{"title":"Institutional development of legislative supporting agencies (LSAs) from a perspective of difference between presidential and parliamentary systems","authors":"J. Makita","doi":"10.1177/20578911221138475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221138475","url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on legislative supporting agencies (LSAs) as agencies supporting the activities of legislature and elucidates the relation between LSAs’ institutional development and other political factors, paying attention to the difference between the presidential system and the parliamentary system. The concrete factors that would influence LSAs’ development, i.e. ‘presidential system or parliamentary system’, ‘whether a government has a right to initiate a bill’ and ‘whether a person can concurrently have positions in both the executive and the legislative branches’, are presented, and as a result of statistical analyses, it is clarified that these factors have an impact on the development level of LSAs to some extent.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44028832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is Malaysian democracy backsliding or merely staying put?","authors":"M. Weiss","doi":"10.1177/20578911221136066","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221136066","url":null,"abstract":"Observers proclaimed Malaysia's first-ever transfer of federal power through elections in 2018 as marking a democratic transition, only to see in the reversal of that change two years later evidence of backsliding. I argue instead that these concepts lack nuance: we should not read too much into a change of leadership. At best, the electoral-authoritarian regime wobbled; it neither transitioned convincingly in 2018 nor qualified as backsliding per se in 2020. That said, the regime has been edging toward liberalization, but less in the electoral sphere than in civil society and prevailing norms.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46690700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding prime ministerial leadership in the United Kingdom and Japan in the 21st century: Introduction to a special issue","authors":"H. Dobson, T. Heppell, Perla Polanco Leal","doi":"10.1177/20578911221135298","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221135298","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction to this special issue begins by presenting a recent puzzle – the increasingly strong position of the Japanese prime minister, who has traditionally been regarded as weak, in contrast to the increasingly fragile position of the United Kingdom prime minister, who has traditionally been regarded as strong. To make sense of these developments, the introduction reviews existing academic perspectives related to prime ministerial leadership with a specific focus on the literature on the UK and Japanese prime ministers. It subdivides our understanding of prime ministerial leadership into three distinct but inter-related levels of analysis. First, the institutional setting, which concentrates attention upon prime ministers’ relations with the machinery of government and a range of institutions including the executive, legislature and judiciary, and relates to prime ministerial versus cabinet government debates, and the core executive model. Second, the party context, which focuses on prime ministers as leaders of their political parties and debates surrounding party centralisation, internal party cohesion and leadership selection and ejection. Third, the role of agency within these above two settings and in relation to the broader public, which includes the personal skills and performative styles of individual prime ministers.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44389020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Farooq, Feroze Nazia, Adeel Iftikhar, Cheng Tong Chun
{"title":"China–India pharmaceutical industry cooperation in the context of “One Belt, One Road”: Opportunities, challenges, and the way forward","authors":"M. Farooq, Feroze Nazia, Adeel Iftikhar, Cheng Tong Chun","doi":"10.1177/20578911221130947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221130947","url":null,"abstract":"To promote the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) in India, it is necessary to highlight the economic attributes, highlight the role of the market, cultivate new growth points of cooperation, and consolidate the foundation of common interests. Industrial cooperation is an important part not only of the “Belt and Road” construction, but also of economic cooperation between the countries. The pharmaceutical product industry is India's most advantageous industry, and it is also an industry with which India hopes to strengthen cooperation with China. In the context of “One Belt, One Road,” China–India pharmaceutical industry cooperation faces both rare opportunities and some challenges, but from the perspective of development trends, obstacles are gradually reducing. Promoting Sino–Indian pharmaceutical industry cooperation requires the joint efforts of government departments, industry chambers of commerce, and pharmaceutical companies. The key is to choose the right cooperation field and path. Strengthening China–India pharmaceutical industry cooperation is conducive to fostering new growth points for China–India economic cooperation, reducing India's concerns about the BRI, and promoting the BRI in India and the entire South Asian region.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47597857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Issues and challenges for women in creating spaces at decision-making levels: A case study of Pakistan Muslim league-N","authors":"Azeem Gul, Syed Waqas Ali Kausar, Zainab Bi Bi","doi":"10.1177/20578911221134715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221134715","url":null,"abstract":"In many Western and Asian countries, women’s empowerment has increased significantly, yet women are still underrepresented in political participation and political decision-making. This study explores the political engagement of women in a society that discriminates against them on the basis of their sex, and in a political system that is heavily patriarchal. The study is aimed at exploring the issues and challenges that women confront in political participation and decision-making in the party political space. To achieve this goal, a qualitative approach has been adopted, in which data has been collected and processed in a qualitative manner. This research conducts a case study of Pakistan Muslim League (N) which served as a sample for data collection. Thematic analysis has been used to decipher the comments of important stakeholders interviewed for qualitative data, as described by Braun and Clarke. Although literature has studied the complex of multiple interlinked causes for women’s insufficient and ineffective political participation, this article presents a novel way to explore those issues and a thematic way to understand their complexity. However, the study's findings indicate that women's political engagement and decision-making are hampered for a variety of reasons. A male-dominated culture, lack of social acceptance, structural halts, gender-imbalanced political parties, societal vulnerability threats and an inability to empower women are a few of the main concerns. Numerous specific problems have been identified as well, such as the persistence of historical patterns and the opportunity gap as well as psychological satisfaction and religious excuses for the lack of political participation and the vulnerability of being scandalized, weak economic status and gender sensitivity in the workplace. In Pakistani society, these highlighted variables are so firmly ingrained in the political and social structure that they are mostly taken for granted and go unnoticed.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46761520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Candidate entry in a non-partisan context: Evidence from Indonesia","authors":"Nathan Allen","doi":"10.1177/20578911221130945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221130945","url":null,"abstract":"Why do candidates enter an electoral contest? The Rational Model of Candidate Entry offers a parsimonious explanation focusing on the probability of victory, the benefit of holding office, as well as campaign costs. Quality challengers enter when there is a high probability of victory, while long-shot races attract amateurs. In most contexts, the presence of parties makes it difficult to disentangle candidate decisions from organizational recruitment strategies. To test the basic assumptions of the Rational Model of Candidate Entry, this Research Note examines candidate entry decisions in Indonesia's Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah, DPD), the world's largest elected non-partisan assembly. An analysis of constituency-level candidate lists in all four DPD elections indicates that entry decisions are affected by the perceived probability of victory, with fewer candidates entering in constituencies with a more concentrated vote in the previous election. Potentially winnable DPD races attract a greater number of experienced challengers, partisan amateurs, and non-partisan amateurs. Only the number of non-partisan amateur candidates consistently correlates with socio-demographic variables, further underlining the importance of electoral context for ambitious, politically savvy elites. The findings affirm the broad applicability of the Rational Model and spotlight Indonesia's often-overlooked DPD as a venue of strategic behaviour.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46549135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The changing UK prime ministership from an institutional perspective","authors":"Kensuke Takayasu","doi":"10.1177/20578911221134714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221134714","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the scope and limitation of the power of the UK prime minister from an institutional perspective. It begins by exploring and confirming the widely recognised tendency towards a more centralised core executive at the heart of the UK government, which dovetails with recent developments in Japan as discussed by Tomohito Shinoda in this special issue. However, the article thereafter argues that this tendency has been constrained once a wider institutional perspective beyond the core executive is adopted. This perspective emphasises the impact of recent constitutional reforms relating to the House of Lords, devolution and the judiciary. These reforms resonate with the idea of a ‘Madisonian turn’ towards greater separation of powers, albeit unintended. Rather than the UK and Japan converging, these institutional changes in the UK narrow the sphere of, and impose constraints on, the authority of the UK parliament and government, which naturally restrict the power of the prime minister.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49076635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Refugees in host countries: A comparative study between Uyghurs in Turkey and Tibetans in India","authors":"D. Pandey","doi":"10.1177/20578911221128880","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221128880","url":null,"abstract":"The status of refugees in host nations may depend upon several factors, including the economic situation of the receiving state, political alignments, international commitments, ethnic affinities, the domestic refugee regime, security considerations and bilateral ties with the home country. The study aims to discern the role that bilateral ties and domestic considerations play in the refugee experience. Is there a pattern that can be drawn out from these two factors? The article uses neoclassical realist and critical theories to better understand the phenomena, while employing the case study method to make a comparative study. The study analyses how India and Turkey have dealt with refugees belonging to two ethnic minorities of the Republic of China: the Tibetans and the Uyghurs. The results show that the way the receiving states handle refugees depends greatly on domestic considerations. It becomes clear that even though bilateral ties between the host and the home nation are important, no simple deduction can be made on how this affects the treatment of refugees. Both cases provide varied response patterns; it is only through a blend of realpolitik and critical theory that the phenomena can be understood. Mapping refugees and their movements, as well as their status in the host countries, determines many of the policies created for their welfare. The article therefore attempts to provide a framework for a better understanding of the phenomena by considering bilateral ties and domestic considerations.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43784167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A danger to avoid or nothing to worry about? China and the protests in Korea during 2016–2017","authors":"Sunghee Cho","doi":"10.1177/20578911221112462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221112462","url":null,"abstract":"“Diffusion-proofing” literature discusses the measures taken by authoritarian regimes to prevent the diffusion of protests from other authoritarian states. What about protests in a neighboring democracy? Do they also fear diffusion due to the proximity, or are they not concerned because of the difference in regime type? This study analyzes Chinese state-run news outlets’ portrayals of Korean protests calling for the president's impeachment from October 2016 to March 2017, based on the frequency and the focus of the reports as well as the descriptions of protests/protesters and the Korean government. The findings indicate that China did not fear the diffusion effect, as shown in their positive descriptions of the protests and protesters in frequent and detailed reports, although they adopted a cautious approach, with reports focusing more on the government side and emphasizing the public's frustration, low government support, and the president's wrongdoing. Overall, China appeared to be less concerned about the diffusion effect due to the regimes’ dissimilarity.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48190144","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conceptualizing Pakistan's evolving nuclear policy after two decades of nuclearization","authors":"Zafar Khan","doi":"10.1177/20578911221129297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221129297","url":null,"abstract":"This article attempts to answer the question as to how much nuclear ambiguity prevails within the broader contours of Pakistan's nuclear policy and how challenging this could be for its evolving nuclear policy. While conceptualizing the rudimentary pillars of Pakistan's evolving nuclear policy, this article implies that although nuclear ambiguity plays a central role in Pakistan's evolving nuclear policy particularly at the operational level, it remains less ambiguous at the declaratory level despite the absence of detailed official documentation. As part of the policy implication for Pakistan in general and the South Asian region in particular, this article concludes that on the one hand nuclear ambiguity helps shape the essential pillars of Pakistan's nuclear policy, but on the other hand too much nuclear ambiguity in turn could become challenging for Pakistan as its nuclear policy gradually evolves to secure a effective command and control system for newer deterrent forces, retain flexibility between the nuclear and conventional forces, and strive for nuclear legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":43694,"journal":{"name":"Asian Journal of Comparative Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47492953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}