Provides a critical examination of African and international responses to Africa's economic decline of the last two decades, especially the links between economics and politics.

This book makes a major contribution to the theory and practice of human rights, engaging in particular with the "Asian values" debate. It is especially concerned with the tension between a universal regime of human rights and its ability to accommodate diversity. Incorporating original fieldwork from Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, the book also draws out the significance of Southeast Asian developments for international human rights discourse. It is likely to become a definitive account of political discussions of human rights in Southeast Asia and an important contribution to the...

Beginning in Roman Britain and ending with Charles II's restoration to the throne, the nineteen essays that comprise this volume are written by leading British and American scholars.

Globalization has created challenges and opportunities which all countries have to grapple with. Yongnian Zheng explores how China's leaders have embraced global capitalism and market-oriented modernization by encouraging individual enterprise and the reform of economic institutions. While open to importing Western ideas in rebuilding the economic system, the same leaders have been reluctant to import Western concepts of democracy and the rule of law. Zheng argues that, ultimately, this selectivity will impede China's progress in becoming a modern nation state.

This book is an incisive analysis of Japan's deepening economic presence in Asia. The authors argue that Japanese business and government elites are working together to build an expanded--and potentially exclusive--production zone. They show how a complex web of production networks develop and that such strategic control of technology is a unique model of globalization. Asia in Japan's Embrace is highly accessible, up to date, comprehensive and controversial, outlining the policy implications of the Japan-Asia alliance and its impact on global trade.

This book argues that Western ideas of freedom have become widely accepted in Asia as the key determinant for measuring a range of legal, ethical and political practices. The book finds that modern conceptions of freedom have become adapted to local contexts throughout Asia. The book avoids cultural relativism and generalizations, but does find a number of common ideas relating to freedom across the region. A prestigious group of contributors explores freedom from historical, religious, political and ideological perspectives.

This book examines the recent rapid economic expansion in Thailand, and in Southeast Asia more generally. In a highly original argument, Unger considers the unique organization of Thai society, and the impact this has had on the country's institutions, and their political and economic outcomes. Unger takes an interdisciplinary approach, building on the literatures of social capital and embedded autonomy. The book's general, comparative discussion of social infrastructure is supplemented by case studies of specific sectors.

Since its establishment in 1989, APEC has graduated from a ministerial-level gathering of nine countries to an institution that stages annual summits, has a permanent secretariat, and whose twenty-one members have committed themselves to establishing free trade in the region. A decade after its foundation, however, members have been increasingly frustrated with the grouping's progress. In this theoretically sophisticated book, John Ravenhill examines the reasons for APEC's establishment, its evolution, and the causes of its failures.

This book, edited by Samuel Kim, presents the first sustained analysis of Korea's globalization and its ramifications for all aspects of the Korean state and society. Combining a broader conceptual framework with illustrative case studies, the authors critically probe the promise and performance and the myths and realities of Korea's globalization drive. More broadly, they examine how Korea, as a newly industrialized and newly democratizing country, is coping with the twin challenges of democratic consolidation from below and within and globalization from above and without.

The financial crises across Asia in 1997-98 ignited fierce debate about domestic economic weaknesses and flaws in the international financial system. Some analysts blamed Asian governments for inadequate prudential supervision, widespread failures of corporate governance and even "crony capitalism." Others assailed the inherent instability of global financial markets and what they considered to be hasty and ill-conceived liberalization taken at the behest of western-dominated international financial institutions. In this volume a distinguished group of political scientists, economists, and...