Southeast Asian Transformations Of The Western Ideas Of Democracy And Human Rights

Many Westerners assume that freedom has been bypassed in Asia, given the often brutal suppression of demands for its extension in some Asian countries, and its more tentative status in others where desire for social order is dominant. This book argues that Western ideas of freedom have become widely accepted in Asia, and the key determinant for measuring a range of legal, ethical and political practices. The book finds that modern conceptions of freedom throughout Asia are rooted in local histories, institutions and practices, becoming adapted to local contexts. The book avoids cultural relativism and blanket generalisations, but does find a number of common ideas relating to freedom across the region. A prestigious group of contributors explores freedom from historical, religious, political and ideological perspectives, acknowledging the many variations in the theme of human liberation.

The divide between the West and Southeast Asia seems to be nowhere more apparent than in debates about human rights. Within these diverse geographical, political and cultural climates, human rights seem to have become relative, and the quest for absolutes seems unattainable. In this new book Philip J Eldridge seeks to question this stalemate. He argues that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' inclusion in United Nations' human rights treaties could be the common ground that bridges the gap between East and West. Eldridge uses topical case studies and primary research from Malaysia, Indonesia, East Timor and Australia, to compare the effectiveness of United Nations' human rights directives on local democracies. This study presents insightful research into a hotly debated topic. As such it will be a thought-provoking resource for students of human rights, politics and international relations.

The Asian Values Discourse

Exploring the remarkable political and economic changes sweeping Southeast Asia, the authors take as their starting point the trend,albeit uneven,toward democratization. They focus specifically on Asian democracy,'" a form that has been adapted by Southeast Asians to suit their own particular needs.This book begins by building a framework for understanding democracy in its broadest sense. The authors investigate the uniquely Asian style of democracy, which borrows democratic political institutions and meshes them with the cultural patterns specific to each country. In separate chapters, the authors trace the evolutionary historical processes within each country, as well as citizen participation, electoral practices, and civil liberties. The chapters end with an assessment of the prospects for democracy in that nation as well as an evaluation of whether democratic regimes are necessary for developing successful economies and societies in the new international era.

This book questions why Southeast Asian nation states are struggling to adopt full-fledged liberal democracy and attempts to better understand the relationship between globalization and models of democracy. Country studies are covered mostly by native Southeast Asian scholars who analyse recent developments as well as specific concerns that have arisen from political crises, citizen uprisings, ethnic identity politics, political reforms, social justice and inequality, and the persistence of the political elite. The collection highlights factors which have impacted the different regional and national paths taken such as: the legacy of the Cold War, rapid economic development and liberalization, external economic globalization, the important role of informal politics, powerful elites, and weak but emerging middle classes. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of regional studies of Southeast Asia, Democracy, Sociology, Politics and Globalization Studies.

How has economic development affected the process of democratization in Southeast and East Asia? the contributions in this volume represent one of the first efforts to answer this question from the vantage of the region.In this book, scholars of Southeast and East Asian politics discuss the rise and fall, or stabilization and modification, of democracy amidst socio-economic changes and class transformations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Myanmar, Taiwan and South Korea. The approach taken by the contributors gives a fine balance between democratization as a consequence of socio-economic development and as a political-ideological process.

Intellectual interest in the growth and study of democracy is not a post-Cold War phenomenon, but its intensified interest is. Recently new questions have been asked, such as whether the widespread democratization process will yield similar end-products in different parts of the world which are endowed with vastly different heritages and history, or whether we will see the emergence of variants in democratic models. In the same way, the growth of the capitalist system and practice of a free market in some situations lead the state to play a role not anticipated in the traditional free market observed to be distinct from those in the industrialized West, and most certainly different from that of the United States.It has been the growing concern of many academics and policy-makers that in the post-Cold War era these differing perspective and practices of democracy and the free market could become the substance of the new ideological debate in the coming decade between countries in East Asia and the West, led by United States. The four essays published in this volume were presented as keynote papers defining the major themes of the Conference "Asian and American Perspectives on Capitalism and Democracy" organized by the Asia Society, the Institute of Policy Studies, the Singapore International Foundation, and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies held in Singapore, 28-30 January 1993. The essays serve as useful contributions to the current rigorous and ongoing debate.