Special Issue on electronic media,markets and civil society in East and Southeast Asia: Introduction

Abstract

The government of Hong Kong has been trying to reform the territory's health care financing system since the early 1990s and is finally on the verge of succeeding. The objective of this paper is to assess the reform efforts and explain the causes of repeated failures and eventual success. It will argue that the government's fortunes changed only after it abandoned the core reform goal and decided to pursue peripheral objectives. It will explain the abandonment with reference to the peculiar political system in Hong Kong that makes it difficult for the government to adopt substantial policy reforms in the face of even moderate opposition. The reason for the government's policy incapacity is the existence of liberalism in a non-democratic setting, which allows the government to neither suppress opposition nor mobilize popular support. This has been illustratively evident in its health care reforms when its proposals to improve the system's fiscal sustainability invariably met an early death because they imposed costs on employers, the population or both. The current proposal has fared better not only because it addresses a simpler peripheral problem but also because it offends almost no one and pleases many among the powerful.     

Between realism and idealism in Japanese security policy: The case of the ASEAN regional forum

Abstract

While ASEAN played the leadership role for erecting the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Japan generated positive impact on the historical trajectory leading to the birth of the ARF. This paper asks the following question: On what ideational foundation was Japan's support for the ARF based? Utilizing a conceptual framework based on the theoretical literature of multilateralism, the paper analyzes three major Japanese perspectives on the ARF in the inception years (1991–95) — Idealism, Realism, and Liberalism — while paying special attention to Liberalism, the perspective underlying Japan's actual policy. Liberalism, while leaning toward Realism, still incorporated some elements of Idealism. For Liberals, centering around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ARF was a vehicle to foster a sense of trust, however fragile, on the basis of providing and sharing quality information about China, Japan, and the United States, without undermining the existing security arrangements including the US‐Japanese alliance.     

Reinventing political subjectivities: studying critical documentaries on the war on terror

This paper casts a look on media aspects of the anti-war-on-terror struggle in western countries. A peculiar warfare, the “war on terror” that officially begun in 2001, is a low-density global warfare, fought in different internal and external fronts . Within a liberal, increasingly post-political social terrain, where social affairs are objects of expert management lacking public accountability and legitimacy, the role, status and the identity of the contemporary citizen is in decline. New media “affordances” offer critical possibilities for challenging hegemonic political discourses, and addressing political alternatives for a broad range of social problems; a re-invention of citizenship through the construct of a new (collective) political subject is central in the reinvention of democracy today. Discourse analysis, drawing reflexively on post-structuralist discourse theory and critical discourse analysis, is deployed in the study of counter-war-on-terror discourses in different documentaries critical to the “war on terror”. Analysis looks at different constructions of “us” and “them” in the context of counter-hegemonic discourses today. Identity is central in the engagement, participation and orientation of citizens today. Identity is central in organising a collective centre and in initiating subjectivity to fragmented liberal, postmodern individuals.     

State and local governments: New initiatives in low‐income housing preservation

Abstract

Preservation of the federally assisted low‐income housing stock is a critical issue in housing policy for the 1990s. Most of the low‐income housing initiatives that emerged over the last decade at the local and state levels were in response to changing economies and housing markets, to shifts in composition of the low‐income population, and to cutbacks in federal housing assistance as well as potential losses in the federally assisted housing inventory. The expansion of housing initiatives at state and local levels has critical ramifications for federal housing policy. It is a challenge to the federal government, which has not undergone a similar dramatic change in housing assistance policies. A number of areas of a new “federal partnership” need to be explored.     

The preservation needs of public housing

Abstract

The paper examines the preservation needs of public housing from the perspective of its physical condition and its ongoing repair and replacement needs. It begins by examining the range of needs that exist today, including the level of expenditures that would be required to put the stock in working order to meet existing codes, and to ensure the long‐term viability of the development. It then explores the level of expenditures that would be required on an ongoing basis to keep the stock in good repair and to meet future capital and preventive maintenance needs. The final section addresses several important policy issues, including overall funding requirements, the cost‐effectiveness of preservation efforts compared with vouchers and new construction, the special problems of troubled public housing authorities, and the need to establish stronger incentives for capital planning.     

From dependency to self‐sufficiency: An appraisal of the gateway transitional families program

Abstract

This article presents a longitudinal evaluation of the Gateway Transitional Families Program, an innovative self‐sufficiency program designed to help public housing residents leave public housing for their own homes. The evaluation followed participants and a comparison group over six years to isolate program impacts on employment and receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), food stamps, and housing assistance.

Many participants dropped out of the program. Difficulty in juggling educational and child‐rearing responsibilities, noncompliance with program or public housing regulations, low wages while in the program, impatience with the length of the program, and staff shortages and turnover contributed to the dropout rate. Those who finished the program experienced modest increases in income, decreases in receipt of AFDC and food stamps, and reduced reliance on housing assistance relative to comparison group members. Furthermore, graduates were more likely than comparison group members to have bought a home.     

Neighborhood change and the city of New York's ten‐year housing plan

Abstract

This article examines neighborhood changes associated with New York City's Ten‐Year Plan—the largest municipal housing program in the United States. We examine indicators of change, in the context of two possible hypotheses about the program's impact: (1) neighborhood revitalization, including improved physical and housing market conditions, as well as gentrification, and (2) the concentration of poor and welfare‐dependent households, as well as the possibility of residential segregation by race or ethnicity.

Our results present a mixed picture, with some evidence favoring both hypotheses, especially when parts of the city, particularly the South Bronx, are examined separately. Specifically, the program is associated with steep declines in the rate of boarded‐up buildings and some indications of increased home values, as well as rent burdens. However, it is also correlated with increases in maintenance deficiencies and a greater proportion of poor, single‐parent, and welfare‐dependent households, but there is little evidence of accentuated residential segregation.     

New York city and subsidized housing: Impacts and lessons of the city's $5 billion capital budget housing plan

Abstract

New York City has devoted far more resources to the development and rehabilitation of affordable housing than any other U.S. city, investing more than $4 billion from 1986 to 1997. This article surveys the impact, status, and implications of New York's housing programs. It looks at correlations between publicly funded housing starts and changes in the housing stock, welfare rolls, and crime and at the economic impact of the city's housing investments within low‐income neighborhoods.

New York's housing programs have transformed neighborhoods, replacing large swaths of abandoned shells and vacant land with new housing and preserving thousands of buildings at risk of abandonment. While these housing investments correlate most strongly with reductions in vacant units and vacant lots, they also show significant correlations with reductions in welfare rolls and violent crime, but uneven economic impacts as well. New York's housing programs are important nationally less for the specifics of particular programs than for the institutional collaborations on which they are founded.     

Challenges confronting nonprofit housing organizations’ self‐sufficiency programs

Abstract

In recent years, interest has grown at the federal level in strategies to combine subsidized housing with programs promoting household self‐sufficiency. This article explores how nonprofit housing organizations conceptualize their self‐sufficiency programs for their residents. A broad definition of self‐sufficiency is presented—one that is not exclusively focused on the individual and, instead, also includes program strategies that are focused on changing the context in which individuals live and work.

The paper then analyzes the relationship between the self‐sufficiency strategies being implemented in the nonprofit housing world and how these organizations will be affected by welfare reform, the shrinking and restructuring of federally subsidized housing, the emergence of block grant job training and workforce development programs, and the general devolution of government programs into ever more fungible pots at state and local levels. These transformations in the domestic policy agenda will present challenges to nonprofit housing organizations and to the goal of promoting self‐sufficiency.     

The redevelopment of distressed public housing: Early results from HOPE VI projects in Atlanta,Chicago, and San Antonio

Abstract

The redevelopment of distressed public housing under the Urban Revitalization Demonstration Program, or HOPE VI, has laudable social, physical, community, and economic goals. Three public housing projects in Atlanta, Chicago, and San Antonio demonstrate the complexity and trade‐offs of trying to lessen the concentration of low‐income households, leverage private resources, limit project costs, help residents achieve economic self‐sufficiency, design projects that blend into the community, and ensure meaningful resident participation in project planning.

Although worthwhile and ambitious, HOPE VI cannot achieve all these goals. More of them can be achieved by developing strategies related to the strength of the local real estate market. To that end, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and public housing authorities must use the market‐based tools in the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. Standards for improved physical design and resident participation and further research on critical supportive services for residents are also needed.