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Articles 1 - 30 of 393
Full-Text Articles in Political Science
State Institutions In Northeast Thailand: Lao Ethnics And The Thai Identity, Jacob Ricks
State Institutions In Northeast Thailand: Lao Ethnics And The Thai Identity, Jacob Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this last chapter on state representation, we focus on a case where there has been an absence of demands. In Northeast Thailand, the large ethnic Lao population has not demanded cultural concessions from the state. In fact, not only have the demands been absent, but most people in the region see themselves as Thai (the broader national identity) or Isan (a moniker meaning “northeast”)—as opposed to ethnically Lao. The absence of the Lao identity has less to do with the absence of civic associations from the bottom up than with the absence of political representation from the top down. …
Age And Ideology: The Emergence Of New Political Cleavages In Thailand’S 2566 (2023) Election, Napon Jatusripitak, Jacob Ricks
Age And Ideology: The Emergence Of New Political Cleavages In Thailand’S 2566 (2023) Election, Napon Jatusripitak, Jacob Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The Move Forward Party’s victory in Thailand’s 14 May 2566 (2023 CE) election surprised most observers, defying widespread predictions of a Pheu Thai win. Departing from traditional vote-mobilization strategies, Move Forward’s campaign focused largely on social media and broad calls for political reform while eschewing the vote-canvassing networks and economic policy promises that had delivered victory after victory for Pheu Thai. Does Move Forward’s win indicate changes in Thai voting behaviour? Relying on data from an original survey collected the week before and the week after the election, as well as observations from fieldwork, we identify two political cleavages that …
Challenges Of Ethnic Party Adaptation In Power-Sharing Systems: Evidence From Malaysia, Sebastian Carl Dettman
Challenges Of Ethnic Party Adaptation In Power-Sharing Systems: Evidence From Malaysia, Sebastian Carl Dettman
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In authoritarian systems, ethnic power-sharing arrangements include important ethnic groups in government and decision-making while putting restraints on political competition. However, under conditions of democratization, we might expect power-sharing arrangements to fragment as political parties seize opportunities to expand their base and appeal across ethnic lines. This article draws from the case of Malaysia, where multiethnic coalitions built around ethnic parties ruled for 61 years but where increasing electoral competitiveness has destabilized coalition politics. I focus on the Democratic Action Party (DAP), one of the country's most successful parties, which has sought to build a more multiethnic support base. I …
Public Service Motivation And Job Satisfaction Amid Covid-19: Exploring The Effects Of Work Environment Changes, Seulki Lee, Chongmin Na
Public Service Motivation And Job Satisfaction Amid Covid-19: Exploring The Effects Of Work Environment Changes, Seulki Lee, Chongmin Na
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought critical changes to job demands and resources, which in turn affect employee motivation and outcomes. This study explores how COVID-19–induced work intensity and COVID-19–related organizational support influence public service motivation (PSM) and job satisfaction. Using survey data from a nationally representative sample of 1,430 South Korean central government employees collected during the pandemic (May–June 2020), we find that COVID-19–induced work intensity is positively associated with PSM, which in turn has a positive association with job satisfaction. We also find that COVID-19–related organizational support has both direct and indirect associations with job satisfaction through PSM. These …
Public Perceptions Of Cross-Sector Collaboration And Sector Bias: Evidence From A Survey Experiment, Seulki Lee, Minjung Kim
Public Perceptions Of Cross-Sector Collaboration And Sector Bias: Evidence From A Survey Experiment, Seulki Lee, Minjung Kim
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In recent years, public service delivery models have changed to include non-state actors and cross-sector collaboration as service providers. Using a survey experiment, we investigate if service providers’ sector (including single-sector and cross-sector providers) and their performance information shape public perceptions of their legitimacy. We find that cross-sector collaboration does not produce legitimacy gains over traditional public service provision. While providers’ sector has overall little impact on legitimacy perceptions, we find an anti-for-profit sector bias regarding value-laden aspects of perceived legitimacy. Additionally, performance information affects legitimacy perceptions. These findings have implications for legitimacy build-ing in contemporary governance settings.
Demographic Structure And Voting Behaviour During Democratization: Evidence From Malaysia's 2022 Election, Sebastian Carl Dettman, Thomas B. Pepinsky
Demographic Structure And Voting Behaviour During Democratization: Evidence From Malaysia's 2022 Election, Sebastian Carl Dettman, Thomas B. Pepinsky
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Malaysia’s fifteenth general election (GE15) was a milestone in the country’s democratization process, with new parties and political movements competing with established political coalitions. In this paper, we investigate how Malaysia’s cleavage structure—a central feature of Malaysia’s prior authoritarian regime—shapes electoral competition in a newly competitive political environment. We find that the “race paradigm” (Milner, Embong, and Tham 2014) remains central to explaining party strategy and coalition behavior in GE15, but that more democratic competition has increased the salience of regional differences—both between peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia, and within peninsular Malaysia itself. Our analysis reveals the structural foundations of …
What Drives The Perceived Legitimacy Of Collaborative Governance? An Experimental Study, Seulki Lee, Marc Esteve
What Drives The Perceived Legitimacy Of Collaborative Governance? An Experimental Study, Seulki Lee, Marc Esteve
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This study explores the perceived legitimacy of collaborative governance from a citizens’ perspective. We use a preregistered online survey experiment to test the effect of three factors—representation, performance information, and issue complexity—on the perceived legitimacy of a collaboration. Findings from 1,470 U.S. respondents show that representation and positive performance information influence citizens’ perceptions of collaborative governance legitimacy, while issue complexity has little impact. Additionally, heterogeneous treatment effects were found: respondents with low trust in public organizations factor representation more into their legitimacy perceptions of collaborative governance, while those with high trust in public organizations show little influence of representation.
Mobilizing For Elections: Patronage And Political Machines In Southeast Asia, Sebastian Carl Dettman
Mobilizing For Elections: Patronage And Political Machines In Southeast Asia, Sebastian Carl Dettman
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Mobilizing for Elections is an exciting and ambitious mapping of the contours of modern patronage in the region. The book provides a conceptual framework to understand patronage in the context of electoral mobilization and answers a variety of questions about the mechanics and patterns of patronage in Southeast Asia: what kinds of patronage are distributed and how, the response of voters to patronage, and variation within and across the cases they consider. The authors examine patterns of what they call “electoral mobilization regimes” in three primary cases: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, with additional evidence provided from Singapore, Thailand, and …
Islamic Political Parties And Election Campaigns In Indonesia, Colm A. Fox, Jeremy Menchik
Islamic Political Parties And Election Campaigns In Indonesia, Colm A. Fox, Jeremy Menchik
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Islamist political parties are a structural feature of politics across the Muslim world, raising persisting questions for scholars of democracy. Under what conditions will Islamists moderate to support democracy and pluralism? Under what conditions will they adopt more exclusive behavior? Taking a fresh approach, we focus on electoral competition and the conditions under which Islamic party candidates campaign using either inclusive nationalist appeals or exclusively Islamic appeals. Using a unique data source, we coded the appeals contained on the campaign posters of 572 Islamic party candidates in Indonesia. We found that demographics, urban–rural differences, and the level of government office …
Authoritarian Propaganda Campaigns On Foreign Affairs: Four Birds With One Stone, Andrew Chubb, Frances Yaping Wang
Authoritarian Propaganda Campaigns On Foreign Affairs: Four Birds With One Stone, Andrew Chubb, Frances Yaping Wang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Why do authoritarian states sometimes play up dangerous internationalcrises and embarrassing diplomatic incidents in domestic propaganda? Isit to mobilize, threaten, divert or pacify? Recent studies in comparativepolitics have focused on regime legitimacy and stability as key drivers ofauthoritarian propaganda practices, overlooking other possiblemotivations such as mobilization of the regime’s domestic allies orstrategic signaling aimed at foreign audiences. Foreign policy analysts,meanwhile, have emphasized international dimensions of thepropaganda behavior of China — the contemporary world’s mostpowerful and technologically sophisticated authoritarian state — but haveoften mistakenly framed complementary theories as competingalternative explanations. Paying attention to the multiple domestic andinternational audiences for authoritarian propaganda, …
Continuity, History, And Identity: Why Bongbong Marcos Won The 2022 Philippine Presidential Election, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
Continuity, History, And Identity: Why Bongbong Marcos Won The 2022 Philippine Presidential Election, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In May of 2022, Bongbong Marcos won a commanding 59 percent of the vote to become president of the Philippines. His victory was, on some level, shocking to scholars and analysts of Philippine politics. As a result, a plethora of different theories have been proposed, in an attempt to explain why Marcos won. In this paper, we use nationally representative survey data to explore which factors predict (and do not predict) voting intention for Marcos. We find that, a) support for former President Rodrigo Duterte, b) positive perceptions of the late President Ferdinand Marcos and martial law, and c) ethnic …
Two Responsibilities To Protect, Patrick Quinton-Brown
Two Responsibilities To Protect, Patrick Quinton-Brown
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The purpose of this paper is to re-theorize the evolution of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) in the UN through to 2011, the apogee of liberal interventionism in the post-Cold War period. Contrary to a common argument in existing literature, and notwithstanding the adoption of the concept as an annual agenda item of the General Assembly, international contestation is not about implementation as neatly separated from meaning, but rather definition or interpretation. To better understand the boundaries of intergovernmental understanding, we need to interrogate the language or terms of the debate, particularly the ways in which those terms have been …
The Persistence Of Ethnopopulist Support: The Case Of Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Ronald Holmes
The Persistence Of Ethnopopulist Support: The Case Of Rodrigo Duterte's Philippines, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Ronald Holmes
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The past few years have seen an emergence of populist leaders around the world, who have not only accrued but also maintained support despite rampant criticism, governance failures, and the ongoing COVID pandemic. The Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte is the best illustration of this trend, with approval ratings rarely dipping below 80 percent. What explains his high levels of robust public support? We argue that Duterte is an ethnopopulist who uses ethnic appeals in combination with insider vs. outsider rhetoric to garner and maintain public support. Moreover, we argue that ethnic affiliation is a main driver of support for Duterte, and …
British Neo-Colonialism In Malaya And Singapore, And U.S. Empire In The Pacific, Wen-Qing Ngoei
British Neo-Colonialism In Malaya And Singapore, And U.S. Empire In The Pacific, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay places the Vietnam War upon the larger canvas of Southeast and East Asian history by studying the long shadow that Britain’s Empire cast over U.S. entanglements across the region. It shows how British officials in Malaya and Singapore directly contributed to the expansion of US involvement in post-1945 Southeast Asia, as well as the overall pro-US trajectory of the region well before the Americanization of the Vietnam conflict.
From Guo To Tianxia: Linking Two Daoist Theories Of International Relations, Devin K. Joshi
From Guo To Tianxia: Linking Two Daoist Theories Of International Relations, Devin K. Joshi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This study examines the international relations theory (IRT) of Daoism, one of Asia’s long-standing traditions to have theorized international politics. Drawing upon Laozi’s Dao De Jing, this study elucidates two Daoist IR theories. First, Laozi provides a state-focused guo-based IRT for conducting foreign policy and managing inter-state relations with emphasis on yielding and softness to overcome violence and domination. Second, Laozi offers a Utopian and globalist tianxia-centered IRT based on following the Dao whereby inter-state rivalry is dissolved in favor of peaceful planetary governance in harmony with the natural rhythms of the cosmos. Whereas previous scholarship often concentrates on only …
How Do Filipinos Remember Their History? A Descriptive Account Of Filipino Historical Memory, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
How Do Filipinos Remember Their History? A Descriptive Account Of Filipino Historical Memory, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
How do Filipinos remember their history? To date this question still has no systematic answer. This article provides quantitative, descriptive results from two nationally representative surveys that show how Filipinos view three of the country's major historical events: the Spanish colonization of the Philippines; martial law under President Ferdinand Marcos; and the 1986 People Power Revolution. The descriptive results include several takeaways, including: first, the modal response towards all three events was indifference (versus positive or negative feelings); second, positive feelings towards martial law were highest among those who were alive at that time; third, the distribution of feelings towards …
The Search For Spices And Souls: Catholic Missions As Colonial State In The Philippines, Dean C. Dulay
The Search For Spices And Souls: Catholic Missions As Colonial State In The Philippines, Dean C. Dulay
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
A growing literature posits that colonial Christian missions brought schooling to the colonies, improving human capital in ways that persist to this day. But in some places they did much more. This paper argues that colonial Catholic missions in the Philippines functioned as state-builders, establishing law and order and building fiscal and infrastructural capacities in territories they controlled. The mission-as-state was the result of a bargain between the Catholic missions and the Spanish colonial government: missionaries converted the population and engaged in state-building, whereas the colonial government reaped the benefits of state expansion while staying in the capital. Exposure to …
Politically Speaking: Ethnic Language And Audience Opinion In Southeast Asia, Jacob I. Ricks
Politically Speaking: Ethnic Language And Audience Opinion In Southeast Asia, Jacob I. Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Language is one of the quintessential markers of ethnicity. It allows co-ethnics to easily identify one another and underscores in-group and out-group boundaries. Recognizing this, politicians frequently employ ethnic tongues to enhance their political appeal. To what extent does this shape the opinions of their audiences? Utilizing a survey experiment, I test the impact of an ethnic tongue against that of the common political language among the Javanese in Indonesia, the Tagalog in the Philippines, and the Isan people in Thailand. The experiment demonstrates that the ethnic language has a significant impact in both Thailand and Indonesia, but there appears …
The Privacy Of Hak-Shing William Tam: Imagining Asian Families In California’S Proposition 8, Justin Kh Tse
The Privacy Of Hak-Shing William Tam: Imagining Asian Families In California’S Proposition 8, Justin Kh Tse
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In terms of Asian Americans whose reputations have been popularly derided, the concerned parent activist Hak-Shing William Tam perhaps ranks among the top. Tam was a citizen proponent of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008 to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage and became a hostile witness for the plaintiffs in the subsequent 2010 lawsuit to overturn the amendment, Perry v. Schwarzenegger. In this paper, I explore Tam’s claim to privacy in his understanding of these events, both in terms of his sexualized imagination of liberal civil society and his suffering from what he understood as violations of his …
Fueling Green Connections: Networked Policy Instrument Choices For Sustainability Regulation, Ishani Mukherjee
Fueling Green Connections: Networked Policy Instrument Choices For Sustainability Regulation, Ishani Mukherjee
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper presents a policy network analysis study that examines policy subsystem interconnectedness and cohesion, to explore three constituent regulatory policy instruments that have a combined impact on governing sustainability. The network surrounding the environmental sustainability of biodiesel policy in Indonesia is marked by high interconnectedness and relatively weaker cohesion, properties that impact how policy solutions are formulated through policy actor interactions and define prevailing policy formulation styles. Using primary policy network data on 46 organizations and the review of national regulations, laws, and directives, this paper tests established hypotheses on how instruments that are formulated within the same policy …
Visualizing Politics In Indonesia: The Design And Distribution Of Election Posters, Colm A. Fox
Visualizing Politics In Indonesia: The Design And Distribution Of Election Posters, Colm A. Fox
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Where studies have shown that visuals are the primary means of political communication, research continues to focus largely on text-based information. To add to our understanding of visual-political communications, this article analyses Indonesian election posters since the 1950s. Drawing on historical materials and on a content analysis of 4,000 election posters, it asks why election posters have been designed and distributed in particular ways. Findings indicate that in the past, posters used singular, though powerful, social symbols to mobilize demographic groups behind political parties. However, contemporary posters are more visually complex and more candidate-centered, making arguments as to what the …
Conclusion: Comparing Women's Representation In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi
Conclusion: Comparing Women's Representation In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This chapter explains important findings from this study while identifying common trends across Asia and the sub-regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. It examines to what degree Asian parliamentarians have prioritized substantive representation of women (SRW). It assesses whether SRW was a primary reason or motivation behind why members of parliament (MPs) entered politics in the first place and whether they viewed SRW as a pressing issue for their governments to address. MPs interviewed in this study expressed what they felt were the most important issues today that need government’s attention. MPs were asked whether they make …
Substantive Representation Of Women By Parliamentarians In Asia: A Comparative Study Of Ten Countries, Devin K. Joshi
Substantive Representation Of Women By Parliamentarians In Asia: A Comparative Study Of Ten Countries, Devin K. Joshi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the results of a pioneering new large-scale study on how national parliamentarians in Asia are advancing women’s substantive representation and gender equality. It focuses on substantive representation of women (SRW). The book explores how personal backgrounds and experiences of members of parliament (MPs) have shaped their thinking and commitment to advancing SRW and gender equality. It focuses on institutional dimensions of SRW drawing heavily on MP interviewees’ responses while some authors assess the degree to which the parliament is “gender-sensitive”. …
Substantive Representation Of Women In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi, Christian Echle
Substantive Representation Of Women In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi, Christian Echle
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Combining data from nearly 100 interviews with national parliamentarians from ten Asian countries, the contributors to this book analyze and evaluate the advancement of gender equality in Asia. As of the year 2022, no country in Asia has gender parity in its parliament. Meanwhile, the proportion of national-level women parliamentarians in Asia averages a mere 20%. What is more important than simple descriptive representation, however, is whether outcomes for women are improving. Rather than focusing on numerical representation, the chapters in this book focus on the substantive representation of women. In other words, what do women and men parliamentarians do …
The Politics Of Institutional Reform: Vulnerability And Bureaucratic Independence In Asian Agriculture, Jacob Ricks
The Politics Of Institutional Reform: Vulnerability And Bureaucratic Independence In Asian Agriculture, Jacob Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Although effective bureaucracies are seen as key for service provision in developing states, we still have limited explanations for their emergence. I argue getting these institutions right is a political, rather than technical, challenge based on a set of theoretical predictions for reform outcomes acknowledging the interaction between a state’s political vulnerability and degree of bureaucratic independence. I apply these predictions to a controlled comparison of irrigation sector reforms in three Asian countries. The results demonstrate that the success of institutional reforms necessary to implement policies is contingent on both the degree of vulnerability experienced as well as the extent …
Survival Politics: Regime Security And Alliance Institutionalization, Inwook Kim, Jackson Woods
Survival Politics: Regime Security And Alliance Institutionalization, Inwook Kim, Jackson Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
What determines states’ willingness to institutionalize alliances? Contrary to conventional emphasis on system-level conditions, we argue that states pay close attention to the domestic political consequences of institutionalizing alliances. This is particularly true for unequal allies. Client regimes are disproportionately sensitive to alliance design, as it affects patron allies’ ability to influence their military, distribute finance and arms, and legitimate preferred political groups. Two factors—power consolidation and political compatibility—determine whether the client views alliance institutionalization as complementary or conflictual with regime survival. The divergent alliance designs North and South Korea chose after the Korean War support our argument. An unresolved …
A Framework For Assessing Accountability In Collaborative Governance: A Process-Based Approach, Seulki Lee, Sonia M. Ospina
A Framework For Assessing Accountability In Collaborative Governance: A Process-Based Approach, Seulki Lee, Sonia M. Ospina
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Despite the complexities involved around the accountability mechanisms of collaborative governance, little is known about how to assess accountability at the network level and disentangle possible accountability deficits. This study first explicates the nature of collaborative governance accountability in contrast to accountability in traditional public administration and market-based governance. The analysis shows how collaborative governance accountability is distinctive: (a) accountability relationships shift from bilateral to multilateral; (b) horizontal as well as vertical accountability relationships are involved; (c) not only formal standards but also informal norms are used; and (d) accountability challenges move from control/audit issues to trust-building and paradox management …
When Running For Office Runs In The Family: Horizontal Dynasties, Policy, And Development In The Philippines, Dean C. Dulay, Laurence Go
When Running For Office Runs In The Family: Horizontal Dynasties, Policy, And Development In The Philippines, Dean C. Dulay, Laurence Go
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Political dynasties exist in practically every type of democracy, but take different forms in different places. Yet the types of dynastic structures have remained unexplored. We argue that horizontal dynasties—multiple members from the same political family holding different political offices concurrently—affect policymaking by replacing potential political rivals, who may oppose an incumbent’s policy choices, with a member of the family. But in developing countries, the policy change that accrues from dynastic status may not lead to higher levels of economic development. We test this argument’s implications in the Philippines. Using a close elections regression discontinuity design on a sample of …
A Harbour In The Country, A City In The Sea: Infrastructural Conduits, Territorial Inversions And The Slippages Of Sovereignty In Sino-Sri Lankan Development Narratives, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper adopts infrastructure as a lens through which new understandings of the inter-relationships between territory and sovereignty can be advanced. It argues that inverting the terrestrial assumption of territory can lead to “slippages” of sovereignty in which territorial sovereignty is indirectly claimed through the assertion of governance rights. For the purposes of this paper, I explore these inversions through the reclaiming of land from the ocean, and the removal of land by the ocean. Drawing on ethnographic research exploring the effects of China-backed infrastructure megaprojects in Sri Lanka, these territorial inversions are explored, respectively, through the Port City Colombo …
The Pandemic As Political Opportunity: Jokowi’S Indonesia In The Time Of Covid-19, Charlotte Setijadi
The Pandemic As Political Opportunity: Jokowi’S Indonesia In The Time Of Covid-19, Charlotte Setijadi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In mid-2021, the Delta strain of the Covid-19 virus caused a second wave of transmissions and deaths in Indonesia at a scale much greater than what was seen in 2020. In this paper, I examine what the Indonesian government’s handling of the Covid crisis in 2021 reveals about the priorities of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), as well as his political agenda and attitude towards the country’s democracy, as he strives to cement his legacy. I argue that, while devastating, the Covid-19 pandemic has given Jokowi the opportunity to push through long-planned economic and political reforms. Furthermore, I contend that, under …