Security architecture in Asia: the interplay of regional and global levels

I argue that there is a distinct and longstanding regional structure in East Asia that is of at least equal importance to the global level in shaping the region's security dynamics. Without considering this regional level neither ‘unipolar’ nor ‘multipolar’ designations can explain East Asian international security. To make this case, I deploy regional security complex theory both to characterize and explain developments in East Asia since the end of the Cold War. The shift from bipolarity to unipolarity is well understood in thinking about how the ending of the Cold War impacted on East Asia. Less written about in Western security literature are the parallel developments at the regional level. Prominent among these are the relative empowerment of China in relation to its neighbours, and the effect of this, as well as of the growth of regional institutions, and the attachment of security significance to East Asian economic developments, in merging the security dynamics of Northeast and Southeast Asia. How China relates to its East Asian region, and how the US and China relate to each other, are deeply intertwined issues which centrally affect not only the future of East Asian, but also global, security. With the notable exception of some crisis between China and Taiwan, this whole pattern looks mainly dependent on internal developments within China and the US. Also significant is whether the basic dynamic of interstate relations in East Asia is more defined by the Westphalian principle of balancing, or by the bandwagoning imperative more characteristic of suzerain-vassal relationships. The main probability is for more of the same, with East Asian security staying within a fairly narrow band between mild conflict formation and a rather odd and weak sort of security regime in which an outside power, the US, plays the key role.     

The Grass is Greener,But Why? Evidence of Employees’ Perceived Sector Mismatch from the US,New Zealand,and Taiwan

ABSTRACT

To answer the question of who wants to work for the government, scholars have relied on a few approaches, including sector preference, sector-based comparison of work motives, and sector-switching patterns of job mobility. The present study offers a related but distinct approach: perceived sector mismatch. The attractiveness of public sector jobs differs greatly across countries; thus, in order to present a more comprehensive study, we examine data from the U.S., New Zealand, and Taiwan, where attitudes towards public sector jobs differ significantly as a result of different public service laws and traditions. Across all three samples, we find that, among private sector employees, the preference for a public service job is related to socio-economic disadvantage. Among public sector workers, reasons for perceived sector mismatch vary, but often suggesting job dissatisfaction in current public sector jobs, rather than perceived advantages of the private sector (including compensation). These findings are followed by theoretical and practical implications from this comparative study.     

The moral hazards of neo-liberalism: lessons from the private insurance industry

The key tenets of neo-liberalism regarding risk, governance, and responsibility are critically evaluated through an empirical study of the private insurance industry. Recent tendencies in this industry towards increasing segmentation of consumers regarding risk, and towards an expansion of private policing of insurance fraud, are analysed. The definition of moral hazard is broadened to include all parties in the insurance relationship, not just the insured. Moral hazards embedded in the social organization of private insurance lead to various kinds of immoral risky behaviour by insureds, insurance companies, and their employees, and to intensified efforts to regulate this behaviour. The analysis concludes with some critical observations about the neo-liberal emphasis on minimal state, market fundamentalism, risk-taking, individual responsibility, and acceptance of inequality.     

Liberalism,neo-liberalism and governmentality: introduction

This paper concerns the emergence of a specifically 'economic' way of governing poverty at the start of this century, an event which is to be accounted for, though by no means exhaustively, by the discovery of 'unemployment'. The latter will make it possible to relate the nineteenth-century 'problem of the unemployed' to an object domain that is primarily economic, rather than cultural or moral. A new object of regulation will emerge from this economic problematization of the 'social question': the labour market. The paper pays particular attention to the national labour exchange system, the political technology that will visibilize the labour market in new ways. Together with unemployment insurance, it will suggest new ways of governing poverty and a new course for social policy.     

The politics of literature: Writers,intellectuals and German unity

The relationship between politics and literature is beset by tensions and difficulties. The traditional dichotomy in Germany between ’Geist’ and ‘Macht’ has come to the fore again in debates about unity. The events of 1989/90 provoked a fierce controversy over the role of writers and intellectuals in both German states. This article chronicles the debate and seeks to place it in its socio‐political context: the alleged role of GDR writers as loyal supporters of their state, alleged complicity with the Stasi, and the supposed indifference of western writers to the German Question.