Contested Asia's ‘New’ multilateralism and regional order*

Multilateralism has become an increasingly significant part of Asia's international relations. This paper critiques the premise that there are two phases of regional multilateralism, pre- and post-global financial crisis and instead argues that there has been one long 25-year expansion phase. Initially, this was prompted by the risks and opportunities of globalization but was adapted as a strategy to manage a changing regional order. More recently, regional multilateralism has taken on competitive characteristics reflecting Asia's more contested dynamics. The US and its allies are trying to use multilateralism as part of their broader strategy to sustain the prevailing regional order. China is also attempting to use multilateralism as a part of its efforts to change the region to one more in line with its interests and values. Multilateralism has become a sublimated form of contestation over the form and function of Asia's international order. A key consequence of this will be to weaken the policy impact of existing institutional efforts and to promote zero-sum approaches to international policy among many Asian states.     

Volunteer Teaching

正Iwalked into the schoolroom in Wuwei County, east China’s Anhui Province, without theslightest clue of what to expect.I’d joined the Summer Service Learning Project at Tsinghua University for an adventure; to experience a chunk of China I hadn’tseen before. Through the project,small groups of six or seven Tsinghua     

Does one size fit all? Modelling macroeconomic linkages in the West African Economic and Monetary Union

We construct a structural macroeconometric model for member states of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). Fitting this model to annual and quarterly time-series data allows us to identify the channels through which macroeconomic innovations in one country impact on other countries in the union. We also discover the extent of heterogeneity across the member states in terms of the degree of similarity of macroeconomic transmission mechanisms. This is one important element in measuring the costs of union membership for each country.     

A comparison of the male customers of female street prostitutes with national samples of men

Previous research on customers of prostitutes has relied on small samples and qualitative interviews. Conceptions of customers have tended toward either the "every man" perspective, which implies customers are no different than other men, or the "peculiar man" perspective, which implies customers are characterized by stark differences or psychological inadequacies. This study compares a large sample of men (N = 1672) arrested for trying to hire street prostitutes with nationally representative samples of men. Customers were less likely to be married, less likely to be happily married if married, and more likely to report being unhappy in general than men in the national samples. Customers also expressed greater sexual liberalism and reported thinking about sex, masturbating, and participating in other aspects of the sex industry more frequently than men in general. Most differences were small, indicating customers as a category differ from other men in degree rather than quality.