The Place of Confucianism in Pluralist East Asia

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-134
Author(s):  
Dongxian Jiang
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Empirical Claim

Abstract In this commentary on Shaun O’Dwyer’s Confucianism’s Prospects, I raise three challenges to the arguments presented in the book. First, against his empirical claim that East Asian societies have already become pluralistic, I show that there are important empirical studies supporting the “Confucian heritage” thesis that O’Dwyer rejects. Second, against his anti-perfectionist position, I argue that there are some significant perfectionist connotations in his use of the capabilities approach which are in tension with his critique of Confucian and liberal perfectionisms. Third, against his argument that contemporary Confucians have good reasons to embrace a liberal democracy and pluralistic public culture, I argue that the reasons he offers are not solid enough to convince his Confucian rivals.

Liberal democracy as the end of history

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doh Chull Shin ◽  
Hannah June Kim
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Population ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Third ◽  
The End Of History

A growing number of political scientists have recently advocated the theses that democracy has emerged as a universal value and that it is also becoming the universally preferred system of government. Do most people in East Asia prefer democracy to nondemocratic systems, as advocates of these Western theses claim? Do they embrace liberal democracy as the most preferred system as they become socioeconomically modernized and culturally liberalized? To address these questions, we first propose a typology of privately concealed political system preferences as a new conceptual tool in order to ascertain their types and subtypes without using the word “democracy”. By means of this typology, we analyze the third wave of the Asian Barometer Survey conducted in 12 democratic and nondemocratic countries. The analysis reveals that a hybrid system, not liberal democracy, is the most preferred system even among the culturally liberalized and socioeconomically modernized segments of the East Asian population. Our results show that the increasingly popular theses of universal and liberal democratization serve merely in East Asia as prodemocracy rhetoric, not as theoretically meaningful propositions.

The Colonial Documentary Film in South and South-East Asia

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
East Asian ◽  
South East Asia ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The Third ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Global Understanding

Writing from a wide range of historical perspectives, contributors to the anthology shed new light on historical, theoretical and empirical issues pertaining to the documentary film, in order to better comprehend the significant transformations of the form in colonial, late colonial and immediate post-colonial and postcolonial times in South and South-East Asia. In doing so, this anthology addresses an important gap in the global understanding of documentary discourses, practices, uses and styles. Based upon in-depth essays written by international authorities in the field and cutting-edge doctoral projects, this anthology is the first to encompass different periods, national contexts, subject matter and style in order to address important and also relatively little-known issues in colonial documentary film in the South and South-East Asian regions. This anthology is divided into three main thematic sections, each of which crosses national or geographical boundaries. The first section addresses issues of colonialism, late colonialism and independence. The second section looks at the use of the documentary film by missionaries and Christian evangelists, whilst the third explores the relation between documentary film, nationalism and representation.

Characteristics of Asian Mosquito Saliva Allergens for Specific Diagnoses and Effective Therapies

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soung-Hoo Jeon
Keyword(s):  
Allergic Reaction ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Diagnosis And Treatment ◽  
Recombinant Allergens ◽  
Systemic Reactions ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mosquito Saliva ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Future Direction

An allergic reaction to mosquitoes can result in severe or abnormal local or systemic reactions such as anaphylaxis, angioedema, and general urticarial or wheezing. The aim of this review is to provide information on mosquito saliva allergens that can support the production of highly specific recombinant saliva allergens. In particular, candidate allergens of mosquitoes that are well suited to the ecology of mosquitoes that occur mainly in East Asia will be identified and introduced. By doing so, the diagnosis and treatment of patients with severe sensitivity to mosquito allergy will be improved by predicting the characteristics of East Asian mosquito allergy, presenting the future direction of production of recombinant allergens, and understanding the difference between East and West.

The Developmental Trading State

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
East Asia ◽  
National Economy ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The State ◽  
State Model ◽  
Principal Function ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
The Way

This chapter demonstrates that the downwards pressure that state consolidation placed on mass violence was amplified by the type of state that emerged. Across East Asia, governments came to define themselves as “developmental” or “trading” states whose principal purpose was to grow the national economy and thereby improve the economic wellbeing of their citizens. Governments with different ideologies came to embrace economic growth and growing the prosperity of their populations as the principal function of the state and its core source of legitimacy. Despite some significant glitches along the way the adoption of the developmental trading state model has proven successful. Not only have East Asian governments succeeded in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, the practices and policy orientations dictated by this model helped shift governments and societies away from belligerent practices towards postures that prioritized peace and stability. This reinforced the trend towards greater peacefulness.

East Asian Exceptionalism to Western Populism and Migration Crisis

2018 ◽  
pp. 196-210
Author(s):  
John Lie
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
East Asia ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Northeast Asia ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
The World ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
And Migration

In the 2010s, the world is seemingly awash with waves of populism and anti-immigration movements. Yet virtually all discussions, owing to the prevailing Eurocentric perspective, bypass East Asia (more accurately, Northeast Asia) and the absence of strong populist or anti-immigration discourses or politics. This chapter presents a comparative and historical account of East Asian exceptionalism in the matter of migration crisis, especially given the West’s embrace of an insider-outsider dichotomy superseding the class- and nation-based divisions of the post–World War II era. The chapter also discusses some nascent articulations of Western-style populist discourses in Northeast Asia, and concludes with the potential for migration crisis in the region.

scholarly journals INTRODUCTION: HISTORY FROM BETWEEN AND THE GLOBAL CIRCULATIONS OF THE PAST IN ASIA AND EUROPE, 1600–1950

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
LEIGH K. JENCO ◽  
JONATHAN CHAPPELL
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
Introduction History ◽  
The Past ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Abstract This article argues for a ‘history from between’ as the best lens through which to understand the construction of historical knowledge between East Asia and Europe. ‘Between’ refers to the space framed by East Asia and Europe, but also to the global circulations of ideas in that space, and to the subjective feeling of embeddedness in larger-than-local contexts that being in such a space makes possible. Our contention is that the outcomes of such entanglements are not merely reactive forms of knowledge, of the kind implied by older studies of translation and reception in global intellectual history. Instead they are themselves ‘co-productions’: they are the shared and mutually interactive inputs to enduring modes of uses of the past, across both East Asian and European traditions. Taking seriously the possibility that interpretations of the past were not transferred, but rather were co-produced between East Asia and Europe, we reconstruct the braided histories of historical narratives that continue to shape constructions of identity throughout Eurasia.

Does Liberal Democracy Presuppose a Cultural Nation? Four Arguments

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-509 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARASH ABIZADEH
Keyword(s):  
Social Integration ◽  
National Culture ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Public Culture ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Shared Norms

This paper subjects to critical analysis four common arguments in the sociopolitical theory literature supporting the cultural nationalist thesis that liberal democracy is viable only against the background of a single national public culture: the arguments that (1) social integration in a liberal democracy requires shared norms and beliefs (Schnapper); (2) the levels of trust that democratic politics requires can be attained only among conationals (Miller); (3) democratic deliberation requires communicational transparency, possible in turn only within a shared national public culture (Miller, Barry); and (4) the economic viability of specifically industrialized liberal democracies requires a single national culture (Gellner). I argue that all four arguments fail: At best, a shared cultural nation may reduce some of the costs liberal democratic societies must incur; at worst, cultural nationalist policies ironically undermine social integration. The failure of these cultural nationalist arguments clears the way for a normative theory of liberal democracy in multinational and postnational contexts.

scholarly journals Security expertise and international hierarchy: the case of ‘The Asia-Pacific Epistemic Community’

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Jerdén
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Social Order ◽  
International Security ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regional Stability ◽  
General Explanation

AbstractMany states partially relinquish sovereignty in return for physical protection from a more powerful state. Mainstream theory on international hierarchies holds that such decisions are based on rational assessments of the relative qualities of the political order being offered. Such assessments, however, are bound to be contingent, and as such a reflection of the power to shape understandings of reality. Through a study of the remarkably persistent US-led security hierarchy in East Asia, this article puts forward the concept of the ‘epistemic community’ as a general explanation of how such understandings are shaped and, hence, why states accept subordinate positions in international hierarchies. The article conceptualises a transnational and multidisciplinary network of experts on international security – ‘The Asia-Pacific Epistemic Community’ – and demonstrates how it operates to convince East Asian policymakers that the current US-led social order is the best choice for maintaining regional ‘stability’.

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