Urban Chinese today do not appear to trust foreign countries. Why are they so suspicious? Over the past quarter century, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has utilized its educational and propaganda systems to produce historical narratives of imperial China's beneficence towards its East Asian neighbors, and of an early modern ‘Century of Humiliation’ at the hands of ‘imperialist’ foreign powers. Qualitative analysis of Chinese social media today suggests that these narratives are tied to widespread popular distrust of China's ‘ungrateful’ East Asian neighbors and the ‘hegemonic’ West today. Interrogating a 2012 survey of urban Chinese, this paper explores the sources of international attitudes quantitatively. It first examines whether Chinese today do indeed distrust foreign countries. It then tests two hypotheses about the drivers of Chinese distrust towards the world today. A ‘top-down’ socialization hypothesis holds that political (e.g. party propaganda via education and the media) and/or social (e.g. peer groups, social conformity) pressures shape the international attitudes of the Chinese people. A ‘bottom-up’ psychological hypothesis, by contrast, holds that individual differences like age and gender shape Chinese attitudes. We find substantial support for the former: more years of education are associated with levels of dis/trust in foreign countries in the socially or politically appropriate ways. However, we also find that ‘bottom-up’ individual differences in subjective interest in international affairs interact with ‘top-down’ socialization processes like education and media exposure in shaping the international attitudes of urban Chinese today. The prevalence of public discourses of distrust towards foreign countries does not bode well for Chinese foreign policy in the twenty-first century.

Drawing upon the theses of State racism (Michel Foucault), homo sacer (Giorgio Agamben), and safe citizenship (Cynthia Weber), and fieldwork data collected from a multiethnic primary school in Xinjiang, this paper examines the way in which the state agencies of the local government, the school and mainstream citizens design citizenship for Uyghurs, and how Uyghurs interpret and act upon their citizenship. The findings show why, and how, designed citizenship by the mainstream system for Uyghurs has failed to produce a desirably productive force for the prosperity of both the Uyghur community and society at large. The findings require re-consideration of what could be a win-win citizenship for both the state and the citizen.

The objective of the study is to re-examine the Verba, Nie, and Kim (VNK)'s path-breaking analysis of political participation and political equality, under the inclusion of a social network model in Japan. In particular, the present research investigates how and why we find the extremely low correlations between one's socio-economic resource level (SERL) and political participation in Japan, the evidence unsatisfactorily explained by the VNK analysis. Building on the social network model and employing the first wave of the Asian Barometer survey conducted in 2003, this research presents a more comprehensive model of political participation. The study finds three major kinds of causes for the weak associations between SERL–participation levels in Japan: exogenous factors (i.e., sex, urbanization, and age); equalizing impact of social networks; and weak SERL–psychological involvement linkage. From the viewpoint of the social network model, it is clear that the weak SERL–participation linkage is derived from the equalizing impact of group-based processes, yet uniquely Japanese style of network involvement.

The Green Party Taiwan (GPT) represents an important case both for scholars of environmental politics but also Taiwanese politics. Established in 1996, it is the oldest Asian green party and is one of the most active parties in the Asia-Pacific Greens network. The party has enjoyed mixed electoral fortunes. After promising early election results, the GPT virtually ceased contesting elections between 2000 and 2005. However, from 2006 the party began a gradual revival in its vote shares. This process culminated in the January 2012 Legislative Yuan election when the GPT surprised many observers by coming fifth in the proportional party vote. Considering the limited resources at the party's disposal this was quite an achievement. In this study, we examine and explain the changing electoral fortunes of the GPT since its establishment in 1996. We are interested to see whether standard theories for explaining small or ecological party success, that have been developed in western Europe, work well in the Taiwan context. Our research is based on a range of new fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2014. These include in-depth interviews with campaigners and party leaders, focus group sessions with party leaders and candidates, and interviews with party supporters.

This paper examines the manner through which the Philippine government has utilized free trade in pursuing its development-oriented national security policies and strategies in the twenty-first century. It argues that against the backdrop of uneven economic development being perpetuated by a deeply entrenched oligarchic system and patronage culture, the primary referent of Philippine national security is its diminishing development space. Despite the government rhetoric with regard to the role of inclusive development in enhancing national security, the Philippine political economy remains highly oligarchic and patrimonial. Such a condition has resulted in institutionalized inequality and structural poverty that undermine the country's supposedly development-based security model. The ability of the very few yet very powerful Filipino elites to transform the country into an oligarchipelago underscores the inefficiencies emanating from this type of politico-economic arrangement. In light of this, the paper evaluates the impacts of the Philippines' free trade activities on its overall level of development space by focusing on several crucial aspects of free trade that the government has failed to properly consider. Moreover, it scrutinizes the key factors that affect the utility of free trade for securing and enhancing the Philippines' development space. The paper concludes by arguing that the Philippine government's attempts at linking its development-centric security interests and free trade objectives have resulted not only in the preservation of uneven economic development and but also the further reinforcement of the existing oligarchic system and patronage culture in the country.

Empowering the rank and file members in choosing a party leader has become an increasing trend in parliamentary democracies. This study examines the process of adopting more inclusive methods to choose a party leader in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan. The LDP introduced a national primary to elect a leader in 1978. However, this first attempt to open up the party leadership selection was soon replaced by traditional coalition-making politics. In this regard, the LDP is different from most of the Westminster parties that followed a smooth linear process of transferring more power to the rank and file members. This article identifies a ‘swing-back’ effect between 1980 and 1990 in the democratization process of party leadership selection. Working like a pendulum, the LDP did not resume a primary until 1991. It was in 2003 that a nationwide primary became a regular way. This article argues that the discontinuity of reformist actors caused this uncommon swing-back effect. The reformist split in 1976, the sudden death of Masayoshi Ohira, and Kanemaru mediation in 1984 stalled the reforms. Although one finds a similar trend in democratizing party leadership selection outside Europe, the LDP presented an abnormal inactivity and time-lag differences.