BOOK REVIEW:Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia, by Enze Han

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-128
Author(s):  
Zhu Xianghui ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
State Building

State, Power, Anarchism

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Peter Manicas
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
State Building ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Hill Country ◽  
Failure State ◽  
State Authority ◽  
History Of

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. By James C. Scott. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 464p. $35.00.The book under discussion is James C. Scott's latest contribution to the study of agrarian politics, culture, and society, and to the ways that marginalized communities evade or resist projects of state authority. The book offers a synoptic history of Upland Southeast Asia, a 2.5 million–kilometer region of hill country spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and China. It offers a kind of “area study.” It also builds on Scott's earlier work on “hidden transcripts” of subaltern groups and on “seeing like a state.” The book raises many important theoretical questions about research methods and social inquiry, the relationship between political science and anthropology, the nature of states, and of modernity more generally. The book is also deeply relevant to problems of “state-building” and “failed states” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. As Scott writes, “The huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness. This is the history of those who got away, and state-making cannot be understood apart from it. This is also what makes it an anarchist history” (p. x).In this symposium, I have invited a number of prominent political and social scientists to comment on the book, its historical narrative, and its broader theoretical implications for thinking about power, state failure, state-building, and foreign policy. How does the book shed light on the limits of states and the modes of resistance to state authority? Are there limits, theoretical and normative, to this “anarchist” understanding of governance and the “art of being governed”?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

State, Power, Anarchism

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen D. Krasner
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
State Building ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Hill Country ◽  
Failure State ◽  
State Authority ◽  
History Of

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.By James C. Scott. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 464p. $35.00.The book under discussion is James C. Scott's latest contribution to the study of agrarian politics, culture, and society, and to the ways that marginalized communities evade or resist projects of state authority. The book offers a synoptic history of Upland Southeast Asia, a 2.5 million–kilometer region of hill country spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and China. It offers a kind of “area study.” It also builds on Scott's earlier work on “hidden transcripts” of subaltern groups and on “seeing like a state.” The book raises many important theoretical questions about research methods and social inquiry, the relationship between political science and anthropology, the nature of states, and of modernity more generally. The book is also deeply relevant to problems of “state-building” and “failed states” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. As Scott writes, “The huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness. This is the history of those who got away, and state-making cannot be understood apart from it. This is also what makes it an anarchist history” (p. x).In this symposium, I have invited a number of prominent political and social scientists to comment on the book, its historical narrative, and its broader theoretical implications for thinking about power, state failure, state-building, and foreign policy. How does the book shed light on the limits of states and the modes of resistance to state authority? Are there limits, theoretical and normative, to this “anarchist” understanding of governance and the “art of being governed”?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Securing and Developing the Southwestern Region: The Role of the Cham and Malay Colonies in Vietnam (18th-19th centuries)

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 739-772
Author(s):  
Nicolas Weber
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
State Building ◽  
Southern Vietnam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ethnic Associations

Abstract This article traces the history of the Cham and Malay military colonies in the southwestern provinces of Vietnam, from their creation in the eighteenth century to their dismantling during the last decades of the nineteenth century. The colonies were meant to protect the Khmero-Vietnamese border and secure Vietnamese positions in the southwestern regions (formerly part of Cambodia), as well as in eastern Cambodia. The study of the Chams and Malays in southern Vietnam sheds new light on the dynamics of power, the struggles for supremacy, and inter-ethnic associations during the process of state-building in Southeast Asia.

scholarly journals Trajectories of the early-modern kingdoms in eastern Indonesia: Comparative perspectives

HumaNetten ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 66
Author(s):  
Hans Hägerdal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Development ◽  
State Building ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Eastern Indonesia ◽  
Organizational Features

As well known, a considerable development of statecraft in Southeast Asia took place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, what Victor Lieberman has termed post-charter states (i.e., replacing older, culturally defining realms). Historical research has so far focused on the principal mainland kingdoms, and the newly Islamized maritime and insular polities. The present paper compares the larger Southeast Asian kingdoms (ca fifteenth-seventeenth centuries) with polities that arose in eastern Indonesia, east of Java. Four regions of political development are defined. These include the indianized kingdoms of Bali and Lombok, the Muslim kingdoms of Sumbawa, the Islamic spice sultanates of North Maluku, and the loosely structured polities of the Timor region. These areas are compared from a set of variables, and the paper asks what parallels may be discerned between local polity-forming processes and the dynamics of the mainland kingdoms and Java. Eastern Indonesian realms were all fairly decentralized though sometimes containing symbolisms and organizational features that were miniature versions of the larger realms. They had strong links to long-distance trade, thus connected to the Age of Commerce spoken of by Anthony Reid. State-building was however complicated by the very fragmented ethnic-linguistic picture. It is argued that maritime Southeast Asia's transition to a “vulnerable zone” after the arrival of the European powers (post-1511) had important repercussions for the maintenance of the smaller realms of eastern Indonesia and set the maritime world apart from the mainland. A trajectory of state integration in maritime Southeast Asia was underway, where new Muslim kingdoms were in the process of threatening or subjugating the smaller realms east of Java. This process was halted by European sea power that weakened the major archipelagic realms and provided chances for the smaller polities of survival under modest and sometimes subdued conditions. The minor principalities of eastern Indonesia were thus able to survive as archaic entities until the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Strange Parallels: Patterns in Eurasian Social Evolution

2011 ◽  
pp. 538-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Turchin
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
General Trend ◽  
World History ◽  
State Building ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Political Integration ◽  
State Breakdown

Most professional historians have abandoned the search for general patterns and laws of history, but not Victor Lieberman. Strange Parallels II (SP II), following on SP I, proposes that similar mechanisms governed state building in such different, and distant, regions as Southeast Asia, China, Western Europe, and Russia. During the period covered by Lieberman (c.800–1830) the general trend within these regions of Eurasia was towards increasing political and cultural integration. This overall trend was not monotonic; it was periodically interrupted by interregna – periods of state breakdown and territorial fragmentation. However, as time unfolded the interregna became shorter and less disruptive. Remarkably, during the second millennium cycles of political integration and disintegration became increasingly correlated between the widely separated Eurasian regions. Lieberman’s bold thesis is combined with truly encyclopedic scholarship and a breathtaking scope. SP II is a major achievement in comparative world history that will take future researchers years to fully digest. This review essay aims to make a first step in this direction.

State, Power, Anarchism

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-102
Author(s):  
Anne Clunan
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
State Building ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Hill Country ◽  
Failure State ◽  
State Authority ◽  
History Of

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. By James C. Scott. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 464p. $35.00.The book under discussion is James C. Scott's latest contribution to the study of agrarian politics, culture, and society, and to the ways that marginalized communities evade or resist projects of state authority. The book offers a synoptic history of Upland Southeast Asia, a 2.5 million–kilometer region of hill country spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and China. It offers a kind of “area study.” It also builds on Scott's earlier work on “hidden transcripts” of subaltern groups and on “seeing like a state.” The book raises many important theoretical questions about research methods and social inquiry, the relationship between political science and anthropology, the nature of states, and of modernity more generally. The book is also deeply relevant to problems of “state-building” and “failed states” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. As Scott writes, “The huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness. This is the history of those who got away, and state-making cannot be understood apart from it. This is also what makes it an anarchist history” (p. x).In this symposium, I have invited a number of prominent political and social scientists to comment on the book, its historical narrative, and its broader theoretical implications for thinking about power, state failure, state-building, and foreign policy. How does the book shed light on the limits of states and the modes of resistance to state authority? Are there limits, theoretical and normative, to this “anarchist” understanding of governance and the “art of being governed”?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

State, Power, Anarchism

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-88
Author(s):  
Neil Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
State Building ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Hill Country ◽  
Failure State ◽  
State Authority ◽  
History Of

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. By James C. Scott. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 464p. $35.00.The book under discussion is James C. Scott's latest contribution to the study of agrarian politics, culture, and society, and to the ways that marginalized communities evade or resist projects of state authority. The book offers a synoptic history of Upland Southeast Asia, a 2.5 million–kilometer region of hill country spanning Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and China. It offers a kind of “area study.” It also builds on Scott's earlier work on “hidden transcripts” of subaltern groups and on “seeing like a state.” The book raises many important theoretical questions about research methods and social inquiry, the relationship between political science and anthropology, the nature of states, and of modernity more generally. The book is also deeply relevant to problems of “state-building” and “failed states” in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. As Scott writes, “The huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness. This is the history of those who got away, and state-making cannot be understood apart from it. This is also what makes it an anarchist history” (p. x).In this symposium, I have invited a number of prominent political and social scientists to comment on the book, its historical narrative, and its broader theoretical implications for thinking about power, state failure, state-building, and foreign policy. How does the book shed light on the limits of states and the modes of resistance to state authority? Are there limits, theoretical and normative, to this “anarchist” understanding of governance and the “art of being governed”?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document