Hasil untuk "Political institutions and public administration - Asia (Asian studies only)"

Soon Cheong POON, Guanie LIM

Since 2013, Chinese investment in Malaysia—particularly in manufacturing—has surged under the Belt and Road Initiative. Focusing on the paper recycling industry, this article finds that stricter Chinese regulations have prompted firms to relocate overseas. While Malaysia has attracted new investment, local technological upgrading remains limited and environmental concerns persist. These trends raise broader questions about sustainability, regulatory capacity and the long-term trajectory of Malaysia’s industrial ecosystem.

Sivarin LERTPUSIT

This article examines the dynamics and consequences of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in relation to Thailand’s development plan, focusing on cross-border trade from Thailand to China via the Laos–China Railway. Transboundary regulations and constraints in infrastructure are obstacles impeding economic integration and regional connectivity. Evidently, initiatives such as setting up stations for agricultural inspection and quarantine have not led to increased trade volume via the rail network. Continual efforts to fix infrastructural gaps and promote discourse on regulatory and procedural issues are imperative to fully realise the potential of Thailand–China cross-border trade via railway networks under the BRI framework.

Aminkun Imam Rafii

Tangerang Regency in Banten Province has various potential areas in each sub-district. To optimize this potential, appropriate policies are needed so that the region can develop and make a significant contribution to society. This study aims to analyze and group sub-districts in Tangerang Regency based on their regional potential using the cluster lysis analysis method with the Ward method. The results showed that sub-districts can be grouped into 5 clusters, namely Cluster 1 with the potential for rice, crops, and fisheries production; Cluster 2 with the potential for large population; Cluster 3 with the potential of many populations, area, rice, and crop production, and animal husbandry; cluster 4 with the potential of many populations, area, horticulture, and rice field land use; and cluster 5 with the potential for a large population and rice field land use. The originality of this research lies in the use of cluster analysis methods to group sub-districts based on their regional potential. The results of this study can be used as a reference for district governments in formulating appropriate policies to optimize the potential of areas in each sub-district.

Ershov Sergey G.

Introduction. The article is devoted to the servicemen of the Red Army ― residents of the Kalmyk ASSR, buried at the Mamaev Kurgan ― a key point of the defense of Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War, as well as to the historical and statistical study of their collective portrait. Materials and methods. When writing the article a complex of various general scientific and special methods was used, including historical-genetic, historical-comparative, historical-typological, historical-systemic, as well as statistical method. The materials for the work were the logs of combat operations of units in the defense of Stalingrad, reports on irrecoverable losses of personnel, materials of the Books of Memory of the Volgograd region and the Republic of Kalmykia, lists of the dead, inscribed on the mosaic banners in the Hall of Military Glory on the Mamaev Kurgan, lists of burials on the Mamaev Kurgan. Results. In the course of the research on the basis of various sources the database of the Red Army servicemen - residents of Kalmyk ASSR, buried on the Mamaev Kurgan was compiled. Following this, their collective portrait was analyzed by such categories as place and time of birth, place of conscription, time and place of death. Conclusions. The analysis shows that natives of Kalmykia actively participated in the defense of Stalingrad. At the same time, the majority of the deceased belonged to young people born in 1924 and younger. It is obvious that most of the studied personalities were mobilized in 1942 and, even without completing their training, were thrown to the defense of Stalingrad. At the same time, most of the losses occurred in September-October 1942 – the period of the most intense battles for Stalingrad. At the same time, the analysis of information about other defenders of Stalingrad, not included in the list of those buried at Mamaev Kurgan, allows us to assert that they were also buried at this memorial, but without specifying their names.

Juan Carlos Gachúz Maya

The Mexico–China economic relationship is highly asymmetric, although the amount of total trade between the two countries has grown rapidly in the last ten years. Chinese exports to Mexico have grown exponentially and have diversified into different economic sectors. In contrast, Mexican exports to China have also grown but at a much slower pace and the pattern shows more concentration in fewer products. Paradoxically, in the context of the United States–China trade war, the Mexican economy has benefitted from the increase in tariffs that the United States has imposed on Chinese products. In 2019, for the first time, Mexico displaced China as a main trade partner of the United States. In this context, this article analyses the current economic relationship of Mexico with China and the United States in a triangular scheme, the impact of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement on the China–Mexico relationship, and Mexico's trade relationship with both economies in the context of the trade war.

Sun Kyong Lee, Kyun Soo Kim, Amanda Franklyn

Two surveys for exploring communicative paths toward political participation were conducted with relatively large samples of Americans (*N* = 1001) and South Koreans (*N* = 1166). Hierarchical regression modeling of the relationships among demographics, personal networks, news consumption, and cross-cutting discussion and political participation demonstrated mostly commonalities between the two samples, including the interaction between political diversity and Twitter usage for news access but with distinct effect sizes of cross-cutting discussion on political participation. We attribute the differences to the two countries' distinct histories of democracy and culture, and the commonalities to the general relationships between cross-cutting discussion and political participation moderated by strong ties political homogeneity.

Delyash N. Muzraeva

Introduction. The written heritage of Kalmyk Buddhist lamas has not been sufficiently discussed in scientific literature. Most of written documents from their personal libraries have not been published, hence they remain unavailable to researchers. Importantly, the scholarly publication of such texts contributes to the source database of Buddhist studies. The present article aims to describe, transliterate and translate “The Sutra of Atonement for All Sins” (Oir. Xamuq kilince namančilaxu sudur), which was part of the astrological collection that belonged to a Kalmyk zurkhachi, i. e. to introduce the document for the attention of scholars in the field. Materials. To clarify the translation of some difficult passages in the text of the Oirat Sutra written in “todo bichig” (“Clear Script”), Tibetan texts of similar content were used. One of them, created in the framework of the “terma” tradition, was published in French by E. Schlagintweit. The other text was taken from the collection “Sundui”. Results. The translation of the Oirat Sutra clearly indicates the character of Buddhist astrological collections in terms of their composition: in addition to specific tables, diagrams, and figures, they included the texts of prayers. Also, the textual analysis of the source shows the importance of such issues as the selection of equivalents of Buddhist terms and of the names of the deities of the Buddhist pantheon in translating Buddhist texts, which is directly related to the approaches and principles of translation of Oirat and Kalmyk translators of Tibetan texts.

Putri Wulandari

A written local autonomy policy in regulation of no 32 year 2004 states that the local government requires the improvement quality of public services and society prosperity. This reserarch purpose was to measure the public services quality, both in regency and city, those included three sectors (education, healthiness, and infrastructures). The method of this research was a descriptive-quantitative method by using questionnaire spreaded into 120 regencies and cities in Java. The data was analyzed to determine public service index (IPP) in the region. The highest region in public service index, especially in education, halthiness, and infrastructures were Klaten regency, Madiun, and Tegal. The lowest region in public service index, especially in education, halthiness, and infrastructures were Batu (Malang), Madiun regency and Banjarnegara regency. The region with highest public service index was Klaten regency and the lowest was Batu (Malang).

Ellen Oxfeld

Chinese feasting encompasses everything from life-cycle celebrations to the indulgences of corrupt officials. Although woven into the commodity economy, banqueting also creates and solidifies social relationships, providing a space where different moral economies converge. This article explores the moral economies that intersect in Chinese banqueting as well as the differing moral registers people use to understand it. Proper form in banqueting is essential to being a cultured person and all banqueting gathers meaning through analogy to the commensal sharing at the heart of the family and ritual economy. Lavish official banqueting may be condemned in popular and state discourse as corrupt; yet officials may claim banqueting is necessary work that creates social connections which help their localities. Banquet inflation among ordinary people is also subject to contradictory moral evaluations. While the recent crackdown on official corruption stigmatises banquet indulgence, it may reinforce ordinary people’s desire to utilise banquets as one of their only tools to influence those with relatively more power.

Ali khaje Naieni

Purpose: The present article is an attempt to describe the elementary forms of policy network in public policy and policy making. Government is actually not the cockpit from which society is governed and that policy making processes rather are generally interplay among various actors. Networks provide platforms where highly interdependent policy actors are contacted and interact frequently to deal with common problems. “The resulting formal and informal interactions have the potential to increase policy effectiveness at less cost than authority-based structural changes arrived at through formal reorganization”. Policy networks are Clusters of actors, each with an interest, or stake in a given policy, and the capacity to determine policy success or failure. The policy network concept is strongly influenced by inter-organizational theory, which stresses actors are dependent on each other because they need each other’s resources to achieve their goals. Policy networks are “relatively stable sets of private and public organizations that negotiate in a horizontal, coordinating manner.” Actors converge around various policy problems and interact through the sharing of information, expertise, and political support.  The types of networks that form depend on the balance of political power and resources between private and public actors. Policy network analyses attempts to explain policy development by examining networks of actors concerned with a given policy problem across public and private sectors. Design/Methodology/Approach: Studies of networks had been “guided primarily by two theoretical perspectives: resource dependence and related exchange perspectives. The policy network approach focuses attention on the interaction processes between interdependent actors and the complexity of objectives and strategies as a consequence of that interaction. The functioning of networks can be addressed using this network analytical approach, since we defined functioning as the process by which certain network conditions lead to certain network outcomes. In network analysis, the ‘nodes’ and ‘relations’ - that comprise the network - gets analyzed and explained. Findings: In political science, networks are often interest groups. Public management network researchers have attempted to develop a network management paradigm comparable to the hierarchical organizational authority paradigm of bureaucratic management. There are three main approaches to using the network concept: Policy networks as a specific form of governance, Typologies of network structure in a policy subsystem and Formal network analysis. Network Management is a form of management consisting of coordinating strategies from different participants with varied goals and preferences in regards to a problem/policy measure within an inter-organizational network. Number of actors involved, Complexity of policy networks, Degree that network is self-referential, Absence of conflicts of interest, and the Cost involved affect  success . Each of dimensions of policy network performance can be linked to the costs of policy networks. Policy networks goes beyond the one-dimensional new public management conceptualization of performance that focuses on efficiency and effectiveness Originality/Value: To sum up, this essay is an insightful and intuitive one for anybody who wants to ponder on the different and various dimensions of policy network in formulation of policies and policy making.

Jörg Wischermann, Bui The Cuong, Dang Thi Viet Phuong

In political science and in development cooperation, civic organisations (COs) under authoritarian rule are usually seen as supporters of processes that move towards democratisation. However, these organisations are sometimes criticised for their support of those in power. Within this context, critics refer to the fact that many COs have, for example, authoritarian intra-organisational structures. This characteristic clearly limits their potential to be supporters of democratisation processes. In this paper, we proceed from the assumption that Vietnamese COs can be both supporters of democracy and organisations that help to maintain authoritarian rule; they can sometimes even be both at the same time. COs are “polyvalent” (Kößler). More concretely, what COs are and which role(s) they play in the political system is mainly but not exclusively dependent on the impact the state has on them, and is at the same time dependent on the effects that those organisations have on the state. The results from an empirical survey, supported by the German Research Council (2013–2016) and carried out as a co-operation between the Institute of Asian Studies/GIGA Hamburg and the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, suggest the following: ▪ Most Vietnamese COs are hierarchically structured, if not organised in an authoritarian way. They are not “schools of democracy”, in the sense of Tocqueville. ▪ Most Vietnamese COs that have engaged in the welfare provision sector, either willingly or unwillingly, have helped to foster the foundations of authoritarianism. ▪ In the field of economic policies, the COs invited by the state to participate in and contribute to the formulation of policies do help, overall, to secure existing power structures, even though these organisations also help change various economic policies and even though their activities produce some democracy-promoting effects. ▪ In the policy field of gender equality, women's rights, and rights of sexual minorities, the mass organisation Vietnam Women's Union supports the state's respective discourse. Some NGOs active in this policy field are doing both: They support and criticise the state's discourse on gender norms and the rights of sexual minorities. In the conclusion, we answer the question of which Vietnamese COs can be seen as supporters of further democratisation and which can be classified as obstacles.

Jibum Kim, Cory Wang, Nick Nunez et al.

Americans continue to have beliefs in the paranormal, for example in UFOs, ghosts, haunted houses, and clairvoyance. Yet, to date there has not been a systematic gathering of data on popular beliefs about the paranormal, and the question of whether or not there is a convincing trend in beliefs about the paranormal remains to be explored. Public opinion polling on paranormal beliefs shows that these beliefs have remained stable over time, and in some cases have in fact increased. Beliefs in ghosts (25% in 1990 to 32% in 2005) and haunted houses (29% in 1990, 37% in 2001) have all increased while beliefs in clairvoyance (26% in 1990 and 2005) and astrology as scientific (31% in 2006, 32% in 2014) have remained stable. Belief in UFOs (50%) is highest among all paranormal beliefs. Our findings show that people continue to hold beliefs about the paranormal despite their lack of grounding in science or religion.

Revrisond Baswir

As national government budget will be more depended upon tax levy, local development finance would virtually be determined by public contribution. The problem of balancing financial allocation between central and local government, therefore, is the problem of shifting people’s fund contribution from central government to the local government. Likewise, by delegating policies to local government for collecting the public fund, people participation in local development finance will be enhanced. It might contrasts to common analysis that there is no significant relationship between local autonomy policy and central-local finance sharing or much analysis which concentrate more on Second Stage Local Governments (Pemda Tingkat II) struggle to increase their local revenue. There are some potential alternatives to improve people participation in local development; First, enhance Local Planning Board (Bappeda Tingkat II) capability to formulate development plans. Overall reformation is needed to development planning mechanisms in each stages of government administration. Second, shift or modify the central-local development finance systems so that there will be more leeway for local government to finance development based on their priorities. Third, give more power to local legislative council (DPRD) to control local executives (Gubernur and Bupati) so that local executives will be responsible much more to the local people rather than to the central government. Conclusively, all efforts to enhance people participation is very closely related to local autonomy improvement and parallel to this is national democracy improvement.

Alastair Carr

A Consociational democracy is a model of governance that uses power sharing to cope with societal divisions. Lijphart (1996: 258) outlined four crucial, interdependent elements, which characterise consociationalism; “Grand Coalition” governments in which members of all significant linguistic and religious minorities are represented, cultural autonomy for minorities groups, proportional political representation and an effective minority veto. India’s characterisation as a consociational democracy has been both convincingly reinforced and criticised, however much of this analysis focuses too much on contingent political realities rather than entrenched and effective institutional pillars from which they in part derive. Using Lijphart’s consociational criteria, it will be shown that whilst its political system runs on the basis of an informal consociationalism relying on the inclusive Congress Party, India’s constitution fails to adhere to any of the principles of consociationalism effectively. This is because the drafters of the Indian constitution integrated the contradictions and debates in society, such as the divide between Hindu majoritarianism and the consociationalism of the minority groups and the Congress Party into the Indian institutional structure and constitutional law. This however has resulted in the majoritarian tenets in the constitution such as the first-past-the-post electoral system undermining its more consociational elements. Furthermore by favouring regionally concentrated ethno-linguistic groups the system allows consociational benefits to regional majorities whilst failing to protect regional minorities, which include thinly dispersed national minorities. This ambiguous, unbalanced constitutional combination of majoritarianism and consociationalism is ineffective, hindering the establishment of comprehensive consociationalism in the country.

M. Fadly Lubis, Miftahuddin Miftahuddin

Penelitian ini bertujuan menganalisis mplementasi  kebijakan retribusi persampahan/kebersihan  di  Kota Tanjungbalai dan mengetahui tanggapan masyarakat terhadap implementasi kebijakan pemungutan retribusi persampahan/kebersihan  di  Kota Tanjungbalai. Sampel diambil sebanyak 43 orang pegawai pada Dinas Kebersihan dan Pasar Kota Tanjungbalai dan 50 orang masyarakat wajib retribusi. Analisis data dilakukan secara deskriftif dengan tabel tunggal dan frekuensi.  Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Implementasi Peraturan Daerah Kota Tanjungbalai Nomor 7 Tahun 2009 Tentang Retribusi Pelayanan Persampahan/Kebersihan pada Dinas Kebersihan dan Pasar Kota Tanjungbalai yang dilihat dari aspek komunikasi, sumber-sumber, kecenderungan-kecenderungan dan struktur birokrasi belum berjalan secara efektif. Belum efektifnya implementasi kebijakan tersebut disebabkan karena keterbatasan sumber-sumber yang ada baik sumberdaya manusia, keuangan maupun sarana dan prasarana yang ada. Sistem pengelolaan sampah di Kota Tanjungbalai masih mempunyai kelemahan-kelemahan yaitu : peraturan hukum yang belum terlaksana dengan baik, organisasi dan SDM pengelolaan sampah masih perlu dibenahi, teknik dan Operasional masih dijalankan dengan model lama/tradisonal sehingga perlu dikembangkan model yang lebih maju dan pembiayaan/dana yang berasal dari masyarakat masih belum optimal sehinggga perlu digalakkan kembali partisipasi masyarakat dalam membayar retribusi kebersihan. Perlu dilakukan penyuluhan hukum pada masyarakat melalui media yang lebih menarik untuk mensosialisasikan mengenai hak dan kewajiban warga, larangan, sanksi dan lain sebagainya. Untuk penegakan hukum, Dinas terkait dapat membuat satuan tugas untuk melakukan tindakan penegakan hukum (law enforcement) dalam masalah persampahan, sehingga masyarakat akan mendapat contoh dan patuh pada apa yang telah diatur dalam peraturan.

Lee Jones

This paper assesses the capacity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to moderate great-power relations in East Asia, especially in light of recent regional developments that have challenged ASEAN’s traditional modus operandi and its corporate cohesion. The first of three sections argues that capacity emerges not from institutional arrangements but rather the social relationships that give rise to particular institutions, and therefore can only be understood relationally. A number of key relationships are highlighted and explored in the rest of the paper. First, the relationships among regional great powers, which are considered in section two. Second, the relationships among ASEAN states, and between ASEAN states and their own societies, which are considered in section three. The paper's basic argument is that the first set of relationships is essentially what gives ASEAN its capacity to play a wider regional role. However, it also sets profound constraints for what this role can involve in practical terms. The second set of relationships also creates serious and deep constraints that are often not well understood. However, despite the serious limitations on ASEAN’s leadership role, unless the first set of relationships change, this role is likely to continue, regardless of how frustrating or ineffectual it might be.

Timothy Williams

For nearly forty years a violent conflict has been raging in Mindanao where the Moros are fighting for independence from the Philippine state. On August 5 th 2008 the peace negotiation panels of the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were set to sign a Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD), a final stepping stone on the way to a comprehensive peace agreement. However, a well-organised wave of protest swept from Christian settlers in Mindanao to the Supreme Court in Manila which declared the agreement unconstitutional. This paper presents a chronology of events surrounding the debate, analyses the arguments used in support and opposition of the MoA-AD and searches for causes of its demise, before looking at lessons to be learned for the future, especially regarding what President Arroyo can achieve before leaving office this year and what will be left to her successor.

V. S. Miasnikov

Jürgen Rudolph, Indira Arumugam

Carl Jørgen Saxe