Asian Leadership In Policy And Governance

Asian Leadership in Policy and Governance examines contemporary challenges facing public leaders in Asia, providing insight into leadership processes and contexts past practices affecting effective governance and policy leadership.

This book explores the challenges and obstacles faced by dissident leaders in Asia seeking to introduce reforms into regimes that are either imperfectly democratic or frankly hostile to democratic practices and institutions.

Since the end of the Cold War, European and East Asian states have developed a series of unique trans-boundary structures and agreements, such as the European Union and ASEAN, and through new bilateral, multilateral and inter-regional relationships both Europe and East Asia are helping to transform other regions and the global community. This publication examines the complex emergence of a multi-level global governance system through innovative developments in info-communications governance; the role of policy advisors, think-tanks and related track-2 processes; and changes in higher education systems.

Present day knowledge about public sector reforms in Asia is quite scattered and seldom focuses on the challenges of leadership. This book seeks to address this issue by presenting country cases that reflect the great diversity of the region.

China, Japan and Regional Leadership in East Asia is a compilation which provides a necessary and welcome update to the Asian regionalism debates of the last decade, bringing together notable experts in Asian area studies and comparative foreign policy to provide many new insights. . . essential reading both for practitioners of Asian studies and those concerned with the role of comparative regionalism in modern international relations. Marc Lanteigne, East Asia An International Quarterly . . . this book is strongly recommended reading for everyone interested in Japan China relations, leadership, and East Asia. It proves that looking at complex issues from a variety of angles does bring a much deeper understanding. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Marie Söderberg, Journal of Japanese Studies This book addresses one of the most intriguing but also under-researched issues of the future of the Asian strategic landscape: who will lead the region and replace US leadership, Japan and China, and what kind of leadership do we have to expect? The authors come to the conclusion that it is a matrix or combination of leadership options rather than a single leadership type, depending on issue domains, governance structure and geospatial scales. . . The conclusions by Christopher Dent admirably draw the theoretical and empirical issues together. Reinhard Drifte, Pacific Affairs This book considers themes, evidence and ideas relating to the prospects for regional leadership in East Asia, with particular reference to China and Japan assuming regional leader actor roles. Key issues discussed by the list of distinguished contributors include: the extent to which there is an East Asian region to lead China Japan relations different aspects of Japan and China s positions in the East Asia region how the seemingly inexorable rise of China is being addressed within the region how China and Japan have explored paths of regional leadership through certain regional and multilateral organisations and frameworks the position of certain intermediary powers (i.e. the United States and Korea) with regards to regional leadership diplomacy in East Asia. Invaluably, the concluding chapter brings together the main findings of the book and presents new analytical approaches for studying the nature of, and prospects for leadership in East Asia. China, Japan and Regional Leadership in East Asia will be essential reading for upper level undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers of international relations, regional studies, international political economy and economics as well as Asian and development studies.

Political leadership styles in East Asian states are shaped and influenced by a number of domestic factors. These factors include the type of political system that an East Asian state adopted from their days of independence and decolonization. There is a diverse array of political systems in the region, ranging from Western-style liberal democracies like Japan and South Korea to autocratic one-party states like North Korea. Most other East Asian countries adopt systems somewhere in between these two polar ends. This volume begins with a macro-political perspective of leadership. It then looks at case studies of political leadership and the factors that influence the shape and outcome of leadership styles in the region.The book also examines the concept of community leadership and its impact on community well-being. Several specific case studies are examined in depth. While examining political leadership from a macro theoretical and empirical perspective, the book also adopts historical-anthropological perspectives to analyse case studies. The case studies also examine policy formulation and implementation to look at the role of government in handling community-level issues.Finally, the book focuses on economic leadership in international political economy and global business.

In the twenty-first century, it is necessary for Asia to step up and assume a larger leadership role on the global stage, commensurate with its economic weight and interests. Eighty-eight percent of the increase in the numbers of the middle class in the next five years will take place in Asia, underscoring the reality that global business and leadership will be colored in significant ways by Asian values, approaches and strategies. This book explores how this may impact our view and conceptual approach to the notion of global leadership. The contributors to this collection explore and examine the concept of global Asian leadership and outcome implications at the societal, corporate and policy-making level. They argue that global leaders will increasingly focus on specific needs, values and strategies that are uniquely Asian, which emphasizes the reality that we most likely will have to redefine our notion of global leadership. This comprehensive study of the integration of Asian and global leadership will benefit those employed in the corporate, government and educational sectors as well as a broader audience with an interest in leadership, policy-making and economics.

Harmony has become a major challenge for modern governance in the twenty-first century because of the multi-religious, multi-racial and multi-ethnic character of our increasingly globalized societies. Governments all over the world are facing growing pressure to integrate the many diverse elements and subcultures which make up modern pluralistic societies. This book examines the idea of harmony, and its place in politics and governance, both in theory and practice, in Asia, the West and elsewhere. It explores and analyses the meanings, mechanisms, dimensions and methodologies of harmony as a normative political ideal in both Western and Asian philosophical traditions. The book argues that in Western political thought - which sees politics as primarily concerned with resolving social conflicts and protecting individual rights - the concept of harmony has often been neglected. In contrast, since earliest times harmony or ‘he’ has been a profound theme in Confucian thought, and current leaders of many East Asian governments, and the Chinese government, have explicitly declared that the realisation of a harmonious society is their aim. The book also assesses how harmony is pursued, jeopardized or deformed in the real world of politics, based upon empirical analysis of a variety of different cultural, social and political contexts, including: China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Denmark, Latin America and the Scandinavian countries. It shows how harmony as an organizing concept can help to promote new thinking in governance, and overcome problems of modern-day governance like distrust, adversarial conflicts, hyper-individualism, coercive state intervention, and free-market alienation. It also discusses the potential problems posed by the pursuit of harmony, in particular in the grave threat of totalitarianism, and considers how these risks could best be mitigated.