Volume 84, No 4, December 2011

An Overdue Agenda: Systematizing East Asian Peri-Urban Research – Review Essay

By Douglas Webster, Arizona State University, USA

Keywords: Peri-Urban; East Asia; Land Use; Urban Transition; Rural Transition; Urban Periphery

This review stems from recent articles on East Asian peri-urbanization in Pacific Affairs, particularly the special September 2011 issue. Research on the peri-urbanization process in East Asia, whereby rural land transitions, often highly eventfully, into urban land on the city periphery is enjoying resurgence, but remains highly fragmented. Land use change detection analysis is proceeding full-tilt thanks to increasingly inexpensive satellite imagery and associated funding, while the sustainability movement is motivating technically oriented assessment of land use efficiency. However, there is insufficient understanding of the macro forces driving the rapidly changing nature of East Asian peri-urbanization associated with rapid economic change. New drivers such as residential development, e.g., bedroom communities; amenity, e.g., weekend tourism, second homes; theme zones, e.g., Disneylands, F1 racing tracks, religious complexes; and outward spread of high-tech are ascendant, as manufacturing becomes less dominant. Local governance, including land use regimes, is seriously understudied, despite pressing issues such as the creation of vast special economic zones; jurisdictional over-bounding in the communist countries, and under-bounding elsewhere; and local government capture by property development interests, organized crime, family dynasties, etc. Potential high synergy exists in meshing institutional understanding with the technical longitudinal data being generated through land detection and sustainability-oriented studies. Although more social scientists, particularly anthropologists, are increasingly studying peri-urbanization from the bottom-up perspective of existing communities, in contrast with the dominant view from the existing city, such studies would benefit from frameworks better enabling comparative understanding and synergy with those undertaking peri-urban analysis from other perspectives.

Abstract in Chinese – 摘要

Purchase Article

Democratizing Hong Kong: Functional Representation and Politics of Institutional Change

By Baohui Zhang, Lingnan University, Hong Kong

Keywords: Hong Kong; democrat- ization; functional representation; One Country, Two Systems; institutional reform

The system of functional representation constitutes the greatest challenge to political reform in Hong Kong. Utilizing recent developments in institutional and ideational theories in political science, this article explores how both power and ideas shape the politics of reforming functional representation. The impasse generated by the current balance of power has given rise to a plethora of ideas that seek to reform the system while preserving its place in the political process. However, recent direct negotiations between Beijing and moderate democrats in Hong Kong have triggered a significant political realignment. This shift in the political balance of power has generated new scenarios for the reform of functional representation. Abstract in Chinese – 摘要

Purchase Article

Creating Cadres: Mobilization, Activism, and the Youth Wing
of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, PAS

By Joseph Chinyong Liow, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Keywords: Malaysia, PAS, PAS Youth, Social Movement Theory, Youth Mobilization, Dakwah

Since the 1999 general elections, when it emerged with the most impressing performance in Malaysian political history, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, has elicited significant scholarly attention. This has resulted in the production of a wealth of information about the party’s origins and evolution. Yet, while most observers of Malaysian politics note that, next to UMNO, PAS is the most organized and well-resourced political party in the country, there remains a dearth of knowledge about the internal workings of PAS, and specifically, how the party developed, maintained and mobilizes its impressive machinery. This paper aims to unpack the puzzle of the nature of PAS’s mobilization by studying the party’s youth wing (also known as PAS Youth). Through the conceptual framework of resource mobilization theory and a detailed study of milestone events in the party’s recent history, the paper argues that the youth wing has played a pivotal role in defining the party’s identity as well as its political triumphs. At the same time, however, its integral role within PAS has meant that the challenges confronting the parent party have undoubtedly rebounded upon them as well.

Abstract in Chinese – 摘要

Purchase Article

Applying a Gift Exchange Perspective to Effective Volunteering in Papua New Guinea

By Anne Abraham and Murray Millar, University of Western Sydney, Australia and World Vision International

Keywords: gift-exchange, non- government organizations, Melanesia, volunteering, Papua New Guinea

This article examines the differing meanings of volunteering that underlie the management of volunteers in diverse cultural contexts by analyzing a case study of an Australian non-government organization (NGO) working in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where local volunteers are engaged in a number of its programs. The results indicate that gift-exchange theory may be a fundamental influence shaping attitudes towards volunteering by PNG nationals. This has led to the development of a gift-exchange model to assist other Western-based NGOs to manage formal volunteering in Pacific nations in a way that is both effective and culturally appropriate.

Abstract in Chinese – 摘要

Purchase Article

Is Malaysia Facing Negative Deindustrialization?

By Rajah Rasiah, University of Malaya, Malaysia

Keywords: Malaysia, manufacturing, trade, productivity, deindustrialization

This paper seeks to examine whether Malaysia is facing negative deindustrialization by examining value-added, trade and productivity trends over the period 1990-2005. The evidence produced in the paper is concrete enough to confirm that Malaysia is facing negative deindustrialization. While it is typical, as part of the process of structural change, to see a rise and fall in the share occupied by manufacturing in the GDP, the evidence shows that Malaysia is indeed facing premature deindustrialization with a trend slowdown in manufacturing value-added, trade performance and productivity since 2000. Not only has the trade performance of manufacturing been falling, manufacturing labour productivity has also slowed down, with the key sectors such as electric-electronics, textiles and transport equipment showing either negative or low productivity growth since 2000. Malaysian industrial policies have been fairly successful in connecting with the global value chains of multinationals and in developing resource-based industries, but have not achieved the same success in stimulating their transformation to high value-added activities. The lack of effective institutional change, partly explained by ethnic policies, is advanced as the prime reason for the setting in of negative deindustrialization in Malaysia.

Abstract in Chinese – 摘要

Purchase Article

Books Reviewed in this Issue

Asia General

STATE, SOCIETY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS IN ASIA: Reality and Challenges. Edited by M. Parvizi Amineh.
Reviewed by John D. Ciorciari

TRADE AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION: Case Studies and Lessons from Low-Income Communities. Edited by Andrew Stoler, Jim Redden, and Lee Ann Jackson.
Reviewed by Saman Kelegama

QUESTIONING COLLAPSE: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire. Edited by Patricia A. McAnany and Norman Yofee.
Reviewed by James L. Flexner

China and Inner Asia

ECONOMIC OPENNESS AND TERRITORIAL POLITICS IN CHINA. By Yumin Sheng.
Reviewed by Ray Yep

CONTEMPORARY CHINESE POLITICS: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies. Edited by Allen Carlson et al.
Reviewed by Elizabeth J. Remick

FAITHS ON DISPLAY: Religion, Tourism, and the Chinese State. Edited by Tim Oakes and Donald S. Sutton
Reviewed by Shuk-wah Poon

A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION TO MAO. Edited by Tim Cheek.
Reviewed by Xueping Zhong

PATRON-CLIENT POLITICS AND ELECTIONS IN HONG KONG. By Bruce Kam-kwan Kwong.
Reviewed by Ngok Ma

QUEST FOR HARMONY: The Moso Traditions of Sexual Union and Family Life. By Chuan-Kang Shih.
Reviewed by Elisabeth Hsu

Northeast Asia

THE MAKING OF NORTHEAST ASIA. By Kent Calder and Min Ye.
Reviewed by Brock F. Tessman

THE RISE AND FALL OF JAPAN’S LDP: Political Party Organizations as Historical Institutions. By Ellis S. Krauss and Robert J. Pekkanen.
Reviewed by Ray Christensen

PARTY POLITICS AND DECENTRALIZATION IN JAPAN AND FRANCE: When the Opposition Governs. By Koichi Nakano.
Reviewed by Dimitri Vanoverbeke

THE FAILURE OF CIVIL SOCIETY?: The Third Sector and The State in Contemporary Japan. By Akihiro Ogawa.
Reviewed by Victoria Lyon Bestor

WHALING IN JAPAN: Power, Politics, and Diplomacy. By Jun Morikawa.
Reviewed by Anny Wong

WOMEN AND FAMILY IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN. By Susan D. Holloway.
Reviewed by Cherylynn Bassani

NEITHER MONK NOR LAYMAN: Clerical Marriage in Modern Japanese Buddhism. By Richard M. Jaffe.
Reviewed by Levi McLaughlin

TRESPASSES: Selected Writings. By Masao Miyoshi. Edited and with an introduction by Eric Cazdyn.
Reviewed by Kyu Hyun Kim

STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART: Gender, Intimacy, and the Cultural Production of Shōjo Manga. By Jennifer S. Prough.
Reviewed by Alwyn Spies

BUTOH: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy. By Sondra Fraleigh.
Reviewed by Brianne Waychoff

BABYLON EAST: Performing Dancehall, Roots Reggae, and Rastafari in Japan. By Marvin D. Sterling.
Reviewed by Debra J. Occhi

ABSOLUTE EROTIC, ABSOLUTE GROTESQUE: The Living, Dead and Undead in Japan’s Imperialism, 1895-1945. By Mark Driscoll.
Reviewed by Sang Mi Park

JAPAN AND IMPERIALISM, 1853-1945. By James L. Huffman.
Reviewed by Jonathan Dresner

A CONCISE HISTORY OF MODERN KOREA: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present. By Michael J. Seth.
Reviewed by Kyung Moon Hwang

SOUTH KOREA UNDER COMPRESSED MODERNITY: Familial Political Economy in Transition. By Chang Kyung-Sup.
Reviewed by Kyoung-Ho Shin

LITIGATION IN KOREA. Edited by Kuk Cho.
Reviewed by Patricia Goedde

THE NORTHERN REGION OF KOREA: History, Identity and Culture. Edited by Sun Joo Kim.
Reviewed by Michael Robinson

SOLDIERS ON THE CULTURAL FRONT: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy. By Tatiana Gabroussenko. Reviewed by Keon De Ceuster

A HISTORY OF KOREA: From Antiquity to the Present. By Michael J. Seth
Reviewed by Anders Karlsson

South Asia

NUCLEUS AND NATION: Scientists, International Networks and Power in India. By Robert S. Anderson.
Reviewed by M.V. Ramana

SOUTH ASIA’S WEAK STATES: Understanding the Regional Insecurity Predicament. Edited by T.V. Paul.
Reviewed by Sanjib Baruah

THE VERNACULARISATION OF DEMOCRACY: Politics, Caste and Religion in India. By Lucia Michelutti.
Reviewed by Philippa Williams

UNDERSTANDING CONTEMPORARY INDIA. Edited by Neil DeVotta.
Reviewed by Alf Gunvald Nilsen

RETRO-MODERN INDIA: Forging the Low-Caste Self. By Manuela Ciotti.
Reviewed by Clarinda Still

THE SIKH SEPARATIST INSURGENCY IN INDIA: Political Leadership and Ethnonationalist Movements. By Jugdep S. Chima
Reviewed by Pritnam Singh
ATTRACTING THE HEART: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture. By Jeffrey Samuels.
Reviewed by Michael Carrithers

Southeast Asia

SOUTHEAST ASIA IN WORLD HISTORY. By Craig A. Lockard.
Reviewed by Jim Placzek

A STORY OF VIET NAM. By Truong Buu Lâm.
Reviewed by David G. Marr

CAMBODIANS AND THEIR DOCTORS: A Medical Anthropology of Colonial and Post-Colonial Cambodia. By Jan Ovesen and Ing-Britt Trankell
Reviewed by Jenna Grant

A CERTAIN AGE: Colonial Jakarta through the Memories of Its Intellectuals. By Rudolf Mrázek.
Reviewed by David Chandler

FALLING INTO THE LESBI WORLD: Desire and Difference in Indonesia. By Evelyn Blackwood.
Reviewed by Martin F. Manalansan IV

BETWEEN FRONTIERS: Nation and Identity in a Southeast Asian Borderland. By Noburo Ishikawa.
Reviewed by Alexander Horstmann

ASEAN’S MYANMAR CRISIS: Challenges to the Pursuit of a Security Community. By Christopher Roberts.
Reviewed by Jurgen Haacke

Australasia and the Pacific Region

DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES OF A WHITE AUSTRALIA: Representing Aboriginal Assimilation in the Mid-Twentieth Century. By Catriona Elder. Reviewed by Jeanine Leane

GOSSIP AND THE EVERYDAY PRODUCTION OF POLITICS. By Niko Besnier.
Reviewed by Alan Jones

NOT A POOR MAN’S FIELD: The New Guinea Goldfields to 1942; An Australian Colonial History. By Michael Waterhouse.
Reviewed by Martha Macintyre

STEADFAST MOVEMENT AROUND MICRONESIA: Satowan Enlargements Beyond Migration. By Lola Quan Bautista.
Reviewed by Laurel A. Monnig

ANTHROPOLOGY’S GLOBAL HISTORIES: The Ethnographic Frontier in German New Guinea, 1870-1935. By Rainer F. Buschmann.
Reviewed by Doug Dalton

FROM LAND TO MOUTH: The Agricultural “Economy” of the Wola of the New Guinea Highlands. By Paul Sillitoe.
Reviewed by Alex Golub

GRASS-CLEARING MAN: A Factional Ethnography of Life In the New Guinea Highlands. By Paul Sillitoe, Jackie Sillitoe.
Reviewed by Michael Goddard

DREAMS, MADNESS, AND FAIRY TALES IN NEW BRITAIN. By Andrew Lattas.
Reviewed by Naomi M. McPherson