Narrative acts of identity and resistance

By Davinder Bhowmik

Writing Okinawa is the first comprehensive study in English of Okinawan fiction, from it’s emergence in the early twentieth-century through its most recent permutations. It provides readings of major authors and texts set against a carefully researched presentation of the region’s political and social history; at the same time, it thoughtfully engages with current critical perspective with perspectives on subaltern identity, colonialism, and post-colonialism, and the nature of "regional," "minority," and "minor" literatures.

Is Okinawan fiction, replete with geographically specific themes such as language loss, identity, and war, a regional literature, distinct among Japanese letters for flourishes of local color that offer a reprieve for the urban-weary, or a minority literature that serves as a site for creative resistance and cultural renewal? This question drives the book’s argument, making it interpretative rather than merely descriptive. Not only does the book provide a critical introduction to the major works of Okinawan literature, it also argues that Okinawa’s writers consciously exploit, to good effect the overlap that exists between regional and minority literature. In so doing, they produce a rich body of work, a great deal of which challenges the notion of a unified nation that seamlessly rises from a single language and culture.

ISBN: 9780415775564

Published May 16 2008 by Routledge.

Media, Public and Elite Perceptions of the EU

Edited by Natalia Chaban, Martin Holland

A central problem for the European Union is said to be that of the "politics of identity". Within this, the concept of the EU’s international identity requires exploration in terms of how it is both constructed and represented globally.

To address this issue, this book identifies measures and compares public awareness and perceptions of the EU within the Asia-Pacific region. It deals with the under-researched issue of the public perception of the EU outside the Union and the role of the media in shaping such perceptions. It builds on what has been described as the EU’s ‘communication deficit’, a phenomenon which has typically been explored as an internal EU dynamic but has yet to be applied to the EU’s external relations.

The volume presents findings from a systematic research project designed to measure the EU’s external ‘communication deficit’ and to raise the level of its awareness in other regions through three perception levels:

• The study of EU images in news mass media production
• A survey of general public perceptions and attitudes on the EU
• A survey of the elite perceptions of the EU.

Drawing on research from New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Thailand, this book will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, communication studies, European studies and Asian studies.

ISBN: 9780415421386

Published May 16 2008 by Routledge.

The Region's Decisive Decade

By Malcolm Cook

This book empirically examines banking reform in the economies of Southeast Asia as they sought to adapt to major developments in the global economic system over the past three decades, including the globalisation of finance, the debt crisis of the 1980s and the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. Focusing in particular on the turbulent decade of financial boom and bust from 1994 to 2004, it explores the ways in which states respond to powerful external shocks and the implications for policy choices, demonstrating how different political systems shape economic performance and policy choices. It sets out a detailed comparative analysis of the experiences of the five major regional economies, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, considering how banking reform responded to the challenges posed by global economic integration. The countries least affected by the crisis, Singapore and the Philippines, used the crisis effectively to further liberalise long-protected domestic banking sectors. The countries the most affected by the crisis, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, all resisted external pressure to liberalise their protected banking sectors even when they experienced changes in leadership. In all five cases, the nature of the political system and their previous commitment to nationalist banking policies, more than the depth of the crisis or extent of foreign pressure, was the key determining factor in their crisis response and in the post-crisis changes to banking policy that are still playing out today.

ISBN: 9780415413190

Published May 13 2008 by Routledge.

Third-party Mediation in Regional Conflict

Edited by Jacob Bercovitch, Kwei-Bo Huang, Chung-Chian Teng

This edited volume examines the sources, manifestations and management of conflict in East Asia, which contains many of the world’s conflict flashpoints, such as the Korean Peninsula and the China-Taiwan Strait.

In particular, the book will elaborate on the following themes:

1. general and NGO approaches to third-party mediation in conflict situations;
2. regional conflict management approaches in East Asia; and
3. third-party interventions in the context of Beijing-Taipei.

The volume examines third-party mediation experiences from both theoretical and historical/practical perspectives, arguing that mediation is of great significance for regional peace and stability in East Asia, with a focus on the important case of Taiwan-China.

This book will be of interest to students of regional security, Asian studies, peace studies, conflict studies and international relations.

ISBN: 9780415403535

Published May 07 2008 by Routledge.

By Boria Majumdar

This is an exacting social history of Indian cricket between 1780 and 1947. It considers cricket as a derivative sport, creatively adapted to suit modern Indian socio-cultural needs, fulfil political imperatives and satisfy economic aspirations. Majumdar argues that cricket was a means to cross class barriers and had a healthy following even outside the aristocracy and upper middle classes well over a century ago. Indeed, in some ways, the democratization of the sport anticipated the democratization of the Indian polity itself.

Boria Majumdar reveals the appropriation, assimilation and subversion of cricketing ideals in colonial and post-colonial India for nationalist ends. He exposes a sport rooted in the contingencies of the colonial and post-colonial context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century India. Cricket, to put it simply, is much more than a ‘game’ for Indians.

This study describes how the genealogy of their intense engagement with cricket stretches back over a century. It is concerned not only with the game but also with the end of cricket as a mere sport, with Indian cricket’s commercial revolution in the 1930s, with ideals and idealism and their relative unimportance, with the decline of morality for reasons of realpolitik, and with the denunciation, once and for all, of the view that sport and politics do not mix.

This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport

ISBN: 9780415400145

Published May 02 2008 by Routledge.

Events, Processes and Ideology

By Bidyut Chakrabarty

Focusing on politics and society in India, this book explores new areas enmeshed in the complex social, economic and political processes in the country. Linking the structural characteristics with the broader sociological context, the book emphasizes the strong influence of sociological issues on politics, such as social milieu shaping and the articulation of the political in day-to-day events. Political events are connected with the ever-changing social, economic and political processes in order to provide an analytical framework to explain ‘peculiarities’ of Indian politics. Bidyut Chakrabarty argues that three major ideological influences of colonialism, nationalism and democracy have provided the foundational values of Indian politics.

Structured thematically and chronologically, this work is a useful resource for students of political science, sociology and South Asian studies.

ISBN: 9780415408677

Published May 02 2008 by Routledge.

Edited by Dafydd Fell

This new Routledge Major Work is a four-volume collection which gathers the best and most influential research on the contemporary politics of Taiwan. Although the collected materials are in English, they include contributions from leading Taiwan experts in Europe, the United States, Japan, and Taiwan.

Volumes I (‘Nationalism and National Identity’) and II (‘Democratization, Democratic Consolidation’) address the two key issues that have received the most attention from political scientists working on Taiwan. Gathered here is the best research on competing nation-building projects and national identities, including the ‘Taiwanese versus Chinese’ identity debate. Various explanations for Taiwan’s democratic transition are explored in depth. Other topics include religion and democracy, along with appraisals of Taiwan’s democratic consolidation and its current state.

The scholarship collected in Volume III (‘Consequences of Democratization’) examines the policy implications of democratization while the last volume (‘Party and Local Politics’) focuses on salient issues in Taiwan’s domestic politics. There is a growing literature addressing a broad range of aspects of the island’s political development since the advent of multi-party politics in the late 1980s. Volumes III and IV pay particular attention to the following topics: political corruption; constitutional reform; the creation of a social welfare system; party systems and party politics; political communication and electoral politics; changing patterns in local politics; the development of social movements; and the political impact of the change in ruling parties in 2000.

Politics of Modern Taiwan is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

ISBN: 9780415440417

Published May 02 2008 by Routledge.

Nuclear Weapons and Conflict in Comparative Perspective

By Rajesh M. Basrur

This book is a ground-breaking analysis of the India-Pakistan nuclear confrontation as a form of ‘cold war’ – that is, a hostile relationship between nuclear rivals.

Drawing on nuclear rivalries between similar pairs (United States-Soviet Union, United States-China, Soviet Union-China, and United States-North Korea), the work examines the rise, process and potential end of the cold war between India and Pakistan. It identifies the three factors driving the India-Pakistan rivalry: ideational factors stemming from partition; oppositional roles created by the distribution of power in South Asia; and the particular kind of relationship created by nuclear weapons. The volume assesses why India and Pakistan continue in non-crisis times to think about power and military force in outmoded ways embedded in pre-nuclear times, and draws lessons applicable to them as well as to other contemporary nuclear powers and states that might be engaged in future cold wars.

ISBN: 9780415391948

Published April 28 2008 by Routledge.

Future rulers, present lives

Edited by David Goodman

Three decades of reform since 1978 in the People’s Republic of China have resulted in the emergence of new social groups which have included new occupations and professions generated as the economy has opened up and developed and, most spectacularly given the legacy of state socialism, the identification of those who are regarded as wealthy. However, although China’s new rich are certainly a consequence of globalization, there remains a need for caution in assuming either that China’s new rich are a middle class, or that if they are they should immediately be equated with a universal middle class.

Including sections on class, status and power, agency and structure and lifestyle The New Rich in China investigates the political, socio-economic and cultural characteristics of the emergent new rich in China, the similarities and differences to similar phenomenon elsewhere and the consequences of the new rich for China itself. In doing so it links the importance of China to the world economy and helps us understand how the growth of China’s new rich may influence our understanding of social change elsewhere. This is a subject that will become increasingly important as China continues its development and private entrepreneurship continues to be encouraged and as such The New Rich in China will be an invaluable volume for students and scholars of Chinese studies, history and politics and social change.

ISBN: 9780415455640

Published April 25 2008 by Routledge.

Uzbekistan under Authoritarianism

By Martin C. Spechler

This book examines the economic reforms and material progress made since the Central Asian republics became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. Without some of the neo-liberal reforms recommended by the "Washington Consensus" and with an authoritarian presidency, Uzbekistan, the largest of these countries, has nevertheless achieved modest economic growth, stability, and a relatively impressive degree of income equality. The country has also preserved its economic and political independence from the great powers — Russia, China, and the USA — who are rivals for influence and energy in Central Asia. Human rights have been poorly enforced, though occasional thaws have also taken place.

In second half of the book features a comparative analysis of four Central Asian states, all super-presidential authoritarianisms but with very different resource endowments and external commitments. A separate chapter deals with the energy resources of the region and the challenges of bringing oil and gas to the world market, and the question of whether Central Asian states will return to the Russian sphere of influence or seek closer ties with Asia or Europe is examined. The book concludes with prospects for future political and economic progress in the key Central Asian states.

ISBN: 9780415775540

Published April 25 2008 by Routledge.