Asian Leadership in Policy and Governance: Volume 24

Cover of Asian Leadership in Policy and Governance
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Table of contents

(23 chapters)

Introduction

Part I: Asian Leadership at the Regional Level

Abstract

China’s swift economic rise, as symbolized by the first Chinese Olympics and by surpassing Japan to become the world’s second largest economy despite the recent global financial meltdown, has been accompanied by a transformation of Chinese foreign policy behavior. After spending the last decade emphasizing China’s “peaceful rise” or “peaceful development,” Beijing has begun to expound its policy preferences and territorial claims more forthrightly, even assertively. The purpose of this chapter will be to consider the origins, consequences, and likely future of the new Chinese foreign policy in the wake of the leadership transition at the 18th Party Congress in 2012 and the 12th National People’s Congress in 2013.

Abstract

Why have so many overlapping regional institutions been established in the Asia-Pacific? Is there any possibility of a convergence of these institutions into a single (or a few) “authoritative” regional institution(s)? What implications do the emerging overlapping regional institutions have for an evolving regional architecture in Asia? I argue first that the proliferation of regional institutions reflects complicated strategies taken by the countries to respond to the increased insecurity and uncertainty caused by the structural changes. Second, the countries of the region are taking a variety of national strategies through regional institutions, ranging from engagement to soft balancing and risk-hedging, to respond to these changes. Third, all the states of the region want to maintain a variety of institutional choices to respond to their uncertain futures. Fourth, what makes the institution-building so complicated lies in the fact that there are two major (and uncertain) powers to whom the regional countries have to respond through regional institutions: the United States and China. This makes the bargaining game for regional institution-building more complicated and competitive. Fifth, the amalgamation or convergence of the existing institutions into a single (or few) “authoritative” institution(s) through “institutional competition” will not take place in the foreseeable future. Sixth, the countries of the region may engage in “forum shopping.” Seventh, the roles of these institutions have been and will be quite modest. However, the regional institutions could to some extent contribute to moderating inter-state tensions and putting institutional constraints on the deviant behaviors of member countries.

Abstract

The leaders of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced to negotiate a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) in November 2012, which is comprised of 10 ASEAN Member States (Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar) and its six FTA partner countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India). Embedded in the ASEAN Charter and implemented in all existing ASEAN + 1 FTAs, the ASEAN Centrality has been a corner stone principle in ASEAN-centric economic initiatives. Emerging discord in the region, complicated security climate and the rise of China, among others, have put the ASEAN Centrality under challenge. The development of the RCEP provides a timely case to assess ASEAN’s leadership role in creating the world’s most populous Free Trade Area. The RCEP may enhance ASEAN’s central role, but ASEAN needs to address challenges facing the regional integration now and beyond 2015. On the country/economy level, the chapter reviews some ASEAN Member States and their FTA Partners how they practice their ASEAN policy and seek leadership role in ASEAN. The three major players in ASEAN-Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have reiterated the importance of the ASEAN Centrality in their foreign policy in the past, but debates emerge whether, such as in Indonesia, ASEAN Centrality best suits the national interests. The chapter also explores how the major powers, including China and the United States, respond to and collaborate with the group of smaller developing country players.

Abstract

This chapter investigates the evolution of cross-strait economic relations and Asian regional integration and its implications for future development in the region. Trade and investment in Asia is fundamentally market-driven, and cross-border FDI is the major driving force. This investment-induced trade explained the cross-strait economic relations and intensive trade in intra-industry and intra-regional trade in Asia. The rise of China in 1990s with the assistance of Taiwanese firms further accelerated the trend of integration by forming regional production networks. However, after 2000 institutional arrangement like bilateral or plural-lateral FTA emerged to normalize and institutionalize the de facto economic integration. RCEP and TPP have evolved as the two major platforms for Asian regional cooperation with two key players, China and the United States, on each side. We argue that in the long run the win-win solution that the two platforms will further merge into FTAAP, which benefits all participants including China and the United States. However, in the short run, based on its 50 years of developmental experience, Taiwan can play an important role to promote and consolidate Asian regional integration as a technology provider and resource coordinator for the region and a risk buffer for entering Chinese market. We thus propose a roadmap for Taiwan and China to jointly participate in regional integration process. In the intermediate run, Asian economies need to change the structure toward more regional-centered trade in final goods through domestic consumption market in order to reduce the dependence on Western markets and mitigate any loss may arise from external shocks.

Abstract

This chapter focuses on South Korea’s newly found regional leadership, as the emergent middle power of East Asia, in order to advance regional integration and institution-building. Policy leadership is observed and analyzed from an international lens, linked to the literature of middle powers. The chapter first conceptualizes middle powers in connection with the issue of international leadership, since such states often play important roles in promoting cooperation. The chapter looks especially into South Korea’s foreign policy behavior toward East Asian regional processes and how it has manifested innovative and capable leadership. More specifically, the last three presidencies of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2002), Roh Moo-hyun (2003–2008), and Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) are scrutinized in the hope of underscoring how their particular administrations, political leadership, and strategic approaches to foreign policy toward the region influenced South Korea’s regional leadership attempts and middle power status.

Abstract

International relations and security studies suffer from an inadequate understanding of established theories in organizational leadership and management studies. This chapter contributes to these disciplines by drawing upon such models to analyze the changes in political leadership approaches of China and the United States in their interactions over maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea (SCS). Using the transactional–transformational and directive–participative leadership paradigms as its foundation, the analysis argues (1) that contextual factors unique to the each country shape its political leadership styles and (2) the leadership styles within each case study have changed dramatically over the past decades in terms of their rhetoric and policies for managing the SCS disputes. Empirical evidence is based on the policies, leaders’ statements, and official documents of China, a claimant to SCS maritime territory, and the United States, an influential stakeholder in the disputes. In the two case studies, the chapter discusses the implications of the changing leadership styles for the understanding of political interaction in the region and the future of the SCS disputes.

Part II: Public Sector Leadership Issues in Asia

Abstract

The Burmese military has been successful in maintaining its authoritarian rule in the past decades. In 2011, however, the junta shifted its power to civilian government despite the absence of severe political pressure from inside or outside. Since then, the new government has introduced many reforms that allow greater political liberty in Burma. This chapter locates the junta’s power shift as part of a wider process of the military consolidating political legitimacy. It argues that as the junta’s power consolidation reached its bottleneck in the 2000s, political reform was imperative as the pre-condition for international legitimacy and economic development. Yet, regarding aspects of the content of the new constitution, military-civilian power relationships, and ethnic minority-central government relations, it remains to be seen whether Burma will move toward actual democratization. For President Thein Sein, one of the big challenges will be satisfying the high expectations of the international community and domestic opposition parties while still being able to control the pace of reform and maintain power.

Abstract

The Communist Party of China represents a distinctive philosophy of leadership, one in which it tries to present itself as the key promoter of Chinese style modernity and the national mission to become a great, rich, and powerful country again. Contemporary Chinese leaders however have to operate in a territory laden with historic issues, with huge administrative responsibilities, and with challenges of mobilizing and gaining support from a vast, complex, and often fractious public. This chapter looks at the various ways leaders in China have tried to fulfill these often contradictory demands, while also attempting to remain true to their core ideological beliefs at a time when the country is undergoing rapid economic and social transformation.

Abstract

This chapter has two major objectives. It discusses the political leadership in Thailand in terms of historical development and examines the role adaptation of Thai elites in order to respond to different demands from various sectors in the society. The chapter concludes that political leaders have to adjust their roles to cope and to survive. Apart from the old bureaucratic elites, both military and civil, there are also some other stakeholders who have become stronger over time, making more demands on political leaders (and, consequently, on the state apparatus). In reaction to these stakeholders, political leaders have used public administration reforms and initiated public policies to gain more capacity to lead.

Abstract

This chapter examines the role and importance of leadership in public management reform through the experience of Hong Kong. It aims to identify the gap between leadership in public organizations and public management reform in both theory and research and to make recommendations on how the gap can be bridged, particularly under the Asian context. It is a major irony that while both leadership and public management reform have a common concern of fostering positive change in public organizations, these two streams of research are separated, incompatible, and even conflicting. While leadership study is influenced by disciplines such as the psychology and emphasizes a multifaceted approach, most public management reforms are based on the New Public Management (NPM) model which is economics-oriented and structure-driven. Through studying the role of leadership in the public management reform in Hong Kong, it is argued the hollowing-out of leadership in reform is often one of the leading causes for the failure to achieve the expected outcomes. This chapter will elaborate its argument in the following sequence. First, it will review the generic literature on leadership to highlight the importance and relevancy of leadership for public organizations. Second, it will point out the leadership crisis in public management reform caused by the dominance of the NPM model. Finally, it will discuss the negative impact of the hollowing-out of leadership on public management reform and how this problem should be tackled.

Abstract

Since decentralization gives local levels of government greater autonomy to make their own decisions, it is important to have leaders who can acquit themselves well and lead their jurisdictions well in decision-making and implementation. In some instances decentralization is associated with perceptions of reduced government performance and increased corruption. When leaders fail, extensive criticism is frequently voiced against government and bureaucracies, often involving complaints of rigid red-tape, inefficiency, corruption, lack of flexibility and negative attitudes toward change, restricting social progress, and insufficiently ensuring economic growth. Still, we find evidence that good performance is possible in the matter of decentralization. One such instance is found in Indonesia’s city, Surabaya. During the past decade, the city transformed itself from a hot and dry city into a green, cool, and comfortable place to live that is frequently acknowledged for its government performance. The mayor’s personal leadership style is popularly described as leading with integrity and with the heart. With integrity, she has made anti-corruption a major tenet of her leadership goals. Meanwhile, in regard to leading with the heart, she has embraced “feminine” leadership styles that emphasizes cooperation, participation by many, information sharing, reliance on interpersonal skills, and sensitivity to other’s feelings and perspectives. She also adopts “motherly” and “parental” approaches such as when admonishing others. These styles are consistent with the modern leadership theory around collaborative governance and what is expected or believed to be appropriate for leaders in Indonesia.

Part III: Asian Leadership in Domestic Concerns

Abstract

At global fora which discuss the regulation of international migration the Philippine government is typically hailed a “good practice example” for its institutional as well as legal framework and proactive interest in the welfare of its citizens. The Philippine history of migration policy making is indeed shaped by a shift from “exporting workers” to an increasingly comprehensive rights-sensitive approach that addresses most aspects of migration: the regulation of recruitment agencies, pre-migration training, insurance systems, overseas voting rights, consular services, social rights of the left behind, and re-integration of returned migrants. This state of affairs, however, has not always been like that and is largely the result of activism by the vibrant migrant rights movement in the Philippines which reaches across the world. The case of the Philippine also shows mixed approaches to government-social movement relations, characterized by both pressure politics and critical engagement.

Considerable gaps and loopholes remain in this web of rights-based policy aspects. Structural weaknesses are major problems that need to be addressed if labor migration is to evolve into a truly choice-driven economic decision. Still, comparatively and historically speaking, the Philippines have come a long way. The combined effects of leadership from below and leadership from above had led to some concrete results – even if far from perfect – in the betterment of many migrants’ lives.

Abstract

This paper proposes that if a political system is more like to facilitate a unified government, to establish a strong executive body and to respond to the needs of the majority, financial reforms are more likely to emerge from the policymaking process and produce positive results. On the contrary, political systems that discourage those governing features are less likely to produce reforms. This chapter compares financial reform processes in China, Taiwan and New Zealand. All of them performed low level of financial reforms in the early 1980s but resulted in different situations later. In the mid-2000s, New Zealand heralded the most efficient and stable financial system; while Taiwan lagged behind and China performed the worst. Evidence showed that China’s authoritarian system may be the most superior in forming a unified government with a strong executive, but the policy priority often responds more to the interests of a small group of power elites; therefore the result of financial reform can be limited. Taiwan’s presidential system can produce greater financial reform when the ruling party controls both executive and legislative bodies, but legislative obstructions may occur under a divided government. New Zealand's Westminster system produces the most effective and efficient financial reform due to its unified government and a strong executive branch with consistent and stable supports from the New Zealand Parliament.

Abstract

This chapter discusses inspiration and innovation through social transformation taking place in Asia through leadership utilizing concepts of Buddhism. In India, values of the Buddhist dhamma are grounded in a permeating esthetic system dating back to early historical times. It was lost there and revitalized in 1956. For Taiwan, inspiration came in the name of humanistic Buddhism that developed in late 19th century China. It offered a moral and practical value system for society at large.

Buddhism became socially engaged as part of a cultural ethos for over a generation with underlying integrated roots in local beliefs, esthetics, and practices. The broader question to discuss is how Buddhist values influence policy leadership. Here, we feature engaged Buddhism that emphasizes awareness, compassion, and non-violence, while embracing modern ways of organizing and communication.

Cases are provided where Buddhism has shaped leaders’ roles and aims, as well as those of followers guiding reforms for best governance. In India Dr. Ambedkar (1891–1956) embraced Buddhism as a platform for deliverance and championed social equality. His life’s struggle concerned issues of caste, as he was born “untouchable.” The second example is about Dhamma Master Cheng Yen (b. 1937) who established Tzu Chi in eastern Taiwan as a relief agency that became international. Both leaders helped life’s embetterment through Buddhism based on modernity, science, advanced technology, leadership, and democracy. These examples of engaged Buddhism have made tremendous impact pertaining to the people of their nation and serve a model for world development.

Abstract

The people of Taiwan are no strangers to natural disasters; the island sits astride the junction point of the Philippine and Eurasian tectonic plates, making it a frequent victim of sometimes calamitous earthquakes. The island also lies in the path of yearly typhoons that buffet the island, risking life and property damage. These natural disasters have become a fact of life for the Taiwanese people, and the population has long looked to the government for leadership in ensuring disaster preparation, relief, and recovery. This chapter is focused on the leadership qualities exhibited by public administrators in the field of emergency management in Taiwan, and how they navigate the uncharted waters of this new field in a traditional culture. Beginning with a general examination of the cultural and societal influences on the position of leader in Taiwan society and the qualities demanded of that position, the research narrows to the specific field of emergency management and how administration in this realm is accomplished given (a) the relative newness of the field itself and (b) the cultural barriers in Taiwan to the widespread embrace of such disaster mitigation initiatives. The struggle of Taiwan public administrators to adopt disaster preparedness programs in the nation presents itself as a unique opportunity to examine how leaders in such situations walk the razor’s edge between doing what is necessary to ensure that the population have access to the advantages of the modern world while respecting the cultural sensitivities that can often stand in the way of administrative progress.

Abstract

This chapter explores two comparative longitudinal cases studies involving policy entrepreneurs inside and outside government in Taiwan. From 2003 to 2007, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan played the conventional role of policy entrepreneur to initiate the “University Corporation Project.” Through this project, the MOE sought to transform all national universities in Taiwan into independent entities, gaining them more autonomy and increasing their accountability as well. From 2008 to 2014, as a policy entrepreneur outside the government, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) took the lead and proposed the “University Autonomous Governance Project.” This project sought an alternative solution based on public universities’ needs to improve university autonomy and accountability.

The method undertaken in this study includes document analysis and participants’ observation. First, both policy entrepreneurs adopted the strategy of power sharing, but the effectiveness of the strategy is determined by the interaction between policy entrepreneurs and stakeholders. Moreover, facing a multiple-principals condition in both cases, both policy entrepreneurs should negotiated with or compete with other potential agenda competitors. Those findings will be a detailed roadmap for policy makers in East Asia once they plan to initiate policy entrepreneurship in their countries.

Cover of Asian Leadership in Policy and Governance
DOI
10.1108/S2053-7697201524
Publication date
2015-08-28
Book series
Public Policy and Governance
Editors
Series copyright holder
Emerald Publishing Limited
ISBN
978-1-78441-884-7
eISBN
978-1-78441-883-0
Book series ISSN
2053-7697