The Enduring Legacies Of The Global Financial Crisis In East Asia

The Enduring Legacies of the Global Financial Crisis in East Asia challenges the assumption that the global financial crisis had a limited structural impact on East Asian political economies, arguing that the crisis has led to a significant, if uneven, reorganization of major national political economies within the region where, in response to the crisis, states have promoted domestic processes of financialization as a means of stimulating their economies. The major East Asian economies, bar Japan, enjoyed strong recoveries from the 2008–2009 financial crisis. However, this success has been achieved by promoting domestic processes of financialization to maintain demand – more precisely, the rapid build-up of household debt (Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, China) and asset price bubbles (China, Japan). In short, East Asia has employed precisely those practices that the global financial crisis itself illustrated the unsustainability of, to maintain growth. Using a post-Keynesian framework, the book argues that the dependency on these forms of financialization to support demand is a direct product of a failure to address the issue of inequality. High levels of inequality slow the growth of non-debt-based domestic consumption. An alternative approach to supporting demand in the post-crisis period would need to focus on progressive redistribution through strengthening of labour rights and systems of social support, which would directly challenge the interests of economic and political elites. The structural vulnerabilities that accelerated financialization is creating in East Asia demonstrate the necessity of a post-Keynesian growth strategy based on redistribution and curbing financialization. The book also argues that in certain Northeast Asian economies the crisis has led to a consolidation of systems of industrial activism/state control, which could have occurred without accelerated financialization, and vice versa. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political economy and Asian studies.

Global and Regional Strategies in the Middle East explores hegemony in the Middle East through understanding different dimensions of power politics and the consequences of the hegemonic ambitions of both global and regional powers. The book adds new aspects to the extensive literature on grand strategies in the Middle East by exploring and evaluating competing strategies from an "insider" perspective. First, it highlights the main determinants of Global powers' grand strategies, assesses the ones applied in the Middle East, and forecasts future strategies after the Ukraine war in alignment with other rival states' capabilities and goals. It then underlines regional dynamics and the hegemonic quest of regional powers and their power politics' determinants since the "War on terror," the Arab Spring, and, more recently, the Russian intervention in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza conflict. The book broadens readers' perspectives by clarifying the region's dynamics that shaped the global and regional power rivalries, where security concerns, economic interests, oil supplies, and hegemonic ambitions make it complicated for the US to keep influence and the total control it had during the late 20th century. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of the MENA region, International Relations and Strategic Studies.

The Impact of UNESCO on States' Cultural Policies focuses on the impact of the 2005 Convention on Diversity of Cultural Expressions on the cultural policies of eight states and substates, examining how they have integrated it into their own cultural policy. Cultural diversity presents a challenge for all governments. As migration increases and technology makes access to worldwide cultural products easier, governments seek to maintain a vibrant culture within their states or substates so that their populations can keep a strong sense of identity. Cultural policies become key to balance cultural diversity and national identity, or to promote them in parallel. The book addresses three main themes: how governments deal with cultural diversity, especially in their cultural policies; what the impact of an international convention on individual states’ policies is; and how different states’ status (i.e. size) on the international scene affects their implementation of an international convention. Providing a systematic comparative analysis, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of public policy, cultural policy and international organizations. It will also be useful to policymakers involved in cultural policy.

This edited volume examines the concept of overhangs or legacies or negative stereotypical images in international relations and their impact on bilateral relations between geographically proximate states in East Asia. The case studies chosen — Japan-Korea, Japan-China, Vietnam-China, Thailand-Myanmar and Thailand-Cambodia — demonstrate conclusively that bilateral overhangs or legacies have a significant impact on contemporary international relations. Such images are regularly replicated and stoked by a variety of constituencies including state agencies for their own selfish interests. The evidence also points to the fact that such bilateral relationships are relatively self-contained and often operate with their own dynamics. Powerful condensation symbols are appropriated to weave a story of the virtuous self and the stereotypical other. This negative image and its replication is important to an understanding of turbulent bilateral relations in East Asia and also helps to inform how such relations can be brought to an even keel.

This book examines both history textbook controversies AND teaching historical controversy in Asian contexts. The different perspectives provided by the book’s authors offer numerous insights, examples, and approaches for understanding historical controversy to provide a practical gold mine for scholars and practitioners. The book provides case studies of history textbook controversies ranging from treatments of the Nanjing Massacre to a comparative treatment of Japanese occupation in Vietnamese and Singaporean textbooks to the differences in history textbooks published by secular and Hindu nationalist governments in India. It also offers a range of approaches for teaching historical controversy in classrooms. These include Structured Academic Controversy, the use of Japanese manga, teaching controversy through case studies, student facilitated discussion processes, and discipline-based approaches that can be used in history classrooms. The book’s chapters will help educational researchers and curricularists consider new approaches for curriculum design, curriculum study, and classroom research.

Reading Managing Across Diverse Cultures in East Asia will allow you to gain a profound understanding of the cultural complexity in this dynamic region of the world.' - Nancy J. Adler, McGill University, Montreal'We all need to understand more about management in East Asia, and to learn from it. Managing Across Diverse Cultures in East Asia has contributions from international experts who provide significant insights into the cultures of the most dynamic region in the world today. This book is a landmark publication.' - John Child, University of Birmingham'This edited volume, with contributions by significant scholars from around the globe, provides a timely and penetrating review of management issues across East Asia, a region that rivals Europe and North American in economic significance and is still ascending.

The Commanding Heights is about the most powerful political and economic force in the world today -- the epic struggle between government and the marketplace that has, over the last twenty years, turned the world upside down and dramatically transformed our lives. Now, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize joins with a leading expert on the new marketplace to explain the revolution in ideas that is reshaping the modern world. Written with the same sweeping narrative power that made The Prize an enormous success, The Commanding Heights provides the historical perspective, the global vision, and the insight to help us understand the tumult of the past half century. Trillions of dollars in assets and fundamental political power are changing hands as free markets wrest control from government of the "commanding heights" -- the dominant businesses and industries of the world economy. Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw demonstrate that words like "privatization" and "deregulation" are inadequate to describe the enormous upheaval that is unfolding before our eyes. Along with the creation of vast new wealth, the map of the global economy is being redrawn. Indeed, the very structure of society is changing. New markets and new opportunities have brought great new risks as well. How has all this come about? Who are the major figures behind it? How does it affect our lives? The collapse of the Soviet Union, the awesome rise of China, the awakening of India, economic revival in Latin America, the march toward the European Union -- all are a part of this political and economic revolution. Fiscal realities and financial markets are relentlessly propelling deregulation; achieving a new balance between government and marketplace will be the major political challenge in the coming years. Looking back, the authors describe how the old balance was overturned, and by whom. Looking forward, they explore these questions: Will the new balance prevail? Or does the free market contain the seeds of its own destruction? Will there be a backlash against any excesses of the free market? And finally, The Commanding Heights illuminates the five tests by which the success or failure of all these changes can be measured, and defines the key issues as we enter the twenty-first century. The Commanding Heights captures this revolution in ideas in riveting accounts of the history and the politics of the postwar years and compelling tales of the astute politicians, brilliant thinkers, and tenacious businessmen who brought these changes about. Margaret Thatcher, Donald Reagan, Deng Xiaoping, and Bill Clinton share the stage with the "Minister of Thought" Keith Joseph, the broommaker's son Domingo Cavallo, and Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian economist who was determined to win the twenty-year "battle of ideas." It is a complex and wide-ranging story, and the authors tell it brilliantly, with a deep understanding of human character, making critically important ideas lucid and accessible. Written with unique access to many of the key players, The Commanding Heights, like no other book, brings us an understanding of the last half of the twentieth century -- and sheds a powerful light on what lies ahead in the twenty-first century.

Many major world events have occurred since the last key anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War, and these events have had a dramatic impact on the international stage: 9/11, the Iraq War, climate change and the world economic crisis. This is an opportune moment to bring together a group of major international experts who will offer a series of new interpretations of the key aspects of the origins of the Second World War. Each chapter is based on original archival research and written by scholars who are all leading experts in their fields. This is a truly international collection of articles, with wide breadth and scope, which includes contributions from historians, and also political scientists, gender theorists, and international relations experts. This is an important contribution to scholarly debate on one of the most important events of the 20th century and a subject of major interest to the general reader, historians, students and researchers, policy makers and conflict prevention experts.