Constitution-making in Asia

Constitution-making in Asia

Author: H. Kumarasingham

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-31

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1317245105

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Britain’s main imperial possessions in Asia were granted independence in the 1940s and 1950s and needed to craft constitutions for their new states. Invariably the indigenous elites drew upon British constitutional ideas and institutions regardless of the political conditions that prevailed in their very different lands. Many Asian nations called upon the services of Englishman and Law Professor Sir Ivor Jennings to advise or assist their own constitution making. Although he was one of the twentieth century’s most prominent constitutional scholars, his opinion and influence were often controversial and remain so due to his advocating British norms in Asian form. This book examines the process of constitutional formation in the era of decolonisation and state building in Asia. It sheds light upon the influence and participation of Jennings in particular and British ideas in general on democracy and institutions across the Asian continent. Critical cases studies on India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Nepal – all linked by Britain and Jennings – assess the distinctive methods and outcomes of constitution making and how British ideas fared in these major states. The book offers chapters on the Westminster model in Asia, Human Rights, Nationalism, Ethnic politics, Federalism, Foreign influence, Decolonisation, Authoritarianism, the Rule of Law, Parliamentary democracy and the power and influence of key political actors. Taking an original stance on constitution making in Asia after British rule, it also puts forward ideas of contemporary significance for Asian states and other emerging democracies engaged in constitution making, regime change and seeking to understand their colonial past. The first political, historical or constitutional analysis comparing Asia’s experience with its indelible British constitutional legacy, this book is a critical resource on state building and constitution making in Asia following independence. It will appeal to students and scholars of world history, public law and politics.


Statemaking and Territory in South Asia

Statemaking and Territory in South Asia

Author: Bernardo A. Michael

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2014-10-01

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1783083220

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“Statemaking and Territory in South Asia: Lessons from the Anglo–Gorkha War (1814–1816)” seeks to understand how European colonization transformed the organization of territory in South Asia through an examination of the territorial disputes that underlay the Anglo–Gorkha War of 1814–1816 and subsequent efforts of the colonial state to reorder its territories. The volume argues that these disputes arose out of older tribute, taxation and property relationships that left their territories perpetually intermixed and with ill-defined boundaries. It also seeks to describe the long-drawn-out process of territorial reordering undertaken by the British in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that set the stage for the creation of a clearly defined geographical template for the modern state in South Asia.


State Making in Asia

State Making in Asia

Author: Richard Boyd

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-09-10

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1134281226

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Including contributions from an international team of leading experts, this volume examines state making from a uniquely Asian perspective and reveals some of the misunderstandings that arise when states and state making are judged solely on the basis of Western history. The contributors argue that if we are to understand states in Asia then we must first recognize the particular combination of institution and ideologies embedded in Asian state making and their distinctiveness from the Western experience. Presenting new empirical and conceptual material based on original research, the book provides a unique theoretical reflection of the state through a thorough comparison of East Asian nations and, as such, will be a valuable resource to scholars of Asian politics and international relations.


Fluid Iron

Fluid Iron

Author: Tony Day

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2002-08-31

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0824862546

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Fluid Iron is the first extended treatment of state formation in Southeast Asia from early to contemporary times and the first book-length analysis of Western historical and ethnographic writing on the region. It includes critical assessments of the work of Clifford Geertz, O.W. Wolters, Benedict Anderson, and other major scholars who have written on early, colonial, and modern Southeast Asian history and culture. Making use of the ideas of Weber, Marx, Foucault, and postmodern and postcolonial theory, Tony Day argues that culture must be restored to the study of Southeast Asian history so that the state and historical developments in the region can be returned to their own "alternative" historical contexts and trajectories. He employs a wide range of contemporary scholarship, as well as Southeast Asian literary and historical texts, inscriptions, and temples to explore the kinds of concepts and practices--kinship networks, cosmologies, gender identities, bureaucracies, rituals, violence and aesthetics--that have been used for centuries to build states.Highly readable and accessibly written, Fluid Iron demonstrates that Southeast Asian state building has taken place in a part of the world that has always been a crossroads of cultural and transcultural change. Day urges Southeast Asians to learn more about the history of their own state formations so they can safeguard not only human freedom, but also the "incongruity" of their unique region in the years ahead.


Education and State Formation

Education and State Formation

Author: A. Green

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-10-23

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 1137341750

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Education has always been a key instrument of nation-building in new states. National education systems have typically been used to assimilate immigrants; to promote established religious doctrines; to spread the standard form of national languages; and to forge national identities and national cultures. They helped construct the very subjectivities of citizenship, justifying the ways of the state to the people and the duties of the people to the state. In this second edition of his seminal and widely-acclaimed book on the origins of public education in England, France, Prussia, and the USA, Andy Green shows how education has also been used as a tool of successful state formation in the developmental states of East Asia. While human capital theories have focused on how schools and colleges supply the skills for economic growth, Green shows how the forming of citizens and national identities through education has often provided the necessary condition for both economic and social development.


South Asia's Weak States

South Asia's Weak States

Author: T. V. Paul

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2010-08-09

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0804778531

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South Asia, which consists of eight states of different sizes and capabilities, is characterized by high levels of insecurity at the inter-state, intra-state, and human level: insecurity that is manifest in both traditional and non-traditional security problems—especially transnational terrorism fuelled by militant religious ideologies. To explain what has caused and contributed to the perpetual insecurity and human suffering in the region, this book engages scholars of international relations, comparative politics, historical sociology, and economic development, among others, to reveal and analyze the key underlying and proximate drivers. It argues that the problems are driven largely by two critical variables: the presence of weak states and weak cooperative interstate norms. Based on this analysis and the conclusions drawn, the book recommends specific policies for making the region secure and for developing the long lasting inter- and intra-state cooperative mechanisms necessary for the perpetuation of that security.


Making Cultural Cities in Asia

Making Cultural Cities in Asia

Author: June Wang

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1317535839

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This book examines the vast and largely uncharted world of cultural/creative city-making in Asia. It explores the establishment of policy models and practices against the backdrop of a globalizing world, and considers the dynamic relationship between powerful actors and resources that impact Asian cities. Making Cultural Cities in Asia approaches this dynamic process through the lens of assemblage: how the policy models of cultural/creative cities have been extracted from the flow of ideas, and how re-invented versions have been assembled, territorialized, and exported. This approach reveals a spectrum between globally circulating ideals on the one hand, and the place-based contexts and contingencies on the other. At one end of the spectrum, this book features chapters on policy mobility, in particular the political construction of the "web" of communication and the restructuring or rescaling of the state. At the other end, chapters examine the increasingly fragmented social forces, their changing roles in the process, and their negotiations, alignments, and resistances. This book will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers concerned with cultural and urban studies, creative industries and Asian studies.


The United States in the New Asia

The United States in the New Asia

Author: Evan A. Feigenbaum

Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 53

ISBN-13: 0876094698

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At head of title: International Institutions and Global Governance Program.


State Structure, Policy Formation, and Economic Development in Southeast Asia

State Structure, Policy Formation, and Economic Development in Southeast Asia

Author: Antoinette R. Raquiza

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1136505024

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Why do some small, developing countries industrialize and others don’t? What factors account for different economic performance among states that are vulnerable to external shocks, crony capitalism, and political instability? This book argues that the answer lies in the structuring of state power, specifically the way different sets of governing elites – political leaders and economic technocrats – are embedded in political organisations and state institutions, and the way these elites relate to each other in the economic development policy process. Conducting a comparative historical analysis of Thailand and the Philippines, the book argues that the institutional settings of governing elites influence economic outcomes. In Thailand, political power traditionally connects to state institutions in ways that has limited the impact of political turnovers and global downturns - conducive to long-term industrial activities. In contrast, Philippine state power derives from family networks that merge social and political power, suited to fast-moving, short-term commercial interests. In focusing on this political and institutional story, the author analyses the current development dilemmas of countries, weighed down by historical legacies of unstable regimes, dependency, and social conflict, and how they are likely to develop in the future.