ABSTRACT
This book deals with politics and governance in the Asia-Pacific region since the end of the Second World War, however, despite the apparent narrowness of its coverage, this volume is premised on a broader model of politics and governance than its subject matter might initially imply. Four arguments run throughout the chapters of this book.
The first is that the study of contemporary politics requires an historical perspective. Unquestionably, an immense gulf separates the politics of the Pacific before and after the Second World War, but this book takes the position that the nature of the region’s political cultures and political values, the territorial reach of its states, and the form and character of its political institutions can only be properly explained by delving into their long and complex pre-war history.
Second, that the distinctive arena of politics is not captured by the study of the state or governments alone, but by processes of governance: the collective processes of rule-making, monitoring and implementation conducted by many intertwined social actors and institutions. While casual inspection of the contemporary and historical record suggests that in most of the region, most of the time, states have been an indispensable element of the process of governance, they have no monopoly. Collective rule-making has also been undertaken by the stateless indigenous societies of North America and Oceania and the assemblies of the Japanese feudal village, while political power has been wielded by military forces, economic institutions and theocratic bureaucracies.
Two aspects of the notion of governance are developed in this book. First, the notion of governance requires us to focus on active processes rather than passive, static accounts of institutions. While an under standing of the structure of political institutions is indispensable, we have tried to look at the ways in which key actors have used those structures and institutions: what resources, options and strategies do different institutional structures make available to those actors? Second, the notion of governance suggests a process of rule-making in which government and political elites are locked into economic and social networks—these may be formal or informal, vertical hierarchies or more horizontal egalitarian relationships, co-operative or conflictual. While politics and governance constitute a distinct realm of human actions and institutions, they cannot be understood independently from their interaction with military power and international affairs, economic power and institutions, cultural beliefs and social structures.
Third, the study of politics in the Asia-Pacific is necessarily interdisciplinary and in this book you will find a diversity of social forces at work in almost every chapter. This is reinforced with links to the other books in the Pacific Studies series which focus on other dimensions of life in the Asia-Pacific—international relations, economics and social and cultural life. (Where possible we have referred you to these volumes, which are referenced in bold.)
Fourth, many of the key questions and issues that political life in the Asia-Pacific has thrown up can usefully be approached thematically. Three themes run through the chapters of this book: difference, dynamism and disjunctures. Difference points to the enormous variations in political life in the Asia-Pacific. Dynamism focuses our attention on the rapid and intense processes of social change that have convulsed the polities and societies of the region. Disjunctures point to the complex interaction of different forms of social change, focusing our attention on the side-effects, contradictions and conflicts that emerge in response or opposition to those changes.
