CIAO DATE: 06/06

Pacific Affairs:
An International Review of Asia and the Pacific

 

Spring 2005 (Vol. 78 No. 1)

Articles

• Introduction: Democratization and Communication in the Asia-Pacific Region
  Caroline Hughes

• Public Television and Empowerment in Taiwan
  Gary Rawnsley and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley

  This paper analyses the development of public television in Taiwan. It argues that media liberalisation and political democratisation were, on their own, insufficient conditions to encourage the growth of media with links to civil society. Democratisation in Taiwan was essentially an elite-driven process (elites in power and in opposition); in turn, Taiwan's elites ­ political and intellectual ­ were the agents behind the development of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB), reinforcing the paternal characteristic of the PSB ideal. The development of PSB, promising civil empowerment and enlightenment, became a political issue, and mirrors many of the political debates that occurred over the evolution of democracy in Taiwan.

• The Rough and Rosy Road: Sites of Contestation in Malaysia's Shackled Media Industry
  Graham Brown

  This article examines the politics of state media control in Malaysia, with a particular focus on the period since the economic and political turmoil of 1997 and 1998. It argues that the Barisan Nasional (BN) regime has pursued a two-pronged approach to media control, through a strategy of legislative regulation and corporate ownership. Regulatory controls such as stringent printing permit legislation have been weakened by the rise of the Internet as a form of political communication but the regime also has an array of more oppressive legislation at its disposal which has been used as a threat against Internet organizations that challenge its control. Moreover, the broader political economy of Internet access and the finincial limitations of such efforts limit the impact of the Internet as an alternative vehicle of communication. In the realm of corporate ownership, however, the regime has also experienced problems in its media strategy as factional struggles within and between the component parties of the ruling coalition have resulted in 'newspaper wars' between their respective publications, indicating very publicly the limits of the BN's media control strategy, as well as undermining its self-promoted image as a consensus builder. The article concludes that whilst neither of these challenges is sufficiently strong to undermine regime domination of the media industry and push significantly for demcratization in the country, they are nonetheless important representations of the limits of the state's control.

• Party Control: Electoral Campaigning in Vietnam in the Run-Up to the May 2002 National Assembly Elections
  Martin Gainsborough

  The article considers the nature of government-voter communication and voter-candidate communication during the election to Vietnam's National Assembly in May 2002. It asks what message the government is seeking to project in relation to the election and explores the extent to which voters and election candidates are involved in a free and frank exchange of views on issues of public policy. The article argues that insofar as voters are provided with far more information about the election than they can possibly digest, it would appear that this information is less about informing the public per se and more about asserting the legal and procedural basis

• Candidate Debates and Equity News: International Support for Democratic Deliberation in Cambodia
  Caroline Hughes

  Elections in Cambodia have been characterised by a strong focus on choice and relatively little emphasis on participation in debate. After 1998, post-election protests prompted a wave of demonstrations in which citizens could voice grievances publicly, but these have been restricted since late 2002. In 2003, international agencies attempted to increase public debate during election campaigns by introducing a series of programmes designed to foster public discussion. These included television and radio debates between political party candidates (NDI/RFA), and a foreign-produced news programme for state television and radio. These programmes exemplified the rules of rational policy debate and news coverage. However, they contrasted sharply with the ongoing climate of intimidation, vote-buying and incivility of rhetoric in the villages and on politically-aligned radio stations and newspapers. This raises the question of the place of rational policy debate in a democratizing society ­ does it drive a wedge of accountability into an oppressive social environment, or does it entrench the distance between policy debate and real life?

• The Discourse of Vote Buying and Political Reform in Thailand
  William A. Callahan

  Political reform movements have grown up as part of democratic transition in many societies. Liberal political reformers typically seek to change legal and institutional mechanisms in order to "clean up" the irrationality and corruption of the regime. This essay uses the Thai case to critically examine these issues by interrogating the central role that the discourse of vote buying plays not just in Thai politics, but in the project of political reform itself. Indeed, in the 1990s vote buying turned from being one of many campaign tactics into the guiding metaphor of the "political disease" not simply of elections, but of Thai society in general. Rather than seeing vote buying as a coherent "thing," the essay will examine how this varied practice of electoral fraud has been reduced into a key category of Thai politics - "Vote-Buying." By demonstrating how vote buying is tied to its opposite ­ bourgeois democracy ­ one can better examine how both vote buying and democracy are co-produced in various networks of power relations. The essay examines key discourses to show how the concepts of law, "good and able leaders," gangsters, the middle class, civil society, and village life are central in defining both vote buying and democracy in popular media and thus the popular imagination. Vote buying is produced in specific relations between political and economic power, urban and rural power, and official and unofficial power; to fight it one needs to challenge the dynamics of these relations.

Books Reviewed In This Issue

Asia General

• Strategic Partners: Russian-Chinese Relations in the Post-Soviet Era. By Jeanne L. Wilson.
  Reviewed By Gilbert Rozman

• The United States and East Asia: Dynamics and Implications. By Robert G. Sutter.
  Reviewed By Mark Wisniewski

• The International Relations of Northeast Asia. Edited By Samuel S. Kim.
  Reviewed By Hyon Joo Yoo

• The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. By John M. Hobson.
  Reviewed By Erica Brindley

China and Inner Asia

• China's Water Crisis. By Ma Jun, translated By Nancy Yang Liu and Lawrence R. Sullivan.
  Reviewed By Jih-un Kim

• China at the Crossroads. By Peter Nolan.
  Reviewed By Barrett L. McCormick

• Taxation Without Representation in Contemporary Rural China. By Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo Lü.
  Reviewed By Elisabeth Köll

• God and Caesar In China: Policy Implications of Church-State Tensions. Edited By Jason Kindopp and Carol Lee Hamrin.
  Reviewed By David Ownby

• Realms of Freedom In Modern China. Edited by William C. Kirby.
  Reviewed By David Kelly

• Centralization and Decentralization: Educational Reforms and Changing Governance in Chinese Societies. Edited By Mok Ka-Ho.
  Reviewed By Rebecca Clothey

• Women Through the Lens: Gender and Nation in a Century of Chinese Cinema. By Shuqin Cui.
  Reviewed By Shuyu Kong

• From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China. By Elisabeth Köll.
  Reviewed By Kwan Man Bun

• Modernization and Revolution In China: From the Opium Wars To World Power, Third Edition. By June Grasso, Jay Corrin and Michael Kort.
  Reviewed By Joseph Benjamin Askew

• Fifty Years of Public Housing In Hong Kong: A Golden Jubilee Review and Appraisal. Edited By Y.M. Yeung and Timothy K.Y. Wong.
  Reviewed By Adrienne La Grange

• Village Life In Hong Kong: Politics, Gender, and Ritual in the New Territories. By James L. Watson and Rubie S. Watson.
  Reviewed By James Hayes

Northeast Asia

• Banking on Multinationals: Public Credit and the Export of Japanese Sunset Industries. By Mireya Solís.
  Reviewed By Mark Elder

• Gender and Human Rights Politics In Japan: Global Norms and Domestic Networks. By Jennifer Chan-Tiberghien.
  Reviewed By Kim D. Reimann

• Divorce In Japan: Family, Gender, and the State, 1600-2000. By Harald Fuess.
  Reviewed By Aya Ezawa

• Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan. Edited By William W. Kelly.
  Reviewed By Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto

• House and Home In Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space and Bourgeois Culture, 1880-1930. By Jordan Sand.
  Reviewed By Bill Sewell

• The Return of the Amami Islands: The Reversion Movement and U.S.-Japan Relations. By Robert D. Eldridge.
  Reviewed By Dennis J. Frost

• A Gathering Darkness: The Coming of War to the Far East and the Pacific, 1921-1942. By Haruo Tohmatsu and H.P. Willmott.
  Reviewed By Jeff Alexander

• Burning and Building: Schooling and State Formation In Japan, 1750-1890. By Brian Platt.
  Reviewed By Roger Goodman

South Asia

• Kashmiri Separatists: Origins, Competing Ideologies and Prospects for Resolution of the Conflict. By Kaia Leather.
  Reviewed By Chitralekha Zutshi

• Operation Parakram: The War Unfinished. By Lt. Gen. (Retd) V.K. Sood and Pravin Sawhney.
  Reviewed By T.V. Paul

• India's Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North India. By Christophe Jaffrelot.
  Reviewed By Robin Jeffrey

• Les Castes En Inde Aujourd'Hui. By Robert Deliège.
  Reviewed By Nicolas Jaoul

• Investigating Social Capital: Comparative Perspectives on Civil Society, Participation and Governance. Edited By Sanjeev Prakash and Per Selle.
  Reviewed By Patrick Francois

• Indian Democracy: Meanings and Practices. Edited By Rajendra Vora and Suhas Palshikar.
  Reviewed By Ramnarayan S. Rawat

• To the Mouths of the Ganges: An Ecological and Cultural Journey. By Frederic C. Thomas.
  Reviewed By Stephen Alter

• Transnational Television, Cultural Identity and Change: When STAR Came To India. By Melissa Butcher.
  Reviewed By Divya C. Mcmillin

Southeast Asia

• Community-driven Regulation: Balancing Development and the Environment In Vietnam. By Dara O'Rourke.
  Reviewed By Michael DiGregorio

• Hoa Hao Buddhism in the Course of Vietnam's History. By Nguyen Long Thanh Nam.
  Reviewed By Mark W. Mcleod

• Southern Vietnam Under the Reign of Minh Mang (1820-1841): Central Policies and Local Response. By Choi Byung Wook.
  Reviewed By Charles Wheeler

• Indonésie: la démocratie invisible ­ violence, magie et politique à Java. By Romain Bertrand.
  Reviewed By David Camroux

• Iban Ritual Textiles. By Traude Gavin.
  Reviewed By Michael C. Howard

Ausralasia and the Pacific Region

• The Prickly Pair: Making Nationalism in Australia and New Zealand. By Denis McLean.
  Reviewed By Michele D. Dominy

• The Cambridge Handbook of Social Sciences in Australia. Edited By Ian McAllister, Steve Dowrick and Riaz Hassan.
  Reviewed By Jeni Whalan

• The Great Barrier Reef: History, Science, Heritage. By James Bowen and Margarita Bowen.
  Reviewed By Simon Foale

• Inequality in Australia. By Alastair Greig, Frank Lewins and Kevin White.
  Reviewed By Robert Watts

• New Guinea: Crossing Boundaries and History. By Clive Moore.
  Reviewed By John Barker

• Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World. By Holly M. Barker.
  Reviewed By David R. Huskins

• Water and the Law In Hawai'i. By Lawrence H. Miike, M.D., J.D.
  Reviewed By Alexander Mawyer

• South Pacific Property Law. By Sue Farran and Don Paterson.
  
  Reviewed By Crystal Reeves