Questioning Borders: Social Movements, Political Parties and the Creation of New States in India
Louise Tillin, King’s College, London, UK
Volume 84, No. 1, March 2011, pp. 67-87
In this year’s Holland Prize winning article, Louise Tillin makes an original contribution to the literature on social movements and political development as well as contemporary Indian politics by demonstrating systematically how normal politics is overtaking social movements in the creation of new state boundaries in India. With the insights provided by the cases of India’s newest states—Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand—Tillin invites the reader to look beyond the movements themselves to the broader context in which movements operate, the change from social to statehood movements and the role played by party politics. Empirically, theoretically and stylistically the editors found this article to be a model for Pacific Affairs.
View Dr. Tillin’s article Questioning Borders: Social Movements, Political Parties and the Creation of New States in India
Workers or Residents? Diverging Patterns of Immigrant Incorporation in Korea and Japan
Erin Aeran Chung, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Volume 83, No. 4, December 2010, pp. 675-696
Erin Chung
In the 2010 Holland Prize winning article, Erin Aeran Chung analyses immigrant incorporation policy variances in South Korea and Japan using a range of sources. She shows how long-term civil society strategies and tactics created a foundation for current incorporation programs that predates the more recent policy recognition of the issue. Highlighting the value of comparative analysis and historical perspective, the article provides new insights on the study of migration, citizenship, incorporation, and belonging not just in the two countries compared, but for the larger Asia and Pacific.
View Dr. Chung’s article Workers or Residents?
Overtime Activists Take on Corporate Titans: Toyota, McDonald’s and Japan’s Work Hour Controversy
Charles Weathers and Scott North, Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan
Volume 82, No. 4, December 2009, pp. 615-636
Charles Weathers
Scott North
Based on a solid foundation of original empirical research, Weathers and North shed new light on the possibilities and the limits of civil society in Japan at the intersection of law, labor rights, and politics. The mobilized array of Japanese and English-language sources includes interviews, court records, presentations at union meetings, NGO reports, policy papers, mass media coverage, and academic works. While their article focuses on two specific lawsuits in Japan against Toyota and McDonald’s, the broader implications for all of Asia and the Pacific stem from the success of the article in highlighting the extent of the challenges involved in the protection of labor rights and the maintenance of a vigilant civil society even in an industrialized democracy.
View Drs. Weathers and North’s article Japan’s Work Hour Controversy
Alan Smart
Time-Space Punctuation: Hong Kong’s Border Regime
Josephine Smart
and Limits on Mobility
Alan Smart and Josephine Smart, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Volume 81 No.2, Summer 2008, pp. 175-193
Combining thorough empirical analysis with critical engagement with a range of globalization theories, Smart and Smart not only deepen our understanding of the empirical specificities of the limits of mobility along the Hong Kong border, but also contribute to the theoretical discussions on cross-border mobility and globalization through their concept of “time-space punctuation.” The article provides an excellent example of the insights that are possible via the intersection of area studies and theoretical analysis.
View Drs. Smart and Smart’s article Time-Space Punctuation
The Restructuring of Vietnamese Nationalism, 1954-2006
Hy V. Luong
Hy V. Luong, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Volume 80 No.3, Fall 2007, pp. 439-453
Luong’s study analyzes how national identities are constructed, how they change, and what factors drive such processes. Countering views that focus solely on the impact of globalization on Vietnamese national identity, the article provides a cogent analysis of how changing relations between the state and local societies have been instrumental in broadening the range of state practice deployed in maintaining national identity. His rich empirical research and judicious argument highlight a shift in emphasis from developmental nationalism to cultural nationalism that has been occurring not just in Vietnam, but in other countries as well.
View Dr. Luong’s article The Restructuring of Vietnamese Nationalism, 1954-2006
Christl Kessler and Jürgen Rüland
Responses to Rapid Social Change: Populist Religion in the Philippines
Christl Kessler and Jürgen Rüland, Arnold-Bergstraesser Institute, Freiburg, Germany & University of Freiburg, Germany
Volume 79 No. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 73-96
Kessler and Rüland’s study addresses a question of significance across Asia and the Pacific — the role of religion as a vehicle for populism and popular mobilization. Their approach is innovative, well-argued and takes their findings well beyond the Christian and Philippine case.
View Jürgen Rüland and Christl Kessler’s article Responses to Rapid Social Change
Paul Waley
Ruining and Restoring Rivers: The State and Civil Society in Japan
Paul Waley, University of Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Volume 78 No.2, Summer 2005, pp. 195-215
Dr. Waley’s study uses a range of groups concerned with rivers as a prism to provide a fresh perspective on the nature of civil society in Japan and usefully takes issue with conventional interpretations that see civil society as being locked into a close (but sometimes antagonistic) relationship with the state.
View Dr. Waley’s article Ruining and Restoring Rivers
The Impact of the State on Workers’ Conditions – Comparing Taiwanese Factories in China and Vietnam
Anita Chan
Anita Chan and Hong-zen Wang, Australian Natiional University, Canberra, Australia & National Sun Yat-sen University, Gushan, Taiwan
Hong-zen Wang
Volume 77 No. 4, Winter 2004-2005, pp. 629-646
Chan and Wang’s study applies field research and social science analysis to a pressing contemporary problem in the Asia Pacific: direct foreign investment and the treatment of workers in foreign factories. Their case study comparing experience in Vietnam and China will have value for those concerned with similar issues across the region.
View Anita Chan and Hong-zen Wang’s article The Impact of the State on Workers’ Conditions
Jacques Bertrand
Legacies of the Authoritarian Past: Religious Violence in Indonesia’s Moluccan Islands
Jacques Bertrand, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Volume 75 No.1, Spring 2003, pp. 57-8
Dr. Bertrand’s article seeks to identify the factors that contributed to Christian-Muslim violence in the 1990s in Maluku, casting this detailed example in a comparative and analytic perspective that speaks to those whose concerns might be very far from Indonesia, but who share the concern over ethnic and communal violence.
View Dr. Bertrand’s article Legacies of the Authoritarian Past
Ademola Adeleke
The Strings of Neutralism: Burma and the Colombo Plan
Ademola Adeleke, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria
Volume 76 No.4, Winter 2003-2004, pp. 593-610
Based on archival sources, Dr. Adeleke’s article recreates a sense of the intrigues and political posturing between the British, the Burmese and the Americans in this particular incident effectively to make a useful general point about the politics of aid.
View Dr. Adeleke’s article The Strings of Neutralism: Burma and the Colombo Plan
