The December issue of Pacific Affairs consists of a review essay and four articles and 40 book reviews.

In the review essay, “An Overdue Agenda: Systematizing East Asian Peri-Urban Research”, Douglas Webster argues that research on the phenomenon of Peri-urbanization in East Asia is highly fragmented among key players. The result is that the fast paced change is outpacing our understanding of the dynamic.

The first of four articles, “Democratizing Hong Kong: Functional Representation and Politics of Institutional Change”, is by Baohui Zhang. “The system of functional representation constitutes the greatest challenge to political reform in Hong Kong”. This article explores “how both power and ideas shape the politics of reforming functional representation”.

The next article, written by Joseph Chinyong Liow, is titled “Creating Cadres: Mobilization, Activism and the Youth Wing of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, PAS”. “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)”. It “argues that the youth wing has played a pivotal role in defining the party’s identity as well as its political triumphs”.

“Applying a Gift-exchange Perspective to Effective Volunteering in Papua New Guinea” is written by Anne Abraham and Murray Millar. “This article examines the differing meanings of volunteering that underlie the management of volunteers in diverse cultural contexts”. “The results indicate that gift-exchange theory may be a fundamental influence shaping attitudes towards volunteering”.

In the final article, “Is Malaysia Facing Negative Deindustrialization”, Rajesh Rasiah provides evidence to “confirm that Malaysia is facing negative deindustrialization”. There has been a “trend slowdown in manufacturing value-added, trade performance and productivity since 2000″.

For additional details we invite you to visit our Current Issue Page.

Mission Statement

Pacific Affairs is an interdisciplinary journal committed to advancing empirical and conceptual knowledge in the field of Asia Pacific-focused area studies. We view area studies as combining serious commitment to original research on specific regions and countries in Asia and the Pacific with insights and analytical rigour derived from multiple disciplines and various theoretical perspectives. More details.

2010 Journal Citation Report Impact Factor

Impact Factor 0.561 (20/60 Area Studies) – cites in 2010 to articles published in 2008 and 2009.

5-Year Impact Factor 0.567 (19/60 Area Studies) – cites in 2010 to articles published from 2005 to 2009

Immediacy Index 0.316 (7 out of 60 Area Studies journals) – cites in 2010 of articles published in 2010

© 2011 Thomson Reuters, Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), Journal Citation Reports

Note: We maintain a sustained and in-depth intellectual and administrative interest in the various debates concerning the uses, meanings, and limits of bibliometric indexes such as the annual JCR reports. We list the information above not as an unthinking endorsement of the use of these indexes to define notions of “quality,” but as information that forms part of a larger set of ongoing attempts to map the patterns and understand the meanings of scholarly communications in the digital age. The view of Pacific Affairs is that the 5-Year Impact Factor (regardless of our absolute and relative numbers) is the most significant measure, given that we aspire to publish articles that based on the depth of empirical research and the clarity of the arguments will ideally retain their relevance for at least five years after their publication.

About Us

Pacific Affairs is a peer-reviewed, independent, and interdisciplinary scholarly journal focussing on important current political, economic and social issues throughout Asia and the Pacific. Each issue contains approximately five new articles and 35-40 book reviews. Published continuously since 1928 under the same name, Pacific Affairs has been located on the beautiful campus of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, since 1961. The journal is committed to providing to the scholarly community and the world at large high quality research on Asia and the Pacific that takes readers beyond the headlines and across multiple disciplines.

Indexing

Pacific Affairs is indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), Social Sciences Index, Humanities Index, Humanities International Index, Public Affairs Information Service and PAIS ARCHIVE, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, World Affairs Online and Bibliography of Asian Studies. We are both indexed and have abstracts of articles appear in Web of Science, GEOBASE, Canadian Periodical Index, Academic Search Complete, CBCA Complete, Sociological Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, America: History and Life, Public Administration and CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Ingenta is the electronic provider for our online subscriptions. Pacific Affairs was distinguished to be one of the first journals to be invited by JSTOR to be represented in their archives at its inception.