Author: admin

  • Between Debt And The Devil

    It has now become near consensus that the financial malaise affecting the world is due to high corporate debt. According to Rana Faroohar, mostCEOs on Wall Street are addicted to high borrowings; especially due to the low interest rates accorded to the debt. Thus, debt is leveraged, time and again, despite…

  • Why Minsky Matters

    Contemporary economics, rather than being a dismal science, has made the discipline a dismal subject. The numbers are dense and elaborate with equations that are almost unfathomable. Invariably, one has to wonder why, despite all the mathematical focus, economists the world over could still get the 2008 global financial crisis…

  • The Nature Of Asian Politics

    Scholars who dare to take on the entire scope of Asia are few and far between. Often, academics and specialists prefer to specialize in one or two countries or potentially a micro-region like ASEAN. Bruce Gilley, in attempting to emulate the late Lucian Pye, author of “The Power of Asian…

  • China’s Troubled Waters

    Steve Chan affirmed at the outset that his book will not repeat the conventional/popular views out there. After all, having gone through 35 years of ascendance, every decent academic with an aim to pursuing a tenured position, has had to try every conceivable manner to cut and slice China into many…

  • The Politics Of China

    Power comes from the barrel of a gun, Chairman Mao once affirmed. In many way, this was true to the degree that had it not been for the fact that Deng Xiao Ping was the chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army at one stage, and the only civilian…

  • The Euro: How A Common Currency Threatens The Future Of Europe

    The Euro was created in 1999 by the European Commission and European Central Bank. The latter preceded its creation by a year. The goal was to reduce the transaction cost of European trade, by extension, the world’s trade with Europe. Indeed, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany and President Francois Mitterand…

  • Non-Western International Relations Theory

    Theory is meant to simplify all the complex realities out there into a patterned and predictable whole. It is also referred to as an “optic.” It is a window through which the world is seen. At Harvard University, if not all the major campuses in the US, theories are also…

  • Governing Borderless Threats

    Scholarly works are often embedded with the intention to seek fame, potentially more funds, and faculty tenure (3Fs). Ironically, all three motivations are so powerful and engrossing that academics often lost sight of the 3Fs, and end up pushingout pages that no one can understand. The effects are disastrous in…

  • Profit And Gift In The Digital Economy

    Conventional wisdom has it there is no free lunch in the world. It is true to some extent. But the digital economy is filled with freebies, which allowed the author David Alder Wass to claim that our current vocabulary of the market economy has become dated. In a digital economy,…

  • ASEAN, Sovereignty And Intervention In Southeast Asia

    Sovereignty is highly valued and a prized concept. Politicians and opposition leaders alike vouch for its sanctity only to invoke the importance of breaking it, as and when, certain international issues impinge on the interest of their own constituencies. Thus, a double paradox. On one level, sovereignty is considered an…