The role of ASEAN institutes of strategic and international studies in developing security cooperation in the Asia‐pacific region

As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) governments are facing new challenges, the need to re‐evaluate the significance of the track‐two activities has been recognised. As there has been insufficient research on the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS), this article analyses their role in the development of security cooperation. It shows that ASEAN‐ISIS has contributed to the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) by analysing the common/cooperative security thinking, the establishment of an inter‐governmental forum for a security dialogue, and the extension of ASEAN's diplomatic style over a larger geographical area. As ASEAN‐ISIS has contributed to inter‐governmental cooperation by promoting ideas, this article concludes that the significance of their activities in contemporary Asian politics should be understood in terms of the introduction and promotion of such innovative ideas.     

Transforming international communications strategies

The strategy used by governments to communicate with foreign populations has changed dramatically in the twentieth century. The need perceived by governments to use such a strategy in the first place derived from numerous social changes in the 150 years before World War I, most particularly the increased role played in politics by the masses organized in nation‐states. The shifting strategy of persuasive communication since then forms part of a broader transformation of international political communication which includes technological change, organizational developments, and absolute but not necessarily relative growth in international communications transactions.

The predominant strategy developed in World War I was propaganda. It used fairly straightforward appeals to rationality, sense of morality, and such important but readily accessible emotions as hatred. Its excesses, especially the wide dissemination of atrocity stories which did not bear up well under later dispassionate examination, at once made all propaganda suspect and alerted governments to the necessity of refining their communicative techniques for the eventuality of future international conflicts.

The years before and during World War II saw international communicators—especially Goebbels in Nazi Germany and the Anglo‐American psychological warriors—develop a new strategy which utilized new knowledge about the psychological roots of human behavior. In addition to straightforward appeals to the consciousness of individuals, they sought to manipulate their audiences by playing on their deep‐seated desires and fears. Of particular importance for Nazi Germany were the allegedly racial ties of the individual to a people and the need for figures of authority.

First major experiments were made in World War II to develop an even more basic strategy of international communication: structuring the situation in which people learn their predispositions, perspectives, and behaviors. Its basic idea is to create situations in which the communicator does not have to tell the targeted audience anything at all, but in which the audience, left to its own devices, can only come to the conclusions desired by the communicator. Thus strategic bombing sought to destroy the morale of the enemy's home front and, through that action, to weaken its war‐making capacity. The postwar occupation of Germany originally sought to create a new environment in which Germans could be reeducated to democracy. Subsequent emphasis has also been on communications aimed at generating certain predispositions, such as a desire for consumer goods or a particular political style, which then spawn appropriate perspectives and behaviors.

This new strategy of structural communication has its limits. The most important of these is the difficulty of controlling all aspects of a foreign population's communications environment (which includes traditions, face‐to‐face networks, and conflicting sources of information). The potential importance of the strategy nonetheless makes it likely that governments will continue to work toward its development and implementation for their own international political purposes.     

泰国:2011～2012年回顾与展望

2011年7月,泰国提前举行大选,为泰党赢得选举并联合小党派组建联合政府。前总理他信的妹妹、为泰党候选人英拉·西那瓦当选泰国第28任总理,也是泰国历史上首位女总理。由于特大洪灾的影响,2011年泰国经济增长速度低于预期,新政府执政能力也经受考验。外交方面,泰柬边境冲突成为泰国本年度重要的外交事件,但两国关系随着英拉政府上台而开始出现缓和。     

破坏选举罪中“贿选”若干问题刍议

"贿选"行为是当前选举活动中较为突出的问题,是对社会主义民主政治发展的严重破坏,也是破坏选举罪重点打击的行为。实践中,"贿选"行为手段日益多样化和隐蔽化,"贿选"行为在其范围、对象、类型等方面都存在不少疑难,需要予以认真探讨。     

选举权上的差别对待和农民的“国民待遇”——兼论《选举法》再次修改的必要性

农业人口选举权是城市居民的1/4,这是他们的人均收入不足城市居民的1/4、政府对基层农村卫生经费投入人均不到城市的1/4,以及农民在其他方面长期没有享受到“国民待遇”的重要原因之一。而要给农民以“国民待遇”,必须重视选举权对改变农民弱势地位的重要作用,同时相信中国农民的民主能力。在将来再次修订《选举法》时,凡是对农业人口有歧视规定的条文,都在必要修改之列。     

基于横截面数据的存款保险费率和资本充足率的一致性研究

存款保险费率是评价商业银行风险的重要指标,根据每个商业银行的市场表现可确定其不同的存款保险费率;资本充足率是商业银行抵抗风险的重要保证,资本充足率越高表示商业银行的风险越低。这两个指标对商业银行风险水平的评价本来应该是一致的,但采用多种方法对目前中国上市银行进行检验,都表明其一致性较低。揭示导致这种不一致性的原因,可为这一研究的深入提供新的方向。     

Distrust as a hindrance to democratic governance in South Korea

This article focuses on the concept of trust and its implications for democratic governance in South Korea. Trust is an elusive concept that is often discussed using such synonyms as confidence, trustworthy, reliance, or anticipation of goodwill. Trust in interpersonal relations is different from trust in institutions. The case of South Korean politics and administration shows that the absence of trust hampers the process of building a mature democratic society and hinders the development of democratic governance. The article concludes by stressing the need to enhance trust in society, government, policy‐makers, and public administrators.     

India 2014: Facebook ‘Like’ as a Predictor of Election Outcomes

Michael Hill and Lian Kwen Fee The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore (London and New York: Routledge, 1995) 285 pp.

Junko Kato, The Problem of Bureaucratic Rationality: Tax Politics In Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Joachim Glaubitz, Between Tokyo and Moscow: The History of an Uneasy Relationship, 1972 to the 1990s. (London: Hurst and Company, 1995), pp. XII, 308.

A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, S.J.V. Chelvanayagam and the Crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism, 1947–1977 (London: Hurst and Company, 1994).

James Manor (ed.), Nehru to the Nineties : The Changing Office of Prime Minister in India (London : Hurst and Company, 1994), pp. 261.

Shimon Peres, The New Middle East. (Longmead: Element Books Limited, 1993), pp. 224.

R.B. Jain and Heinz Bongartz (eds.), Structural Adjustment, Public Policy and Bureaucracy in Developing Societies. (New Delhi: Har‐Anand Publications, 1994), pp. xvi, 424.

Hendri Supriyatmono, Nasution: Dwifungsi ABRI dan Kontribusi Ke Arah Reformasi Politik (Surakarta: Sebelas Maret University Press, 1994), 190 pp.     

Coalition Politics in India: 2004–2009

Abstract

It is posited here that the coalition imperative of holding the alliances together just to keep in office leads to behavior that is not altogether ethically acceptable. This is not to say that all coalitions are bad by definition; they are not. The issue is: how many partners and what the minimum understanding among them are ideal to run the government? It is suggested that a large and unprincipled coalition on the one hand would debilitate a government, and on the other lead to political corruption and even blackmail. Contrarily, a smaller number of parties with some affinity in ideology and a common purpose would be beneficial for a stable democracy. To glean some insights, the United Progressive Alliance coalitions cobbled together by the Congress Party Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2004, and consequent to the 2009 elections, are studied here.