Pacific Affairs最新文献

{"title":"Understanding Mistrust and Instability in East Asia","authors":"J. Chun","doi":"10.5509/2022953595","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022953595","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, East Asian countries have faced numerous security threats, including territorial disputes in the East China Sea, the US-China conflict, and economic turmoil due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Under such circumstances, a stable regional order and economic prosperity are crucial.\u0000 This essay reviews three recent books that attempt to identify the distinct features of East Asian international relations and the main causes of regional instability. The first part of this essay addresses the main themes and contributions of each book, and o ers an evaluation of their implications.\u0000 The second section focuses on two key themes touched on in each of the books: \"China and East Asian regional order\" and \"history still matters.\" The conclusion presents the challenges to, and provides recommendations for, peaceful coexistence in East Asia. This review elucidates not only the\u0000 distinct features of current Sino-Japanese relations and East Asia's international politics but also addresses the future of the region.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42945654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Violence and Impunity: Democratic Backsliding in the Philippines and the 2022 Elections","authors":"S. Iglesias","doi":"10.5509/2022953575","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022953575","url":null,"abstract":"As president from 2016 to 2022, Rodrigo Duterte captured the judiciary, dominated the legislature, attacked the media, and presided over a campaign of mass killing, leaving an estimated 30,000 alleged drug criminals dead. Despite wielding vast amounts of power, Duterte stepped down\u0000 after the national elections on May 9, 2022 in a largely peaceful transfer of power to Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son and namesake of the former dictator deposed in 1986. Why did Duterte amass power without causing full democratic collapse into authoritarian rule? The Philippines experienced backsliding\u0000 to competitive authoritarianism: while elections remain free and somewhat fair, other features of democracy like civil liberties and political freedoms have eroded badly because of mass violence. The Philippine case demonstrates the autocratizing e ect of an emerging form of political violence:\u0000 a focused campaign of state terror that produces fear and electoral success. I present evidence from two cases—the national \"war on drugs\" and its local antecedent in Davao City—to explain how violence escalates, provokes accountability, evades culpability, and contributes to democratic\u0000 backsliding without immediate collapse to authoritarianism. With the election of Marcos Jr., the impunity of the former incumbent is likely to become institutionalized, and democratic backsliding is unlikely to be reversed.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45734688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mobilized and Polarized: Social Media and Disinformation Narratives in the 2022 Philippine Elections","authors":"A. Arugay, Justin Keith A. Baquisal","doi":"10.5509/2022953549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022953549","url":null,"abstract":"Social media played a significant role in the 2022 Philippine national elections. Using various empirical sources, including an original pre-electoral survey, we argue that social media was critical in the production, transmission, and reception of election-related information and narratives\u0000 that resulted in o ine and online polarization and mobilization of Filipino voters in the 2022 elections. This article discusses the role of social media in electoral politics in the Philippines relative to other factors, such as material incentives for political partisans, prior voting behavior\u0000 patterns, information consumption, and long-standing grievances. We discuss how these factors inform social media's role in mobilizing and polarizing the Philippine electorate. We also unpack the leading disinformation narratives of authoritarian nostalgia, conspiracy theory, strongman leadership,\u0000 and democratic disillusionment, which fueled support for Marcos Jr. and undermined the other candidates. In conclusion, this article discusses the implications of disinformation in the 2022 elections for the post-electoral political engagement of Filipinos and its contribution to the further\u0000 political dysfunction of Philippine democracy.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48689691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Uncoupling Conceptual Understandings and Political Preferences: A Study of Democratic Attitudes among Singapore's Highly Educated Young People","authors":"Norma Osterberg-Kaufmann, Kay Key Teo","doi":"10.5509/2022953497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022953497","url":null,"abstract":"Democracy is subject to constant and seemingly interminable contestation in academic and policy contexts, and yet, empirically and methodologically robust analysis of what the term means in practice for actual citizens has remained an area of relative lacuna. Admittedly, large-N surveys\u0000 have attempted to address this research gap by examining attitudes to numerous components of democracy, but without the fine-grained detail required to overcome simply reproducing the focus on liberal procedural, Western precedent-based, top-down approaches to understanding such a complex\u0000 and varied political system. This article proposes a methodological approach, based on the requirements of comparative political theory and research into how people view democracy. This allows us to explore political attitudes and the meaning of democracy with a bottom-up approach using the\u0000 methods of repertory grid and in-depth interviews. Singapore is a particularly exciting case for comparative political science: although it has all the advantageous conditions that, according to classic modernization theory, promote the development of democracy, it is still not a democracy.\u0000 To what extent will the conceptualization of democracy by citizens in a country like Singapore resemble theoretical definitions, and how suitable do they consider democracy to be for Singapore? What are their expectations for a good government or regime? This article examines what highly educated\u0000 Singaporeans, ranging in age from their twenties to their forties, think about democracy. In doing so, the article also pursues the goal of comparing methods between repertory grid interviews and in-depth interviews in order to work out potential interfaces, and points of connection, between\u0000 the two methods to allow for the most productive research outcomes. We find that, conceptually, these Singaporeans' perceptions of democracy appeared very similar to what is usually discussed as electoral democracy in established literature. When evaluating the performance of a government\u0000 or a regime, however, liberal ideas of freedom and fairness competed with more pragmatic approaches that reflect the principles of progress and success as well as community and performance-focused orientations. As a result, our respondents did not prioritize democratic practices as much as\u0000 other aspects of governance like e ciency. Our findings on the influence of state ideology on highly educated young people in Singapore strengthen the arguments of political myth as an integration and legitimization strategy in autocratic regimes and democratizing strong states or regimes\u0000 with a particularly pronounced ideological hegemony.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47417937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evolution of Our Times: Developing Democratic Identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan","authors":"J. I. Chong, Hsin-Hsin Pan","doi":"10.5509/2022953441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022953441","url":null,"abstract":"Two trends have become increasingly apparent from public opinion polls in Taiwan and Hong Kong over the past decade. One is a growing identification with and confidence in being exclusively Taiwanese or Hong Konger. The other is increasing public support for democracy. Existing research\u0000 investigates the association between local identity and democracy, but does not address the meanings people in Taiwan and Hong Kong ascribe to their identities. This limits a fuller understanding of the relationships and driving forces between and behind these trends. One interpretation is\u0000 that demands for greater democracy mask growing nativism, even xenophobia. An alternative one is that heightened local identification reflects aspirations for greater political participation and restraint on executive authority in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Using discourse analysis collected through\u0000 the Making Identities Count in Asia project, alongside polling data, we submit that elite and mass discourse reveal an integration of democratic expectations with local identity and its broadening appeal in Taiwan and Hong Kong. People in these two societies take principles associated with\u0000 democracy to be closely tied to their sense of identification and locality. Such ideas do not eschew the value of tradition rooted in local experiences and can outweigh economic growth. However, Hong Kongers and Taiwanese have come to identify substantively more with democracy than the exceptionalism\u0000 implied in \"localism,\" \"Asian values,\" or some form of nativism. PRC attempts to appeal to local concerns in Taiwan and Hong Kong need to grapple with either meaningful respect for democratic aspirations or e ectively repressing them. PRC insistence on the erasure of such values will likely\u0000 result in continued tensions with Taiwan and Hong Kong, and include mass resistance and the need for force, even violence.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47088496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Art of Thai Diplomacy: Parables of Alliance","authors":"Ryan Ashley, Apichai W. Shipper","doi":"10.5509/2022952227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022952227","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that a pragmatist theory of international relations, combined with parables of alliance formation from local proverbs and literary classics, best explains the art of Thai diplomacy from a historical perspective. Notably avoiding Western colonization, the Thais have\u0000 enjoyed relative sovereignty and independence throughout their history. Rather than balancing, bandwagoning, or hedging, our study finds that Thailand has deliberately leveraged asymmetrical partnerships between often-opposed great powers and more symmetrical partnerships with less powerful\u0000 states and multilateral organizations in order to maintain its physical and identity- based ontological security. We draw our empirical evidence from four historical periods: the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, World War II, the Cold War, and the post-Cold War modern era. Our findings\u0000 can be applied to other Southeast Asian states and their own parables of alliance.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42819756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The 2022 South Korean Presidential Election and the Gender Divide among the Youth","authors":"H. Kim, C. Lee","doi":"10.5509/2022952285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022952285","url":null,"abstract":"The 2022 South Korean presidential election was the country's most closely contested election since a democratic direct electoral system was initiated in 1987, with less than a 1 percent di erence separating the two major candidates among 34 million votes cast. Despite some parallels\u0000 with and continuities from previous elections, the 2022 election saw new voting alignments emerge based on one topic: gender equality. In this essay, we explain how and why gender became such a prominent issue during the 2022 election campaign, and how this a ected voting patterns, especially\u0000 among male and female voters in their twenties and thirties. Specifically, we argue that gendered voter behaviour during the election arose from rising anti-feminist sentiments among young men, and that the two main presidential candidates politicized the issue to maximize support from this\u0000 group. This in turn triggered the consolidation of a young female voting bloc. Using an original survey conducted in January 2022 with an approximate nationally representative sample of 1,017 respondents, we identify two possible causes of rising anti-feminist sentiments among young men: the\u0000 belief that women receive preferential treatment in employment opportunities and mandatory military service for men. In addition, through an embedded survey experiment run before the election, we proposed that political candidates with pro-gender messages would be less likely to receive support\u0000 from young men, while candidates with anti-gender messages would be likely to receive more support; these projections were confirmed by the actual voting breakdowns of the recent election. The results suggest that the new administration must handle gender issues with extreme care to ensure\u0000 that divergent perceptions of the gender divide do not become further polarized over the next few years, since such a development could very well fuel democratic deconsolidation in South Korea.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48585201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cynical and Celebratory Sensibilities in South Korea's 2022 Presidential Election","authors":"Erik Mobrand","doi":"10.5509/2022952265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022952265","url":null,"abstract":"Why was South Korea's 2022 presidential election so close, when only a few years prior the party of the winning candidate had been out of contention? The answer can be found by situating the election against a battle between democratic and anti-democratic forces. Anti-democratic forces\u0000 cynically bid for power by denigrating politics. An examination of how this cynical sensibility developed, from 2016 to 2022, but on the back of a deeper history, points both to what was at stake in this election and to the methods deployed by representatives of the anti-democratic forces\u0000 that helped create parity in the vote.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42604680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Entanglements of Mobility and Immobility: A Review of Eight Documentaries","authors":"H. Lynn","doi":"10.5509/2022952309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/2022952309","url":null,"abstract":"Theories and methods to analyze different forms of mobility and related complexities abound. By engaging with eight documentaries dealing with migrations and histories of Asia, this review essay sketches the possibilities of viewing the inextricable linkages between mobilities and immobilities\u0000 of people, policies, and ideas through the metaphor of quantum entanglement. The essay explains the viewing environments, summarizes the viewed documentaries, and analyzes the visible entanglements of the seemingly contradictory co-presence of movement and stillness.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46150677","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Controlling the Opposition Abroad: Cambodia's Extraterritorial Activities in Long Beach, California","authors":"Susan Needham, Schroedel Grubb","doi":"10.5509/952205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5509/952205","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents findings from research conducted in Long Beach, California on the history, motives, and functions of the Cambodian People's Party Youth Organization (CPPYO), a network of Cambodians outside the country who support Cambodia's long-time ruling party, the Cambodian\u0000 People's Party (CPP). O cially, the CPPYO, headed by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's son, Hun Manet, was created to promote the current government and to provide political options for Cambodians living abroad. However, many Cambodians in the Long Beach area see the CPP's presence in the\u0000 US as invasive and as a threat to their autonomy. To understand how the CPPYO functions in Long Beach, we make use of Gerschewski's three pillars of authoritarian stability and Glasius' framework for identifying extraterritorial authoritarian practices. We conclude that the CPPYO is primarily\u0000 a strategy for repressing opposition abroad, but that it also contributes to the ruling party's legitimacy through the participation of Long Beach Cambodian Americans, who accept the CPP's authoritarian control as a condition for participating in Cambodia's socioeconomic system. This study\u0000 contributes to a growing body of research interested in identifying and interconnecting the various legitimation processes, strategies, and practices developed by autocracies to stabilize rule at home and abroad.","PeriodicalId":47041,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Affairs","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44420873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}