Genre: Science
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In Defense of Globalization
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adminWhy is something known as a global public good, the opportunity to trade and gain more from it, something that has to be defended? Globalization is indeed such an irony. But it is an irony that is also a reality: Globalization can supplant and disrupt the carefully created political economy…
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The China Challenge
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adminThomas J. Christensen is a talented political scientist who once taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “In Shaping The Choices of a Rising China: The China Challenge,” Thomas J. Christen tries to explain the perils and problems posed by China to the United States, including its allies in…
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Orientalism
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adminOrientalism, according to Edward W. Said, is a discourse. One in which words, concepts, ideas and termsare constantly allowed to intermarry with one another, with the ardent purpose of producing one narrative. The singularity of this narrative, in turn, becomes a monopoly of knowledge. A monopoly, that is further supported…
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The Wilsonian Moment
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adminWords carry power more than they are ascribed. This is especially true with words that emanate from major diplomatic events. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, while key decisions were debated by the victorious Allied powers, a multitude of smaller nations and colonies held their breath, waiting to see…
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Imagined Communities
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adminMost human beings will assume that they are connected to the larger whole. In other words, they will bear with them the “imagination,” that they belong to a larger tribe, or, group of people, even if they don’t know all their neighbors, friends, and communities. Yet, this imagination is enough…
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Seeing Like A State
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adminHuman civilizations have evolved from hunter-gatherers to states. The latter is described by Mancur Olson as “stationary bandits.” They exist purely to extract and collect taxes; often through coercion if need be. Ontologically, state or nation-state, has been a vehicle of violence. But state also tend to latch on to…
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Day Of Empire
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adminAmy Chua is one of the most talented political scientists in Yale University. But her books like “World on Fire,” written in 2003, tend to be alarmist tracts. Globalization and the promotion of freedom and democracy are said to foster ethnic re-galvanization; whereas groups that cannot gain from all these…
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The Post-American World
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adminFrom the standpoint of Fareed Zakaria in “The Post American World,” the world is not an enigma. With emerging economies adopting various “killer apps”, to borrow the phrase coined by Niall Ferguson, countries once left behind by the United States and Group of Seven can attempt a strike back. China,…
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Powerplay – The Origins Of The American Alliance System In Asia
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admin“Why is there no NATO in Asia ?” has been asked and answered by various scholars, especially Donald Crone, Amitav Acharya, Muthiah Alagappa and now Victor D. Cha, a professor at Georgetown University. The issue is why the persistent interest to ask the same question repeatedly? More importantly, beyond the…
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Sino-Japanese Relations After The Cold War
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adminThe importance of Sino-Japanese relations is often lost on scholars in the West. Many tend to study China and Japan in separation. Edward Reischauer was one of the few exceptions. He knew Japan and China; as did Allen Whitting and Caroline Rose at the University of Leeds. Michael Yahuda, an…