Asia : The New Global Economic Powerhouse

by Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller

Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore; Adjunct Professor, Singapore Management University; Adjunct Professor, Copenhagen Business School.

The US economy is slowing down, possibly going into recession. The question is whether this will trigger a global slow-down/recession or whether decoupling from the US has reached a stage where the rest of the world feels US business cycles, but does not depend on them. Decisive for this is the strength of Asia as a new economic powerhouse. Depending upon the method of calculation, Asia sits on 25-40% of world GDP. It is by far the global heavyweight. Two crucial factors determine Asia’s role as a self-sustaining economy: supply chain and consumption. Five supporting factors call for attention: skill content of export, economic integration, multinational companies, comparative advantages and international investment policy. The risk factors are: the environment, energy, water, inequality, social losers, and political systems. Europe can thus look upon Asia as a threat depriving it of jobs or an opportunity to create new economic activities suited to the 21st century.

Asian security dynamics: A Troubled ‘Spring Season’ in Sino-Japanese Security Relations

by Camilla T.N. Sørensen

PhD candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen

Despite a positive atmosphere and development in 2007, there is a serious risk that Sino-Japanese security relations will deteriorate further in the years to come, with strong negative implications for Asian security. It is therefore critical to scrutinise the context of development in Sino-Japanese security relations, focusing on identifying the main driving developments behind them. Applying a neorealist strategic triangle analytical framework, this article highlights the strategic triangular logic in Sino-Japanese-U.S. security relations since the end of the Cold War and the complex interconnectedness between the development in Sino-Japanese security relations and the development in U.S. security policy in the region. It is argued that the end of Cold War bipolarity, the dramatic Chinese economic and military development, and the lack of balance in U.S. security relations with China and Japan are the three main driving developments behind the negative post-Cold War development in Sino-Japanese security relations. Therefore, to avoid a zero-sum Sino-Japanese rivalry, strengthening of regional multilateral and Sino-Japanese- U.S. trilateral security mechanisms and institutions is needed.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Central Asian Regional Dynamics: Towards a Multilateral Future ?

by Teemu Naarajärvi

PhD candidate (East Asian Studies), Institute for Asian and African studies, University of Helsinki

This article discusses the changed nature of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). I argue that the main reason for the founding of the SCO, antiterrorism, has become one of the less important aspects of the organisation. The importance of the SCO, especially for China, arises from what the organisation is, instead of what it does: that is a multilateral regional organisation initiated by the Chinese. Moreover, I suggest that the continuing good relations between China and Russia are the main promoters for the future of the SCO, and that together with other organisations, often led by Russia, the SCO will have a major effect on the multilateral future of Central Eurasia as well as on China’s and Russia’s quest for multipolarity.

The Tribe, the State and Holy War in Pakistan

by Stig Toft Madsen

Senior Researcher, D.Phil., NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies

Focusing on the tribal areas of Pakistan, processes of Islamic radicalization are viewed as embedded in segmented clan societies that have internalized a radical religious meme. Expanding on Paul Collier’s and Anke Hoeffler’s study of civil war, the attempts of individuals to improve their life chances through holy war are conceived to knit together social ‘need’, individual ‘greed’ and cultural ‘creed’. During periods of Islamic mobilization, tribal warriors have established partnership with state institutions, but in recent years the Pakistani army has fought the holy warriors both inside and outside the tribal areas. The elections in 2008 have opened a window of opportunity to confront the forces of jihad through democratization, modernization and the rule of law, but as noted by Stanley Kurtz, the ideology of jihad may move to cities as tribal people urbanize. The religiously inspired attacks by tribal warriors on urban centers of civilization theorized upon by Ibn Khaldun in the 14th century and the geopolitical theory developed by H.J. Mackinder focusing on tribal expansionism emanating from marginal regions in Central Asia, thus, represent dynamics that retain their Asian relevance.

Asian Dynamics: Civil Society in Vietnam and Southeast Asia

by Irene Nørlund

Senior Researcher ,Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen

Civil societies in Southeast Asian were emerging in the era of colonial rule but they were not always encouraged if the colonial power felt threatened. Since independence, most governments have turned to authoritarian rule but some have been overthrown by civil societies. In Vietnam, the global changes have had a major impact on the party and government policy but civil society has also had some success to influence governance and some spaces are opening up along with the reform process since the early 1990s. The interaction between government, party and civil society is not yet close, due mainly to historical reasons, and may only change slowly in the interaction between the various forces and the framework set by the party.

The Chinese Paradox: Integrating Socialism and the Market Economy

by Nis Høyrup Christensen

PhD fellow, International Center for Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School and DI (Confederation of Danish Industry)

From a Western perspective China’s combination of socialism and market economy is a paradox. It’s an instable and illogical combination, that China, however, practices everyday. The basic questions which this article tries to answer are: How does a market economy make sense in socialist China and how is it legitimized? In order to answer this question Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory is chosen as the theoretical point of departure. Through an analysis of the Communist Party discourse we see that the market economy has been legitimized as a way to develop the productive forces in what is called the primary stage of socialism. The market economy has become an integrated part of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ – the Chinese version of socialism, which has modernization as its focal point. It also becomes evident that the relationship between market economy and socialism is only a contradiction when viewed from a Western perspective. This has implications for how we should understand politics in China if we want to see beyond the paradox.

Party Changes after the Constituency Reform: Decentralization of the Nomination Competence?

by Christian Elmelund-Præstekær

PhD fellow, Department og Political Science, University og Southern Denmark

& Mette Haugaard Frederiksen

cand.scient.pol.

To counteract the loss of internal democracy due to decline in membership, parties tend to decentralize important party activities such as candidate nomination. This paper describes the formal changes in the Danish parties’ nomination procedures in the aftermath of the parliamentary constituency reform in 2006. The findings support the hypothesis that the parties have decentralized. The paper subsequently discusses the consequences of the decentralization and proposes that the formal decentralization in practice equals centralisation: The responsibility for nominations is often shifted downwards from the regional party level to the local level. The local level, however, has already many responsibilities and may be overwhelmed by this new task, thus making it easier for the central level to intervene in the nomination process. Moreover it is likely that more pragmatic concerns will govern the nominations and the parties’ electoral policies due to the decentralization.

The EU’s Regime of Rights between Harmonization and Differentiation

by Tore Vincents Olsen

Research Fellow, PhD., International Center for Business and Politics

Copenhagen Business School

The negotiations about the new treaty for the European Union were not only about power and national interests. They can also be analysed in terms of the different views on the construction of the European citizens’ rights regime and how and where the citizens’ rights should be secured institutionally. The article is an analysis of the different approaches to the citizen rights regime of the EU as they emerged in the Convention on the Future of Europe. It makes explicit the normative reasoning behind these approaches and identifies their points of agreement and disagreement. It argues that only a political solution to the institutionalisation of the citizens’ rights regime in Europe will be able to accommodate the reasonable disagreement among these approaches. This implies that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights should not have been made an integral part of the treaties themselves, because this would most likely leave the development of the rights regime to juridical institutions in general and the European Court Justice in particular.