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| 1 |
ID:
134961
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| Summary/Abstract |
This special issue of the Asia Europe Journal focuses on a triangulated conversation between scholars working in/on Asia, Europe and Australia. The essays showcase the work of early career researchers involved in the EU-Oceania Social Science Inter-regional Consortium (EUOSSIC) Erasmus Mundus exchange programme that links leading universities in Europe1 with those in Australia2 and New Zealand3 to promote the study of European Union (EU) external relationships. Erasmus Mundus was launched in 2004 and is funded by the Education and Culture Directorate General of the European Commission with the objectives of enhancing the quality of European higher education and the promotion of dialogue and understanding between people and cultures through cooperation with third countries. The aim of the EUOSSIC Erasmus Mundus exchange programme (2011–2013) is to build on existing connections to create a formal programme of inter-regional exchanges between the EU and Oceania for doctoral and post-doctoral scholars as well as academic staff with a Social Science background. In total, 61 doctoral students, 11 post-doctoral fellows and 27 academic staff were involved in the EUOSSIC Erasmus Mundus programme.
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| 2 |
ID:
134967
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One of the Cold War’s commonplaces about Russia was its abiding embrace of authoritarianism. Across the centuries, successive regimes, whether Tsarist or Communist, have been characterised by Western scholars as highly centralised, personalised power structures, with an intolerance of dissidence that too easily descended into barbaric brutality. Living on Europe’s farthest edge, Russia’s peoples are said to have been bypassed by Enlightenment modernity, the rise of liberal constitutionalism and the gradual entrenchment of individual rights and democratic freedoms. For those commentators inspired by such Cold War thinking, it is a legacy that continues to shape contemporary politics. The assumption is that Putin’s reclaiming of the presidency in 2012 is emblematic of an inevitable reversion to authoritarianism. Drawing on research in Russia during the March 2012 election, this article takes a critical look at the plethora of global statistical surveys that point to authoritarian trends under the current regime. It concludes that the conceptual framework underpinning the West’s revelations about the descent into authoritarianism in contemporary Russia is neither clear nor convincing.
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| 3 |
ID:
134966
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Justification in public discourse is an inevitable part of the process when states attempt to regulate accelerating markets. In this process, policymakers define problems to be solved and attribute values to good policy. Those qualities are constantly negotiated, and to analyse them is essential for understanding the processes and ways different actors take control of political debates. This article examines a public discussion on health reform in the Czech Republic between 2006 and 2008. At that time, the government tried to promote a comprehensive reform for cost containment. The reform corresponded with a shift from a social democratic state paradigm to a neoliberal paradigm in health-care provision which can be observed also in other post-communist countries. In this case, controlling health-care costs gained a top priority in a discourse driven by the combination of factors including scarcity, the ageing of the population and patient responsibility. The authors of the reform used a “funnel strategy” where an original broader set of issues was narrowed to predominantly the economic aspects of reform. The wasting of money in health care was associated primarily with personal patient responsibility. While the distribution of care provided by hospital professionals was considered reasonable, the way in which patients consumed health care was questioned. This categorization replicated dominant media representations of professional medicine as a way to treat sickness competently and successfully by doctors in hospitals using the latest technology and fast-acting drugs
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| 4 |
ID:
134965
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In Europe and Asia, there are a number of over-arching national financial regulatory models and sit under regulatory approaches. Model variants are rooted in national legal structure, while approaches are the “choice” of the national regulatory authority and sometimes inter-mixed. Options sit along a continuum from hard to soft. Post-global financial crisis (GFC), which has acted as a traumatic change agent in Europe, both models and approaches are in flux. A shift to a regulator-led, targeted risk-based approach, grounded upon rules and/or principles, has occurred. The government has been obliged to assume a deeper role, thus shifting model preference. Supra-national, regional, bilateral and ad hoc or even bespoke vehicles have emerged. No institutionalised global regulatory structure yet exists, although there is growing collaboration among international bodies. Macro-prudential policies geared to system-wide risks related to the economic cycle, market structures and to individual institutions have gained international prominence. Due to the globalised effects of the GFC and its aftermath in Europe, what are the lessons for Asia?
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| 5 |
ID:
134964
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The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) held its 9th Summit in November 2012, marking 16 years of existence. Because of its biennial character, around the time of Summits, ASEM usually gains increased attention. And it is around each Summit that questions about ASEM’s relevance and contribution to global politics re-surface. While political and economic cooperation have attracted much anticipation and analyses, this essay draws attention to the under-researched socio-cultural pillar. It re-assesses the role of socio-cultural cooperation in the relations between Asia-Europe and its relevance to the Asia-Europe Meeting process overall. The study analyses the stream of activities and the design of programmes coordinated by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), the only permanent institution of the ASEM process, responsible for the “third-pillar” implementations. ASEF in this analysis serves as a reflection of ASEM, and by looking into working mechanisms and evaluating ASEF’s effectiveness, the author evaluates ASEM. The purpose of this study is to offer the first comprehensive analysis of Asia-Europe Foundation, which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary, by examining its relationship with the ASEM process. The study evaluates ASEF’s contribution to Asia-Europe inter-regional cooperation and outlines the limitations that the Foundation faces. A multi-method research approach is adopted including data from the ASEF archives and reports of its activities, and analysis based on the existing literature and official documents of ASEM and ASEF, as well as in-depth interviews conducted by the author.
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| 6 |
ID:
134963
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Southeast Asia shares many similarities with Europe, among others, deep economic, historic and cultural ties, as well as the trauma of wars, which led to the desire to turn battlefields into marketplaces. However, in Southeast Asia, regional economic integration has preceded institutional integration, reversing the order of European integration. Despite drawing on different models of integration, programmes favouring the setting up of cross-border and transnational areas have burgeoned both within the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) development programme, supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) since the early 1990s, is currently one of the most dynamic transnational integration processes occurring in mainland Southeast Asia. Among the flagship initiatives of the programme are three economic corridors that have revived the ancient caravan trade routes and networks, which once traversed the Indochinese peninsula. This article sketches out the specificities of the GMS integration by examining the “corridor approach”. As institutional regionalism in Europe appears to have encountered problems, and Southeast Asia seems to have stretched its open and network-based integration model to a great extent, the main argument of this essay is that reflections on the success and the limits of the GMS’ specific type of integration can contribute to a new understanding of regionalism, particularly in Asia.
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| 7 |
ID:
134962
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article aims to offer a theoretical background on the meaning of “governance” and “cross-border cooperation” in the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Looking at the European Union cross-border regions and Association of South East Asian Nations growth triangles, this article seeks to understand firstly what changes (if any) cross-border cooperation has occasioned in the state; secondly, whether a kind of “border governance”, that is multi-level, is emerging in cross-border areas. It will be argued that cross-border cooperation activities may contribute to transform the operation of power across the various levels of governance on a local/national/supranational level and a “new mode” of governance that is “multi-layered” can emerge from this scenario. Accordingly, the state can be both strengthened and weakened by cross-border cooperation activities. Moreover, the change that is occurring within the concept of governance cannot be fully grasped without considering the emergence and importance of networks, the impact that cross-border movements and relationships have on the livelihoods and everyday trades of the local border communities
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