Routledge Handbook of Politics in Asia

Shiping Hua, Shiping Hua

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317238737
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Routledge Handbook of Politics in Asia is designed to serve as a comprehensive reference guide to politics in Asia. Covering East, South, Southeast, and Central Asia, this handbook brings together the work of leading international academics to cover the political histories, institutions, economies, and cultures of the region. Taking a comparative approach, it is divided into four parts, including:

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• A thorough introduction to the politics of the four regions of Asia from the perspectives of democratization, foreign policy, political economy, and political culture.
• An examination of the "Big Three" of Asia – China, India, and Japan – focusing on issues including post-Mao reform, China's new world outlook, Indian democracy, and Japanese foreign policy.
• A discussion of important contemporary issues, such as human rights, the politics of the internet, security, nationalism, and geopolitics.
• An analysis of the relationship between politics and certain theoretical ideas, such as Confucianism, Hinduism, socialist constitutionalism, and gender norms.

As an invaluable and all-inclusive resource, this handbook will be useful for students, scholars, researchers, and practitioners of Asian politics and comparative politics.

1

Introduction to Routledge Handbook of Politics in Asia

Shiping Hua

Why Asia?

This is a comprehensive survey of the politics of Asia, with a focus on contemporary times. With a population of 4.5 billion, Asia constitutes 59.69 percent of the world’s population.¹ Geographically, it is divided into East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia, according to the United Nations’ designation.² This classification is more for convenience than it is set in stone. For instance, conceptually, West Asia coincides with the Middle East, a region that has distinct features of its own. Therefore, this handbook deals with East, Southeast, South, and Central Asia, not West Asia.

Comparatively speaking, Asia is still a poor continent. Its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is about half of the world’s average.³ But Asia leads the world’s growth at 5.3 percent, compared with the 3.4 percent of the world’s average it represented in 2016 according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).⁴ The US economy expanded about 3.5 percent in 2016. According to the predication of Asian Development Bank (ADB), if the current trend continues, by 2050, the GDP per capita of Asia will reach the current level of Europe. The impressive economic performance of Asia in the last few decades made experts call the 21st century “The Pacific Century” (Pilling, 2011).

Culturally, Asia is highly diverse. It has all the major religions of the world: Chinese in most of the East Asian countries; Islam, mostly in South and Southeast Asia, with Indonesia the largest Islam country in the world; Hinduism, mostly in India; and Christianity in countries such as South Korea and the Philippines.

The scholarly studies of Asia: theory and methods

The study of the politics of Asia often falls into the scholarly domain of “comparative politics.” “Comparative politics” is among the half a dozen major subfields within “political science,” e.g., “international relations”; “political theory”; “public administration”; and, in the United States, “American government and politics.” The subfield that is closest to “comparative politics” is “international relations,” with the former emphasizing the domestic politics of foreign countries and the latter focusing on country-to-country relations. The difference is a matter of emphasis, not a difference in nature. This handbook, although it focuses on “comparative Asian politics,” also discusses the foreign policies of those regions and countries covered.

Knowledge is comparative by definition. Referring to the well-known book Democracy in America, Alex de Tocqueville remarked, “Although I very rarely spoke of France in my book, I did not write one page of it without having her, so to speak, before my eyes.”⁵ He also remarked, “Without comparisons to make, the mind does not know how to proceed” (Pierson, 1938).

Comparative politics as a subfield in political science was established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. At the beginning, it focused on the study of Europe. Traditionally, it was also noted for formal legalism, focusing on such things as constitutions and cabinets, and conservativism, focusing on those areas that were unchanging. It lacked theoretical rigor and sensitivity to methods. In recent decades, comparative politics has moved toward behaviorism and become more sensitive to the formulation of concepts, hypotheses, and explanations in systematic terms. It has also become more empirical in terms of research methods as well as more interdisciplinary, e.g., including political economy and political culture (Bill and Hardgrave, 1981, 2–20). This handbook reflects the more recent trends in comparative politics.

Most of the authors in this handbook were trained and are largely located now in the West. Most of them have used comparative politics research methods in a selective and flexible way. This was demonstrated, for instance, in the study of political culture. In studying democracy in Asia, Amy Freedman used data from Freedom House, which is a major database for freedom in the West. The analytical method she used is also a mainstream Western political culture analysis. Similarly, Yun-han Chu et al. studied East Asian political culture based on data from Asian Barometer. John Fuh-sheng Hsieh adopted a similar method in the study of the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy. Survey research in political culture is the dominant method in the West.

Many authors, however, view the politics of Asia as rather special to the area and believe that researchers should adopt different theories and methods. Commenting on China’s rise in economic power in the last few decades, Jinghao Zhou was actually against the modernization theory (Przeworski and Limongi, 1997, 155–183) in the West that believes that individualism, as a cultural attribute, provides a powerful push toward modernity. Zhou argued that the collectively oriented Confucian culture is equally, if not more, powerful in promoting productivity.

Rina Verma Williams and Nandini Deo argued that Indian religious study on Hinduism is different from study on Christianity in the West. Hinduism is not based on text, congregation, etc. It is practiced mostly at home. Mikhail A. Molchanov also talks about the difference between Asia and Europe when discussing regionalism: In Asia, the focus is on the state; in Europe, it is more on the social setting.

In discussing Asian security, Kenneth Boutin remarked that researchers cannot use security theories about Europe to analyze the situation in Asia. For Europe, security is largely between states; for Asia, security issues are broader, covering such areas as economy and demography. Also, Asian security is not a zero-sum game, as Qinhua Xu shares in her discussion about China’s energy security.

Even within Asia, scholars have taken different methodological approaches. For instance, Subrata Kumar Mitra and La Toya Waha, in discussing South Asian political culture, take a different approach from Chu et al., who studied East Asia. East Asian countries are relatively similar in religion and language, i.e., East Asian societies are predominantly atheist and until about a century ago used the Chinese writing system. South Asia demonstrates more religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. Instead of relying on surveys, Mitra and Waha’s study is more interpretative. They believed that political transformation was achieved through identities: hierarchical, caste, ethnicity, religion, language, and ideology. The practice of using different methods to study political culture in different areas is productive.

Because of the complexity in the area, similar social phenomena may have different causes in the Asian context. For instance, authoritarianism in East Asia is generally believed to be rooted in the Confucian tradition. But current authoritarianism in Southeast Asia is believed by Bridget Welch et al. to be more of a result of institutions, not an authoritarian tradition. Williams et al. believe that although Hinduism has authoritarian elements, “(politicized) Hinduism as a religion may have little or no impact on the functioning of democracy.” Similarly, looking at the democratization process of East Asia, Brian Woodall noted that the most important factor contributing to democracy was external influence. The persistence of authoritarianism in Central Asia is partly due to the rich energy resources that enable the authoritarian regimes in the area to stay in power without political reform.

Jason (Chunlong) Lu and Ting Yan believe that China will have its own form of democracy, different from the Western model. Similarly, Ajay K. Mehra believes that the Indian democracy is a social democracy, not the American-style liberal democracy. Actually, with the exception of four countries under strong Western political influence, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and India, no Asian country has a political system resembling closely that of the Western liberal democracy.

Some political leaders in Asia, such as Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minister of Singapore, and Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, also emphasized the continent’s uniqueness. They refer to this as “Asian values,” which are different from Western values (Subramaniam, 2000). The perseverance of the Asian cultural tradition was also noted by Peter Moody in the conclusion.

Because of the uniqueness of Asia, for the part on the “Three Big Powers,” all the authors selected are currently based in Asia.

The format

The handbook is divided into four parts: The first part is a comprehensive introduction to the four regions of Asia from the perspectives of “democratization,” “foreign policy,” “political economy,” and “political culture.”

Democratization: The studies of democratization gradually developed into a prominent topic in political science following the early “third-wave” transitions of Southern Europe in the 1970s and Latin America in the 1980s. Then a few East Asian countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan, became democratic. A major question in democratization studies is whether democratization processes across the nations are comparable or not. Some believe that the democratization process is similar, and therefore, it is comparable across regions. But this is not at all beyond controversy. Scholars have also noted the relations between political culture and democracy as well as the connection between economic development and democracy (Grugel, 2003, 491–501).

Foreign policy: Domestic forces often cannot be explained without discussing external forces. For instance, authors in this handbook suggest that those Asian political systems resembling Western democracies the most are those that were influenced by external forces the most. The Central Asian countries have not made significant progress toward democratization largely because the two major powers, China and Russia, allowed it.

Political economy: The most well-known figure who noted the relations between politics and economies was Karl Marx in the mid-19th century (Marx and Engels, 1988). Economists study how people make decisions optimizing their material well-being and are concerned with production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services within markets. Political scientists study how people choose rules and policies that guide the behavior of people, with a focus on power. The overlap of the two areas is that the vast majority of government decisions involve the production, distribution, and consumption of goods. Governments regulate businesses, tax goods, and services, and make sure market functions properly (Gill, 2002, 83).

Political culture: Political culture is a set of attitudes, values, and knowledge widely shared within a society and passed from generation to generation. It is believed that a prodemocratic set of attitudes is conducive to democratic institutions (Inglehart and Welzel, 2002).

The second part of this handbook is to introduce the “Big Three” of Asia: China, India, and Japan. China is the world’s largest country in terms of population. The Chinese economy is the second largest in terms of GDP and the largest in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP).⁶ China’s economy is the fastest in the world in the last three decades. India’s population is the second largest, and its economy has been developing well in the last two decades. Although experiencing stagnation in economic growth in the last two decades, Japan’s economy is the third largest, following the United States and China.⁷

The third part of this handbook discusses some of the most important issues that Asia is confronted with, such as “institutional developments,” “human rights,” “the impact of internet on politics,” “military,” “security,” “democracy,” “nationalism,” “geopolitics and geo-economics,” “ethnicity,” and “soft-power.” These issues often transcend the subregions of East, Southeast, South, and Central Asia.

The fourth part tries to explain some critical issues that the continent is faced with, such as “Why has East Asian growth been so fast in recent decades?”; “Is it possible to have liberal democracy in Asia that has drastically different cultural traditions compared with the West?”; “Is Confucianism compatible with democracy?”; “Is Hinduism compatible with democracy?”; “Is it possible for socialist countries such as China and Vietnam to establish constitutionalism, which is rooted in the West?”; and “What has hindered women’s participation in politics, and how can the situation be improved?”

The difference between “Issues and Problems” and “Theories” is not set in stone, with the former focusing on the empirical narrative of the social phenomena, while the latter emphasizes explanation (Chilcote, 1994). Some of the articles under the heading of “Issues and Problems” are theoretical as well, e.g., the studies by Aurel Croissant and David Kuehn on the military and by Boutin on security. Some chapters that focus on regional politics, such as that by Chu et al. on the East Asian political culture, are highly theoretical as well. The categorization is more for convenience.

In conclusion, Moody looks into the future development of Asian political development.

Content analysis

In the following, I will comment on each of the chapters in this handbook, following the order of the table of contents.

Asia: democracy, foreign policy, development, and political culture

In the section on the democratization in Asia, the four authors looked at the process from the perspectives of cultural traditions, ethnicity, religion, linguistics, recent history, and the area’s relationships with outside powers, especially the United States and Russia.

Democratization

Commenting on East Asia, Woodall identified three waves of democratization in the area, Japan coming with the first wave, followed by the second wave, which brought South Korea to democratization, and the third wave, which brought Taiwan. In addition to the influence of the United States and a favorable international environment, an important factor is that all three of these countries had export-oriented economies, thus depending on the external forces very much for economic benefits.

Looking at the democratization of Southeast Asia, Ehito Kimura’s approach is different from Woodall’s: While Woodall seems to believe that external forces are the key to democratization in East Asia, Kimura seems to believe that democratization is a dynamic process in which all major forces are in play: democracy and development, democracy and class, democracy and cultural tradition, democracy and religion, and democracy and the institutions. There is no single force that is decisive. Unlike East Asia, external force is not the main factor for democratization in this area.

Commenting on the democratization of South Asia through five key countries in the area, India, Nepal, Sir Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Maya Chadda believes that nation building is the most important factor contributing to the unstable situation in the democratization process in South Asia. Pakistan’s democracy was not stable, largely because the nation was created after World War II (WWII), with many discrepancies, most notably religious and ethnic conflicts. Bangladesh’s situation was similar: The partition with India created many religious and ethnic conflicts as well. India was more stable among these countries because it was created earlier.

On Central Asia’s democratization process, Mariya Y. Omelicheva remarked that although the five countries proclaimed to want democracy, little progress was made. Causal factors include the authoritarian cultural traditions and external factors. Unlike the case with East Asia in which the United States pressured Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to democratize, Russia and China themselves were not democratic and therefore did not put pressure on these Central Asian states for political change. In addition, Central Asian countries have energy resources that made them confident in not changing.

Foreign policy

The next four chapters focus on the foreign policies of the four subregions of Asia. Dennis V. Hickey and Dean P. Chen cover the foreign policy evolvement of China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea from a historical perspective. They believe that China’s foreign policy was rooted in a ...