of patriotic Philippine factors in making decisions about future political policies. It analyses whether regional and local politics have more importance than national politics in the Philippines. Discussing cultural traditions of patronism, it also examines how clan feuds localize the state and create strong local policies. These conflicts in turn make regional and family-run polities collectively stronger than the central state institution. The book goes on to explore elections in the Philippines, and in particular the ways in which politicians win democratic elections, the institutionalized role of public money in this process, and the role that media plays. Offering a new interpretive overview of Philippine progress over many decades, the author notes recent economic and political changes during the current century while also trying to advance ideas that might prove useful to Filipinos. Presenting an in-depth analysis of the problems and possibilities of politics and society in the Philippines, the book will be of interest to those researching Southeast Asian Politics, Political History and Asian Society and Culture.

Download or read book Neoliberal Morality in Singapore written by Youyenn Teo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the case study of Singapore, this book examines the production of a set of institutionalized relationships and ethical meanings that link citizens to each other and the state. It looks at how questions of culture and morality are resolved, and how state-society relations are established that render paradoxes and inequalities acceptable, and form the basis of a national political culture. The Singapore government has put in place a number of policies to encourage marriage and boost fertility that has attracted much attention, and are often taken as evidence that the Singapore state is a social engineer. The book argues that these policies have largely failed to reverse demographic trends, and reveals that the effects of the policies are far more interesting and significant. As Singaporeans negotiate various rules and regulations, they form a set of ties to each other and to the state. These institutionalized relationships and shared meanings, referred to as neoliberal morality, render particular ideals about family natural. Based on extensive field work, the book is a useful contribution to studies on Asian Culture and Society, Globalisation, as well as Development Studies.

Download or read book Singapore s Ageing Population written by Wing-Cheong Chan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-05-25 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rapidly ageing population is the most significant demographic issue confronting Singapore in our lifetime. This has created new and increasing demands on Singapore's healthcare system and on the families of the older adults. The challenge is in providing a system of care that is humane, effective and sustainable financially. This requires coordination between state funded providers, the family and the community. This book offers a multi-disciplinary perspective by researchers from various disciplines such as medicine, sociology, anthropology and law on managing healthcare and end-of-life decisions in Singapore. Providing information and suggestions for better policy formulation towards the aged, this book is an invaluable resource for policy makers, serivce practitioners and scholars working on Asian gerontology.

Download or read book Communal Violence and Democratization in Indonesia written by Gerry van Klinken and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-01-24 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through close scrutiny of empirical materials and interviews, this book uniquely analyzes all the episodes of long-running, widespread communal violence that erupted during Indonesia’s post-New Order transition. Indonesia democratised after the long and authoritarian New Order regime ended in May 1998. But the transition was far less peaceful than is often thought. It claimed about 10,000 lives in communal (ethnic and religious) violence, and nearly as many as that again in separatist violence in Aceh and East Timor. Taking a comprehensive look at the communal violence that arose after the New Order regime, this book will be of interest to students of Southeast Asian studies, social movements, political violence and ethnicity.

Download or read book Chinese Big Business in Indonesia written by Christian Chua and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-02-14 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The disintegration of Indonesia's New Order regime in 1998 and the fall of Soeharto put an end to the crude forms of centralised authoritarianism and economic protectionism that allowed large Chinese conglomerates to dom- inate Indonesia's private sector. Contrary to all expectations, most of the major capitalist groups, though damaged considerably by the Asian Crisis, managed to cope with the ensuing monumental political and economic changes, and now thrive again albeit within a new democratic environment. In this book Christian Chua assesses the state of capital before, during, and after the financial and political crisis of 1997/1998 and analyses the changing relationships between business and the state in Indonesia. Using a distinct perspective that combines cultural and structural approaches on Chinese big business with exclusive material derived from interviews with some of Indonesia’s major business leaders, Chua identifies the strategies employed by tycoons to adapt their corporations to the post-authoritarian regime and provides a unique insight into how state-business relationships in Indonesia have evolved since the crisis. Chinese Big Business in Indonesia is the first major analysis of capital in Indonesia since the fall of Soeharto, and will be of interest to graduate students and scholars of political economy, political sociology, economics and business administration as well as to practitioners having to do with Southeast Asian business and politics.

Download or read book The Moral Democracy written by Michał Lubina and published by Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aung San Suu Kyi spoke passionately about non-violence, she wrote involved articles about compatibility of democracy with Buddhism and she won the hearts and minds of so many with her call for the freedom from fear (…) It seemed – for more than two decades – that Suu Kyi was a perfect, non-Western propagator of democracy, human rights, rule of law (…) Yet a deeper analysis reveals that Suu Kyi intellectually, indeed, has been a democrat all along, but a Burmese democrat (…) Suu Kyi understands democracy in a Buddhist way and she reasons about politics using Buddhist ideas, idioms and concepts (…) This Buddhist dominance of her political thought had several consequences, the most important one being that her approach to politics has first and foremost been a moral one (…) her vision of democracy (and of politics in general) is a moral vision. It is something I propose to call “the moral democracy.” The same reason that made her famous and admired worldwide, now contributed to her fall from grace. For too many outside Burma/Myanmar it is impossible to understand how Suu Kyi – yesterday’s global personification of good and morality – can now silently endorse crimes against humanity conducted in her country and accept forced relocation of 700 thousand people. A cynic would quote Bertrand Russell’s words (“we have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach”) and add a commentary that it applies especially to politicians. One, however, may offer a more favourable explanation: that Suu Kyi represents a tragic clash of ideas, including moral ideas, with political reality. Whatever the case, it was morality that made her famous, it was the same moralistic attitude that contributed to her removal from international Olympus and it is this moral understanding of politics that is the hallmark of her political thought, which is here to stay for longer, as political ideas last longer than changing political circumstances and fashions. From the Preface The dramatic fall from grace of Burma's human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi shocked the world. Michał Lubina's magisterial account of Aung San Suu Kyi's political education demystifies the behavior in power of this otherwise enigmatic leader. This is the indispensable book for anyone who wants to understand the mind of one of the world's most controversial women. Prof. Salvatore Babones, University of Sydney Dr. Michał Lubina, known in Poland for portraying Aung San Suu Kyi not as a human rights activist, but as a realist politician in the very footsteps of her father, now comes out with his research to the international audience. Following the example of Mahbubani’s Can Asian Think? Lubina shows the intellectual and philosophical tradition of Myanmar through the case study of Suu Kyi’s political thought. It’s a unique undertaking that presents Suu Kyi from an unexpected angle: as a theoretician and political thinker or sage. Both the scope of research done and the material presented are very impressive and rather unique, even on international scene. Prof. Bogdan Góralczyk, University of Warsaw, Former Ambassador to Myanmar This book is a well-documented and well-constructed, multilayered, complex, analytical work based on very rich research, interviews with Suu Kyi and personal observations of the Author, who displays unquestioned analytical skills. As such the book represents a pioneer work in Burmese studies. Prof. Agnieszka Kuszewska, Jagiellonian University in Cracow None of the numerous books and articles that I have read about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi dissects her political thoughts and background as thoroughly as the book written by Dr. Michał Lubina. He shows the political construction of her character, her struggle, her idealism, her sources of inspiration and her weaknesses. It is a necessary publication to read in order to understand historical and contemporary policymaking in today’s Burma. Dr. Marion Sabrié, University of Rouen Normandy

Download or read book Labour Migration and Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia written by Willem van Schendel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book both considers labour migration in its totality, showing how the divide between illegal and legal migration is often blurred, and also examines how governmental and international measures to counter illegal migration are translated into action on the ground, and what impact on all kinds of migration they have in practice.

Download or read book A Dangerous Passion written by Haig Patapan and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2021-05-01 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dangerous Passion argues that leadership and honor are mutually constitutive and that this dynamic relationship fundamentally shapes the character of political practice. Haig Patapan shows how our contemporary blindness to this leadership-honor dynamic and neglect of the significance of honor (and shame) in modern politics have caused us to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of leadership. We have lost sight of how honor shapes the ambitions and aspirations of those who seek political office, and the opportunities and limits it imposes on leaders when engaging with their followers. What has been obscured are the two faces of honor: how it is the dangerous passion that fuels the ambitions of the glory seekers to pursue tyranny and empire, as well as being the source of good leadership that is founded on noble ambition and sacrifice for the common good. Patapan examines classical magnanimity, Machiavellian glory, and Hobbesian-dispersed leadership, views that continue to be debated, and then offers insights from these debates to illuminate a series of contemporary political challenges for leaders, including the politics of fame, identity, and nationalism.

Download or read book Ageing in Singapore written by Peggy Teo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-09-27 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Older persons are often portrayed as social and financial burdens because pensions, health and social care have to withstand increasing old age dependency ratios. Due to a lack of access to representation or a lack of social and economic power, older people have found few opportunities to have their voices heard, making age an immensely political issue. Written by an impressive team of authors, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the experience of ageing in Singapore examining key issues such as health, work, housing, family ties and care giving. It looks at how social categorization enters into everyday life to elucidate the multiple meanings of age and identity encountered in a rapidly changing economy and society. Providing original critical discourse from Asian writers recording Asian voices, Ageing in Singapore will appeal to a wide readership and is an invaluable resource for policy makers, service practitioners and scholars working on Asian gerontology.

Download or read book Adolescents in Contemporary Indonesia written by Lyn Parker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The youth demographic is a large and growing cohort in Indonesia, and adolescents embody the currents of social change. Throughout the twentieth century they were significant agents of social protest leading to social and political transformation. This book looks at the importance of adolescents in contemporary Indonesia, and how they are spearheading not just globalisation and a growing consumer youth culture, but also the Islamisation movement. The book explores both the inner worlds and social selves of Indonesian adolescents. It presents an in-depth knowledge of Indonesian society and culture in various parts of Indonesia, and discusses national patterns and trends. Grounded in two field sites, the book enables an analysis of young people’s local ethnic and religious identities and their commitment to the Indonesian nation-state. It goes on to look at the physical age bracket of youth, the definitions used by the Indonesian state and other agencies, and the perceptions of youth themselves about adolescence and adulthood. Providing a comprehensive study of young people in contemporary Indonesia, the book addresses gender relations, the importance of education for youth and youth engagement with popular culture, and the moral issue concerning the sexual propriety of young people. It is a useful contribution for students and academics of Asian Studies, Sociology and Cultural Studies.

Download or read book Gender and Transitional Justice written by Susan Harris Rimmer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender and Transitional Justice provides the first comprehensive feminist analysis of the role of international law in formal transitional justice mechanisms. Using East Timor as a case study, it offers reflections on transitional justice administered by a UN transitional administration. Often presented as a UN success story, the author demonstrates that, in spite of women and children’s rights programmes of the UN and other donors, justice for women has deteriorated in post-conflict Timor, and violence has remained a constant in their lives. This book provides a gendered analysis of transitional justice as a discipline. It is also one of the first studies to offer a comprehensive case study of how women engaged in the whole range of transitional mechanisms in a post-conflict state, i.e. domestic trials, internationalised trials and truth commissions. The book reveals the political dynamics in a post-conflict setting around gender and questions of justice, and reframes of the meanings of success and failure of international interventions in the light of them.

Download or read book Vietnam s Political Process written by Casey Lucius and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a system that is known for its covert political style, Vietnam’s decision making process is often described as either consensus-based or simply confusing and inexplicable. This book provides an approach to understanding political decision making in Vietnam by recognizing enduring values that are derived from State-controlled education and official historical narratives. The nation’s official historical narrative has led to the development of protected values that are called upon during political decision making. In order to secure these values, such as regime stability, national independence, and social order, officials must act within accepted rules of appropriate political behavior. The book shows that through State-run education, mandatory defense training, and membership in mass organizations, Vietnamese citizens are taught social and political ethics, and their identity is moulded in concert with this process. Using textbooks and education to understand the underlying values within Vietnam’s society is used as the contextual framework for two case studies - the problem of landmines and the on-going threat of avian influenza - which examine how authorities frame problems, negotiate, and deal with potential crises. This book will be of great interest of academics and students within Asian studies, but also for policy makers involved with the country and those doing business in Vietnam, including non-governmental organizations, private businesses and charitable groups.

Download or read book Ending Forced Labour in Myanmar written by Richard Horsey and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) efforts since the early 1990s to address the forced labour situation in Myanmar represent a rare example of success in influencing the behaviour of that regime, and this book gives a first-hand account of these efforts. As the ILO’s representative in the country, the author was able to operate a complaint system for victims of forced labour, resulting in prosecutions of government officials and an end to many abuses. In addition to giving a fascinating insider’s account of how this was achieved, and the many challenges encountered, the book examines in detail why one of the most repressive military regimes allowed the ILO to operate a complaints mechanism in the first place, and why it felt the need to take action in response to some of those complaints. This book will make a significant contribution to thinking on how to influence authoritarian regimes, as well as understanding the dynamic of relations with Myanmar. As such it is an essential read for scholars of international relations and global governance, human rights, international law and Southeast Asian studies.

Download or read book Singapore Malays written by Hussin Mutalib and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-07-26 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Malay population makes up Singapore's three largest ethnic groups. This book presents holistic and extensive analysis of the 'Malay Muslim story' in Singapore. Comprehensively and convincingly argued, the author examines their challenging circumstances in the fields of politics, education, social mobility, economy, leadership, and freedom of religious expression. The book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of Muslims in Singapore, and the politics of a Malay-Muslim minority in a global city-state. It is of interest to researchers and students in the field of Singaporean studies, Southeast Asian Studies and Islam in Asia.